There's Been a Lot Going On (But not the thing that you're all waiting for)

It's been a busy week at the Ho house. Let me fill you in on some of the details -

Heat
Steve and Derek and Rob worked on connecting power to our new heating cables on the first floor last night. Last weekend and during the week we moved some furniture down there and tried to get things a bit more organized. Getting heat would have been icing on the cake! Well, there proved to be a (yet another) glitch. Rob spent a good deal of time trying to puzzle his way around it today, to no avail. So, we're very very close to having heat on the first floor but we're not quite there yet.

Bean's Room
Ronnie came to Toronto last Sunday night and started work on painting Bean's room. We did the walls in "Swiss Coffee" (beige/linen colour), the ceiling in "Tropical Tide" (aqua), and the trim in plain white. Bean's got some sweet digs, now. Today, my mum and Aunt Evelyn came over and we tried to put some of the finishing touches on the room. I worked on installing some baseboards but was doing a highly crappy job of making the mitre cuts. I was getting pretty frustrated at my gross inadequacy, we took a break. I'll work on it tomorrow when I'm fresh and I'm by myself and I can make sense of it all. Instead, we moved in the furniture and just floated it off the walls. We filled up the drawers with all of Bean's things and hung curtains. It really is coming together. Looks good!

Baby Shower
Karen, Dion, Kevin, and Susanna threw a baby shower for us yesterday. It was a really fun party (Thanks Everybody!!). As always, I didn't get to spend as much time with our guests as I would have hoped, but I did manage to spend at least a bit of time with almost everyone who came by. Rob and I feel extremely blessed to have such a great group of friends. Bean is gonna be pretty lucky too. It looks like there's a lot of people anxious to meet our little person and lots of people ready to spoil Bean to pieces! Possibly my favorite conversation of the party was with Leigh and Jenn's son James. He's three now, I think. Leigh asked him what he thought was in my belly. James' responses included bread, something round, and finally 'I think she's hiding something under her shirt'. When Leigh suggested that he though it was a baby, James adamantly stated 'Nooo, not a baby!'. We also found out that Jenn - who's an OB at the hospital where we'll be delivering - is going to be on vacation from January 19th to 29th. Doesn't bode well for us getting to see her while we're there!

Bean
Our midwives came to an appointment at our house this past week. We went through the procedure for when to call and what happens once labour begins. I complained a bit about my recent 'symptoms' but the midwives weren't worried. They assured me that all of this is normal and that it's a sign that things are starting to come to the end. At our appointment, they determined that Bean's head is still down and is in an even better position for birth. Let's hope things stay that way! Everybody's heart rate and blood pressure and everything else were all normal. Though the midwives can't really say for sure, I do feel like Bean's starting to drop. I'm a bit unsure about what that's supposed to feel like, exactly, but I have noticed a lot more pressure and 'kicks' in regions much lower than usual. Plus, when I sit now, I feel like Bean's sitting on my thighs rather then being held up in my abdomen. I'm just not really sure if this is it or not. I don't think I look any different even though folks tell me that it should be visually obvious.

Tomorrow is the first day that I have off of work. I'm hoping to get in a nap and also to really put the last of the touches on Bean's room. We'll see how far I get!

Talk to you soon,

B.