Gestational logorrhea, 34 weeks

By medical standards, the baby could be here in three weeks. Well, in "3-6 weeks." I look around the apartment and see no evidence of our preparedness, except now we have two small packages of newborn diapers, donated by our neighbors downstairs whose month-old has just outgrown them. These diapers fit babies up to 10 lbs. Do you hear that, baby? You sure as hell need to weigh less than 10 lbs at birth, or we'll have nothing to put on you. (OK, am also hoping for selfish reasons you don't weigh 10 lbs when you come out.) I have an "udder cover," which is a fabric halter kind of thing I can use to cover up when I am nursing in public, but only because it was on offer for just the cost of shipping. I have two breast pumps which I never bothered to clean after I was done with them (NASTY - I am almost afraid to look at them). So much to get done in the coming weeks that I'm exhausted already.

Yesterday Jonah had a cold and a soupcon of fever, so I kept him home from school. I didn't get to shower all day. We didn't leave the house all day. But I loved it. I think I probably could have sent him to school - I've seen kids in his class who look far more like glazed donuts than he did - but I think my subconscious recognized an opportunity to spend one more day alone with him. Yes, there were annoying 5-minute spans where he freaked out about various things (wanting to leave the house, not wanting a poopy diaper changed) but on the whole, it was a great day. I wouldn't have traded it, especially since he's now gotten over his fear of sitting in a steamy bathroom to clear his congestion. Now he calls it a "steam party" and brings cars and trucks and I can actually leave him in there ALONE. If I were smarter, I would have figured out how to combine that with actually getting to take a shower...

The baby's movements across my belly are now easy to track by sight, and betray a creature of a certain size. It goes nuts for music and dancing, which is good, since we do a lot of that around here, as Jonah gets to know the finer parts of vintage jazz movies on YouTube (Louis Jordan, Dave Brubeck, Ella Fitzgerald, and SATCHMO!).

OK, it's 9:15 a.m. and I am determined not to piss this day away (except literally). Way too much to accomplish that cannot keep getting pushed back. I need to simulate a nesting instinct, since I apparently don't come by one naturally.