the final countdown

Well friends, our due date is tomorrow and if the Little Miss follows in the footsteps of her brothers, we can probably expect her sometime this weekend. Ironically, as we've gotten closer to the end, the Braxton-Hicks contractions I've been feeling for the past 20 weeks have mysteriously vanished, leaving me with the irrational feeling that I'm going to be pregnant forever.

I know this is not possible, but I've been looking for a scapegoat for my embarrassing and also irrational feeling of crankiness today, and I like to think that I've found it. I have lots of reasons not to be cranky right now, so let's focus on those.

First off, my mother is here now. She pulled up in her big white diesel truck last Friday afternoon, bringing with her all kinds of assorted treasures, and an energetic willingness to be useful. She's already scrubbed my kitchen clean, and won Jack over completely.

(note: If you want to impress Jack, you should probably start driving a truck. The bigger and noisier the better)

Having been longer acquainted, the big boys were already in love with her (they're at the Bean Museum this very minute) but they've been happy to find that the reality of Grandma Jan is even better than the memory (they've been hatching sneaky plans for next summer involving Indiana and house-building and chickens).

I'm mostly excited about the food prospect of my mom's visit. On Sunday night she roasted up one of the chickens she brought with her from Indiana (raised, butchered, and cleaned by her --and my dad's-- very own hands). Tonight we'll be enjoying it's sibling in a hearty chicken noodle soup (with homemade Amish noodles!).

We've already devoured one chocolate cake with caramel icing, and I'm sure there's another waiting in the wings, since I've pretty much insisted on having a very large piece available just as soon as I'm done with the work of giving birth. There's also a lovely and very special jar of maple syrup waiting to be enjoyed. Maple syrup that came from the trees in my parents' yard.

That's right, one day it occurred to my mom that they had a bunch of silver maples in their yard, and it would probably be a fun experiment to try tapping the trees and making their own maple syrup. So they did. And now they're hooked on the process and will probably be making syrup every early spring from now until forever. Who says Vermonters get to have all the maple syrup fun? (incidentally, my mom claims that a decent syrup can be made from Box Elder trees, a hypothesis that we may just have to act on in the near future)

Reason to Reject Crankiness #2: My sweetheart called me up this afternoon and asked me out on a date. The Cougar Marching Band (also known as The Power of the Wasatch-- yeah, baby!), is having their annual concert tonight. Maybe you didn't know that I'm a former member of that very band (french horn), and still very much a band geek at heart, even though I haven't picked up a horn in eight years. So, while there's a very small chance that the loud music will inspire Little Miss to get this show on the road, I plan on ignoring that possibility and thoroughly enjoying the show for the music's sake.




Reason to Reject Crankiness #3: A very kind (and talented!!) neighbor snapped some impromptu shots of Jack last week when she came by our house on a walk with her own little boy. She brought over a cd of the pictures that very night and I've finally gotten around to looking at them today. They're just precious, and even more so because of the fact that we've taken very few pictures of Jack, being the third child that he is. Thanks Kayla!

She happens to do professional photography, so if you're in Utah County and in need of a photographer, you should check out her website.

And finally, Reason to Reject Crankiness #4: I got to take a two hour nap this afternoon and finish reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (which I highly recommend). How's that for luxury?!