I'm literally going to start banging my head into my desk repeatedly if the cramps in my lower back don't knock it off. On the plus side, I've already gotten my quota of 3 hours of nighttime sleep.. For whatever reason, I can't sleep very well during the night, but after about 9am I can sleep like a baby [hopefully like my soon-to-be baby, haha] for anywhere between five and seven hours. Bizarre. I'm contemplating hopping into the shower, since the hot water seems to be the only thing that helps with the lower back cramps but I don't want to wake anyone else in the house. Eh, I doubt anybody would care.. especially if I told 'em it was to see if this is real or Braxton-Hicks. Anyway, "Major Payne" is on the tv; that movie always makes me happy. It's fricking hilarious, I don't care what anyone says. I'm also enjoying starting a new knitting project; it's just a scarf with a simple pattern, but I'm enjoying the mindlessness of it. And I really like the way it looks [although I'm knitting it in black - go figure] and have decided that if I like it well enough and it doesn't give me too many problems, I'll make one for Charlene for Christmas. I've got 74 projects queued on Ravelry already.. Maybe that'll get my stash of yarn cut wayyy down. Half of 'em are toys I want to experiment making for the little one. I've even got some crochet things on there, because I want to relearn how to crochet eventually. Well, it's either time for that shower or to do a few rows of knitting, I haven't quite decided. Man, I know I'm going to be in another world of hurt once this kid comes out, but I can't wait to start feeling like my normal self again [aka minus the little kickboxer, hehe]!!

Mom came home with a mattress, changing pad cover, waterproof mattress pad, and a travel system. It's like Christmas! So now I'm really, really ridiculously almost completely prepared for this kid. Oh, and then she says: "Work on having that kid tonight. I'm not ready to go back to work tomorrow." Ah, mothers. Priceless.

Eww, my feet are like twice their normal size today! They're really gnarly looking and kinda freaking me out. I should probably be lying down, or at least elevating them.. I'll get around to it. And I'm severely disappointed that I haven't knit anything in the last three days. The heck have I been doing?! Oh, and I'm really over this whole "Get minor contractions for 30 minutes (making me feel like I should be getting ready to gogogo!) and then.. nothing for three hours." My kid is still in utero and already playing mindgames with me. ..Yup, definitely my kid. I'm gonna go see if I can get some of this swelling to go down. It's really difficult to walk already, I don't need to worry about waddling on swollen feet. Oh look, another contraction..

Happy Turkey Day.

Argh, this stupid Zigzag Lace scarf is going to be the death of me. I've already ripped it out about three times. I keep ending up with four more stitches than I need on the fifth row and I can't figure out why. Stupidhead. Yup, baby's still not here. Not too much cramping today, just some in my lower back. I think all the turkey made it sleepy, heh. Well, I'm gonna go find a pattern that won't make me feel like I wanna rip out my hair. Oh! And Dad put together my crib and changing table today! It's AWESOME, I'm so glad I chose it and stuck with it. Now if only I had something to put into the crib..

So now I'm almost 2cm dilated and about 75% effaced. It seems like that time is getting closer and closer, but I'm still not getting a lot of hard contractions. It's making me kinda feel like.. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. I'm very excited that the changing table got here this morning [especially surprised since Mom had just ordered it Monday night!]. Dad's gonna put together the crib and changing table tomorrow before the boys head off to Aunt Linda's for Thanksgiving. I feel kinda bad not going, but I just don't feel right going that far away from the hospital at this point and Mom's very understanding about it, so she's going to stay home with me and we're going to have our own little Thanksgiving. Plus, there's a House marathon on USA - who could miss that?! We've got almost everything set up in my room, minus the crib and changing table. I'm very excited about that. I'm going to pack my bag first thing tomorrow morning, just to get that set too. But for now, I'm going to watch Parking Wars on A&E and knit up something easy. Oh, and if I have a boy on Thanksgiving, I'm totally going to have to give him "Thomas" as a middle name, haha.

Rather annoyed with myself. I guess I bit off more than I could chew today. While I didn't finish my list, I did manage to do enough work with enough force to start having contractions. Argh. I started getting them around 1 and they haven't stopped for more than 1 1/2 hours since then. They aren't very painful, just annoying. And I know these are the "for real" ones because they don't go away no matter what I do. Oh well, now I know better. On the up side of things, I managed to get A LOT done today and I'm very proud of myself. And I got a package in the mail today from Uncle Boo with goodies from my registry. Baby stuff always puts me in a better mood, hehe. Mom bought the baby a few things from a cosignment shop today that are really adorable; we're gonna go together so I can check it out for myself. My crib should be coming anytime this week, so I'm also looking forward to that. And I am officially "due" in a week. I didn't knowingly go through this for nine months so to be due for having a baby in a week is a lot to wrap my head around. However, I do feel anxious and ready. How do I know I'll be a good mom? ..Because I'm related to the Birk women, of course! ;] Whoo, time for bed. Good thing about overworking myself is that baby is also utterly exhausted so maybe I'll get more than four hours of sleep tonight, hehe.

I'm digging this new background. Yes, it's Christmas-y. Yes, it's rather dark. But dang it, I heart it, heh. Oh! And I finished the baby blanket [not sure if I had already said that or not]. I'm making today a productive day, though I'm fighting my extreme fatigue and deep desire to crawl back under the covers for the rest of the day. I made sure I got up at 9am to get started. It's almost noon now and I've done more in three hours than I usually do in three days. Still need to finish laundry, pack hospital bags, and put away a few things.. plus I wanted to see if I could clean out my car, which will have to wait until I've gotten in the shower because I don't think the entire neighborhood needs to see me in my snowman pjs. Even if all I get done today is half my list, I'll be ecstatic. I've also decided not to let myself start another knitting project [even a 2-hour hat!] until I've finished my To-Do List. Well, back to work!

On a day like this - where I feel like I can't move because of the soreness in my legs and the annoying cramping in my lower back - I'm pissed that I can't do anything that I had wanted to do today. I wanted to finish setting up my room, get stuff organized, get all the crap out of my car, and remove anything that I don't want. Nope, didn't get to any of that stuff today. Instead I laid in my bed, barely moving, sleeping when the pain was starting to seriously annoy me. Oh well, I guess there's nothing I can do but bear it and hope tomorrow is better.

Update

That thing under my "About Me" is from Twitter, which will post my updates. Nifty, ain't it? Anyway, had a doctor's appointment yesterday. I am 1cm dilated and 25% effaced [is that the right word?]; doctor said that it doesn't predict my progress, just where I was at that time. But still, it's pretty exciting. Other than that, I'm almost done with my baby blanket. Which I'm very proud of, considering I've only been working on it for the last five days [but I really have nothing else to do right now..]. Hopefully I'll be done with it by tomorrow and have pictures posted, both here and on Ravelry - which I FINALLY got to join today, since my invite arrived. After this blanket, I'm going to try to get all my "to do" projects done. I also want to make myself a pair of garter stitch fingerless gloves by my birthday. And knit the baby about a zillion things, haha. Wish me luck.

Twitter's down.. again. There is nothing good on television. I should be sleeping already. I'm surfing knitting sites, because I want to start projects that I know I won't have time to finish once the baby is here but I'm still determined. A friend of mine did give me a good piece of advice though - "Instead of sleeping while the baby is sleeping, why can't you knit?" A-ha! At least knitting is quiet and I can stay in the same room with baby, if I choose to. Oh, and Rod & co. sent me a gift card, so I get to go baby shopping. Sweet. I've found that I enjoy baby shopping even more than I enjoy shopping for yarn. Well, I guess one of us isn't ready for me to go to bed, so I'll knit until I can't keep my eyes open. 20 minutes, max.

"Starship Command, there seems to be no signs of life anywhere.."

Yes, I'm quoting Toy Story. This seriously bugs me: I have my own cell phone, with unlimited texting. I have a Myspace. I have a Facebook. I have e-mail through Yahoo! and AOL. I have a blog that [until recently] I update fairly often. I even have a Twitter. Not to mention I accept snail mail and phone calls on the house phone. So why don't I ever talk to anyone?! It's sad. =[

Whirlwinddddd!

As far as my next three(ish) weeks, I think my time is going to pretty much be devoted to getting ready for my new addition. I'm almost completely done pulling my room together to make room for everything. Plus I even got a baby registry done today (check your email; if it's not there, let me know and I'll resend it!) after spotting a crib and changing table that I liked. FINALLY! Once everything is finally done and ready in this room, I'll work some more on my knitting and Etsy shop. I'm particularly excited to start up the Etsy shop now, because I know there will be things I'll want to buy for baby Caden/Riley. What mom doesn't want to feel like she can provide for her kid? And I'm sure I'll be starting a baby blanket here soon, heh. Stay tuned!

Hola!

I have every intention of updating this blog..

..Later. 

Lots of changes are happening and I can't seem to find a spare minute to update this thing, but I will after this weekend (if I have internet, that is!).