False alarms, peacocks and getting sick again...

I discovered this past week, that when I look down at my blooming belly (blooming sounds so much nicer than monstrous) my belly button rather resembles a nose. It's a rather cute button nose, but only when viewed from my perspective. Looking at it dead-on in the mirror...eeewww. It has completely turned inside out, and I think that belly buttons should NEVER do that. I can only shudder to think of what it will look like once there is no longer a baby pushing it out. Then it will be all loose. Double eeww.

I also finished my education practicum this past week. It was a relatively 'short' week, as there was only three days of actual classes. One day was reserved for a field trip and another day was for parent-teacher interviews. The field trip can otherwise be known as the DAY OF HELL. We went on a trip to the Children's Museum, which would be fine if my supervising teacher hadn't shown up with a chip on her shoulder and a lazy attitude. She pretty much did nothing all day to supervise the students, which left me in charge of them. Thanks kindly. I had also been misinformed that there would be places to sit at the museum. Well, okay, I could have sat if I didn't feel like keeping track of the students and not letting them be crazy and run rampant and generally drive everyone nuts...At the end of the day when we returned to the school, I ended up having to stay later than my supervising teacher so that I could download all of the pictures that were taken on the field trip. She couldn't do it because she is computer illiterate. Charming. Before she left she asked me if I had fun. Are you bloody kidding me? FUN? What part of that was fun? Oh, the fun part must have been standing for pretty much four hours straight with a big nine month pregnant belly...If that's what we're calling fun these days then I had a blast!

All of my walking around must have lulled the little one to sleep all day. She didn't move much during the field trip, which had me mildly worried. Yup, no need to worry there. After I got home I slept for two hours and when I got up she moved for the next four hours STRAIGHT. Not a word of a lie. This little monkey has an abundance of energy. She also entertains herself by kicking me in the ribs, and I think she may be the next Mia Hamm. Damn strong legs for someone who isn't even born yet.

Sigh. For all of my complaining about my practicum, I will miss my students a fair bit. Even the ones who tell me on the field trip that they have to poop and I have to stand outside of the bathroom for ten minutes listening to them grunt it out...And then come out and tell me that their pants feel looser. I'll miss the honesty! I'll miss helping them solve their problems. I didn't realize how much I said 'how can we solve this problem,' when they told me so-and-so was bugging them, until a student wrote in a thank you card: 'thank you for helping us solve our problems.' Funny stuff. Or the student who was annoyed with his speech language pathologist's efforts to get him to clap out the syllables in his name. She kept asking for his middle name, and he finally got frustrated and told her it was 'Chow Mein.' She inserted it between his first and last name and clapped it out for him... How can I not miss all of that? It will be more than a year before I'll be back in the classroom, which makes me kind of sad. But then, I guess I'll have the time in between to go through new humorous incidents with my wee little one. I expect there will be more than a few! (Like the first time that the little one poops on her daddy...that will have me laughing for days because I can already see the look of terror on his face...muhahah)

We also had a bit of a false alarm this past week. I thought that my water may have broken on Saturday. I called my Dr.'s office and was told to come down to the hospital. This whole damn Group B Strep thing changes everything, because if my water does break then I have to go straight to the hospital. It turns out it wasn't my water that broke, (really, how was I supposed to know? Some books describe it as a 'gush' others describe it as a 'trickle.') but rather my lovely mucous plug that decided to travel south. (yum, such a lovely visual...) It took FOUR HOURS to determine that that's what it was.

There were a few other minor irritations that occurred during those four hours as well. (come now, you didn't think I'd go through something like that and NOT find something irritating, did you?) At my birthing class they had told us to put the hospital gown on backwards because it would be more comfortable and your butt wouldn't hang out the back. So, that's what I did. Only to have the nurse come along and take it off of me to put it on the 'correct' way, with the ties in the back and my butt hanging out...She informed me I'd be less exposed that way. I'm sorry, but you've just stripped me, my butt isn't covered and I'm supposed to feel better now? Not likely. Learning lesson for the 'real' event - I'll be putting on my own gown as soon as I can. And then probably taking it off, but that's a story for another day... The other thing that happened while we were waiting (I don't want to call this one irritating because then I might sound like a bad person...but it was pretty icky...), was that a women came in who was obviously in very intense labour. (I should back-track a moment and say that we were in triage, which meant that there were about five of us within close proximity to one another, and the beds were just separated by thin curtains...) The woman who came in started to vomit everywhere. As my hubby described it, 'it sounded like she was hurling from the bottom of her toes.' If I wasn't worried/scared enough at that point, well that did me in. I looked at my hubby and said 'I'd like to go home now!' Unfortunately we still had another two hours of waiting at that point...

After the rather unpleasant internal exam, we were sent to the waiting room to be cleared by the doctor. I was informed by the same charming nurse that changed my hospital gown, that someone else needed the room more than I did. Thank you kindly for that. In my head (which my hubby will tell you has often been infiltrated with crazy/abnormal thoughts) I heard, 'you shouldn't have wasted our time with your petty concern, nothing is wrong with you...' So we sat in the waiting room for about another hour, during which time a peacock appeared. 'Peacock' is my new term for very arrogant fathers who strut about and are rude and look down upon everyone in their path. This peacock came in with his hands on his hips and barked at another couple in the room who were watching a hockey game on the T.V., 'what's the score?' They gave it and he didn't even bother to say thank you or anything. Nope, he and his splayed feathers swaggered back out of the room... My first peacock sighting came last week at my Dr.'s appointment. Peacock number one strutted into the doctor's office while his wife checked in. He too had his hands on his hips, feathers splayed for all women in the room to gawk at and admire. He appeared to be walking up and down a cat-walk, and made some fantastic turns, spreading his scent across the room. It was truly a sight to see, and one that had me in fits of giggles, and not fainting with pleasure...

And now that I FINALLY have some time to get things in order before our wiggle worm comes into our life, I have a sore throat! I blame my sister. Really, it's all her fault. (but then it's fun to blame her for everything -haha) My mom and my sister came over yesterday to help put the munchkin's room in order (it was more my mom -thank you!- than my sister, but sis did a good job of looking after my dog) All day, Squirt (that'd be my sister) complained of having a sore throat. What do I now have? I have the feeling of glass shards running through my throat every time I swallow... Evil sister...

12 more days until I'm due...haha...not sure that I'm going to make it...