We're having a quiet morning at home. Nora played with her Calico Critters on and off for a couple of hours, and now she's "reading" a Mercer Mayer book. This tendency to play with the same toys for long periods of time is new. A while back she was more like a whirlwind, bouncing from activity to activity and leaving a huge mess in her wake. She's really enjoying her Christmas gifts and really all of her toys right now. That reminds me, I still need to do a "purge" and pack some things up for the future and donate a few things she doesn't use anymore. I need to do that like... now. Like I should be doing that instead of typing this. :P

Above I've posted a picture from the "Great Atlanta Snow Storm of 2009," ha ha. I actually can't believe how much it has snowed over the past few years. Last year it snowed at least twice if not more, and the year before that, too. It's fun as long as it's temporary. You'll notice that Nora is wearing her rain boots in this picture. Jason took her outside to play (briefly)--besides the rain boots she wore flannel pajama pants (?) and her big, puffy coat and gloves which I'm glad I decided to buy a while back. The snow only looked really neat for a day or so, but traces of it stayed around for almost a week since the city stayed cold. I was still seeing snow and ice in some places until late Wednesday, and it snowed last Thursday.

I realized I haven't posted about the pregnancy recently. I'll be 35 weeks tomorrow, so I have a month or so to go, give or take a couple of weeks. I really don't know what to expect because I was induced with Nora right around 40 weeks. Some women seem to love being pregnant and others seem to hate it. I fall somewhere in the middle--I don't mind it, but I don't really savor it either, although I do appreciate the miracle and wonder of it all. I don't feel "done" being pregnant and last time was kind of the same. I'm anxious to meet my baby, but not in a hurry. The only thing I'm ready to be done with is diabetes. It's not that bad, but sometimes it's a drag to make sure I have my injections ready, make sure that I have enough to eat certain times of day, etc. Like breakfast is the worst--I am always in a bit of rush trying to get Nora fed and both of us out the door with jackets, mittens, etc. but I have to find something fast and good to eat for myself and prepare an injection and take oral medication. Sometimes I really don't feel like dealing with all that.

Physically, though? Late pregnancy is not that bad. I've experienced major fatigue before (when not pregnant) and at this point I don't feel that tired, though I'm slowing down a little bit lately. I am becoming limited in more ways, though, like the obvious bending over and picking things up (like say... toys) and getting up and down from the ground. I have some soreness when I'm sleeping, and sometimes I hop out of bed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and I realize that I can't really move as quickly as I thought I could. Overall, though, it's very manageable. And we're seriously so busy, time is flying.

Oh--and I finally discovered that there is a perk to having gestational diabetes. (Accentuate the positive, right?) I'm having bi-weekly prenatal testing these days, which is not a perk but more like a pain in the rear. Yesterday, though, I went to a new location for testing and I ran into the ultrasound tech I had in my last pregnancy. She was so sweet and I had actually wondered what happened to her. The test on the baby went quickly so the sonographer switched over to 4D, which is something I've never seen before. That's something that some people pay big bucks for, but I never have because I already get so many ultrasounds it's really not necessary. I didn't feel like I was missing much since I already get to "see" the baby so much, but when I saw the baby on the 4D it was really quite clear and a lot more amazing than I thought it would be. Anyway, here's one of the pics.



The first thing everyone notices is the chubby cheeks! Nora had chubby cheeks at birth, but she lost some weight after she was born and after that she was a fairly petite baby. I spent the whole time trying to figure out if she looks like Nora, but I can't decide. Jessie says that she thinks this one looks a lot like Jason again, but we'll see. There's only so much you can tell from an ultrasound, even a fancy one. This makes me even more excited about seeing her in person!