Sheet Rock

The house continues to move forward at lightning speed! The sheet rock is finished and they are painting the walls and trim inside now. Above is a look at the entryway.

Kitchen. Look at all of those windows!

Family room. You can see the hole above the fireplace where Adam has arranged for a plasma jumper so that he can hang a huge TV there ... someday! Now if only the power company would get the power lines in our neighborhood laid so that we will actually be able to live in this house when it is finished ...

Bar Blues (No Liquor Involved)

No, don't worry, folks, I'm not nine months pregnant and Mormon and actually drinking or anything. I'm just a little blue that Adam is in Texas all week taking the Bar. No matter what he tells me, I can't shake this visual in my head of him staying up all night in his little hotel room, eyes bloodshot, skin pasty like a vampire, pouring over his bar review books while all hopped up on Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew. I hope he's not as miserable as I imagine he is...

On the other hand, I hope that he doesn't realize how nice it is for me to sleep all alone in the middle of our king-size bed with six pillows every night, to have my first dissertation chapter done and do whatever I want now for a while, and to have his mom here in Durham waiting on me hand and foot while he's gone. Okay, so maybe I'm not as miserable as I thought I was a minute ago.

Better hurry home, Honey, before I get too used to life without you! :)

Cupcakes

Last night, our cousins Shelly and Kendall and their kids Damon and Audrey came for a brief visit on their way to Houston. (Like us, they are also relocating to Texas for a big law firm. Unlike us, they have been slaving away and living in the close quarters of New York for the last six years.) Tomorrow is Damon's third birthday so we celebrated with a big stack of cupcakes and some candles.After about forty puffs, Damon finally got the last one out. (No, they weren't trick candles.)

Damon wasn't this happy a minute later when Aunt Ariel told him that all of these cupcakes weren't actually for him!

A Desperate Plea

Dear Abby,

For the last eleven weeks, I have been getting the feeling that my husband is cheating on me. He used to come right home after school and spend time with me, but lately he has been leaving the house early and "working" regularly into the wee hours of the night after I am asleep. The few times a week we are together now, he acts distant, preoccupied, even worried all the time. He used to help out around the house and now he's "busy" whenever I ask him to do the dishes or take out the garbage. And don't even get me started on our sex life ... or lack of it! I don't know how much longer I can live like this. What should I do?

Sincerely,
Desperate in Durham

-----
Dear Desperate,

Hang in there until after the Bar exam is over next week. (If things don't get better then, take him out back and shoot him.)

Abby

Week 36

I'm feeling as big as a house. It's hard to believe I still have another 4 or 5 weeks to go! I'm not sure where little Charlotte is going to expand into from here on out because I'm pretty sure I'm almost completely out of room.

Adam and I having a Taco Bell picnic in Duke Gardens a couple of weeks ago. Why is it that that my favorite pictures lately involve ones where most of me is hidden? :)

Breastfeeding (Don't Worry--No Pictures!)

Because of both my fear and my determination to research out everything, I have registered for every single baby-related class offered by Duke Hospital over the next month. We are still in the middle of our Prepared Childbirth Course and we are going to Baby Care and Infant CPR in August. Last night, it was all about Breastfeeding Your Baby.

I was really glad to have gone this one all by myself; Adam was at home cramming for the bar and so he missed the exciting video about cracked nipples and the demonstration of how to express your own milk if you are engorged. Our teacher had a stuffed pillow made to look like a breast ("Where can I get one of those?" one of the dads asked), complete with a pull-away casing that allowed you to see all of the ducts and glands beneath, that she demonstrated everything on. Then we were asked to practice different nursing positions with a fake baby over our shirts. Good times. But I really can't say I'm feeling a lot more confident about the fact that I seem to be pretty much just Charlotte's 24-7 dairy and diaper changer for the first couple weeks of her life.

I'm now wondering: How do you other moms out there prevent yourselves from going insane during that first little while?

The Roof is On

Let's hear it for dry summers! The interior is starting to look like someone's unfinished basement. (And no, the house isn't sinking to one side, but the photographer is.)

Future entryway into the Casa de Laughton.

Sheathing and Windows

Chubby Peanut

Recently, I've been trying to come up with ways to get my doctors to do another ultrasound on me. I mean, I'm not complaining that my pregnancy has been so nice and standard that they haven't felt the need to do one; I have just been feeling a little desperate to see how much my baby has grown, and to be reassured that her intestines hadn't started growing on the outside of her belly or something crazy. (I've been watching too much of that "Special Delivery" show on Discovery Health where all of the babies are taken by emergency c-section, weigh 2 1/2 lbs. at birth, and have to go directly onto a ventilator. Bad idea, I know, but I'm addicted.)

Fortunately, today I had an appointment with Connie the Nurse Practitioner. Unlike my doctors, Connie does an ultrasound if something sounds the least bit unusual. When I told her I had a few strong Braxton-Hicks contractions yesterday, she ordered an ultrasound, a non-stress test, and a pelvic, so I got the full work-up. It turns out that Peanut is looking perfect and beautiful, but bless Connie for letting me get a peek at her again anyway.

Now if only Peanut would have been cooperating ... She decided to play shy and held her arms in front of most of her face the entire time so the pictures aren't so great. We only got the side views of her little eyes, large head, and very cute chubby cheeks! She's measuring about 5 lbs. 3 oz. now which is about a week ahead of schedule still.

And Here Comes the Roof ...

Prepared Childbirth?

Last night, Adam and I began our four-week "Prepared Childbirth" class. Although I'm still really skeptical about anyone's ability to fully prepare me for the excruciating agony of labor and all that it entails, I'm glad so far that we're taking this class. Here's why:

1. Group therapy is good. I say this especially on Adam's behalf. I'm regularly around pregnant women in our very fertile ward and we all complain about the heartburn, the leg cramps, the constipation, the back pain, the nausea, etc., to each other. But last night, the fathers all crowded to one side of the room for part of the course and were encouraged to talk to each other about their fears about labor. Adam felt his masculinity reaffirmed when he heard that most of them were worried about all of the bodily fluids and needles that childbirth entails.

2. It is good to be around people worse off than you. One lone woman talked about how she either cries out of sadness or out of anger every day for the last month because her Baby Daddy isn't interested in being a part of her life anymore. Hearing about someone else's horrible rat-poop ex-boyfriend who abandoned her when she got pregnant sure makes me think twice about getting upset at Adam for forgetting to take the garbage out.

3. The BEST part: I got massaged. Our Lamaze-certified instructor Debra made Adam rub me down for the last half hour of class. If I would have known that this class would teach Adam how to massage me, I would have signed us up for it a long time ago!

Framing ... Already!

If you weren't impressed before, check out what our builders did in ONE DAY! (Notice that the last photo of our house below is dated 7/2/08.)

Our New Favorite Baby Store

Just to let you all know what little Charlotte will be wearing this season ... We just saw those lovely uni-browed ladies on TV and thought there could be nothing better for our little girl:

FLDSDress.com

Foundation

Yessssss! The Houston rain held out long enough for them to get the foundation underway today. So far so good!