We've had an eventful last week and a half.  I spent all of last week in the hospital with kidney stones.  Not fun at all!  Happily, despite A LOT of discomfort, the kidney stones are resolved for the time being (although there's still one in my right kidney that I'm supposed to get looked at after I deliver,) and Alex seemed to do pretty well through all of it.  There were a couple of times where I started contracting, but we responded well to medication to stop those.  Unfortunately, at our Monday OB appointment, they decided I was measuring too small and sent me for a growth ultrasound and monitoring.  The growth ultrasound shows that Alex is right on track, just riding a bit low (so we were measuring about 7-8 weeks behind) so that was good news, but the heart rate monitoring didn't go so well.  His heart rate wasn't bad, they said, but they did keep telling us that while it wasn't bad, it wasn't "quite right" since his heart rate wasn't accelerating periodically.  They kept us hooked up to a monitor for over 3 hours and had us come back again Tuesday morning.   After another ultrasound and two hours on the monitor at the doctor's office, they sent us to the hospital for further monitoring, which lasted from about 12:30 until 6:00PM.  At the end of the day, they said that his heart rate still wasn't showing appropriate accelerations and nothing had changed, but since nothing bad had happened in all that time of monitoring, it was unlikely to, so there was no reason to try to deliver the baby that day.  I'm under orders to lie on my left side as much as possible, limit activity, and follow up with the doctor next Monday.

All in all, it was very frustrating, since everyone kept telling us not to worry, but they felt the need to have us hooked up to monitors for hours at a time and even sent us to be admitted to the hospital for monitoring.  It's awful hard not to worry when people keep frowning at your baby's tracing and saying that it's not right.  Apparently, however, his tracing, while not "reactive," was "reassuring," so I'm supposed to do frequent kick counts and, like I said, rest.  Spending most of your time lying on your side is difficult, to say the least, when one is also responsible for a very active 3 year old boy.

I'm looking forward to all of this being resolved, but that, of course, can't happen until I deliver, and right now, I'm only at 35 weeks.  While it seems likely that this baby will be born on time if not a tiny bit early and not follow Daniel's example of being forced out two weeks late, it could still be a while before things are resolved.  While it seems for now that everyone is safe and healthy, please keep baby Alex in your thoughts and prayers. 

Just 8 weeks to go until baby Alex is due!  I know 8 weeks is still a considerable amount of time, but it seems so close!  Nesting has set in, and I have ironed more in the past 2 weeks than in the past 2 years.  Ditto on the cleaning.  Josh is loving it.  At least the overwhelming desire to bake cookies, pies, and cakes has diminished; that would not have been good for us!  Instead, it's a desire to make my husband sweet tea and to iron cloth diapers and wipes.  Pregnancy is weird.

So this evening I received the following email from the address eamorgan@gmail.com:

"If this is your reservation, please change your email address or try to be precise when giving out your email. I have so much spam for "Elizabeth Morgan" it is unreal.  Erika Morgan"

The email was accompanied by the forwarded reservation information from a Park n Jet parking service in Seattle, WA.  While I certainly understand that it could be irritating to receive someone else's email, I rather believe that she was overly obnoxious and presumptuous in her email to me.  I've received emails intended for someone else before without sending angry emails to the intended recipient demanding that they change their email address because it was too close to my own.  And the injunction to not use her email address again implies that I would intentionally use someone else'e email address.  I don't understand why that would even make sense.  Typically, when I give my email address to someone, it's because I would like to actually receieve an email.

I've never had the urge to go and sign someone up for massive emails from all sorts of filthy websites before, but I believe I am experiencing that desire now.

Doctor says we're measuring 3 weeks larger than we should be.  I'm convinced the baby is a giant and shall explode from my abdomen a la Alien.  If that happens, I'm totally selling my story to the tabloids.  Screw Octo-mom - "My baby exploded from my abdominal cavity!  Marvel at its alien-esque abilities!"

As I washed the dishes after making an apple pie entirely from scratch this afternoon, I caught myself thinking, "It just makes a person proud of herself that her husband can come home to a nice dinner and a homemade pie."  Seriously, who thinks things like this?  Excuse me, I have to go change into my 50s dress and apron and freshen up my makeup before I go get a drink waiting for my husband when he walks in the door.

You know, it always irritates me when celebrities complain about their privacy being invaded.  To be clear, I'm certainly not in favor of photographers ramming people with their cars in their efforts to get a shot, blocking in celebrities' cars and not letting them leave until they get the pictures they want, or trespassing onto a celebrity's property, but really, celebrities do whore themselves out, depending upon the public's fascination with them for their livelihood, then complain when the public is fascinated with them.  I can imagine that it would be frustrating to never be able to go anywhere in public without someone wanting your autograph or to take a picture of you, but if your career depends on the adoration and interest of fans and you do your best to cultivate that, it doesn't really seem to make much sense when you complain that the adoration and interest of your fans often comes at inconvenient times.  There, my two cents.

Things have been rather uneventful here, so there's not much to share.  I am feeling (and in my estimation, looking,) massively pregnant, even though I'm only about half-way through.  Daniel has come down with some Egyptian Death Plague, and he's a bit whiny, clingy, and sad and extremely snotty.  (He is being awfully good considering how high his fever is and how crummy he must be feeling.) 

The weather here has been unbelievable for the past few days, and it's 70 degrees and beautifully sunny outside right now.  I envied Josh as he drove back to work with the top down on his Mustang after lunch today.  (We had planned for me and Daniel to join him at work for lunch, but since Daniel's so sick, Josh came home to see us instead.)  I know it won't last - by this time next week the high will be in the low 50s instead of upper 60s-70, but man, is it nice while it's lasting!  I just wish Daniel felt better so we could enjoy a nice long walk this evening.  Hopefully, he'll be feeling a bit better later this week while the weather is still supposed to be pleasant.

I'm sorry to harp on the same thing, but today it's 11 degrees out with a wind chill of -2, and yet there was still a parent ushering in her two little daughters to the preschool, neither one wearing coats.  11 degrees, even out of the wind, is painfully cold.  How do you not think coats are required?

Speaking of which, I have to say I did not expect -2 wind chills when I moved to Alabama.  I mean, I knew it still got cold down here - I wasn't expecting the tropics, but I didn't expect it to be THIS cold!  Alabama, you're on notice!

Okay, I understand that every parent will raise their child differently, and that we all have to decide for ourselves how best to care for our child, but really?  This morning when I dropped Daniel off at preschool it was 20 degrees out and snowing and the child walking to the door in front of us was not wearing a coat.  The mom was wearing a sweatshirt and a hat, but the kid had no hat, no gloves, no coat - just a regular long-sleeved t-shirt.  (The mom was carrying the child's coat in her hands because the preschool requires you to send one in cold weather before they'll allow the child outside.) Seriously?  It's 20 degrees out!  Put a coat on the poor kid!

It's about time!  For the first time in about 2 months, I woke up this morning and didn't feel like puking!  This is a cause for celebration!  The pregnancy is progressing well, according to our last doctor's appointment.  We have another one on Friday, so hopefully that will confirm that all is still well.  I have felt the baby move, which is always exciting!  My stomach is WAY bigger this time around than it was with Daniel at this stage, so just to be sure, we're going to get them to double check and make sure there's only one in there at our next visit.  (We're pretty sure there's just one as they say twins are usually accompanied by faster than normal weight gain, and so far I've lost weight and not put any back on.)

School started back last week for Daniel, and I know he's excited.  I am too - I love that little boy so much, but I'm glad he can go to preschool and have other people to play with and other people to learn from.  He really loves preschool.  Every time we pick him up, he wants to stay and play longer, which we think is pretty great.  I'm really enjoying teaching there too; for the most part, all the students are sweet and enthusiastic. 

This past Christmas was also pretty excited.  Daniel didn't really understand it too much last Christmas, but he really understood what was going on this time.  He was a bit too excited about the presents and Santa Claus, but it was still so fun to watch him open up presents and time and again say in an awed voice, "Wow!"  He also insisted on leaving out cookies and milk for Santa and was so excited the next morning when they were gone.  We visited my parents near Nashville and also Josh's family in Murfreesboro.  We had a great time, but we were certainly pleased to be home at the end of it.

Did any of you do anything really excited or fun over the holidays?