39 weeks- Henry.

You have have noticed in mama's effort to get the blog up to date, she been scheduling out one blog post a day. Well, mama is afraid that this baby may actually be born on of these days, so she's putting up the last three posts, just so she's all caught up. That's pretty lucky for you, especially those of you that still haven't updated your blog (Uncle Kevin and Uncle Adam!).

Here's your punishment:

Ack! That's a huge white belly! We try not to get too graphic on this blog, but mama just had to post this picture. now that the baby is too big to really move around much. This kid really can reallydo a number in there. Now that the baby is bigger, it spend most of its time trying to stretch out. So mama is lopsided most of the time, like in this shot where it just can't seem to get comfortable. At any given time, you can usually feel a knee or elbow sticking out at a weird uncomfortable angle.

Here's a slightly more appropriate picture. Mama at 39 weeks (at least her belly is covered). We could resist getting one more shot with the bump sign, even if mama is a big, sweaty mess. We think the doctor has given up hope of mama going early. She's 2 centimeters dilated and the baby is all the way down. This has been hard on mama because now it's head hits all the nerves going into her legs, giving her shooting pain if she stand up for too long. Over the past few days, mama has really been tired. Our good friends in the neighborhood have been really good about keeping all of us busy. And when mama is moving, she feels good. But yesterday, June and I went to school and this morning I went to the lake with John, James, Christopher, and Andy. And mama has found on these days when she's just bumming around at home, she tends to feel much worse. Or maybe that's because she could be just days from giving birth. You decide.

Here's a video for the strong of heart out there. Warning: there's a big belly moving around in this video!

This is humiliating in a number of ways. First, it's hard to find an angle to take a belly video that isn't completely unflattering. Second, it's harder when you're wearing an enormous purple mumu (it's hot down here, okay?). Third, if you look close, you might be able to see the Taco Bell stain on her belly from the run for the border she sent papa on earlier. Finally (and we don't think this is humiliating at all), that IS the Highlander theme song playing in the background. Mama finished Season 3 this week. It was so awesome, it's no wonder the baby was so worked up!

A boy and his bike- June.

Every since the Tour de La France, Henry has been dying to get out on his bike. We've gone to Clemson Elementary a few times to ride because the parking lots are fairly flat.

And we've been riding around our neighborhood too, which is not even close to being flat. Henry is getting much more bold about coasting down big hills and will ride very slowly down every hill but one.

And while he's trying harder to ride up hills, a one speed bike just won't get you over some of them. He and mama had a big fight this week about pushing his bike up the hill. He thought she would do it, and she got selfish and said she couldn't push a stroller, a belly, AND a bike up a hill. Eventually, Henry pushed his own bike up.

Henry's next big wish is for lights on his bike so he can ride at night. Papa said yes to the lights, but no to riding at night. At least we can see that his reflectors are working.

Check out my cute monkey jammies! Mama found I'm much happier if I get to hang out for a while in my jammies instead of getting dressed. So she's been much more liberal with pajama wearing. For instance, it's one 1:30 and I'm still wearing my "Dora precious" purple nightgown.

On Wednesday, mama finally came through on a promise she made Henry months ago- to take a bus ride! We met John and Christopher at the grocery station and we all rode on to campus to the Hendrix Center (the new student union). We ate a packed lunch, then headed to the campus ice cream shop and all got cones!

The boys were very excited that they got to ride in a seat together with no grown-ups. It was a great trip. All 4 kids were well behaved, if a little wound up, and the whole trip only took about an hour and a half.

This morning, Henry went to the beach with our friends while mama and I stayed at home. Mama was up at 5am having a few contractions and she thought today might be the big day. So she took the opportunity to FINALLY pack her bag for the hospital. Then the contractions stopped. But it was nice having a quiet morning and not have to spend it sitting in the hot water at the beach. So thank you, thank you, Miss Kerri and Miss Juliet for taking Henry with you.

Since I've had to ice my ankle at night, papa and I have spent some time on PBSkids.org playing the Super Why! Alpha Pig letter game. I'm up to about 75% accuracy. I like working on letters so much that I play the game by myself with our Boggle set. I even quote Alpha Pig by saying "Nooooow, where's the letter F?" "That's great!"

Crafts and such- June.

Henry is on to his thurd church school of the summer. This one runs every week on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. James, John and Andy all go too, so we've been carpooling. We really need to get a picture of 5 kids between the age of 2 and 4 and a half shoved into one van. It's really loud. But I think all the moms are enjoying not having to drive to Seneca twice a day.
Henry has brought home all kinds of cool crafts. Most of them are hanging on the wall in our bedroom. But there have been a few more delicate pieces that just couldn't be saved. This octopus is great, but the paint is flaking off the foam, so it got a picture and met its fate.

We really loved this piece. Henry glued down the sand, laid the play-dough grass and painstakingly set up the straw fences. Then they put the animals in their zoo! We were sad to see this one hit the trash can, but every time it got moved, everything fell over and mama felt too bad to see Henry try to fix it over and over.
Henry's teacher pulled mama aside to tell her how good her was a coloring and putting puzzles together. That's our engineer. He's giving the 350 piece puzzle another go and this time he's done most of it on his own without mama having to separate out the different colors. If you'd told us a year ago that our spastic 3 year old Henry would mellow out into this patient craft -loving, puzzle-building kid, we'd never have believed you.
Exciting thigs are happening for me too. I've graduated to a cup! And am pretty pleased about it, if I must say so.
I'm pretty good about being careful, but did have an accident last night that involved spilling a full glass of milk into mama's lap. Needless to say, we got sent outside for the rest of the night.
Also, this week I got to go to school with Buster! Mama signed me up for the 2 year old class to have some piece and quiet before the baby storm hits. When mama dropped me off Tuesday morning, i ran straight to my class with Andy and didn't even look back. Henry did tell mama that about halfway through the morning, June started crying and they brought me into his class. He said that as soon as I saw him, I yelled "Buster!" and was just fine. I played in his class for a few minutes then they took me back to my class. The teachers didn't mention it to Miss Kerri at pick-up, so the rest of the day must have gone just fine.

Here's a video of Henry and I playing our new counting game. As you can imagine, it got very loud as it went on.