35 weeks

*The baby is now ... 5-1/2 pounds. Honeydew!

*How I'm feeling: Big. During the past week, the exhaustion has hit me again. It's not as bad as it was during the first trimester, but there comes a point each day where I hit a wall and all the energy just gets zapped out of me. I try to get as much done as I can before I hit that point. Also, my feet hurt. All the time. Even right when I wake up. I guess they've been pretty hard at work. But really, I'm still doing well. I haven't had any heartburn or leg cramps, like a lot of pregnant women get, so I'm counting my blessings on that.

*Physical differences from last week: I finally really feel like I'm in the third trimester. I'm definitely rockin' a "pregnant walk." And a slooooow pregnant walk, at that.

*What's been on my mind: I've finally started having dreams about the little guy. Dreams where he's already here (and yes, he's cute). In one dream over the weekend, he was only about 4 weeks old, but he was very advanced. He even talked a little. He would say "bottle!" in the sweetest voice. And I'd say, "You want your bottle?" and he'd say, "Uh huh!" in a cheery little voice. I think my subconscious is trying to prepare me for the fact that it's not just that the pregnancy is going to end soon... we're going to have a baby here with us soon. I'm still not sure I quite comprehend that.

*What I'm looking forward to: In two weeks, I'll be FULL term! If I went into labor today, they probably wouldn't try to stop it. I'm so excited to meet him (and I keep telling Mike that he feels like a nice, sweet baby... hopefully he proves me right!). But I'm also trying to savor our last "just us" weeks. This past weekend, we went out to dinner with some friends and went to a birthday party for another friend's husband. We'll still be able to do that stuff after the little guy joins us, but it won't be as easy to just hop in the car and go enjoy a couple of hours in a restaurant or at a friend's home. So we're definitely being as social as we can right now, while we've got the ease, time and energy to do it.

*Other random thoughts: Football. I've been very concerned about our ability to watch the football games we want. It's hard to live in AZ and be a fan of a Cleveland team that ... well ... isn't good enough to command much AZ air time and a Philly team that is only on *sometimes.* For some odd reason, I've been much more concerned about this than Mike, although I just KNOW that come football Sunday, he'll be the one complaining about the fact that the Eagles game isn't on locally, yet the Seahawks vs. 49ers game is. I know my husband. I know he'll be mad, even if he doesn't think it's a huge deal right now.

Unfortunately, the only way to ensure that we can get all the games we want is to get Direct TV and the NFL Ticket package. That requires canceling our cable and getting satellite TV. We thought about doing this, but it's such a darn hassle. And an expensive one at that. And I'll be on leave, bringing in only some part-time money from whatever work I'm able to do from home, so it's not the best time to be adding to our bills. Luckily, I upgraded our cable to include the sports package last year, which includes the Big 10 network and some other college sports channels, so at least we'll be able to see most of the Penn State games. But the Browns and Eagles are still a challenge.

At first, we said there was no way we'd take a baby to a bar for 3+ hours to watch football. But the closer we get to the arrival of Ryan and football season, the more flexible we're getting about this. We can go to McDuffy's a couple of times just for a bit, we say. That's not really a bar bar... it's a sports bar with tables and booths and people who behave themselves. We could just get a booth in the back, out of the way. He's so little, he'll sleep through most of it anyway, we think (hope). Everyone SAYS we should take him out while he's little because it just gets harder as he gets older!

I also suggested we just make it easy on ourselves and become Cardinals fans, but that idea didn't go over well.