37 weeks

The count up continues. For those of you not well-versed in pregnancy (I sure wasn't eight months ago), a baby's due date falls at 40 weeks, although only around 5% of them actually arrive on that day. Generally, you can give or take about two weeks... which means it wouldn't be that unusual for labor to begin as early as next week. We're hoping to have a little more time before our girl makes her appearance, but you never know.

I'm trying to take a calmer approach to the whole situation. R has informed me that nervousness is not sexy. She needs me to be calm and collected through this. One thing that has been helping is Zen. I've been meaning to dedicate a blog entry to the topic, and I still may, but the short of it is a friend introduced us to the value of meditation last winter and we've been practicing it semi-regularly since. My interest has waxed and waned a bit, but I recently reinstated my daily sitting in the mornings before work. It's a chance for me to be still for a little while and observe my inner-self. I go into it without any expectations, and I find that it relaxes me. There's nothing else quite like it in my day.

In other news, some local friends threw us a baby shower brunch last weekend. (Yes, men were invited too -- deal with it.) They did such an amazing job with the decorations, food, games, etc. You have got to see the invitations that one of the hosts, Leslie, created. (She also gave us some wall art for the baby's nursery that is so awesome I won't feel that bad replacing my David Lynch movie posters with it :-) It feels great to have such sweet, talented friends. Many thanks to our hosts, as well as our other generous friends who attended the party and brought gifts for the baby.

I had my camera at the shower but didn't take it out of the case. I'm upset with myself for passing up the chance to photograph people other than ourselves for once, but I was distracted and some other folks had cameras too, so I let them handle it. If any shots from the event surface, I'll be sure to share them on here.

R and I did have our own little shoot by the Mission afterward. I even brought the tripod along, allowing for a few shots of the two of us, including the one below. Can you tell how excited we are?