36 Weeks

Under 4 weeks until our due date!!  We are getting so excited in our household to meet the baby.  My nesting has seriously ramped up.  I keep making enormous lists of completely non-urgent and non-important things I need to do, and feel like they are both extremely urgent and important. :)  So I've been doing a lot of scurrying this week, taking care of all these tasks.

36 weeks, 2 days

One of those many tasks was to get my and Ava's bags packed for when the baby comes.  As you can see, we are ready whenever the baby decides he is!!  Check out the beautiful baby bag my mom gave me as a gift last weekend.

I've been trying to finalize things in his nursery (even though he'll be sleeping in our room for at least the first few weeks), and I think it's more or less complete.

Today, we took Ava to the hospital for a "Big Siblings" class.  She absolutely LOVED it!  They got to watch a video about becoming a big sib, then talk about how to help take care of the baby and practice holding pretend babies.  Then they got to take a tour of the mother-baby floor, complete with stopping by the nursery to see some of the new babies (through the window).  Ava was so enthusiastic through the whole class.  She volunteered lots of answers to the questions (mostly great answers, save one awesome reply to "How can you help take care of the baby?" with "by spinning it."), and she wanted to sit right in the front row.  And of course lead the group on the tour.  She even announced to the entire group how we were going to dress the baby for Halloween.  When they were talking about how sometimes the kids might feel sad after the baby was born, Ava insisted to the class leaders that SHE would NOT be sad!

All in all, I know it will still be somewhat of a difficult transition for her no matter how excited she is.  But, I felt a lot of relief today to see Ava so incredibly excited about the baby's pending arrival.  I really think she is going to do well.  She is constantly talking about him at home, and hugging and kissing my belly.  I think she is really going to love him.

Practicing holding the pretend baby.

We have another doctor's appointment tomorrow.  From here on out, we will have weekly appointments until he makes his debut.  I think this is going to be both a very long and a very short month of September. :)