STS-116, Space Shuttle Discovery, is back home on terra firma after a beautiful dusk landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Welcome home, astronauts! Absolutely flawless, as always!
All photos courtesy of NASA TV.
I’m gonna miss this bird when she is retired in 2010. As of this mission, the International Space Station meets the milestone of now being 50% complete.
I believe Justin and I are very close to deciding on what will become Sprout’s legal, given name (and, no, no matter how much we love you, we aren’t announcing it before she’s born. For one thing, this policy allows us to reserve the right to change the name right until the moment our eyes meet hers on her birth day!)
Our Excel spreadsheet of potential baby names topped out at 53 potentials for a baby girl before I finally called a stop to that. The goal of the spreadsheet wasn’t to inundate ourselves with names, and anything more than fifty just seemed to be heading into insanity-inducing territory. We can go there without a spreadsheet, by getting sucked into the vortex of baby naming websites and books that are available, after all.
The title reflects my newfound status as a boxing ring since Sprout is into kicking and moving a lot more more this week! I counted 28 kicks/movements this morning between 5-5:30 AM. (By the third trimester they ask you to do “kick counts” so you can notice any decrease in the baby’s movement, which by then might indicate a problem. I’m a little early but figured what the hell. I fell back asleep before a full hour passed, which is the span of time they have you count.)
Cross-posted from WildTexas.com, because I can only be eloquent once a day.
Justin and I want to wish each of you, and your families and friends, a safe and very Merry Christmas and happy holiday season. We know this last week before Christmas can be quite harried, but we hope you have an opportunity to take stock of all the good things and wonderful people in your lives and celebrate!
So, you are eating well, religiously taking your vitamins, exercising and drinking plenty of water. But have you touched a home appliance power cord, artificial Christmas tree or Christmas lights? ‘Cuz those contain lead!
Sometimes, it is better not to know these things… especially when pregnant and after having put up both the artificial Christmas tree and the outdoor Christmas lights by yourself.
I am secure in the thought that it cannot possibly be that big a deal, gauging from all the Christmas cards I have seen featuring infants, toddlers and other young children holding — if not outright licking — lit Christmas lights. That said, it’s probably not a good idea to encourage kiddos to play with such things… for a variety of reasons!
Okay, over the past two days I have officially graduated to the, “Who the hell decided pregnancy needed to last ten months?” stage. My belly has grown astronomically in the past week. I am not kidding; now when I go through doorways or hang a sharp turn down an aisle at a store or in a hallway at home, either my breasts or my belly decide to make contact with said item! And standing in line at the Post Office? How many more people want to jab me in the ass/breast/hip, please? I know I’m hanging out every which way, but some of you aren’t exactly stick insects, either!
