Well, TOMORROW, I'm 39 weeks, but this photo is from Saturday. I apologize for the general lack of pregophotos. My camera broke a few months ago and the iPhone is not such an alluring substitute while we research our next legit camera purchase. Any recommendations?

Work at the Rhodes abode is coming along. As soon as we got our couch and set up our living room, I lost all steam for the little unfinished projects. Jacob (who is still hard at work) predicted this.

Nothing resembling labor as of yet. Every day Jacob tells the baby to stay put for just a little while longer. And every day we are a little closer to ready. Maybe we'll be all ready by our due date, which is, ladies and gents, ONE WEEK FROM TOMORROW!!

Moving and Other Joys

On Saturday we moved. I say "we," but this is probably a serious abuse of the 1st person plural as I did very little moving indeed. Jacob and John and three friends (Melanie, Ruth, and Wendy) trekked up and down the 46 steps from the street to our front door carrying bag after box after washing machine many-a-time. I did however...sweep...and buy burritos for the real movers. 

Things in the new place are still very much in disarray.

Exhibit A: Living Room

Exhibit B: Bedroom with hole in wall

Exhibit C: Porch 

So...yes the little abode needs some love, and we're slowly tackling all the house-to-home projects. The closets need a little help before we can get anything in them...as does the bedroom. So currently we are sleeping on the floor of the living room. It's a lovely space and I give you this tantalizing little set of photos only so I can WOW you later.

Jacob is coming home now. I can hear his footsteps down the walk. The whole front of the living room is windows, and through the glass I'm admiring his familiar profile against the darkening sky. 

Last night I had another baby shower with my grad school buddies. It was a lovely little gathering with darling tea sandwiches and delicious shortcake and strawberry limeade with fresh pureed strawberries which I got to drink most of myself since everyone else was champagne-ing it.

In honor of our lit. degree we played children's literature pictionary. My team won. It was a close game, however, and I think we technically went into double overtime. We capped the night off by decorating 0-3 month onesies with fabric markers. I'm such a sucker for this type of activity...

EVERYONE won this game:

Wendy won the bio-math prize:

Front - boyfriend Moses will be so proud

and topped off her equations with a little quotableness:

Back

Ruth won the foreign language/humor-Kate-even-though-you-hate-drawing prize, 

and the judges were quite impressed with her creativity, and agreed that the highpoint of the creation was certainly the palm tree.

Lauren won the No-Surprise-It's-Perfect prize:

My iphone really did no justice to this number, (the sailboat is not at all blurry in the real thing)

Melanie won the Jacob's-favorite prize:

Front

Back

 Really...too clever, Melanie, and I think this might qualify as our baby's first costume?

So hurrah for all the winners!!

I went to a prenatal appointment today and everything is going well. My midwife informed me that the baby is dropping/has dropped which is to be expected in a first pregnancy and means that I will be having the baby soon. I thought this was a rather funny bit of professional wisdom. If there's anything obvious to everyone who looks at me it is this: I will be having a baby soon. I am 38 weeks tomorrow, and I suppose that means sometime in the next month. 

I will sign off with a memory of one of the first presents Jacob ever gave me after we started dating. It was a copy of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. Somehow I made it to my 22nd birthday never having read it. But he read it out loud to me and marked the page that talks about the little flower. Here's a bit of it.

"But my rose, all on her own, is more important than you altogether, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass. Since she's the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except for two or three for butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose." 

It makes me think about our old house; it also makes me think about our new little place that Jacob is busy nailing and drilling on right now. It makes me think about marriage. It makes me think about our little baby which is bumbling around inside of me right now past its bedtime. And so it became the inspiration for the onesie that I got to color:

Done, Done, and Done (get ready for some Facebook-pilfered photos!)

I am so royally finished with school right now, I can hardly contain myself. 

I realize it has been a shamefully long time since I've blogged, but I've been rather busy, and I hope to be more regular now that school is over, and I'm off all summer.

RECAP:

Indeed...what have I done in the past month. I finished my master's degree which involved all kinds of exams and papers and presentations and. I finished teaching the two sections of my spring course (Intro to Poetry) and graded hundreds of pages of student work. I went to Texas for five days over Easter break where I had a lovely baby shower and got to see so many faces of people that I have treasured so much in my life. I got to chat with old friends and take evening walks with my mom, dad, and little sister every night. It was incomparably wonderful, and made me miss the Texas Hill Country even more than I do. 

Apparently the only iPhone worthy event of this weekend however was visiting Jacob's goat. 

She's the one I'm feeding. She's over a year old, but she's still little.

Jacob named his goat Beatrice. A name that I love. But Jacob named the goat Beatrice because he hates that name and figured we could avoid any daughters named Beatrice if we already had a nanny goat named Beatrice. Isn't he just the sweetest?

So what else of note in the last month...

I graduated. My parents came to watch. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, I LOVED seeing you!) I got all regalia-ed up and processed with my buddies and shook the president's hand. 

I had a (sort of) mother's day. I got a "mommy to be" card from my neighbor. Everyone in the pews around us in church prompted me to go up to receive the obligatory carnation. I was bashful about the whole thing, but I tried to be cool. TRIED. At the front (our dear sweet old Irish) priest asked for my due date. 

I said, "June 8th."

He smiled big and proceeded to announce to our entire (Beverly Hills) congregation in his lilting accent:

"This young lady's having a baby on my birthday!" 

Thank you, dear sweet old Irish priest. 

Neither Mark Wahlberg nor Joseph Fiennes nor Paris Hilton were in attendance...it was perhaps my one day to outshine a celebrity, but alas...

On Mother's Day I conference called my mom with all my siblings to wish her a happy one. It was very fun. Robert:

was a little late to the tele-party, and he's the most punctual one. Scotty:

 was game

 as usual.

My older brother Jonathan:

 

Made lots of jokes. Mostly about my noble illusions to cloth diaper. 

Everyone thought this was very funny. 

Especially Lily:

 who laughed more than anyone.

 Don't look at me like that. It's true.

I had some of my grad-school 

 buddies 

 and their cohorts over for a cook-out last Sunday and had a blast. 

I still smell smokey. Perhaps this is because I have only washed my hair once since then. Pregnancy has thoroughly dried out this body o' mine, so I don't really think the coiffe needs much washing these days

...or maybe pregnancy has just kept me from looking in the mirror as often. Despite being 8 and 1/2 months pregnant I'm still surprised when I catch a glimpse of my round self. (ComingSoon: I have 8monthspregnant photos somewhere.)

Jacob's relatives sold the property we live on last week, and while they gave us 60 days we decided to leap straight into apartment-hunting, and thankfully we've already found a new place! Papers were signed yesterday, and we will probably make a slow process of the move over the next week or so.

Such is la vita of the famiglia Rhodes di Los Angeles. Jacob and John are shooting the end of a short film tonight, and I am prepping cloth diapers in a stockpot of boiling water...Jonathan.

Signing off with one (two? three?) final photo(s):

This is my youngest brother Robert in a photo with a bison. It struck me because it seems a bit like if I were in a photo with a watermelon.

Speaking of!

 It's all I think about these days.  Jacob cuts it up into cute chunks for me.

what a long-limbed-dearie he is.