I made some pumpkin cookies yesterday and they were so delicious that I think I’m going to make another batch today or tomorrow and freeze them.

I think the recipe originally came from allrecipes.com but I lost the link, so I posted the recipe itself in my kitchen blog.

New entry is up. Good night.

Several times today Hayley has asked, “Can I go to Nanny and BooBoo’s house?” (BooBoo is a long-time name she has used for her grandfather. Long story.)

Finally George called them and she got on the phone and asked if she could come over so his dad came over and picked her up. She’s going to have supper with them and play for awhile.

I told George that we must be really boring. I thought kids only thought their parents were boring when they got closer to being teenagers.

Now the big question is should I make cookies, knit, or just sit and stare out the window while enjoying the relative silence?

So last night I was watching CSI, as I usually do on a Thursday night. One part of the episode involved Grissom trying to disprove an allegation, which he did by explaining the science behind the gestation and growth of a blow fly. Without fail, the adult female blow fly lays her eggs, the eggs turn into larvae, and then they go through a growth cycle until they become adult blow flies who can then continue the cycle by laying eggs of their own. Without fail, this process takes 11 days.

I think pregnancy – the end of it, I mean, the last half of the third trimester – would be much less frustrating and wouldn’t be such an incredible effort in demonstrating patience if we were like that. If the due date wasn’t just a random crapshoot, and we knew when we were going to actually give birth, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. The unfortunate truth is that a due date is just a somewhat educated guess. Very few women give birth on their actual due date unless they have a scheduled c-section. One method tells me that I’m due on the 21st, and my ultrasound says the 20th. In reality, I could give birth before today is over, or I could find myself being induced because I’m approaching 42 weeks and nothing is happening.

I know that with 16 days left before my so-called due date, I shouldn’t be this impatient, but it’s not necessarily because I want the baby out RIGHT NOW RIGHT THIS SECOND GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT (though that would be fine by me if my water exploded all over the floor right after I hit “post”). The impatience is because I can’t go to my calendar and circle any one day in red as being the real day. I have my due date written down on the calendar (and I should really add the ultrasound’s prediction too, since it’s even more optimistic being one day sooner), but it doesn’t mean anything and that drives me crazy.

It only recently occurred to me how much my calendar means to my life. Plans can sometimes change, but generally once I’ve scribbled something down on the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall, that’s it. If I write down that I have an appointment on such-and-such a date, I know that’s pretty much true. If I’ve written down that a particular date is someone’s birthday, it’s the truth. And then I have this due date written down and means zip, zero, zilch.

I know this sounds like I’m whining and complaining, but I’m not, really. Once I’m 40 weeks and one day, I’ll be whining and complaining, but this is more like just getting stuff out of my head.

Too bad we aren’t like the blow flies though. It would make life much more structured.

Somehow October drifted by, even though I didn’t have that much planned, and all of a sudden Halloween is over, the stores are putting out Christmas stuff, and November is here. And that means I’ll have a baby sometime between now and the end of the month. Holy shit, when did that happen? Didn’t the stick just show two lines yesterday?

I got a little excited many hours ago when I woke up from a very deep sleep to massive cramping and contractions. They got strong enough that at one point I rolled over and got up on my hands and knees. I did some of the visualising that I’ve been practicing, and I kept one eye on the clock. I was getting them every ten minutes which is obviously not close enough to warrant throwing my toothbrush into my suitcase (which is packed with everything I need except last minute stuff), but it was close enough to keep me from falling back to sleep and to get my hopes up. Alas, by 6 am they had tapered off to more than ten minutes and then I fell asleep. Phooey.

I know some pregnant women worry because they’ve never felt a contraction and they wonder if they’re ever going to go into labor, but honestly, getting contractions and then having them stop dead is pretty annoying too. I still keep joking that I’m going to deliver the baby right on our hall floor with the EMTs on their way because I’ll end up in labor but I won’t believe it until it’s too late and a head is already sticking out.

Trick or treating, with Hayley the ant. She had a BLAST.

Outside a very cool house (click to enlarge).

And yes, I really did dress my belly up for the holiday too.

Fish bowl belly!

A close-up peek of the fish (click to enlarge).

Hayley loved the fish bowl. I think she’ll be disappointed to find out I washed it off after she went to bed.

George went to the dollar store today to get a few things I need to do Hayley’s ant costume for tomorrow. While he was there he spotted a small pair of binoculars and bought them for Hayley since we often make pretend ones out of toilet paper rolls and tape. This afternoon she asked him to take her outside.

Hayley: Can I bring my binocliers?
George: Sure.
Hayley: I’m going to use them to look at birds!
George: Okay.
Hayley: (whispering) But we have to be very very quiet or we’ll scare them.
Sherry: Are you sure YOU can be quiet?
Hayley: I think so!
Sherry: I don’t know, you’re pretty loud, I’m not sure you know how to be quiet!
Hayley: Don’t be funny.

Whoever designed this whole stupid time changing crap clearly didn’t have young children. Hayley has been steadily waking up at 7:30 these days, no matter what time she falls asleep, so that meant that when she woke up at her usual time this morning it was actually only 6:30. It’s not the end of the world, and it’s not like she’s old enough to understand, but it’s seriously messing up my day because I keep thinking about how late it must be and then I realize it’s an hour earlier than I think it is.

Can I go back to bed now? Hayley didn’t go to sleep unti 10 last night so she’ll probably be tired tonight; I’m seriously tempted to tape my two Sunday night shows (“Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy”) and just go to sleep when she does, but I’m such a night owl that it’s hard for me to do that, even when I’m yawning steadily.

I wouldn’t have been up so late but I taped a re-run of “CSI: Miami” and watched it last night, not finishing until midnight. It was worth it though, what with being a combination of one of my favorite shows, one of my favorite characters, and it had Tony Hawk guest starring, so it was all okay in the end.

I must be tired if I’m babbling randomly like this. I’ve already folded a load of laundry, washed two more, changed Hayley’s bed, made the other bed, cleaned the rat tank, cleaned the fish tank, and served lunch. I should go do the dishes so that I can fix up Hayley’s Halloween costume. George picked up some of those crayon-style Halloween makeup kits as well so I’m going to decorate my giant belly as either the planet earth or a fish bowl tomorrow.

All right. Enough blabbing. You’d think I was strung out on caffeine, but sadly I am not.

When I was pregnant with Hayley, I desperately wanted a rocking chair. My mother and sister got one for me and I happily envisioned rocking my soon-to-arrive newborn to sleep in it. Little did I know I would give birth to a baby who preferred the motion of being held against a shoulder and walked around over being rocked gently in a chair. Not once did she ever really fall asleep in the chair; once in a blue moon she would doze but as soon as I got up she would wake up again.

Fast forward to 2005. She now loves to sit in the rocking chair, which is still in her room, and either rock for fun or she’ll sit in it and “read” her books to her dolls and stuffed toys.

Today was one of those infamous three-year-old days where she wasn’t keen on listening so when she announced she was going to play in her room I figured a break from each other was a great idea. I heard her talking in there and occasionally the rocking chair would knock against the wall so I knew she was reading again. All of a sudden it got totally silent and silence with a pre-schooler is when you worry about what they’re getting into. I went to inspect and found this:

(click to enlarge)

I honestly thought she was faking it the way she does at the end of a car ride, but no. She was sound asleep. I would have left her there but it was 5:30 and I wanted her to sleep tonight so unfortunately I had to wake her up. But only after taking her picture a few times.

It is exceptionally rare for her to just randomly fall asleep of her own free will like that so I was stunned. I’m glad I have photographic proof that it actually happened!

Is it really asking too much to hope that if I’m going to have a craving that it could be for something I actually have in the pantry or the fridge? Craving a chocolate bar or a piece of cheesecake when I have neither sucks.

And for what it’s worth, eating cheddar cheese does not compensate for a lack of cheesecake.