Today marks the first day that Rebecca said the baby might come. Hubby tried to get me to be more proactive in getting her out this weekend, trying to drag me on walks, getting me to sit on the birthing ball, etc. I’m more of the mind that I’m not totally ready for her to come yet, because my maternity leave doesn’t start until after 11/10, and there are still a few things pending in the courtroom I’d rather not leave for some random person to come in and mess up.

This weekend, we laundered all her washcloths, hooded towels, crib sheets, socks and 0-3 month clothes and I organized them and put them away (I organized and put away the larger clothes, too, but didn’t take the tags off in case exchanges would be needed in the future). Hopefully then I won’t have to do laundry the first few weeks we’re home from the hospital. I semi-packed for myself (and for her) for the hospital, Mr. W and I went out after work last week and bought all the essentials on our registry that we didn’t get as gifts from the showers (some coworker friends threw me a work shower on Halloween, photos forthcoming), and this weekend, those things were all set up and ready to go. The portable playard we got is a 6-in-one; what we need it for most immediately is the changer and cosleeper, so that was set up this weekend and placed next to my side of the bed. The cosleeper is at the perfect height for the bed, and we packed the pockets next to the changer with diapers, burp cloths, receiving blankets, etc. The changers, bassinet and cribs are now lined with waterproof liners under clean sheets. Her room’s been long-since done. I felt great about everything.

And then my parents came by to visit on Saturday and my mom had an endless stream of criticisms about how our house is not big enough for all the stuff we have and that we should return a ton of Allie’s clothes (received as gifts) and furniture (she thinks the crib, too big to fit in our room, is unnecessarily redundant with the playard/cosleeper currently in our room) and complained that we finally got the living room cleared up (we put the ottoman upstairs at the foot of our bed, mounted our flatscreen TV onto the wall, which cleared up a corner for the xmas tree) but then immediately cluttered it again with a tree that’s too big (our high ceilings provided for the 8′ tree Mr. W wanted for Allie’s first Christmas, and he had wanted to go taller, too, but the diameter of the base would be too big), she didn’t like the tree in the corner of the living room where the cutout for the windows are, she thought a giant tree should be in the center of the room, and I said that’d be a giant obstruction, and she said hence our living room is not big enough for a tree of that size, etc. I overheard the stepkidlet ask her if she’s excited about her first grandchild coming, and heard my mom respond, as she did at the baby shower that Ann threw a couple months ago, “Not really. It’s not MY baby.” (The stepkidlet responded, “Well, I’M excited.”) Then when Mr. W excitedly showed them our new soda making machine (so we can have carbonated water without drinking soda or buying flavored Perrier), my mom took a sip and said it tasted bad, not sweet like soda (that’s the point), and then Mr. W showed them the new Keurig coffee maker he got that uses those single-cup pods that are available everywhere, my mom said we buy too much unnecessary stuff. I think hubby’s “toys” (new acquisitions these couple of weeks include the xmas tree, Allie’s stuff, soda maker, pod coffee maker [but it cost $5 as a refurbished item he got thru a coworker’s connection] and an ultra-fancy coffee machine costing in the thousands retail being delivered today [which he paid half-price for]) are a little excessive, too, but we aren’t going broke, and they make him happy, cuz let’s face it, we aren’t gonna be splurging on much once Allie gets here. And I wouldn’t go around someone’s home where they’ve already purchased these things and rant about how everything isn’t worth the money or the space and should be returned. It wasn’t like I was trying to decide whether to get something and I asked for her opinion. Basically, the evening was once again an exercise in holding my tongue.

I didn’t intend to go off on a rant like this when I started this post, and the evening did get better. We treated my parents to French food for dinner and they really enjoyed the savory crepes and French onion soup (both of which they’d never had), and they had even agreed to try escargot, but for the first time that we were aware of, the restaurant ran out of escargot. 🙁

I keep having paranoia about, what if Allie’s relationship with me ends up being like my relationship with my mother? 🙁 🙁