Where'd the time go?

I just can't seem to believe that we have hit the 3rd trimester now. It really wasn't that long ago that I was praying everyday that everything was okay and we'd make it past the first trimester. And here we are...with only 12 short weeks to go til we will have that bouncing bundle of joy with us.

Saturday, we decided to face our fear and despise for Walmart and try to get the rest of our registry done. For one thing, both of us hate Walmart. I used to work at the one in our hometown right after high school. I hate everything Walmart stands for and is. They ruin small businesses. Target isn't much better, but at least their employees are more competent and professional, and the clientele at Target is a bit more polished. It never fails...each time I go into a Walmart, any Walmart, there's a white trash family beating their kids. Case in point and one of my favorite websites to visit for shear wonder is PeopleOfWalmart. Have a look if you've never been, it's pretty funny, and all too familiar. The pictures could be from your local Walmart! Anyhow, I digress...

Linda and I thought Walmart would be a better place to register since, sadly, there's a Walmart practically on every street corner and it would be much more readily available and probably less expensive for our family and friends to get items off our registry. We walked into Walmart near Linda's work...asked about 5 (not kidding) employees where we needed to go to sign up for a registry. None of them could answer us and we were finally directed back "to the kiosk in Electronics". We wondered...well, Linda waddled...around Electronics for a good 15 minutes (it's not that large). The only kiosks we found were for internet orders, cell phone something-or-another, and the PhotoMaker. We didn't see any employees. Asked some guy that appeared to be an employee...he irritatingly pointed to his smock that read Time Warner. We both stared blankly at him and he read off his smock that said his companies name. He was just a vendor or a promotional guy assigned there from Time Warner for the day. Well, you know what? Your cable service and customer service sucks too. A simple, "I'm sorry, I don't work for Walmart..." would have suffice. Linda and I searched for an actual employee and found none. I approached Mr. Attitude again and laid the sarcasm on thick and asked, "Since you were so helpful before, maybe you could actually point us to where a Walmart employee is?" We finally got an Electronics employee and told him we needed to get a baby registry started. No response from him, except him rolling his eyes...and he walked past us and to a computer behind the counter. Not a word from him...and had acted like we were bothering his social time with another employee. He fumbled around with his computer...didn't appear as if he knew what he was doing. We stood there in front of his computer for a good 5 minutes without a word spoken, except him asking if we had a walmart.com account. Linda's patience was extremely thin...more so than usual...and she had had enough. We left and went to Target. There it was really easy to get the registry started... Signed up from their kiosks (easy to find) and got the scanning gun from the employees who seemed knowledgeable and helpful.

It's funny, yesterday morning on my facebook status I updated, "Only one more trimester to go! Holy crap! I'm gonna be a dad in just 3 months?!? Where'd the time go? So much stuff still to do!" One of my friends commented, "News flash! You ARE a dad! Just bc Evan hasn't made his debut doesn't mean you aren't a dad! But having a child is amazing..." I had never thought of it like that, but she's absolutely correct!

It seems Linda's pregnancy is almost text book. She has also started to feel Braxton Hicks contractions. It kinda freaked her out at first, which I'm sure it would anyone who has never been pregnant before. She also has had more problems getting comfortable and not sure if she has sciatica, which is a common ailment during pregnancy, especially when you hit the 3rd trimester. But here we are in our 28th week and officially now in the 3rd trimester. Some websites and doctors claim the 27th week is the beginning of the 3rd trimester, while others say the 28th week is... Whatever the case, we are now, without a doubt, in the 3rd trimester now. By this time, Evan would weigh about 2¼ pounds, about the size of a Chinese cabbage, and would measure almost 15 inches now from head to heel. His eyes have opened and he is sporting eyelashes now. He can blink and is probably able to see light that filters through to the womb. In his bag of tricks, he has added coughing, sucking, hiccuping and taking practice breathes. Some studies have shown that he shows signs of REM sleep, which means he could possibly dream. What the heck would a baby in utero have to dream about? That's another deep thought amongst many I've got... He's still gaining more weight and putting on more baby fat. The brain continues to develop billions of neurons... The lungs are continuing to mature, but they have reached a point that if Evan was born now, he'd have a good chance of survival...with lots and lots of medical help.

Evan will be here soon!! I can't wait!