How are you feeling?

When one is obviously pregnant, she often gets the question, "So, how are you feeling?" Lately, I'm feeling a bit like this:

But life is good. I'm making progress on preparations for BoGah. Buddy helped me put up the crib, protesting that it was still 'special' to him and should go back into his room. I pointed out that a crib's job is to trap babies inside whereas his new bed gives big boys the freedom to come and go as they please. He didn't seem to mind the change as much anymore. I located a little dresser and put the changing table in there, too. All the sewing stuff is stacked neatly in the closet, except for the sewing machine and a small pile, because I have an equally small desire to finish a couple sewing projects before BoGah arrives (more on that to come soon, I hope).

As for names, I have a good list of 6 that I'm considering. Bobby finds them suitable as well. We're going the traditional route yet again: David, Neal, Matthew, James, Joseph, and Thomas are the front runners. The babe will probably be nicknamed BoGah for the first little while, just because that's what we're all used to calling him already.

Alice and I have been making preparations for school to start, too. We're sorting through boxed clothes, collecting some new ones, and gathering other essential gear. This girly loves to get new stuff, but every once in a while she randomly bursts into tears wishing she never had to go to a new school. I've been asked the question, "Why do things have to end?" too many times this week to count. I am confident that she will LOVE kindergarten. She just doesn't like the ominous unknown future. Hopefully, we'll get her teacher assignment soon and see how many of her current friends will be in her future class (Alice is one of 4-5 kids in our acquaintance entering Kindergarten at Yankee Ridge this year). That should help, I think, unless her bestest, besty, super-best friend of all time just happens to be assigned elsewhere (in which case, I foresee utter devastation and a quickish recovery with periodic relapses of unpredictable magnitude and duration...LOL! This is my life with Alice).

Alice finished her last day of summer camp today. We're all a little sad about it. She had a great camp leader this year, Kaley, who was clearly interested in the kids as much as the activities she ran them through. Now we have 3.5 weeks until school starts, largely unstructured at this point. There's a short family vacation/staycation to St. Louis in early August, and perhaps other staycation-like activities strewn about (dare we try a Drive-In movie?). I should try to work that out a little more before diving right in :)