Your baby’s about 15.7 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. Her eyesight continues to develop, though it’s not very keen; even after she’s born, she’ll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she’ll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (Normal adult vision is 20/20.)

 Snippets of conversations heard around me:
 
“I told someone to take it easy today. He told me if it was easy to take it home.”
 
“Is it mean to ask a pregnant lady, “Are you only being an asshole to me because of the baby inside of you?”
 
 
Conversation:
*phone rings*
“Crime Analysis, this is Amanda.”
“Hello, city auditorium. I need tickets to Willy Wonka for four. How much will that cost?”
“I think you have the wrong number. This is Crime Analysis.”
“Look, I just need a price. I don’t know if I want to purchse them yet. I’ll probably get them at the door.”
“No sir, I don’t have tickets. This is Cri-”
“You couldn’t have already sold out. The show’s not that good.”
“Sir, you have the wrong number. I can give you the number to the Auditor-”
“Look girl, I just wanted a damn ticket price.  You are absolutely no friggin help.”
*click*
Me = still holding phone to my ear, “WTF?!?”
 
So my office mate is hilarious. He always keeps a very serious face on, so when I first met him, I swore he had no sense of humor. However, he’s very much a dead-pan humor guy. Have I mentioned I love my job? Apparently  the city directory  has my number flip flopped with the City Auditorium…. I guess we’re similar, our initials are both C.A. I think that’s pretty close… except that it’s NOTHING ALIKE AT ALL.
 
 
Several of my coworkers are smart aleks. I love it. For secret Santa, I got a Dead Fred pen holder. http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/supplies/a777/ One of the girls seems to duck out of my way every time I walk past her. I want to tell her, “It’s okay, I’m pregnant, I’m not a steam roller. Now get up or I’ll eat you.”
 
Baby update:
I’ve established a doctor on my new insurance plan. He’s awesome. I thought I would be a little more concerned about some strange man having to “work” around my va-jay-jay. However, at the last hospital I gave birth at, I had an OB class come by at *just* the right time. Yep. I had ten students in the room all staring at my  female parts. My va-jay-jay got more attention than Britney Spears’  at a comando party. (which is every party for her.)
I used to be such a nice girl. I used to be such a prude. What happened?
We’re 29 weeks today which means only about ten more weeks. (Although a full pregnancy is 40 weeks, mine are typically always born at least a week in advance.)
 
 
Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you’ll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk. This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby’s hardening skeleton each day

For those of you whom I’ve been neglecting on Xanga, I apologize. Work has me tied up on the computer all day and I’ve felt ZERO desire to type when I get home. We’re 7 months along now, it’s a girl, we’ll probably name her Eryn. Caity  likes Texas but is having issues adjusting to the new house. (She keeps asking me when we can go home.) Aidan likes Caity and anything she’s doing. Aidan does NOT like wearing pants.
 Caity’s been moved 800 times in her life and is doubtful we’ll ever stay in one place for more than a year, so she’s going through “military child” syndrome.  Then on top of it all, we’ll be having a new baby, so her life is going to change all over again.  That makes me a woman with “guilty parent” syndrome.
Derek’s been looking for a job, but hasn’t had much luck  finding anything above the “toilet scrubber” level. He just signed on with PD dispatch which is seemingly a sure thing, but we’re still hoping for more options to come in before then so he won’t have to do shift work. Fortunately, the people there are great so he’ll enjoy it.
 
My job is fantastic. My title is “Crime Analyst” and I’m the only one of my breed at this department. I’ve considered tattooing it across my forehead due to my immense pride in my job…. But then people would look at me funny. Then again, maybe people look at all Crime Analysts funny.  (but no, It’d probably be because of the tattoo.)
 
The new baby (Eryn or Hannah. We’re flopping back and forth) is 28 weeks along and weighs about two and a half pounds. She’ll likely gain another half a pound for every week from now until she’s born. With my luck, that means I’ll likely gain three pounds for every week from now until she’s born.
Even though I’ve not gained nearly as much weight with this pregnancy as I did the other two, my back is still killing me.  Scoliosis is a vicious problem. So when we decide to have more kids, would one of you volunteer to  carry the  child for me? My back and my waistline would thank you.
 
Hope you’re all doing well and email me about the changes in your life. Again, I apologize for my lack of attentiveness in your world.
Love to you,
Amanda

You’d better not cry, you’d better not pout. Santa Claus will pull his stethoscope out.
Tonight was the Police Department’s tree lighting ceremony. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take pictures with a free Santa, rather  than  pay a mall Santa to put up with my children. However, Derek (My hubs) was in a devilishly bad mood.  To spoil everyone else’s mood, he decided to tell Caity not to be so excited about Santa and his presents.
“Why not, Daddy?” She asks.
“Because Santa is a doctor. He might give you presents, but only after you get a checkup.”
Caitlyn began to whine and I laughed it off, telling her Daddy was only teasing. I guess Derek didn’t think the doctor thing would stick, but sure enough when we walked through the doors of PD, there stood the jolly old pediatrician. 

Caitlyn screamed.
We steered her away to the cookies table where she hid under the legs of it saying, “I no wike that Santa Cwaus. ” She saw the other kids sitting on his lap and was fine. We walked her back over to Santa and she began to hide and cry again. By now, Aidan has caught on that the man in red is baaaaaaaaaad juju.

I tried to trick Aidan into sitting with Santa by handing the man a cookie. Aidan reached for the cookie, looked up, saw the arm the cookie was attatched to and began to cry big wet tears.

Well, I’m making a fantastic impression upon my coworkers at my new job by showing them how crazy my children are. So we go over to help the other little kids decorate the tree.
Caity picks up a red bulb.
Santa turns to the children.

Caity drops the ball and runs away.
From the comfort of her daddy’s arms, she tells everyone, “I dwopped dat. I dwopped that ball.”
That’s great. Time to leave. We came, we saw, we screamed, we broke things, we took a cookie and we ran.  How’s that employee evaluation going to look at my 6 month review? Not so hot.

On the way home, we drove past an old train  museum, made of a giant train. We stopped and got out because Caitlyn loves trains on TV.

^^^^Screaming child^^^^^
Caitlyn HATES trains in real life.
So our evening of  potentially cute pictures was ruined by doctors and real life trains….
Enjoy our pain. Maybe it’ll be funny in the morning.