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My cousin gave us the crib her kids used. It's 9 years old, but looks practically new. It just needed a coat of non-toxic/no VOC white paint to make it match the rest of our furniture. Perfecto!

The canopy is a leaf. It's the coolest thing. I wish I had one when I was a kid. The lights on the wall match the bedding. I don't think it could be more perfect. A few pieces of art on the walls and we're done.

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Nesting

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People told me to expect the nesting urge to kick in any day now. Well, it's kicked in. Hard. Almost as hard as the baby has been kicking.

Matthew has been amazing - completely unsurprising. He's been super-dad-in-training since day one. We hardly had any time to ourselves this weekend and yet today he managed to prime and paint the crib my cousin gave us, assemble it, put it in place and then get all misty with me over the book my sister in law gave us for the baby.

Since we're a typical Brooklyn couple, living in a one bedroom apartment, we need to make our bedroom a combination bedroom/nursery. We've been focusing a lot on how to make the room work for both halves of this arrangement. The baby needs a safe, comfy, calming place and so do we.

Something else he did this past week is in the photo above. While we were in Paris on our honeymoon in April I took a photo of a very old clock in a park we'd never been to before. Matthew pumped up some of the colors in Photoshop and had it printed. It's huge! It's huge and it looks amazing over our new bed. Not only is he prepping the baby's side of the room, he's making sure our bedroom is a true sanctuary for us. I don't know how I could be luckier.

28 weeks.

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le sigh

This makes me sad.

For 100 years the USPS has run a program called Operation Santa. Children from all over the country send their letters to Santa to the North Pole. Post offices collect these letters, sort through them to find the most compelling (usually from needy kids), and for the past 100 years in one form or another have made them available to the public so you could respond to a child's letter if you wished.

This week, without explanation or warning, the USPS suspended the program. People showed up to New York's post offices expecting to sift through the cardboard boxes of kids' letters to find the one they'd play Santa with... only to find no boxes, no letters. Apparently there was some sort of privacy issue (a registered sex offender responded to a child's letter) and now the entire program is gone.

I understand that pedophiles should be kept away from our children, it's obvious that should be the case. However, have we reached the point in our society where we are truly willing to make everyone pay for the crimes of a few? The answer, my friends, is yes. We've been there for a long time now. Look at the precautions we all need to take at airports these days. When is the last time you personally brought liquid explosives on your travels? Oh, you haven't done that? Well, someone did so now you can't take your favorite shampoo with you on that flight to Tahiti.

There are children in my neighborhood who have probably written letters to Santa asking him for a warm coat for Christmas this year because their parents had to choose between a new coat or a week's groceries. Who is going to answer those letters now? This "one bad apple" theory really stinks.

I'm trying not to get too bogged down by this negativity, so instead let me end this post on a light note. I support a wonderful charity called the Pajama Program here in NYC. Did you know that most children in the foster care/shelter system don't have pajamas? They have no bedtime routine that includes snuggly sleepy clothes and comforting fabrics. This year I contributed PJs in teenage girl sizes. Often, the babies and small kids are thought of first and the teenagers are an afterthought. Some girl will receive a great flannel set of PJs and a robe from me this year. I feel really good about it. If you're looking for something charitable to do this season you can contribute pajamas to the Pajama Program.

Snow has come to Brooklyn.

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TMI Alert

Interesting and exciting discovery of the week - my boobs work.

No joke. They work. It's so weird! And amazing! I am a veritable food factory. Our apartment is a house of wonder at the moment. I realize it's some of the most basic biology known to man, but even the thought of my body being able to feed a little person is mind-blowing.

This is what happens when you bring donuts to the office. No one wants to take the last one. Even when 'the last one' is a tiny fraction of a donut.

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Poke, poke. Jab, jab.

I've spent the last week with a tiny foot (or feet at times) jabbed into my ribs. It's wonderful and amazing, but it's pretty darn uncomfortable! Teensy heels crammed into tight spots that are usually occupied with various internal organs which have lived in those spots for 31 years. That's been my experience this past week.

We've spent many an hour on the couch lately just watching my belly move and undulate. It's wild to see my own body moving on account of someone else's own body. Someone else's itty bitty body which weighs about 2 lbs. by now. That's 2 cans of black beans. We use this comparison because 2 cans of black beans are a staple in our pantry and often we'll venture into the kitchen and just carry around a couple of cans for awhile. You know, just to see what 2 lbs. really feels like. Funny, the cans don't squirm like Awesome does.

Unrelated: Is anyone else swooning due to Denny's reappearance on Grey's Anatomy? *drool, swoon, drool* And how about the introduction of a character with Aspergers? Pretty groundbreaking. Ooh, Denny's back onscreen. Gotta jet.