We’re back from our wonderful whirlwind trip up to the DC suburbs.

First, the amusement. Near the South Carolina/Georgia boarder, we found our favorite series of billboards EVER. I think there were 7 all totalled. Every single one of them said — among other things — TOPLESS/TOPLESS. Some of them had exclamation points, some of them had other "promotional material" but the main theme was unambiguous.

All we had to say to crack ourselves up for the rest of the trip was "Topless! Topless!"

Our amusement on the drive up passed into scary drama on Thursday night.

In the car, Jill started having severe chest pains. She insisted that they weren’t that big of a deal for awhile, but after dinner, she could barely move. We stopped in Durham and by the time we checked into the hotel, she was scaring the crap out of me. So we got back into the car and drove to the ER at Duke University Medical Center.

They saw her in about 5 minutes, and about half an hour after that, had me come back and wait for various test results with her. All this began around 10:30 pm. At just before 1 am, they decided that one of the tests wasn’t clean enough looking and they wanted to do a follow up. Which required calling a tech in to do the test. Which would take a total of 2-3 more hours.

We decided that I should go back to the hotel and get SOME sleep, and she would call either when they decided something, something happened, or they were done and she could leave. Happily, the advanced testing cleared her. The official analysis was "probably either a muscle spasm or an escophegal spasm." They prescribed industrial strength ibuprofen, or a big dose of the OTC kind, combined with antacids. By then it was nearly 4 am.

I woke up around 9 and went in search of coffee. The lady at CVS, where I went for ibuprofen, told me that she wasn’t sure there were any starbucks in North Carolina, but if there were, they were in <someplace that meant nothing to me and didn’t sound close>. She recommended Waffle House. I got McD’s coffee instead, and we actually hit the road around 11:15.

Fortunately, we made it to Jill’s parents with no further drama.

We had a lovely late afternoon with them on 12/23, and then went over to our the home of our friends Erin & Kevin, and their kids McKenna & Dillon, where we were staying. They were amazing hosts, and Christmas with a 3 year old and an almost-6 year old is beyond fun.

We celebrated Christmas with Jill’s parents on Christmas Eve, including dinner and presents, and the traditional watching of The Christmas Carol, this year the 1951 Alistar Sim version. Smudge was incredibly stubborn, wriggling around until Grandma sat down and put her hands on my belly to feel him kick. Ten minutes passed without more than the tiniest, most subtle movement. Jostling him, jumping, and eating sugar all failed to elicit movement that Grandma could feel, and she was very disappointed.

Then we headed back to Erin & Kevin’s, where we crashed until around 6:30 am when McKenna & Dillon came to wake us up with the big news: SANTA WAS HERE!!!

Since I had already made the deal with Jill that she should sleep as long as she could — on the theory that McKenna & Dillon would limit that to probably no later than 9:30 no matter what — I got up and watched the wonderful Christmas chaos that ensues when kids get presents they love. We disassembled the Easy Bake Oven and a velvet-glitter-marker art project, and filled cool mechanical banks with pennies, and Dillon had a very hard time giving up playing with his large rubber Sponge Bob Square Pants ball.

Eventually, McKenna demanded to know when Jill was getting up, and how many minutes it had been. Roughly 1 minute into that conversation, she wandered into the room. We finished opening presents, ate breakfast, and packed lunches and then the car. We were back on the road by 10:30 or so.

Smudge went back into high gear in the car, and some large rounded part of his body appears to be trying to break out through my right floating rib. (Head? Butt? I can’t tell.) I don’t think he’s been still for 10 successive minutes in the last 10 hours. My navel has also been itchy and hot as hell all day. I’ve applied lotion every 3 hours or so, but I think the innie is really close to becoming an outie. The lower belly stretch marks are growing like gangbusters too.

More ominously, I think my belly looks lower. Lower even than it did on Thursday. Jill does too. At childbirth class, they told us that the baby (and belly) drops 2-3 weeks before the birth. That would put us between 36 and 37 weeks. The good news is that 37 weeks is considered full term. But we are NOT hoping Smudge arrives early.

And we’re going to ask lots of questions at our medical appt this week, and kick our getting ready activities into high gear.

Fruit & Veg Count, 12/25: 1 organic gala apple (waffle house hash browns don’t count)
Fruit & Veg Count, 12/24: ~1 cup mixed veggies (green & yellow beans & carrots)
Fruit & Veg Count, 12/23: none I can remember
Fruit & Veg Count, 12/22: 1 organic gala apple, ~1 cup cooked baby carrots, 1 bite mushy cooked green beans