Twinkling Bells

I just read this morning in a local paper that when our baby is born, bells will be ringing...literally. It started on January 1st. Whenever a baby is born at the hospital where I deliver, a 13-second chime is played over the hospital paging system. The paper describes the sound as subtle and lighthearted, like twinkling bells. The bells are a reminder of new life at the hospital amid the health and life struggles that also go on at the hospital. I think it will be neat to hear bells announcing the arrival of our baby. I'm curious to know how soon after the birth it occurs.

Zoe has been curious the past few mornings about why I sit down so much in the morning (while she's busy getting ready for school). Has she noticed my huge stomach??? This morning I told her I am tired in the morning, to which she replied that she is tired too, but she has to do this and that when she doesn't want to. Well fortunate for me, I don't have to get ready as early as she does in the morning and I can be lazy for awhile(as she sees it).

Matt bought me a kitchen radio/CD player for Christmas and I LOVE it! I can listen to the news in the morning while eating breakfast and listen to Dr. Laura in the late afternoon while I am doing dishes or preparing dinner. While I was listening to Dr. Laura this afternoon, Emily asked if we could listen to their Care Bear CD instead...no can do. I told her to go get her portable CD player and she did. That was good until she started singing to the CD and Zoe joined in. I was on the computer then and couldn't hear the radio so I ended up shutting it off. That was really okay because Dr. Laura was talking a lot about sex and I didn't want Zoe to start asking me questions. Speaking of questions, Zoe asked me last week if Santa would ever die and then she wanted to know if he is truly real. I wanted to ask her if she thought he was real, but I ended up just saying yes he is real because all of the children were around. She is getting to that age when the truth is going to be discovered. Next Christmas could be her first "pretend there is a Santa" Christmas, we'll see.
Anyway, the radio/CD player also has a light on the bottom of it so if we're doing dishes at night or working at the sink we can see better. Matt didn't realize it had a light on it when he bought it and I didn't expect it to have a light, so it's a bonus feature.


Eleanor took a nap this afternoon which was nice this afternoon, but now at bedtime she is wide awake and she keeps coming out of her room to tell me things. It could be awhile before she falls asleep.

If you would like to see a picture of me "about to pop" (men at church like to say that to me for some reason..."you look like you're going to pop any minute") then hop over to Matt's blog.