Lamaze class.

First of all, I'm not intending to attempt natural childbirth. I do not have what you might call a high pain tolerance, and I am not good in tense situations. I have every intention of going into the hospital and telling them to get me hooked up with that epidural ASAP.

I'm taking the Lamaze class on the recommendation of one of the nurses at my obstetrician's office. She made a couple of very good points.

First of all, you never know what'll happen. It could happen that my labor goes so quickly they don't have time to administer the epidural. It's not likely, mind you, but my mom told me that both my brother and I came very quickly.

Second, there's some time between when you go into labor and when you're advanced enough that they'll give you the drugs. Some kind of technique for dealing with the pain during that period could be useful.

And finally, the childbirth classes contain good information on the process of labor - what's happening, and why, and how it can affect you or the child.

So yeah. We signed up for the class. A series of classes, actually, once a week for six weeks.

Our overall impression, after the first class last night: It's kind of crystal-twinkie, but if we're careful not to automatically dismiss everything, there might be some useful stuff in there.

But it feels like a kindergarten class. We wear nametags and sit in a circle on the floor and break halfway through the class to have snacks and juice. There isn't a naptime, but by the end of the breathing and relaxation exercises, I was ready for a nap. The instructor was leading us with illustrations on posterboard and excessively neat handwriting.

And we have homework. As if I didn't have enough to do this week. Matt has to share in some of it. We have about thirty pages of a magazine to read. We're supposed to do these joint relaxation exercises once a day. We've got a video we're supposed to watch. And then I have some more things to do. I have to write down everything I eat for two days. For one day, I'm supposed to track all the baby's movements and times. And I've got a couple of other relaxation exercises I'm supposed to do on my own.

As if I didn't have enough to do this week already.

She went through a book with pictures of plaster models at various stages of pregnancy and childbirth. That was interesting, but I'd have liked to look at the pictures closer. And they were high-gloss pages, so the lights were reflecting off them pretty badly.

The first set of relaxation exercises were actually okay. The theory here is that I have to learn to recognize when I'm tensing certain muscle groups, and to relax them consciously. Matt's job is to learn to use visual cues to recognize tenseness and to point it out to me. To begin with, he also uses touch and light massage to help me relax. Later, in theory, he should be able to just tell me to relax and I'll do it automatically.

I'm actually trying to pay attention, when I remember, today. When I get tense, I carry it all in my shoulders and neck, so every so often I'm trying to stop what I'm doing and take a breath and make my shoulders relax.

So that was okay. A little goofy, with twelve or fourteen women trying to tense and then relax on command, but I can see practical application for this.

Then she walked us through one of the other exercises we're supposed to do for our homework, and... Toooooooo twinkie. It's called the Whispering Flute. And it only gets worse from there. I couldn't stop smirking. I certainly wasn't doing the deep breathing I was supposed to be doing. It's a visualization exercise, and I know that's very helpful to many people, but me, I'd really rather be told to breathe slow and deep and concentrate on relaxing internally.

At least I know Matt and I aren't the only people with a vaguely cynical/dubious outlook in the class. One girl got the giggles bad during the relaxation exercises, and another guy kept giving the instructor this look that very clearly said, "You must be joking."

Matt and I were sitting around yesterday afternoon, not doing much of anything. The phone rang, and it was my mom.

"Are you going to be home this afternoon?"

"Um... Most of it. We'll have to leave at about 6:30 for our Lamaze class."

"Oh, we'll be gone by then."

"Are you coming over?"

"Yes! We got your changing table!"

I hadn't even known they were going to get that for us.

But they're not excited or anything.

We bought paint this weekend for the nursery! On Saturday we took our two decoration patterns up to the Sherwin Williams that's around the corner from us, and spent about fifteen minutes picking out a color to match both. (Luckily, we'd already decided on the general color - light blue - so it was just a matter of picking out the precise shade.)

And then we had them mix up a gallon for us in the sturdy easy-clean brand of paint. We're pretty sure a gallon will cover the nursery walls - it's a fairly small room - but if it doesn't, we kept the color-mix card, so we can go back for more.

My mom said she thought we (well, Matt) should do the painting this coming weekend, so we could assemble the furniture the next week and have it ready to show to Jill and Rachael when they come for the shower.

Should I confess that I think Mom is, herself, a little anxious to see everything all ready?

Matt called his grandparents and his dad last night. He hasn't talked to them for a couple of months, so - as near as I can tell - the first thing both groups said after, "Hi, Matthew!" was "And how's Liz and the baby?"

So they're all excited, too. Matt told them we were going to try to go up to Chicago for Thanksgiving, so I'm sure they're already counting down and gearing up.

Me, I'm having trouble seeing beyond August.

--Liz