It's been an interesting few days. Contractions contractions contractions. I'm bloody exhausted. Had my 37 week doc appt and was informed that I was dilated to "an easy 5cm" and "70 maybe 75% effaced." so the contractions are doing SOMETHING worthwhile, I guess! So this kicked off a discussion about how my doctor isn't exactly allowed to induce labor before 39 weeks unless there's a medical reason. And "advanced dilation" combined with "a lot of amniotic fluid" combined with "gestational diabetes" plus living 30-40 minutes from the hospital all qualify me for early induction.  So...hooray??
I'm getting a midwife induction on Monday morning, right at 38 weeks. I'm relieved that I now have a PLAN and won't have to freak out about scrambling to find a place for Dylan to go last minute, or worry about trying to drive in labor or god forbid having the kid on the side of the highway!!  But obviously I'm also scared about the whole...y'know...labor thing. Ugh.

So my last semester I took a sociology of religion class. My final project/paper was to go to some kind of church service that we were unfamiliar with and talk to congregation members and/or the church leader. So I chose a Lutheran church up the street from the house. As a non-Christian, I only know the theory behind different christian denominations, not the actual practices. Im kind of familiar with Catholicism from my dad's family, and baptists from my ex, but other than that, I just know surface stuff.
So talking to the pastor was pretty neat, he's a really smart guy, and nice and wasn't all bible-thumpy at me. The service was ok too. More upbeat than what I was used to.
So anyway, the pastor has dropped by the house a few times in the last couple of months. He's not pushy, doesn't try to convert or "save" me and doesn't really talk Jesus at me - when religion comes up, it's more philosophical and less dogma. Last week he asked me how come I wasn't Christian. I'm not atheist, but I'm not staunchly ANYTHING, really...and I've told him that. So I told him that my "problem" with Christianity is 99% the Jesus thing. I just can't buy into the divinity of Jesus. So he just nodded and we continued our chat for a few minutes. About 2 days later, he dropped off a copy if Lee Stroebel's "the case for Christ" for me to borrow. The guy knows I'm a book nerd.
So I'm reading it now. The historian in me cringes about every 2nd pages...I just don't think that you should be able to quote the document you're examining as proof of that same document's validity. It's like using the word in the definition of the same word. So the guy keeps breaking into circular arguments : the bible is true because the bible says it's true.
The author could have done a better job.  But I'm reading it because 1) I promised I would and 2) there are some pretty cool things in here that I didn't know about, and...like I said, I'm a giant nerd!!
Attached are some photos of dinner the other night...braised beef roast with a vegetable hash-type thing, mashed red potatoes and steamed veggies. It was tasty as hell!
OH!!  And by the way...how the HELL do you keep a super curious 18 month old out of a Christmas tree!?!?!?!  Short of putting a shock collar on him, that is!!!