The final 4 (fingers crossed)

Today I had my regular biweekly OB appointment and my doctor told me I have one more biweekly appointment and then I'll be on the weekly schedule.

After the appointment I went to schedule my next appointments and I ended up scheduling every appointment from now unitl my due date. How many is that? Just 4. The countdown begins. ;-)

Threshold

I imagine that there's a threshold at which the discomfort of pregnancy outweighs the fears and responsibilities associated with childbirth and having a newborn and you think to yourself "Let's have this baby now!"

I'm not there yet, but I think I'm on that road. I'll endevour to arrive at that particular destination at the same time I go into labor. ;-) Wish me luck and timing.

Father-son birthday

Rok & Keston look at photos by Corinne S.

Today we went to a birthday party for Rob and his son Keston. Keston turned 1. Rob is older than that.

To celebrate the birthdays, Rob and Steph rented a photo studio in Pioneer Square for the day and had the party there. Rob rented gigantic lenses and other equipment and seemed to have a blast photographing all of the party attendees. I look forward to seeing the result on Rob's Flickr page.

Takeout exchange

Leaving work tonight I realized I could bring home what to me has become a standard lunch choice but for Benjamin is an interesting new food option. No one says you always have to get takeout for two.

So maybe he can bring me home my favorite Thai and Mexican takeout from Bothell and I can bring him all that the International District has to offer. It's an ethnic food exhange program. ;-)

Forgotten coffee

Forgotten coffee by Corinne S.

A public toilet seems like a particularly interesting place to forget your coffee...

Triage

I just got to hang out in the OB Triage wing at Swedish for an hour and a half to rule out pre-term labor. Lucky for me, it's just my "irritable" uterus.

I should've taken a pic while I was there, darn it. The nurse and doc were nice and I entertained myself with a magazine and my iPhone while they monitored me and baby.

Little Miss Blueberry performed well with her wiggling, heart heating, and oxygenating. Good girl.

Mossberg on My Work

Last week I mentioned that we launched Amazon Video On Demand (a project I've been working on). Today Walt Mossberg reviewed Amazon Video On Demand in The Wall Street Journal's Personal Technology section. His review was largely favorable, and the things he didn't like weren't under my control. He had a few complimentary things to say about my UI. :)

"The user interface is clean and smart, the quality is good if you have a fast Internet connection, and there are some clever features....

Amazon's user interface for the new service is very nice. All of your purchased videos are available in a library stored on the company's servers, so you can easily watch them again and again if they are purchased, or resume a partly watched rental. And the service remembers where you stopped watching a video and resumes it at that point, even if you started it on, say, a Dell, and resumed it on a Mac."

Read the full article (or watch the video): New Amazon Service Streams TV Shows And Films to PCs.

Baby bomb

I recently heard someone mention a friend of theirs who went into labor after being rear-ended in her car. It made me feel like a bit of a ticking time bomb.

I suspect Benjamin's seen me that way for a while though, based on the way he reacts when I say "ow." I guess I can't blame him--he was born about 2 months prematurely after what must have been a particularly vigorous vacuuming session by his mother.

More baby shower pictures

New mom by sben

S. Ben took some great pictures at the shower and posted them last night. Here's his set on Flickr. None of Benjamin or me in this set, but lots of cute kids. :)

Showered with babies

Rob and Keston by Corinne S.

Our big co-ed baby shower was today at Miller and Nathan's house. The place was flush with babies and it was great to see our friends. We received lots of adorable gifts and some seriously useful hand-me-downs. I only took two pictures, so hopefully Rob will post a bunch of his photos soon. I know he took a few that weren't just of his adorable son Keston. ;-)

Babysitting Dash

Dashiell sleeping well by Corinne S.

Last night I babysat Dashiell for about 4 hours starting at 8:30pm. It was in an effort to give his mommy some uninterrupted sleep (his daddy divided the time between working and sleeping). As you can see, Dash didn't give me a ton of trouble. ;)

A big project launches

A project I've been working on for some time now launched this week. It's the re-branding and change of direction of Amazon Unbox, now called Amazon Video On Demand. Rather than just offering digital video downloads to Windows PCs and TiVo DVRs, we now also offer instant streaming in the web browser on PC and Mac (or really any device with the latest and greatest version of Adobe Flash).

It's a pretty exciting change in direction and I'm really glad to have this initial version launched (especially before I go on maternity leave). You can check it out yourself or read about it in the press. The first 2 minutes of most videos are free, but there are also some free TV shows right now you can check out for a more extended freeview--they're featured on the home page linked above. :)

Birthday photos

A milestone in brownies by Corinne S.

I am working my way backward and posted photos from my birthday party (aka 4th of July). They're all in the Corinne's birthdays group on Flickr. S. Ben and others had already posted photos from this year's party there, but now mine are there, too.

Dashiell photos (belated)

Sweet face by Corinne S.

I just posted a few Dashiell photos I took 3 weeks ago. I'll take and post some new ones soon. You can see all the photos in the Dashiell and Amelia group on Flickr.

Our latest portrait

Blueberry's family--30 weeks by Corinne S.

Here's a photo of us from today. Blueberry is 30 weeks old now in gestational age and, as you can see, the nursery is now functional, if not complete. I posted some related photos as well that you can see at these links:

• Family portrait series
• Baby "Blueberry" set