olympic fever...

So not only is Christmas just around the corner...but so is the Olympics and I.can't.wait.

I can't tell you enough how much I love the Olympics! It's the one time every couple of years when I park myself in front of the television for hours on end in a mad attempt to catch as much of it live as possible. I just love the joy, the excitement, the patriotism and the way it seems to bring the whole world together.

I actually went to school with the intention of working for the Olympics and quickly realized that a life on the Olympic committee conflicted greatly with my home-body personality and the Olympics ended up being better enjoyed from the comforts of my living room instead! Meh...it seemed like a good idea at the time!

Luckily for me, my maternity leave happens to be timed quite conveniently with the opening ceremonies which may mean a couple of weeks of uninterrupted Olympic watching on HD!!!! Way to go Baby Boy Smyth!!

Anyways, with the Olympics only being a few short months away, this past weekend we welcomed the Olympic Torch Relay to the Nation's Capital and it was the absolute perfect winter weekend to do so! Roughly a hundred different runners carried it through our city and the enthusiasm it created was palpable! Every where you turned, someone had Olympic fever...most of all, myself!

So Steve and I bundled up, headed out in the cold to greet the Flame as it crossed the bridge from Quebec to Ottawa and contributed our bit of Olympic spirit to the nation wide excitement! As it turns out, we managed to cross paths with it four times throughout the day instead of just the once which just kept the party going...

Below is a great YouTube video put together of the Flame's visit to Ottawa, as well as a couple of highlights from our day!!

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Bryan Murray (GM of the Ottawa Senators) & I, waiting for the Flame to arrive...

The Flame making its way down from Nepean Point...

The hand over...

The scene in the ByWard Market later that afternoon...

YouTube video (and great virtual tour of Ottawa!!!)...

I'd like to thank the academy...

So, somehow, with me barely noticing it…I entered my third trimester with “Lil’ Fisher” (as he’s being lovingly dubbed by Aunt Lindsay!)! We have less than three months left before our little man makes his appearance and I feel the need to mention how overwhelmed I am at how loved he is…and not just by us.

This little boy, that we have yet to meet, has been spoiled rotten with love and affection already in every way imaginable. And Steve and I are the least guilty of the culprits so far!!

I get that pregnancy isn’t easy for everybody (including me at times as I barfed all over Italy this summer!!!) but I still can’t help but relish in how much fun it is! I can’t help but wake up every morning and think “Oh man…there is a little person growing in there!!” Seriously…it blows my mind! Steve and I spend a good chunk of our evenings laughing at his elbow drops and somersaults and given how active he is, he has proven to provide endless entertainment for my colleagues on a daily basis!!

All in all…he cracks me up!

As do pre-natal classes for that matter!! Actually, with all due respect to the City of Ottawa and their nurses who are assigned the task of explaining to us “where babies come from”…but pre-natal classes are painful to sit through!!! In fact, I’m kind of surprised that we didn’t get kicked out for being little shit disturbers! But really, how is anyone expected to sit through these classes with a straight face when you have a middle-aged nurse with her fly down, explaining the likes of labour with a foam pelvis?!?! Let’s be fair!

And then there was the lesson on “skin-to-skin”; the new school of thought that some hospitals are taking regarding your first contact with your baby after birth (blanket vs. direct skin contact). I have to wonder why they came up with that name above all others because isn’t “skin-to-skin” what got us into this pre-natal class in the first place?!?!?

On another note…we’ve chosen a name (don’t ask…we’re not telling!) and I LOVE IT!

My biggest (and only) objection with having a boy was that Steve and I, in all the years that we’ve been together, were never able to agree on a name in the event that we had a son instead of a daughter. So when we first found out, all I could envision were constant “vetoes” being thrown around the house as we plowed our way through the alphabet! And it was actually like that for a little while…so much so that the name “veto” started to sound somewhat appealing!!

But then we found it…and it’s amazing! I can’t wait to share it with you in due time!

So I’ll end off this rather long-winded post with a few well deserved thank-yous;

Thank you City of Ottawa for providing us with some of the very best laughs of our adult life as we sat through the twenty year old, over dubbed video on breast-feeding. Classic!

Thank you to Virgin Radio and its morning show for giving us the best.name.ever. We’ll be sure to make you a part of his musical education when he turns eighteen and the echo of your on-air sexual innuendos stop being a reason for social services to make a visit to our house!

And lastly…thank you to our friends and family for loving our son so much. He’s seriously the luckiest little guy ever…

excuses, excuses...

Being pregnant makes me sleepy.

Being sleepy makes it hard to blog.

Blame my son!