Nope, not yet.

"No, no baby yet" has become my standard greeting on the phone to friends and family.

We're here, still waiting, and while growing in impatience each day, I'm still mostly OK with Baby taking her time. After all, my due date is just Monday, so she's not even late yet. I'm feeling fine, and may even be experiencing a little bit of an energy surge that I've read about (wait, is that a sign of pre-labor, or pre-pre-labor?).

I've decided that my labor-by-design plan would be to start contractions at home in the wee hours of the morning next Wednesday. At a reasonable hour, we calmly call Joe's sister Jeri in Kentucky to let her know that we may not be at home when she and Josh arrive in the afternoon as planned. Then, we take Calla to her regularly scheduled day care, and on the way back, stop by the hospital. Baby is born sometime that afternoon, leaving Joe enough time to make it home for Calla's bedtime before rejoining me in the hospital to stare adoringly at our new baby.

Sounds good, right? Just not sure how to get that plan across to the little girl who's actually in charge of the plan's implementation.

And speaking of little bossy girls... a follow-up to my last post. This morning, Joe suggested to Calla that Mama start up the CD with her favorite song on it. Calla looks seriously at him and then at me, and back to Joe again. "You do it, Daddy. Mama will cry. And then she'll break it."

She can't remember that 13 follows 12, but she clearly recalls my legacy of crying over a jammed CD player. Good times.

Here's to more family memories in the making...