Birthing Class and Pomegranates

I gave Houdini and Abbey a bath on Friday. They always look good after a bath so I wanted to take pictures of them outside where Abbey's eyes might not look like lasers. Well Abbey was still so scared of me from getting a bath that she wouldn't come or sit or stay. But Houdini was a good boy and I got some good pictures of him looking all nice and clean and handsome.
*****************************************

As I mentioned in my last post, at our last doctor's appt. we asked about birthing class and when to sign up. So I called that afternoon when we got home to try to set something up. The only two classes available that we could take were either this past Saturday and next Saturday for 8 hrs a day or two weekends in March, same schedule, when I was at 38 wks. At first I signed up for the one in March, feeling like the one right now was a little too early. Then I talked to Aaron and he was concerned that we might miss everything because we could have the baby by that time. So I called and changed it and off to class we went on Saturday. I think we both felt like we needed to take it, but we both were a little apprehensive about what we were going to encounter in this class. I had a picture in my head, compliments of my sister, of a lady teaching the class who was a new hippy with loose clothes, beads, high pitched voice, and completely out of touch with the reality of normal people--thank you Hollywood! But fortunately the instructor was great. She has two kids of her own and another due on Feb. 5th and she was extremely practical and down to earth and gave great information on things we needed to know but probably could have never thought to ask about having never had a baby before. She told us a lot of stuff about how to breath, the process of how labor works, when to go into the hospital, what happens after you get to the hospital, etc. We also took a tour of the hospital and she showed us where everything was and explained where we'd be and what we'd be doing during the whole process. We'll go back next Saturday and then be done.
One of the suggestions she made, which was definitely not essential to the birthing process, but that Aaron and I both though was kind of cool, was to pick out a scent to associate with relaxation and then take it to the hospital when you had your baby. The scent could help you relax but also you would associate that scent for the rest of your life with your baby. So when we went to Wal-Mart for our weekly grocery shopping last night, Aaron decided that we should go ahead and try to pick something out. We went to the candle aisle and he found pomegranate scented oil for an oil burner. He had given me pomegranate soap for Christmas. I really like the smell but I wasn't too sure that it was "the one" for our baby, but I leaned over to smell the oil and right after I smelled it Maddy moved really hard so we decided she liked pomegranate and that would be the scent we'd pick. I was kind of worried it would be hard to find stuff that smelled like pomegranate, but no worries! Thanks to Hollywood again--who I learned when I was looking about stuff on pomegranates this morning on the internet--had pomtinis at the Oscars this year. I guess pomegranate is really in as a smell right now becuase there is a pomegranate juice craze going on right now since it is a super antioxidant rich fruit. We found candles and lotion in addition to the oil. I don't know if they have essential oil in pomegranate flavor but we'll look. So Maddy's smell is going to be pomegranate. I was even more excited we picked this after I started thinking about it because I remember a sermon our preacher at Ft. Collins did about pomegranates being a symbol of righteousness and God's everlasting love for his people. The priests were supposed to embrioder pomegranates on the hems of their robes and pomegranate were used as decorative elements in the temple.