Last Tuesday I went to my doctor's office for the weekly non-stress-tests that start at week 32 (because I am over 35). I have had a completely easy and normal pregnancy - have not been sick once, whether morning, cold or flu; have had no odd test results and no difficulties whatsoever. So I was texting and emailing away - basically getting work done during the 20-minute test when you're supposed to relax, when I glance over at the paper being spit out of the monitoring machine and think "I wonder what those little hills are."

Then my doctor comes in and says "those little hills are contractions, and you're having them every five minutes, so you will be going to the hospital!"

Bill came to meet me and we spent the day at Missouri Baptist L&D Triage. They got me on fluids and eventually gave me a shot to slow the contractions. I got to go home that evening and have been on bed rest and meds to slow the contractions since, and will be until at least February 18th when we hit 36 weeks. I'm still having frequent contractions but hopefully being laid up will mean they are causing less of an impact on my cervix and the whole process. I can't believe I just used the word cervix on my blog.

My husband was supposed to leave for a ski trip on Thursday (why he chose to schedule a trip when I'm at 33 weeks is an entry for another day), and it took some serious convincing (crying) to get him to change his plans. That being said, he has been an incredible care-taker the last six days - he is a saint!

Asking a person like me to sit still for 23 hours a day is sort of like asking a cat to stop scratching the furniture. Or a honeybadger to stop eating cobras. I have the best of intentions, I really do. It's just not in my nature. That being said, I am making it work from home and feeling good, and am so grateful to keep a healthy Blueberry baking as long as I can.

Here are my tricks for not going insane on bed rest:

• Marry a saint
• Enlist friends and family for help - from switching out the laundry and changing the sheets to going to the grocery store
• Have a very snuggly kitty cat or pooch
• Go to sleep, wake up and eat meals at normal times
• Shower first thing in the morning
• Make a list every day of the things you'd like to accomplish, even if they are small (pay 5 bills), then check them off as you go
• Have pre-set times the television can be on; there's a reason your parents did this - because it rots your brain! I do not turn the TV on until 5pm at the earliest, usually closer to 7 or 8
• Use the time to catch up with old friends and emotionally prepare for baby!

I'm very lucky that my bed rest is for a finite period of time, very close to the finish line. I'm also lucky because we know that even if Blueberry were born today, in all likelihood he would be perfectly healthy, he'd just have to spend his first weeks of life in the NICU instead of the comfort of his home and parents' arms. So, it's very easy for me to feel positive about the whole thing. I know others have a different story!

Let's see whether being stuck on the couch/in bed will lead to more blog posts! I hope so! I have big plans.

So we have T-Minus-9-Weeks until the official arrival of Blueberry McTeasdale.

That's the nickname we've given the boy on the way. Blueberry comes from reading a baby book at week seven that said the baby was about the size of the berry. My friend Jillian joked on the day of our 18-week ultrasound that if it was a girl we'd have to change it to Pinkberry. I was happy it would still be a foodstuff. And McTeasdale is what I still propose to my husband that he change his name to, when he gets annoyed that I did not legally take McGowan.

I actually think Blueberry McTeasdale is better than some real names we see, and I imagine it's going to be hard for me to let go of "Blueberry" when the little one finally arrives and we have to assign him a more formal moniker.

I try never to say anything negative about baby names, but I think it's safe, since this person is a celebrity and since it's already been published on a variety of "worst baby names" lists, to say that my least favorite name we've ever sewn is that of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's youngest child Buddy Bear Maurice Oliver. That's right: Buddy Bear is his first name; Maurice is his middle name. Before you start feeling too badly for Buddy Bear, keep in mind that his sister's names are Poppy Honey Rosie, Daisy Boo Pamela, and Petal Blossom Rainbow. Maybe they let the cast of the Electric Company name their children.

None of these names pass my first rule of baby names, the Supreme Court Justice Test. The test is very simple: put "Chief Justice" before your baby's name and see how it sounds. "Chief Justice Buddy Bear Maurice Oliver" sounds like the punchline of a joke that includes a priest and a talking penguin, right? I mean, "Chief Justice Blueberry McTeasdale" sounds less ridiculous, yes?

How does this happen?

Well, we had a fantastic and crazed holiday season, which apparently kept me from blogging. I have so much to report but for now I'm going to keep it short and sweet:

Makaboo got all of its holiday orders out on time - by the skin of our teeth! Our lovely sewing and packaging elves worked night and day to stay ahead of the curve and we were even able to take off Christmas Eve.

Speaking of packaging elves, two of our talented part-time staff who are seniors in high school were accepted early to their top college choices: Washington University and Yale University! We are so proud of them and we're especially excited that one of them will be local next year.

I am now 30 weeks' pregnant and we are having a BOY. I am exiting the cute pregnant phase and entering the just plain very pregnant phase. There's a lot of loud, random exhaling and grunting when I get out of chairs.

Two of my husband's brothers and their spouses have announced that they are also expecting this year, though in both cases it will be their 4th child. This means that by fall, our little one, who we call Blueberry McTeasdale, will have 27 first cousins.

Here's to a fantasic 2012 filled with new adventures!

Last week I wrote that my husband Bill transported wildlife across state lines. That was a mistatement. My words were taken out of context. Mistakes were made.

He did not transport 5 possums and 4 squirrels from Missouri to Illinois, because that would be illegal. Also, I did not run into Robin and Jean Carnahan at Bar Italia last weekend, and they did not say that they also take their caught wildlife across the river. Nothing like that ever happened.

It's been awhile since I've written about any raccoons. And that's because I haven't been bitten by one in a whole year. 

So, let me remind you about where we live, and why being attacked by a raccoon in my backyard in broad daylight came as a real surprise. We live in the middle of a very urban neighborhood. Two blocks from a Starbucks. Three blocks from a movie theater. 4 blocks from a hospital. It's not the country. Look, I made a little map to show you:

Last Tuesday, in preparing *our* nest for our pending arrival, we finally decided to call Critter Control about the squirrel nest we believed was in our attic. Only when critter control came out, they said it wasn't a squirrel nest but a raccoon nest.

Critter Control charges $90 per live animal removed, and they said that raccoons are notoriously hard to catch. Somehow, Bill took this as a challenge. 4 large, live animal traps from Home Depot and some cat food later, we were in business.

Wednesday morning Bill ventured into the backyard to discover all 4 traps sprung - by 3 possums and a squirrel. I commented that we would probably not catch any raccoons if smaller, dumber animals kept occupying our traps before raccoons had the opportunity. This resulted in Bill driving to Home Depot to buy 4 more traps. He also drove to East St. Louis, Illinois to release the possums and squirrel, operating on the assumption that it would be really hard for them to cross the Mississippi River.

Thursday morning, with all 8 traps online, Bill caught 3 squirrels and 2 possums, and conned one of his employees into driving the animals to Illinois. I could tell he was disappointed in the day's haul.

And then, JACKPOT. I couldn't sleep well on Thursday night and ended up moving to the guest room, which is right off of the backyard. Between 3 and 4 AM I heard three traps go off. Trapper Bill would be pleased. The next morning when I peered out the guest room window I discerned one very big, very ticked off raccoon in the only trap I could see clearly. 

I tiptoed into our room and, like a mother waking the little ones on Christmas morning, said "Billllyyyyy... there's something outside for you!" Bill hopped down the stairs half-dressed to discover: 3 raccoons, 1 possum, and the meanest tom cat in the neighborhood, who's been beating up our kitty for more than 2 years! All in one night!

We entered into a lengthy negotiation on the difference between transporting possums and squirrels across state lines versus raccoons, all while Bill is attempting to cover the meanest raccoon's cage with a towel, using a rake for distance, only to have the coon grab the towel and hurl it back at Bill with gutteral exclamations and complete bolidy abandonment that we really should have recorded to scare the bejesus out of our kids some day. I reminded him that we would look especially stupid having to go back to the ER for a second raccoon wound within 12 months - come on, this is not Animal Hoarders!

Thank GOD, just as the argument reached a breaking point, a guy from Critter Control showed up to check the one cage that they had installed themselves, on the roof - and found a 4th raccoon!! Bill acquiesed to the $90 per animal fee and the guy threw in the live possum for free. Lucky us! He said they take the raccoons to a "farm" one of the employees owns. I bet my pet fish Celery is there too. And Bill dropped the cat off at the humane society, which for this cat was an especially kind thing to do.

We were both so wired by the whole experience that we didn't get any good photos. There's one below of two of the raccoons in the critter control van, and another of our kitty Me sniffing at the cage that held his sworn enemy.

So the grand tally for Bill's 72-hour trapping extravaganza came to: 5 possums, 4 squirrels, 4 raccoons and a mean old tom cat. It's like Appalachia over here. We had to take a break so that Bill could go back to his day job.

That being said, we're considering picking back up tonight. If you are interested in a live rally squirrel we might be willing to make a deal.

It's remarkable how many people ask me how many kids I have (instead of whether I do). Sure, I'm 34, and I run a kids' related business, so it's only natural that it will come up in conversation. What surprises me is the surprise many seem to register when they learn that I don't have children. I often end up telling the story of the diapers.com founders: they picked diapers not because of any passion for the subject (duh!), but because they did exhaustive research on Google to determine what markets were being underserved, and diapers came up at the top of the list. Parents were searching for diapers online, and no fantastic sites were responding to their needs.

To me, Makaboo is of the same vein, only the original idea came from personal experience instead of Google research: I was buying a lot of baby gifts, and as someone who worked 50-60 hours a week and lived in a different city than many friends, I was buying all of my gifts online. Whenever I searched for a fantastic, unique baby gift online, I came up short. I saw an opportunity and had the background, skills, resources and network to take advantage of that opportunity.

Stated another way: my decision to launch Makaboo had nothing to do with my gender or my (nonexistent) experience as a parent. It had to do with my experience as a consumer.

In the last two years, as I've been asked over and over how old my kids are, I've also become aware of how many media and business opportunities are open only to "momtrepreneurs". Whether it be high-profile media contests or business plan competitions/funding opportunities, there's a huge demand for stories of women who own businesses and have children. Which to me begs the question: why aren't there competitions for men who run businesses and have children? And what about my *not* having children makes the Makaboo story - or my own - any less compelling?

So, it's with some professional ambivalence that I share the very exciting news that my husband and I are expecting. We're due on St. Patrick's Day, which is very exciting to my uber-Irish hubby. I have to admit, I'm a bit of a rebel and I've enjoyed bucking the expectations of so many by being just a plain-old childless, female entrepreneur. I don't have a great deal of anxiety about making it all work: Bill and I will find a way to serve our businesses and our new family well. And hey, I guess now I can apply for all of those momtrepreneur programs I keep seeing! Even though the word makes me more squeamish than my morning sickness does.

We are so excited to be featuring Stephen Joseph personalized backpacks, lunchboxes and binders on Makaboo!

We scoured the market in search of monogrammed backpacks that are high-quality, durable and adorable, and we finally found the perfect match.

We've launched with three styles of backpacks, one set of lunchboxes, and even binders for the older kids! They're already doing well, and we look forward to adding more Stephen Joseph products in the coming months. If you have a favorite Stephen Joseph product or design, let us know.

Stephen Joseph Personalized Backpacks - Large

Stephen Joseph Personalized Backpacks - Small

Stephen Joseph Personalized Quilted Backpacks

Stephen Joseph Personalized Binders

Stephen Joseph Personalized Lunch Box

Holy cow it is ridiculous how long it's been since I've blogged!

Let's see: what's happened at the Boo since July?

- I went to Northern Michigan with 12 other Teasdales ages three to seventy-six. I heard recently that sojourns with family are called "trips" and sojourns with just spouses or spouses and friends are called "vacations". I think this is fair.

- I went to New York twice; once for ENK's Kids Show, and once for the International Gift Fair. It's pretty incredible what qualifies as a gift these days. No one's ever given me a $50,000 chandelier.

- We had a fantastic August - our 2nd-best month ever, which is pretty remarkable for a non-holiday month!

There's never a good excuse for being quiet, but I can promise that I've been busy! We have a number of exciting projects and efforts underway - that I'm not allowed to talk about! It's sort of like asking a four-year-old not to eat the marshmallow in front of her. It's going to be hard, but I can do it!

Stay posted.

We're very excited to be on this year's A-List! A big thanks Saint Louis Magazine and its editors for naming us best local online retailer! We will be partying down at the big event this Thursday!

Makaboo stopped by Show Me St. Louis on Friday for a toddler fashion show and I think it was our most hilarious live tv outing yet. Note 2.5-yr-old Max B. smacking his belly with panache, 3-yr-old Maren bunny-hopping her way into the spotlight, and 5-yr-old Max P. making faces at himself in the monitor. They'll have us back in no time, right?!?

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/266277/12/Makaboo