"Is It Hot in Here or It's Just Me?"

When Wil replies to this question of mine, he's normally under 4 layers of blankets and sheets. Even though the sound is muffled and most of his body and head are covered, I can still hear the desperation in his voice and sense the piercing death ray that shoots out of his eyes. "Honey, it's 40 degrees outside and raining, all the doors and windows are opened, and the fans are on. It is most definitely not hot in here. Your thermostat is broken!" And itdeed it is. I have no ability to control my own temperature. I used to get chills at the beginning of pregnancy. Now I have mostly hot flashes, with an occasional cold spell. It's a really sick joke, Mother Nature. Last night we went to a Mexican restaurant and I thought I was going to pass out as soon as I walked through the door. I'm sure to other people, the warmth inside was a welcoming change to the manic weather outside. The hostess seated us and I practically swiped a glass of iced water out of her hands. Wil said the wives of the people who were seated next to us weren't entirely too happy with me when I started soaking napkins with cold water and put it on my neck, face, and chest, since it seemed to distract their husbands during dinner. Trust me, if I could have dinner in the bathroom, I probably would. But since it was a rare occasion that we actually made it out of the house to have a date night, I thought I could stick it out for my poor husband, who seemed rather amused with the swollen human who was wrapped in wet paper napkins seating opposite from him. In the ultimate romantic gesture, he blew out the lone candle at our dinner table. I did seriously think about going around snubbing out other people's candles, but that might be pushing my pregnancy luck a touch too far.

We had a fun weekend, finally. Wil's unit threw a really great Halloween party for the soldiers and their families on Friday. It had to be a bit early because our guys are heading out to the field again very soon. The kids were entertained by all kinds of bouncy castles, games, food and lots of candy. They even got to use their parents as paint ball targets. The soldiers got to relax a bit before trying to kill each other during a paint ball tournament. After dark, the paint ball trail was turned into a "haunted" trail to scare the happy memories of the day out of poor little children. Wil's section was responsible for the trail, which was on a side of a muddy hill and quite a challenge to navigate through in the dark. One of Wil's young soldiers took me as his charge and practically shepherded me around. He even chased the "ghosts" away from me. It was so incredibly sweet of him. Oh, and I really do know my man. I spotted him behind a mask hanging from a tree. In the dark! Needless to say, he limped home, was incredibly sore over the weekend, but thrilled that the event turned out perfectly.

In the Steinham household, trash talking during college football season can be considered a foreplay. We both really miss our Saturday ritual of football watching, so much so that we come up with a new tradition. We "watch" football on the internet now. By watching, I mean going to espn or cnnsi websites and waiting for the live update to come up on screen. We watch little red dots move. A few moments later, a caption will come up and say something like "Wells carries 5 yards to the 45th yard line. First down." Only true fans like us do this! By Sunday morning, espn.com normally has series of short video clips from all the games from Saturday up on their website. So that's another couple of hours of breakfast and football in bed for us. Wil had courtesy patrol duty again this past Saturday and naturally I couldn't sleep, so I was watching Auburn VS LSU game waiting for him to come home. The game started at 3 a.m. our time and I fell asleep just around the time the sun was coming up and there were about 7 minutes left in the fourth quarter. Crap. I knew it was going to come down to the last minute, as it always does when Auburn plays LSU. I was generally proud of the way Auburn played. Even though the offense couldn't do much, our defense put up a good fight and didn't just hand them an easy victory. I always like how we play LSU, winning or not. It's guaranteed to be very physical and tough--the epitome of what an SEC game should look like. LSU is a respectable opponent and I wouldn't mind one bit if they represent our conference in the national title game. Of course, I never can say the same thing about 'Bama or Ole Miss (OMG, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE VOLS?!?). Wil and his beloved Ohio State are still bragging about their undefeated season (c'mon, schedule strength?). If it ends up to be SEC VS Big Ten at the end again, we're going to have to find a real tv with live broadcast. And lots of witnesses to Mr. Steinham putting his pregnant wife in a choke hold.

Even the boys got to have their play date. There were at the park for over 2 hours, playing with a bunch of fun puppies, and of course, Guinness on Saturday afternoon. I still haven't remembered to bring the camera with me. Sigh.