Relaxing Weekend

I cheated a little bit on our chill-out weekend. I went in to work Saturday for a couple of hours to get caught up. It was a crazy week and I'm starting to train another Project Coordinator on my projects. It's weird having someone else take over the things I've been doing for a year. I'm more attached than I realized! But she's a hoot to work with and seems really sharp, so it will all work out. I'm planning to work until my due date, but we want to make sure she's ready to take over in case Little Guy comes early.

Yesterday was freezing cold and rainy, so I spent the rest of Saturday stretched out in the recliner reading a really dumb chick lit book. It was great. Today was a little busier. The weather was the best it's been in months - we actually saw the sun for more than a few minutes! We took a nice walk to the library. Well, it was nice on the way down. Adam had to sort of push me back up the hill when we walked home. I just love the little community we live in. We saw families out playing in the park, kids riding bikes, people walking their dogs... it's well worth the longer commute to live outside the city!

I enjoyed some cooking and baking today. I made potato leek soup in the crockpot (easy and delicious!), baked a sponge cake topped with strawberries, and made homemade granola bars. Ok, I cheated and used store-bought granola. It was fun, but my back and feet were really hurting afterwards!

I'm amazed at how good I still feel (knock on wood). Most days I feel pretty energetic. My biggest complaint is that I get frequent jimmy legs. It drives me nuts sometimes! The other night I was stretched out in the recliner, and I couldn't stop shifting my legs around. Little Guy must have had the jimmies too, because he was kicking me in the ribs non-stop, which made for an uncomfortable evening. I'm pretty sure he's already turned, because the past two days I've felt his hiccups low in my stomach.

Here are some photos of our new house we took today:

(I really need to hem those curtains. I bought a little hand-held sewing machine but gave up after sewing a bunch of jagged lines.)



Here's my easy recipe for Potato-Leek Soup:

4 cups diced potatoes
3 or 4 leeks
2 sliced carrots
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

Combine all ingredients in crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours.

Add dairy and spices in the last 20 minutes of cooking:

1/2 cups half-and-half, cream, or milk
1 cup shredded cheddar
salt and pepper to taste

Mash with a potato masher or mixer.

First Family Portrait

Here we are in our first family portrait! We had a nice breakfast at Claire's this morning and then headed to Babies R Us for picture-time. We also updated our registry, which was a little less daunting this time around because we knew what we were looking for. We picked out paint for Little Guy's room yesterday (blue and yellow), so we're making good progress on getting everything ready for him.

Next weekend is probably our last veg-out weekend for years to come! It's our last weekend before May when we have nothing planned and no errands to run. We're going out to dinner on Saturday night, but I might spend the rest of the weekend in my pj's watching movies and napping. My other big plan is to eat one of those Totino's Party Pizzas, which were a staple of my diet in college. Mmmm, disgusting but delicious!

Week 30, Day 1: What a Day!

Yay, Little Guy is 30 weeks along already! Before I recount my embarrassing day, let me say that I am so happy Little Guy is doing well, and all of the aches and pains and embarrassing stuff are well worth it.

It all started over the weekend when I went to the salon for the first time in over 3 months. I love the stylist I go to, but her salon is downtown and it's a pain to get to. But I braved the traffic on Saturday and was well rewarded with a great cut and a nice head and neck massage. This inspired me to take my personal hygiene routine up a notch and shave my entire legs. This has been a rare occurence during my pregnancy - at first I was too nauseous to care, and now I can't even see the upper parts of my legs (out of sight, out of mind).

Apparently shaving your legs blind is not a good idea. I now have a bad case of razor burn/heat rash/chafing that is made worse by my expanding legs and maternity pants that don't fit quite right. It got so bad yesterday that I bought some large band-aids to try to cover the area, but since I can't actually see the area, I ended up putting the adhesive over part of the rash, which of course made matters worse.

The situation wasn't any better this morning, so I stopped at the drugstore on my way to work and bought some gauze to wrap my thighs. I felt ridiculous trying to balance myself in the bathroom stall, wrapping myself up like a mummy. But it seemed to cover the area without sticking to it, so all was right with the world. That is, until I started to pull my pants up and caught sight of the tile floor THROUGH the seat of my pants. How was this possible? That's right, I discovered I had a 2-inch rip down the seam of my favorite maternity pants. Luckily as long as I stood perfectly straight, my shirt covered it. (At least as far as I could tell in the mirror. No one mentioned it, so that's good enough for me.)

The gauze worked for about an hour until my expanding thighs caused it to roll up in the middle, which made the chafing worse. So I rationed my trips to the bathroom and tried not to move from my desk until lunchtime. I decided that finding some biker shorts to wear under my pants was my only hope, and headed to Ross over lunch. I tried on a pair that I couldn't even get over my knees (maybe I was mistakenly in the little girl's department??), then gave up and got back into my rolled-up gauze and ripped pants. If you've never been pregnant, just imagine what it would be like to get dressed and undressed with a 25-pound watermelon strapped to your stomach. I was winded by the time I was ready to leave the fitting room, when I noticed that the bottom half of my pants were now COVERED in dust, dirt, and hair. If you've never been to a Ross, keep in mind that dirt-cheap clothes involve dirt-filled fitting rooms. At that point I faced the difficult decision of whether to take the pants off and try to brush them off, or find a way to bend down and brush them off without the dreaded undressing/redressing. I opted to contort myself by lifting my leg onto the fitting room bench and bent over backwards to brush the dirt off with my fingertips, a lengthy and grueling process.

My legs were really on fire as I walked back to work, and as I glanced around desperately for another option, the Macy's sign caught my eye. I hobbled in, found the most hideous pair of biker shorts, and went through the whole undressing/redressing routine again. The shorts actually fit (under my belly, of course) and seemed like they would protect my legs, so I forced myself to pay $30 for them (on sale!). Anyone who knows how frugal (or to be honest, cheap) I am knows how horrified I was to pay that much for something so ugly. All that money for a Nike symbol that was hidden under my belly anyway.

But the story has a happy ending - the hideous biker shorts did the trick. Hopefully I'll only be an 80's reject for the next couple of days until my rash heals. Then on to the next painful/embarrassing pregnancy symptom!

By the way, I will NOT be posting a picture of myself in the biker shorts. I showed them to Adam when I got home from work and he almost fell out of his chair.

Stocking Up

I didn't realize how much stuff we already have for Little Guy until I tried to organize it all yesterday! I'm still in the process of figuring out what we still need, but I know for sure that we are good to go on newborn/0-3 month clothes and blankets. We've received some nice hand-me-downs - Aunt Jenny sent a big box of clothes and Aunt Allison is sending some nice things to decorate his room. I fell in love with these wall stickers online, and it just happened that LG's cousin Ian had a similar theme for his room, so we'll soon have a quilt, mobile, and other things to match.

I just love the moon in his cap!

Later today we're going to pick up a hand-me-down swing from one of my co-workers. I was debating whether to buy one since I hear some babies don't like swings, but now we can give it a try.

If anyone has the urge to buy/hand-down anything for Little Guy, here are a few ideas:

- 6-9 month onesies/light sleepers (Aunt Jenny is sending some 3-6 month clothes soon, and with what we already have, we should be set for that size)

- books (he already has 4 on his shelf, including my copy of "Glory the Magic Unicorn" from when I was a kid!)

We are going to update our Babies R Us registry next weekend; we still need a few things like a bouncer, monitor, carseat/stroller combo, etc., so we'll pick specific ones to add to the registry. We prefer to buy our own bath products. I've done a little research on safecosmetics.org about chemicals in baby products, and there are certain things we want to avoid. Luckily there are many common brands that are perfectly fine, so we don't have to shell out a bunch of money for organics.

I got so emotional while going through Little Guy's stuff yesterday. My friend Julie made a "baby mix CD" for me, and this one song, "Capri," makes me cry every time! We're talking an all-out sob-fest. The first time I listened to it, Adam walked into the room and thought something was seriously wrong. Here's a link to the song on YouTube. Good luck. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bEvY6SyEvM. I am still in complete awe of our little miracle. I've never been this excited and terrified at once.

Time to head back to Little Guy's room for more organizing; hopefully with no waterworks today! Poor Adam is laboring away cleaning the bathroom right now. Our new bathroom is white from top to bottom and nearly impossible to clean, and I can't manuever around enough to even try anymore. I wouldn't trade a single day of this experience, but I am looking forward to having my mobility back in a couple of months!

I'm HUGE!

We're 28 weeks along! It's getting harder to find things to wear. Some maternity shirts are too short even!

We decided on Little Guy's name, but we're keeping it a secret until he's born! We're still calling him Little Guy for now.

He is growing so much. I can tell he's getting more cramped in there. Sometimes he shifts all the way around in my belly, which feels really weird when his elbow or knee is sticking out. I have started dreaming about him most nights, and he's often wriggling around like crazy or crying a lot. Probably not too far off from reality!

It's harder to move around now, and I breathe really hard a lot of the time. We went to see Watchmen last night at the theatre, and I ended up leaving a few minutes into the movie. I was miserable in the theatre seat - it was like a torture device.

We ordered some wall stickers for Little Guy's room, and I can't wait until they arrive. We have lots of painting, decorating, and furniture assembly to do, but we should have photos of his new room in the next few weeks.

Good News!

I had my glucose screening test (for gestational diabetes) two weeks ago, and the numbers came back high. I had to go back for a 3-hour test, and thankfully the dr says I passed that one with flying colors. Thank goodness...it wouldn't have been the same without my bedtime glass of Nesquik.

I have officially started the third trimester! The beginning of my pregnancy dragged so much; I remember counting down the days to each appointment. Now I'm glad time isn't moving any faster than it is. We're almost settled in our house, so next we need to get Little Guy's room ready, and every weekend in April is taken up with birthing/parenting classes. We're taking a birthing class, then two shorter classes for breastfeeding and infant CPR. I hear first babies often come early, so I'm not scheduling anything for May!

I'm starting to get even more nervous and excited now - there will be another person living in our house in only 12 weeks! I'm so excited to meet him, and also really nervous about how we'll handle it all. I think we'll do just fine, but I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for not being able to have things just so.

We had a fun day today. We picked out our new rocker/recliner, which will be delivered next Saturday. We spent twice as much as we planned, but we figured it was worth it to splurge since we'll be spending so many late nights in it. I'm looking forward to having it soon. I used to love stretching out on the floor to watch TV, but it's already a struggle to get myself back up. I'm already finding it difficult to bend down to pick things up. I'm going to be huge in 3 months!

This afternoon we walked to the downtown area from our house. It's about a mile (uphill both ways - no joke). Here's a view looking toward the waterfront/downtown area from our house:


It was a cloudy/drizzly day - on clear days it's amazing! Our walk downtown was great. We had lunch at a little restaurant called Claire's Pantry, and the food was delicious. I ordered fettucine alfredo, which I thought might be a mistake to order at a diner, but it was the best fettucine alfredo I've ever had. We checked out a cute little toy store and a bookshop, and visited the local library on our way back. It's a nice library with a good selection, and I'm excited to live so close! The downtown Seattle library is impressive, but it feels very industrial with all of the metal racks and crazy open architecture.

I better sign off - time for dinner!