Bumpdate: 18 weeks

Triple Bumpdate!

This was taken yesterday, on vacation in Flagstaff with Han and An, and yup, we are all pregnant together. It's so fun being pregnant with my closest friends.
My baby bump turned 18 weeks today; Han is 20 weeks along, and An is 29 weeks along.


And here's what my baby belly looks like as a snowman belly.

At 18 weeks, I am feeling energetic throughout the day, as long as I can sneak in a nap. By the end of the day I am pretty wiped out, but I do have occasional days where I am energetic even into the evening. I get indigestion if I don't eat often enough, or if I eat something weird (especially most fast food). I am very aware of my uterus, especially after I eat lunch - the belly definitely grows and gets harder to move and work around. I have been feeling the baby move for a couple of weeks now, just little wiggles, nothing you can see or feel from the outside quite yet. I love feeling those little wiggles and being reminded of the new life inside of me, the new member of our family. I am so curious about whether this baby is a boy or girl, what our family will look like in 5 more months, and how BB will respond to this new little person. I'm excited to finish media/toy unit so that we can start preparing the nursery. Right now there is so much unknown - we don't know whether baby is a boy or girl (and we even wonder if it could be twins (!!!!) since we haven't had an ultrasound yet!), we don't know what our childcare arrangement or my work situation will be after baby is born, we don't know how BB will handle all of these changes, and we have no idea what it will be like to take care of two kids rather than one. I am very blessed that J is an active and involved father, and there's a strong possibility that J will be teaching a class at the U of A next year in addition to his normal job, which will inevitably change the current balance in our parenting. I am trying to just take things step by step and not worry about every detail before it's time, and I have been mostly successful (which is unlike me), but it's all still swirling around in the back of my mind.

And that's what I'm thinking and feeling 18 weeks along with this precious new person.

Echup

J, BB, and I are sitting in a booth at In N Out on the way home from Flagstaff last night, and because BB has been strapped in his car seat for a couple of hours and we still have a couple more to go, I am letting him sit in the booth like a big boy rather than strapping him into a high chair.

J goes and grabs some napkins and I ask for some ketchup too, so that when the food comes I won't have to wait one extra second to start enjoying it. J returns and places the napkins and three little cups of ketchup on the table. BB points to the ketchup and declares "Echup!"

I think in my head Did he just say ketchup? No...he's never even had ketchup.

After a pause, J says exactly what I just thought. "Did he just say ketchup?"
"I know, I thought the same thing, but he's never had ketchup before, how would he know what it is?" We chalked it up to coincidence.

Our food came and we gave BB his grilled cheese sandwich whole, to see if he could hold it and eat it like a sandwich. We giggled as he tried to bite it perpendicularly, and I tore off some pieces for him to eat. J and I hadn't started in on our fries yet, so the ketchup cups were still in front of BB on the table, and I watched as he took a piece of his sandwich, reached his little arm over the table, dipped the grilled cheese in the ketchup cup, and then took a bite. He didn't get ketchup on his fingers or totally soak the bread, just dipped it delicately to apply an appropriate amount of ketchup and then enjoyed his saucy bite.

J and I looked at each other. "UM, I think he's had ketchup somewhere before!" and we burst into laughter.

Gnome Sweet Gnome

This is what our front doorstep looked like last week.


Everything's normal.....except THIS guy!

This little gnome randomly appeared on our doorstep last week. We don't know where he came from or who put him here on our doorstep. Part of me feels like I should pass him on to someone else's doorstep, just like he appeared on ours. All of this makes me very happy. It's just so fun. And I'm not the only one who enjoys our new little friend welcoming us gnome sweet gnome. BB loves to pet the gnome's hat and swing his lantern.

Smorgasbord

The pinkeye is back.

The antibiotics had kicked in almost immediately and BB was seemingly recovered (other than a lingering cough) from the pinkeye, ear infection, and cold symptoms, until yesterday morning when I went in to get him out of his crib and the eye goop was back, along with a rosy tone coloring his whole left eye. As the day went on, goop oozed out of his right eye too. After a call to the pediatrician, we have a stronger antibiotic eye drop to try. Oh joy, another 5 days of eye drops three times a day. Administering eye drops to a non-compliant, wriggling 20-month-old is no small feat. But I really am thankful that we leave in a country where I make a call to the pediatrician, who makes a call to the pharmacy down the street, where I go through the drive-through (aka, no need for removal from the car-seat) pharmacy and pick up medication that makes my son's life more comfortable and healthy. It's ridiculously convenient.

I almost had a panic attack the other night when I walked in the garage and saw what appeared to be a monstrously large just-built cabinet, one of two that would flank the TV console, and was convinced that wouldn't possibly fit in our living room, despite J's assurance that they were the measurements we had painstakingly spent hours planning and adjusting and taping to the wall and floor. To calm my anxiety, the next day while I worked J built the second cabinet and then moved the whole set up into the living room so we could see how they fit.
(Yes, he is Super-Husband.)
Turns out the size is just what I had been hoping for. :) So I snapped a picture before it all went back out to the workshop (garage).


Here I am with my Valentine, celebrating with dinner at the Melting Pot. J and I's first date was on Valentine's Day 10 years ago, just as friends. It was the night that changed the way I looked at him, and we have been each other's Valentines every year since.

Notice how the bump grows in the after dinner picture :)
(This dress, which I think is so beautiful, doesn't usually fit quite right, but I can never bring myself to get rid of it - I tried it on for Valentine's and it turns out it makes a great early maternity dress! Woohoo!)

Picnic with Daddy at the U of A fish and turtle pond last week

BB threw the fish and turtles our leftover bread



Speaking of bread, I made real bread, bread that used yeast and had to rise, using this recipe. The dough and the clean up were actually really simple, no kneading necessary. I photo-chronicled my very first loaf of bread's journey from creation to consumption.


The dough resting at room temperature on the counter


Baking


Fresh out of the oven


Sliced, slathered with butter and garlic, and toasted for a pasta dinner with friends.

These are the days of our lives....

Little Buddy

I burst out laughing when J combed BB's hair out after a bath and pointed out that BB's hair bears a striking resemblance to the menacing villain Buddy from The Incredibles.

I think BB looks a little diabolical here:

J says he combed BB's hair out like this to emphasize how long BB's hair has gotten, and that it's probably time for a haircut.....to which I reply, "Pssshhhhhhh".

(I just can't bear to cut it yet! How can I possibly want to change anything about this cutest-ever mister?)

Bumpdate: 15 weeks

Oh, the bump. Here it is at 15 weeks. Baby is approximately the size of an apple

(despite the balloon-like appearance of my belly).

Pregnancy-wise, once I crossed the 12-week mark (and got over that cold that just 3 weeks later I now have again), I felt much more like myself again. During the first trimester, I felt like sloth. No energy. I would lay on the couch and watch BB run around the living room and feel like the lamest mom alive. I was terrified thinking that these could be some of BB's first permanent memories of me, a sloth-like couch-dweller who lacked the energy to do anything other than the absolutely necessary. I was heartburny and nauseous, pausing between bites during meals to try and determine if yes, this was now the moment that I would break my no-actual-vomiting-during-pregnancy streak and would have to make a run for the bathroom. Week 7 was the worst, nausea-wise. I actually remember thinking "Did I feel this way with BB? How did I ever think I could do this again? This is so horrible, I don't think I can ever be pregnant again!" But no, I never actually threw up (I have an iron stomach, just like my mom - Outside of pregnancy I rarely ever feel nauseous, and the one time J and I ate somewhere and I was like "Ooh, I kind of don't feel good from that", poor J was hanging over the toilet with food poisoning.) And the nausea improved after that horrible 7th week.

And then the glorious second trimester began, and all of the sudden the energy I had had for just a couple of hours in the morning extended into midday, and I had motivation again! And desire to leave the house! I took BB to the park, and the zoo with friends, and we have been going to a playgroup once a week. I feel so much better. I am blessed to be able to nap during BB's nap most days (other than when I'm at work, of course), and although I don't always feel energetic in the afternoons and evenings, I am usually able to rally when needed and always feel better once I'm up and about. While I do have most of the classic pregnant symptoms, they are all pretty mild, and (other than when the insomnia strikes) I actually feel great. I forget that I'm pregnant sometimes, especially in the beginning of the day, and then I walk by the mirror and am surprised with a bulbous protruding belly.

This pregnancy has felt just as I remember BB's, right down to the 7th week being the hardest. Some people take that to mean we are having another boy. But while I feel the same physically, my food cravings have been totally different this time around - I want chocolate, cake with rich filling, key lime pie, milkshakes, sweets, sweets, and more sweets, which J takes to mean we are having a girl. With BB I craved fresh fruit and vegetables, lots of raw, unprepared foods and dessert? I could take it or leave it (which is so not like me).

BB seems pretty oblivious to the pregnancy so far. I like to tell him that he is going to have a baby in a little while, we are going to have a baby. I know he is going to change so much in the next few months and will understand more and more what it means to become a big brother.

With BB having pinkeye and an ear infection, we have been encouraging him to watch a movie as a way to get him to sit still and rest a bit here and there throughout the day. Otherwise he just wants to play, play, play. We have Horton Hears a Who saved on the DVR from last weekend and have been showing it to him the last couple days. He paid attention here and there but didn't seem too into it the first couple of days (he doesn't watch TV unless he's sick or at Granacky's house). This morning once breakfast was over, I sat down on the couch and BB ran up to me, climbed on the couch, saying "Ho...ho...ho..." - at first I was like, huh? and then I realized, oh, you want Horton! How cute is it that he requested it? I turned it right on for him and he laughed and squealed, pointed at Horton and said "Ho!", and said "hat" when Horton turns his ears into a swim cap. And he sat still for FIFTEEN MINUTES watching Ho. That Dr. Seuss knows what he's doing. Plus, Horton is teaching BB a lesson now that will only become more important when he becomes a big brother:

"A person's a person, no matter how small." - Horton

Playroom vs. Living Room

So we started building a media unit, using plans from here, which is this amazing website (that used to be called Knock-Off Wood, which was a much cuter name) that posts plans for furniture from places like West Elm and Pottery Barn. I had been wanting to start this project for a while, and I am so excited we are actually doing it. While we are calling this piece of furniture a media unit, in actuality it will be a toy unit, as we are in desperate need of living room toy storage, as while we call the living room a living room, in actuality it is a playroom. :)

Here's the Pottery Barn unit we (and when I say we, I mean J) are trying to build:

We will be adding a couple of extra doors onto this piece, for extra closed storage.
(And for the record, I have offered to help several times and been told that whatever step J's on is a one-person job) :)

But before we could get started, we needed to customize the measurements to our living room, which we did using painter's tape that we adjusted until we found the right height and depth for our space.

This tape has been up on our walls ever since, mainly because it reminds me that soon, very soon, the toys will all be behind closed doors, and during nap times and bedtime we can at least pretend that this room is, in fact, just a living room.

Our garage has been converted into a sawdust-covered, tool-strewn workshop, but one of the contingencies of J hosting a Superbowl party on Sunday was that he sweep up the garage, so when I snapped a picture of the unit so far this morning the garage was still in this pristine state.

Doesn't it look great so far?

Unfortunately, the project is getting put on hold this week, as J and I have colds and I took BB to the pediatrician yesterday because he had a runny nose, a cough, and I was pretty sure he had pinkeye. Dr. Bean confirmed that yes, he indeed has pinkeye, as well as his first ear infection. So we started him on antibiotics last night, and hopefully we all feel better again soon.