Pregnancy
Randomness
Jan 25th
A few random things that have been running through my head:
Baby Shower: Awesomeness
My friends Nicole and Adrienne threw a baby shower for us, and it was fabulous. I love an excuse to get together with friends and family, and it was the perfect sized gathering – we could all hang out and visit together instead of splitting into smaller groups. Of course we received some awesome gifts, and I had a great time. I got to stay late and visit with my high school friends and a friend from college, so that was fun too. We are so blessed to have such great friends and family…Ryan and I are both really lucky that way. *commence puking from the sappiness*
Things that make me irrationally angry/frustrated (but not really)
Snickers Fudge candy bars: I tried this new concoction, thinking that I like Snickers and I like fudge, so how could I go wrong? Well, let me tell you: they take the caramel out of the Snickers to put the fudge in! Why would you do such a thing? I was very disappointed in the whole experience. Thankfully I have learned my lesson. No more Snickers Fudge candy bars for me.
The weather in Duluth: it is pissing me off lately. We live in Northern Minnesota (at least by most people’s standards. My parents live in REALLY Northern Minnesota, but the rest of the world doesn’t acknowledge that the state extends that far North. That is a whole ‘nother discussion, though). It is expected to be cold and/or snowy here from basically early November until the end of March. We do sometimes get a “January thaw”, but that means a few days where it reaches 32*. And usually it’s accompanied by a crapload of snow (side note – did you know it can be too cold to snow? I don’t know the scientific reason why – I’m no meteorologist – but I know that if it’s 0* or below it won’t usually snow). This year, we are getting rain. At least in the part of Duluthwhere I live (at the bottom of the hill, near the lake). I hear they have snow over the hill, but down here by the lake it rained all weekend and was near 40*. What the heck is up with that?
Normal people would say “Aren’t you glad you don’t have all that snow?” But they would be mistaken. I am not glad. Because it rained all weekend and our parking lot/roads/driveways/sidewalks got all wet, and then the temp fell below freezing. And it’s supposed to cool down even more, to the point that the salt they use to melt the ice won’t work. And so we have a perpetual ice skating rink pretty much everywhere you go. It is annoying and dangerous. And my balance is bad enough these days without adding a layer of ice between my shoes and the ground. Arg.
Just one pregnancy-related rant: I have enjoyed my pregnancy for the most part. I mean, yah, I have some joint and back pain, and it’s hard to get around. But for the most part I’ve had a pretty easy time of it, and I like feeling our little boy kicking and moving around. And Ryan and I are in a good place to be having a child, which I know isn’t always the case for people. So yah…I’m enjoying it.
The thing I’m not enjoying as much? People assuming that I am “SO ready to be done.” I get asked at least 3 or 4 times a week (usually by strangers) if I’m ready to just have this baby already. And I know they mean well, but jeebus. First of all, I’m not even “full term” yet (tomorrow!). Secondly, it’s not like things will suddenly get easier once the baby is here. In fact, I have a feeling they will be much more difficult. Very rewarding, of course, but still. Right now I can still do stuff around the house that requires both hands, and I can take a shower or a nap or read a book whenever I want to. And even though I’m not sleeping the best, I can still lay in bed when I’m having trouble sleeping; there’s no one crying that I need to go pick up and soothe/feed/change. So yah…I’m good with him staying put for a couple more weeks, or however long he needs. Now if I’m pregnant still the last week in February my answer might be different. Ask me then if I’m ready to be done. (ps, if anyone that reads this has asked me that question, I’m not talking about you, I swear! It’s the strangers that ask that bugs me more than anything).
I can’t think of anything else that I want to rant about (except the Vikings, but others have done plenty of that for me), and it’s lunch time (leftover lasagna and the 5th book in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris (the books True Blood is based on)). Sounds like a good time to me.
Delurking Day
Jan 14th
It’s apparently national delurking day on the internetz, and I personally wouldn’t want to delurk on a ranty post like the one previous to this one, so I’m adding a new one.
If you’ve been reading and not commenting now’s your chance to tell us what you think. But be warned; I’m almost 9 months pregnant. I cannot be held responsible for my reaction to negative comments. Probably it would involve crying, and no one wants that. So lie if you have to*, but leave us a note!
*Yes, I realize I just asked you to tell us what you think and then suggested you lie about it, which would seem to defeat the purpose. I’m almost 9 months pregnant. Have I mentioned that? Rational thought has mostly escaped my brain at this point. Does that frighten anyone else? There’s still a month left of this.
It’s about time!
Jan 6th
I finally updated the blog roll to be more reflective of the stuff in my Google Reader. There were quite a few links that had been missing, so I feel better now.
I also had Ryan add my twitter account to the sidebar. I feel all fancy. Woo. Unfortunately, I’m not very witty, so my Twitter account isn’t very exciting. Oh well. One step at a time.
Ack. It’s after 10. Definitely time for bed. Here’s hoping I can sleep most of the way through the night. My back has been bothering me more lately, and that’s made it hard to get a good night’s sleep. I also managed to twist my ankle while disassembling the Christmas tree yesterday (because I am that smooth-I wasn’t doing anything crazy, I promise!). Hopefully I can make it the rest of the way through pregnancy without further injuring myself.
Conversations
Jan 5th
Ryan: I have to go up to [apartment complex his workplace services] today after work. I’ll drop you off at home and head up there. (We carpool to work)
Me: OK. How long do you think you’ll be?
Ryan: Between 20 minutes and 5 hours.
Sadly, this is not a surprising answer, and he wasn’t really joking. It’s been over an hour so far. This does not bode well for the apartment cleaning we were going to get done, although the overtime is nice. Especially with my maternity leave coming up.
What’s that? You think I should do the cleaning on my own while he’s gone? HAHAHAHA. I can barely put my own socks and shoes on these days so picking stuff up off the floor is definitely out, and I can hardly reach the faucet to turn on the water, much less stand over the sink to do the dishes. I was going to sweep/mop and dry the dishes after Ryan washed them, so it’ll have to wait.
In exciting news, the cloth diapers we will be using arrived in today’s mail, and they are SO CUTE. Seriously – adorable. We have 6 different colors, and I like them all. I’m sure they’ll be much less adorable once they are in use and full of poop. We ordered the BumGenius 3.0 diapers. We have some friends who use them, and they like them a lot. I’ll try to remember to let you know how they work for us. One word of advice they did give us was to not let the diaper pail sit for more than a day. Apparently it is not pleasant. I can only imagine.
We also had my 34 week appointment today. The baby is head down, and I’m measuring exactly right. The Doctor asked if we had the hospital bag packed yet. We don’t, and she suggested that we should probably have it ready by our next appointment in 2 weeks. That makes it all even more real. At most I have 8 weeks left of being pregnant. More likely it’ll be less than that. Yikes.
Well, I suppose I should get to the picking up I can do around here. Ryan just called and is on his way home with Erberts & Gerberts (only an hour and a half tonight! woo!).
A quickie
Dec 2nd
Thanksgiving was awesome. We came home with a truck full of baby stuff, thanks in part to my sisters passing things down and in part to the 2 (TWO!) surprise showers over the weekend (some of the family couldn’t make it all the way to my hometown for the one, so they threw their own). We also ate lots of yummy food, as is required. The potato dumplings were fabulous, and we have leftovers in the fridge, ready to fry up when we get a chance. And of course there was pumpkin pie, which is my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner.
Ryan and I are attending the Labor & Delivery class from the hospital. It runs 6-9:30pm Tuesday through Thursday this week. Since Ryan doesn’t get off work until 5 it means a few meals eaten out and on the go this week, and straight to bed when we get home. But, so far the class has been helpful and pretty cool. We got to tour the birthing center last night, and it set my mind at ease about a lot of things (wireless monitoring of baby’s heartbeat and my contractions, so I’m free to move around and even shower if I want to; all the rooms are singles, so no chance of a roommate you don’t know or don’t like; wireless internet available (I have my priorities in order, obviously)).
Hopefully I’ll get to a more extensive post soon. Maybe even with pictures that I will steal from facebook since we forgot our camera.
3-Day Week
Nov 23rd
I am so happy there are only 3 days of work this week I can hardly stand it. I am anxious to go home, and excited to see my family (although I’ll miss having one of my sisters and her husband and kids there). There will be lots of laughing and eating and baby talk, I’m sure. Now, if I could just get someone to come do all this work on my desk before Wednesday…
Speaking of baby talk…well, there’s not much to say. We still don’t have a name picked out, or even any serious contenders really. I’ll be 28 weeks tomorrow or Wednesday (depending who you ask), and we have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. We have one more month-long break between appointments and then we start going every two weeks, which seems crazy. Crazy in how quickly time flies, not crazy that we would see the doctor that often. It’s getting to the time where I should be coming up with questions about labor & delivery and stuff, but I don’t have many questions so far about that. Or at least none that I can think of off the top of my head. I plan to do a natural birth with no drugs. I know other people who have done it, and I’m a big believer in the “you can do anything for a (relatively) short period of time,” philosophy. I need to sit down and write out a birth plan, mostly because it will make me feel more organized, but also because it will be something to refer people to when they are asking me questions and I can’t remember what I wanted because I’m focused elsewhere. I also plan on staying away from the hospital as long as possible. I don’t want to go in too early, and I’m sure time will pass more quickly if I’m doing something other than hanging out in the birthing center. Considering we live only 5 minutes from the hospital I’m not worried about waiting too long.
All of this is a little overwhelming to me, but exciting at the same time. I remember when we first found out I was pregnant, and thinking how far away all of this seemed. Like it would take forever to get to this point. And yet it feels like time has flown by. I’m almost 7 months pregnant. There are only 3 months left. And I am so excited to meet our little guy.
Now if he would just tell us what his name is…
Things that make my day:
Nov 18th
Aside from this cold hanging on by it’s scratchy gross fingernails, I am having a great day. There are a few things contributing to this:
- My friend, Gwen, sent me pictures of her son, who is just over 2 weeks old. We saw them the day he was born (it was the day we flew out East), and he’s just SO CUTE. I can’t wait until I can hold my little one.
- It is Wednesday, which means that there are only 2 1/2 days of work left this week, and next week is Thanksgiving. Only a week left until we get a nice long weekend to go visit family.
- My mom just informed me that she plans on making potato dumplings on Friday while we are home. I LOVE potato dumplings. And in case you have never had the pleasure of trying them, they are basically ground up potatoes mixed with flour and boiled. You serve them with butter and salt and bacon (or side pork if you can get it), including “drippings” (aka grease). They are extremely heavy, but they taste sooo good. And in the morning, if there are leftovers, you slice them up and fry them and they are even better. You can’t get them in restaurants (at least not outside of my hometown, that I’m aware of), and so the only time I have them is when we go home and mom makes them. One of these years I want to get the grinder attachment for our kitchenaid so that we can try making them. But until then it will be a once or twice a year treat. Considering how we eat them it’s probably better that way anyway.
- Ryan and I have our first baby-related class tonight. I’m a little nervous about it, but it makes me excited that we are at that point. In a related item, we will be picking up some baby stuff from my sisters over Thanksgiving, and so we’ll be one step closer to getting the baby’s room ready. I remember when Thanksgiving seemed so far away. Not anymore!
So, I’m in a good mood. Now I should take advantage of it and get back to work.
Baby purchases
Nov 16th
Ryan and I have our first baby class on Wednesday. It’s the breastfeeding one, and they want you to bring either a doll or a teddy bear that’s “baby size” to practice holds. We don’t have any dolls or stuffed animals around here, so we decided it would be a good opportunity to buy something for the baby. We haven’t actually bought ANYTHING yet, so it was kind of exciting. And we are now the proud parents of a cute, soft teddy bear. He’s a little bigger than a newborn, but what are you doing to do? I don’t mind the idea of our son playing with dolls really, but dolls aren’t soft and cuddly, and since this was our first purchase for him I wanted something that made me thing “baby.”
Anyway, it’s exciting to me. And it will be a great story for when he’s a teenager. When all his friends are over. “Yes, that teddy bear you’ve had since you were a baby was actually bought so that I could practice breastfeeding.” I am already excited to embarrass my children, and the first one isn’t even born yet.
Ryan has informed me that it is my bedtime (I told him to put me on an internet curfew). I’m kind of relieved. I like going to bed.
The cold that just won’t die
Nov 16th
I am still sick. I feel about 4 times better than I did when we got back from vacation, but I’m still not feeling great, and I still spent about 1/2 an hour last night coughing when I went to bed. I finally got a cough drop and that helped, but I don’t like doing that at night because it means either getting up after it’s gone and brushing my teeth again, or leaving them but knowing that the cough drops have coated my teeth in sugar to sit all night. I don’t like either option.
I bought some organic unpasteurized apple cider vinegar this weekend. I is supposed to help with all kinds of ailments, but sinuses and sore throats are supposed to be 2 of them. You mix a tablespoon or so with 8 oz of water (and honey if the taste is too strong) and drink it. I haven’t done it yet because I’m kind of a chicken, but I really should try it because if it helps it will totally be worth dealing with the icky taste. Has anyone else tried this before? Recommendations?
Being sick has also pulled a number on my productivity. I’m tired a lot of the time and just not feeling as “with it” as usual, and so I’m not getting as much done as I’d like. After being gone for a week that’s not great. Hopefully I can get back into the groove soon.
ps. Can we all agree that it seems insane that Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK already? I’m super-excited, as we will be going to my parents’ place and I haven’t been there since August, but still…crazy.
2 things
Nov 11th
1.) I got my glucose screening test results back while I was on vacation, and all your positive thoughts worked, because my sugar was at 101, which they said was good. Or good enough. Whatever. I don’t have to do the extra test. Yippee!
2.) I have come up with the best idea EVER. Workplaces should be more like airplanes. And I don’t mean being strapped into a seat right next to/on top of the person next to you while breathing germy recycled air. I think that every once in a while someone should come around with a cart and offer you something to drink. Seriously – I am a genius, I know.
On that note, back to the grindstone. I need a job where they pay me to read novels. Or even non-fiction books. But some sort of real books. Not insurance policies. And I would like to do it at home while lazing around in my pajamas drinking Dr Pepper and eating ice cream with the yummy (accidental) chocolate fudgey syrup that I made (yay for happy cooking accidents!). Is that too much to ask, world? I would probably eat some “healthy” food too, if that would help my cause. No? Fine. Water while sitting in my cubicle it is.
