Name poll

I'm putting up a boy's name poll and a girl's name poll. The beauty of the poll is that it's multiple choice, so you can just pick an option anonymously and that's that. My feelings won't be hurt if you don't like the names . . . but these are 4 names that are in the running, to various degrees (we're struggling to come up with boy's names, but we like the girl's names a lot).

Have fun voting, and you can comment to this post if you have other suggestions (no names that start with the letter "D" though--we don't want to be trapped into D names for any future kids).

Yesterday was the best day ever

For real. It was a really good day. Here are some great things that happened:

1. My dad came over to paint the nursery. It had been all blue . . . but over the course of the day it went to half white/half blue and then settled on white and khaki with a blue stripe. The blue stripe is marking where the border is going to be hung.

The old room (before we moved in-those aren't our toys):

During painting:

The new and improved nursery:

2. We went to Babies 'R Us to order furniture for the nursery. We bought the crib and converter kits (for when we want it to be a bed one day). Then Dave's mom very generously bought us a glider & ottoman, and the crib mattress too! Both sets of grandparents made major contributions today :) (Furniture should be coming in 3 weeks or so)

3. My old car got towed away---this one was bittersweet. We donated it to charity. Dave cleaned it out in the morning and took pictures of saying goodbye. I wanted to take a picture of the tow truck taking it away but I got all teary and felt like a big baby so I had to leave.

Dave was not sad to say goodbye:

I was:

But the new car is nice (I have to get a better picture of it):

4. After all of this goodness, THEN a box of nursery accessories that I ordered arrived! Putting up the border is going to be a big project, but putting up the light switch plate was easy--look how cute it is:

5. Another mini-victory happened too: we lost the automatic car starter, which we has just had installed in our new car. Without the little key chain thing, the starter doesn't work. If you lose it, you have to get an entirely new started installed, so we were bummed. But miraculously at the end of the day, after searching the car, the street, the office we had been to, etc. it appeared!

Baby Update

We're now 27 weeks along, and the baby is about 14.5 inches long and slightly over 2 lbs! I'm starting to feel big and pregnant. My back hurts, one of my feet hurt (who knows why), and . . . drumroll please . . . I'm starting to waddle. Yes, waddle. It's charming.

Revision

Dave and I just got back from the city with the old car (again, we're hopefully picking up the new one tomorrow). Anyway, on the ride home we realized that I may have misrepresented the car in this morning's post.

-I said that there were 2 hubcaps left. Turns out that there are 0. (I guess we never noticed that the final 2 slipped away).

-The side defroster/air vent doesn't work on the driver's side.

-The car has no antenna, so radio reception comes and goes.

Ok, that's the whole truth and nothing but the truth (until we remember something else).

February Break

We bought a new car. I've had my current car since I was 17, so the time has clearly come. We were hoping to drive it until the wheels fell off, and we've come pretty close. It has:

-2 hubcaps left

-no hood ornament (the little Toyota sign)
-the handle on the driver's side door is half broken off from a break-in attempt
-it has to warm up for a minimum of 6 minutes before you drive it-otherwise it stalls (although the ideal time for the car to warm up seems to be around 25 minutes)
-the rear passenger tire deflates itself after several rides
-it's starting using gas at an alarming rate
-only one of the front headlights is working

-one of the knobs to control the heat is missing

-an assortment of dents, including a large one on the hood that appeared mysteriously one night

-the "check engine" light comes on during about 50% of our outings

-without a 30 minute warm up, you can't get it to go over 45 mph on the highway without shaking a little and being very noisy

-oh yeah--and it needs a new transmission

So tomorrow we get to go pick up the new car, which is a 2006 CRV. I have issues with driving an SUV, but I also have issues with being afraid of my car, and needing to tote around a baby and all of its accessories too. I'm rationalizing that we only have one car, instead of two---so our one SUV is using more fuel than a little car would, but less than having 2 cars would. I'll post pictures when we get it.

We went out to visit my family on Saturday--here are some pictures:

me & Emerson:

Play-dough time. I made the best play-dough animals ever made. Dave made a monkey too, but then removed the banana and re-attached it in an inappropriate place, so his play-dough time was done.

Baby Update

We are now 26 weeks along---6 & 1/2 months! I passed my glucose tolerance test last week and had another midwife appointment-everything is totally normal. For those who participated in the poll last week, the current gain was 20 lbs! I'm now up 22 lbs, which is great by the midwife. Although "they" say that the ideal gain is 25-35 lbs, from the beginning I thought that I'd be happy with up to 40 lbs (40 lbs, 40 weeks, it seems fair to me). I'm posting about it because I know that it's secretely satisfying to watch other people to get fat---so enjoy it while it lasts, people!

The baby is now about 14 inches long and just about 2 lbs! (Of course, all of these numbers are averages--I have no way of telling how much the baby actually weighs at this moment). It moves a lot, but not if my mom or sister are trying to feel it. I've actually been able to tell now when it's facing outward and when it's facing in, because when it's facing in I feel less motion and it feels like it's kicking my butt (literally).

It loved the Grammys---every time a performance started it would kick and move around--when the song stopped, the baby stopped. We can't figure out if it really likes the music, or if I have some sort of physical reaction to listening to music that gets the baby going. I play music for it with big headphones on my belly and it wiggles around to that too. Hopefully it will have my ear for music, and not Dave's :)

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Yesterday morning the baby was moving around so much that Dave & I watched my belly shift and move around. Earlier this week the baby must have flipped over for a day or two, because I didn't feel many kicks--and when I did, I felt like I was literally being kicked in the butt. I guess it's rolled back over now :)

I did a bunch of pregnancy-related shopping yesterday. I bought new sneakers and insoles (1/2 size bigger than I used to wear!) and a pair of Crocs. Professional or not (and attractive or not), I think that the sneakers and Crocs will soon both be worn at work---my feet are starting to have some issues. Last week one foot swelled up and was miserable---I actually thought I had a stress fracture or something. The midwife said not to wear the same shoes everyday (even my clogs) so I need to work these into a rotation or something.

Then I bought a tall director's chair for my classroom---sitting on my stool is great for my legs, but my back is starting to really hurt, so I needed something I could lean back on.

Oh, and everyday I grow out of another pair of pants. The baby hates elastic and will kick at the elastic on the pants if it's pressing in on my belly. Then I worry that the elastic is bothering it. What a pain.

I knew babies were expensive, but I didn't know that pregnancy would cost so much. Ugh.

Midwife Update

I have my next appointment on Wednesday (about 26 weeks). In addition to my regular appointment I have to go to the lab for my glucose test---I drink this scary sugary bottle of crap, then they draw blood 60 minutes later to make sure that I'm metabolizing sugar correctly and don't have gestational diabetes.

Baby Update

The baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches (holy moly! I can't believe that it's just going to keep getting bigger and bigger). It probably weighs somewhere between 1 lb 5 oz and a pound and a half —and now it's starting to stock up some baby fat.

New Picture . . .

Here's my ever-expanding self . . .

My 24 week midwife appointment was on Thursday. My belly is measuring normal (shocking because it looks gigantic to me), weight gain is fine, heartbeat was good and strong. I also received a prize for attending the appointment: a scary looking glass bottle of "cola-flavored" (yum) sugary stuff. In 2 weeks I have my glucose test---which from my understanding means I have to drink this bottle of soda-flavored liquid sugar, sit in the lab for an hour, and then have blood drawn to see if I'm metabolizing sugar normally or if I might ahve gestational diabetes (everyone has to have the screening done). I'm really looking forward to it.

Waterset is more interactive now, and his/her attitude is definitely apparent. (S)he moves around all the time, especially if anything is pressing on my belly---if there is tight elastic on my pants (which there is, since I seem to grow out of a new pair everyday) the baby will kick right at the elastic (I picture it saying "Hey! Move over! Get out of here!").

Layla spent an hour curled around my stomach the other night while I was watching tv. When she started purring I guess the baby could hear it, because it woke up and started wiggling around. Here's a picture:

Last night Dave was talking to my stomach before bed and the baby was kicking back at him, and then rolling or wiggling or something (I don't know what it was doing, but it felt strange). That was the first time that I really felt like it was interactive.

The baby registry is a big project---we started it a few weeks ago and I keep slowly adding things online. We're just registering for everything under the sun---at least then all of the research is already done and things are selected. It's like having a giant shopping list of stuff we need to get---who knew babies end up needing so much stuff. Well, I guess they don't really need any of it--we just need it to make dealing with the baby more manageable :)

Oh, and our car is nearly dead. It needs a new transmission, which turns out not to be worth it if you're car is: 11 years old with over 120,000 miles, missing pieces (like hubcaps and the like), dented up and otherwise abused. Who knew? So now in addition to recently buying the apartment and getting all of the baby stuff, it's time to buy a car! Hooray! We're hoping to get it done over February break, and hoping that the car lasts until them without dying.

Baby Update

The baby is now a little over a pound and somewhere around 1 foot long. The big development this week is that now it's lungs are making surfactant, which helps the lungs inflate with air once it's born. So it's getting a lot closer to being able to being able to survive on the outside.