The week that will not end

I stayed late in the city last night to watch Joe cook.  He's taking some sort of chef certification course and his practical was last night, so I went and watched a bit.  A bunch of his coworkers were there either cooking or helping or hanging around to watch so I caught up with them for awhile before deciding that my back was killing me and I was ready to go home to bed.  I didn't get to see any of the finished product, but apparently I get some of the leftovers for lunch today.  Woohoo!

It's been guest central over here the past few weeks.  And we just found out that (well *I* just found out that) one of Joe's friends will be in town next weekend to stay with us.  I'm thrilled to see everyone, since it's been a long time, but I'm also overdoing it on the weekends and then throwing off my schedule during the week such that I am tired all the damn time and just need people to leave my house so I can sleep for a couple of days straight to catch up.

Which also helps explain why I haven't had time to post these yet:

The tech went to 3d to try to get us a good picture of the baby's face but our little diva clearly wasn't cool with the paparazzi showing up and quickly covered his/her face.

But we were able to get a regular ultrasound-looking profile picture, so parents 1 baby 1: tie.  

No, we did not cave and find out the sex, although we constantly refer to the baby as 'he.'  I've been feeling regular movements for a couple of weeks now.  The ultrasound tech remarked on my 'very active baby!' and yes, late afternoon seems to be Dance Party USA time up in there.  Joe has still not felt it, but I'm convinced it's due to the thick layer of protective fat over my belly because I could only feel the kick from the outside for the first time last night.  We're at 21 weeks, people!  And we finally made our way into the local baby mega store to be overwhelmed by options and choose things at random for the registry.  

I decided against a travel system, opting instead for a snap n go and regular (umbrella probably) stroller to be chosen soon.  I'm planning on breastfeeding, but am kind of weirded out by the thought of adding nipple pads and such to a registry.  It just seems a bit personal.  So, your turn.  What do I absolutely need vs. what is totally useless.  Yes, I know a baby robe is pointless and I really haven't registered for clothes, figuring that people love to buy those.  But there are so many other things that they tell you you MUST BUY, and frankly it's hard to distinguish between what is necessary and what is not.  And you all know better than I do so let's hear it, mamas!

Halfway-ish

I took this picture this morning while supposedly getting ready for work.  Note Joe in the background frantically cleaning the house before our guests arrive for the weekend, oblivious to the fact that I've taken his phone to take pictures of myself all la la la.

Saturday is 20 weeks, the halfway point.  Notice my limp, greasy-looking hair: I've suddenly been afflicted with dandruff, which I can only assume is caused by the weird skin changes of pregnancy.  This is my head and shoulders conditioner look.  Mmm stringy.  Also note my stumpy legs, as I have completely given up on wearing heels.  It's like an orange on (two) tooth picks.  (name that movie)

 Uh, you think maybe I should ditch the office stuff and buy some baby gear or something?

Grrr Cat

Does anyone else's cat go somewhat crazy in the middle of the night?  

Lyds is declawed, which, I know: horrible.  But we had never had cats before and we just figured that's what everyone did, and now I realize that it's actually pretty mean and wouldn't do it if we ever got another cat.  However, it's done, and partially as a result (she's 9) she tends to bite.  

Generally, she's docile and friendly, even if she's not particularly loving, but she's a cat, not a lap dog.  So she does her own thing, and hangs out with me occasionally, but generally prefers to be in the room with us even if not snuggled up next to us.  Our special time together is, somewhat grossly, in the bathroom, where she follows me dutifully every time I get up to pee and she sits there on the rug contentedly getting scratches.  This has also translated into her getting out of her bed at least once a night to follow me when I get up to stumble blindly to the bathroom.  I get to pee, she gets her scratches, and that's where everything goes south.

I don't know if she wants to play, or just wants more attention, or if she sees my pasty white bare legs flashing in the dark room, but as I go to walk out the door back into the bedroom she attacks and bites the crap out of one of my legs.  

She did this to my mom, when she lived at my parents for the first 8 years of her life, and my mom used to lock her out of the bathroom for precisely this reason.  In the year+ that we've had her, she hasn't done this to me but in the last week or so it's happened a few times and now I have these lovely bruised fang marks in my legs.  I really don't want to stay up playing with her when I'm trying to sleep, and I think locking her out would just delay the attack until I opened the door again.  I'm considering scooping her up and throwing her in the bathtub before I make my escape, but that might risk my arms getting bitten instead.  

Mind you, she never does this to Joe, but then she also doesn't follow him around like she does with me.  I guess I just have to take the attention with the bite marks, but seriously you'd think there'd be an easier solution than sacrificing my poor pale legs at 3am.

Friday Tip of the Day

If you're feeling a little, shall we say, larger than usual, maybe don't go watch a bunch of tall, 90-pound, cellulite-free, unnaturally-flexible women perform a ballet in miniscule leotards.

Bonus tip for said ballerinas:

My god, eat a damn sandwich already!

Sloth

The ultrasound yesterday went well, other than me insisting hysterically that the tech not tell me what it is when instead she was about to tell me that I need to come back in two weeks because she couldn't get one measurement.  Oh.  Well.  Thank you.  I'll see you then.  

But honestly, she could have been showing me one of my own kidneys and telling me I was having twins and I wouldn't have known the difference.  I kept thinking I knew what I was seeing and then she'd tell us what we were looking at and I'd be glad I hadn't said what I thought it was first.  I did know the heart and the head, but everything else was all Greek to me.

Tonight Joe's out so I came home and put chicken in the oven, and then got hungry and ate half a thing of bean dip and just got a bowl of ice cream.  Er, I can have the chicken for lunch, right?  Right.  And I'm watching the Biggest Loser hoping Jillian can't judge me through the television.

Last night Joe dragged me to a homeowner's association meeting, which, boring.  It didn't help that we went directly after work and it didn't end until 9.  Gah people, stop talking!  Yes, condo fees always go up, and yes it sucks, but how else do we think stuff is getting fixed?  And if you don't like that your neighbors let their dogs pee in front of your condo, maybe grow a pair and request that they find a different spot rather than complaining about it at a condo meeting.  

Tomorrow night I have tickets to go to a ballet at the Kennedy Center so my friend and I will be going after work.  I planned that sort of poorly, since we all know I can't stay awake past 9, but my friend *loves* the ballet, and I knew Joe wouldn't want to go and they had tickets at work, so I'm going to have to put a little effort in to keep my eyes open.  

Now if you'll excuse me I'll go back to my ice cream and watching while other people work out.  Urp.

Update and Pictures

Tomorrow is my big ultrasound: get excited!  I haven't decided yet whether I'm nervous or excited or panicked that it's going to reveal something wrong, so I guess I'll be all three.  And in the meantime I'll distract myself with pictures.

I can has your soul?

Ignore the evil eyes.  This is Lyds' bed that sits next to my side of the bed every night and which is filthy and in need of a replacement.  She also looks slightly too big for it but that's just because she's a fatty mcgee.  She also hates it when you wait until she is completely curled up in the bed and then pick her up in it and carry it around.  

"Seriously, stop taking my picture"

This is one of a series of roughly 20 pictures that Joe took of me point-blank at a wedding on Saturday.  It's one of the early specimens, where I was not quite ready to hit him over the head and take the camera, but you can still see the look of 'I'm not kidding, quit it' in my eyes.  Well, you would if you could look past the double chins.  I'm wearing a pink shirt that I bought at Kohl's for $12.99 after trying on approximately 23940390 various styles of maternity and non-maternity shirts and eventually deciding that screw it, the invitation said casual so by god I will dress casually.  This picture also helps illustrate that I do, in fact, need to style my hair.  Also: get your damn eyebrows waxed already.  Sheesh.

Ah, and here we are, late in the evening.  Joe has imbibed numerous Miller Lites by this point and I am suffering a killer headache and counting the minutes until they cut the cake, because we all know that's why I came in the first place.  The coworker who got married was well aware of that, as I'm constantly bugging him to bring me cake from various work parties, so he personally gave me a heads up when the cake cutting was near.  And didn't say a word when I sent Joe back up to get me another piece.  It could help that his new wife is also the mother of his adorable 1 year old daughter, so he's well aware not to get between a pregnant woman and her cake, especially when she's the only one at the table not drinking.  The wedding was fun, even though we didn't really know anyone there.  Very casual and cheery and the bride and groom looked great even if the rest of us slobs wore the same black pants we had already worn to work three times that week.  I like to think the $2 earrings helped dress me up a bit.

Aaaand Friday!

I have no idea why my 15 week picture isn't working, but just pretend it's me with a belly somewhere between the 10 week and the 17 week picture.  And then we'll wait another month until I get my act together and remember to take and post another one.

My ultrasound is on Tuesday and I cannot get past the fear that somehow I'm going to be told the sex even though I don't want to know.  In a similar vein, my biggest concern at this point is not labor, or the epidural, not pooping on the table or seeing my horrifying stretched-out postpartum body.  My biggest concern stems, I'm sure, from reading too many blogs and too many comments and too many books about everything that can go wrong while trying to breast feed.  I have anxiety dreams about trying to breast feed and having my mom give me crap to just give the kid a bottle already, it worked for her.  I'm nervous that I'm going to have low supply, or clogged ducts, or mastitis, or poor technique, or any of the other myriad situations that I've read about and that give me fear that my trying just won't work.  I know that it's waaay too early to worry about this, and also fairly moot, since if something goes wrong then we'll just have to deal with it.  But in some ways I think if I'm going to be fixated on any one thing, better that than the thought of having an episiotomy.  Right?  Right??  

We were supposed to go out to dinner with some friends tonight, but they cancelled on us because she went home sick from work, so instead we're lounging around making a pizza and debating what to watch.  Sadly, I'm not too upset about the change of plans.  Tomorrow we're running boring car-related errands in the morning and attending my coworker's casual outdoor wedding in the afternoon.  Which leads to the dilemma of what to wear, since my (extremely limited) maternity wardrobe consists of 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of work pants, 2 work dresses, 1 work skirt and several very casual or very work-y tops.  I think I'm going to run to Kohl's tomorrow and hope that I can find a cute fancy-casual top to wear with my black pants and then call it a day.  I was going to wear a dress, but I had one on at work and my coworker told me it was too dressy, so pants it is.  Sigh, having to shop.  This also means I will have to tivo part of the Michigan State game and all of the Michigan game (assuming, of course, that I want to come home and watch Michigan lose, which...)

And then Sunday Joe wants to get some painting done over the new drywall.  I think he should wait until we have the next round of drywall fixed from the latest leak disaster, but clearly I don't know what I'm talking about.  So instead I will be finding a way to amuse myself out of the house away from the paint fumes and I think that means I'll be paying a visit to my friends and their newborn, which squee!  Yes, I'm sure I would be fine around the paint fumes as long as we keep it well ventilated and blah blah doesn't matter I have an excuse to cuddle my friends baby so lay off.  

Ooooh and it's pizza time.   Happy Friday!

17 weeks and in need of new underwear

Here's a (huge, sorry) picture of me from 15 weeks. 

And here we are this morning at 17 weeks and a couple of days:

I keep forgetting which way to stand so none of my pictures are really consistent enough to show definite changes, but I think you get the idea.  

I'm getting stretching and pulling pains in my stomach (evidently round ligament pain) at random and sporadic times, sometimes when I stand up, usually when I bend over, and tonight when I laughed at something Joe said and then immediately grabbed my stomach and winced.  Fun times.  I still enjoy my sleep and I don't think that's going to change at any point in the next, oh, 10 years.   I'm also continuing to be grateful for this relatively symptom-free pregnancy.  

This is going to come back to haunt me, but I'm beginning to get uncomfortable already.  I know that I'm going to look back at this in a few short weeks and think, girl, you don't know from uncomfortable.  I also am starting to feel big and yes, I know that this is merely the beginning.  But we're all friends here, so I know that when I ridicule this entry 10 weeks from now you won't roll your eyes at me.  And since I'm among friends, I can share that I'm on the verge of up-sizing my underwear.  Er, again.

So!  Enough about me.  What kind of pregnancy underwear do *you* recommend?  I ditched the thongs months ago, and then almost immediately went up a size in low-rise bikinis, and finally bought some maternity underwear a couple of weeks ago, but they all seem too low in the front and slip down too easily in the back.  Recommendations?