34 weeks

It is H-O-T hot here! Every weekend we enjoy the pool and use it to cool down a little. But, I have to say, everyone talks about how miserable I must be because I'm pregnant and it's so hot. However, once it gets THIS hot, I don't think I'm that much more miserable than anyone else who has to be out in the heat. I have an indoor job so I'm in the air conditioning 99% of my day. I can wear sundresses and sandals at work so I don't have to worry about hose and pumps making me uncomfortable. It's not unbearable. I mean, yes, my ankles swell more than a normal person's... so I just avoid the full-length mirrors. And I'd rather be able to wear a sundress than have to bundle up in a sweater and get itchy in the winter.

A 34 week baby-to-be weighs about 4 pounds. That's approximately ten good sized Roma tomatoes. I didn't even try to hold ten tomatoes at once! I knew it would be an ugly ugly scene on my kitchen floor.

Next weekend we are going to the lake with some friends. Then our child birth classes start! Yikes. I kind of want to go into it without knowing anything... they do say ignorance is bliss. But, we already paid for the class and it's a good idea to have an idea of how these things work and what to expect. Though, she's coming out one way or another so as long as I do what my doctor says we will have a baby at the end of it. We took a baby care class last weekend. It was fairly helpful. We practiced swaddling and changing diapers. Victor is much better than I am. He can be the poo guy. Hehe

33 weeks

Sorry, no pictures this week. I meant to take one yesterday but I got distracted making dinner and hanging out with baby brother and his fiancee after dinner.

So, your homework for this week is to walk around your house finding things that are either approximately 18 inches or 4 pounds. It's harder than you think! I promise I'll have pictures next week. They may or may not have an edible item as my companion. It's getting harder and harder to find size comparisons. Even The Bump has given up on me! Now their list combines several weeks at once. I have a few more weeks as a honeydew then I move up to the stereotypical big guns... the dreaded watermelon!

If you come up with a good size comparison food I might just use it next week. Let me know by Saturday evening.

Special Treat

A friend/co-worker is leaving the office to go to law school at Boston College. Tomorrow we are having a going away happy hour for him. He has an even bigger sweet tooth than I do! Therefore, I decided to make some type of dessert.

On Tastespotting I saw a post for blue velvet cupcakes. Normally I really don't like red (or any color) velvet cupcakes. They are usually too dry and the icing is too cloying. But, I thought the blue would make a cute background for red Bs so the cupcakes look like Red Sox caps. Fortunately they actually turned out pretty tasty and I went light on the icing so hopefully the combo is a good one.

Anyway, the point of this post is, I think this is why Victor says all the other moms are going to hate me.

32 weeks

I'm officially 8 weeks away from my due date. Freaky! I downloaded an app that has a countdown and as of today I have 52 days to go. It sounds like a lot less time when you count it in days instead of weeks!!

I apologize for being lazy about my fruit of the week lately. This week she is the weight of a honeydew. I thought of buying one but the thought of an entire honeydew in my tummy was a little overwhelming. So, instead, you get to see pictures of my pretty dress. I love this dress. It's soft and comfy and was on sale. Can't beat that.

There still aren't any big complaints so far. She's pretty mellow so I'm still able to sleep (mostly) the entire night. She doesn't keep me up kicking or anything like that. She does like to rest her head on my sciatic nerve which sometimes makes walking difficult, but then it goes away so not a big deal. Her latest favorite position is with her foot in my rib so that's slightly uncomfortable. But again, nothing really worth complaining about. Hopefully this keeps up!

Goodbye feet!

I've got another check up tomorrow. Nothing major, just listening for her heartbeat and measuring my tummy. July I have two appointments then in August I move up to once a week. It's going so quickly! Happily we have everything we must have before baby arrives. But I'm sure once she is here I will find out that nothing we have is useful and need to rethink our purchases. That's the way these things tend to work.

Happy birthday to me!

I turned 29 on Monday. I've decided I'm becoming an old woman. I'm 29, having a child, married, own a house, and have a full time job. Freaky!

Victor always picks out the best birthday cakes for me. This year I requested a chocolate chip cookie cake. But instead of just getting any old cookie cake from the store he went to a local bakery and bought an especially tasty one. It was awesome. And they use real butter in the icing instead of shortening. They even put fairy dust on it (edible glitter) so it was especially girly and pretty.

He thought the cookie cake would be kind of bland and tasteless (not true as we discovered) so just to be safe he also got me two mini-cakes! They aren't very big, like big cupcakes. But the cookie cake was so big and rich that we knew we couldn't eat it all ourselves. So I brought a big third of it to work and froze some for my bubby and his fiancee so they could try it. Now we are down to a small tupperware's worth of cake - much more manageable for two people.

All three of my tasty cakes:

Close up of the decadent chocolate. This was so rich we cut it into fourths and even then we had trouble finishing a piece. Imagine the most intense fudge and double it.

Coconut Key Lime cake. I love coconut. It, combined with marshmallows and chocolate, are my favorite things right now. This one was also very very rich. Quite yummy but very very rich.

31 Weeks

Ah! I have single digits of weeks left before my due date! Now is the time to start finishing anything we might need finished before baby comes. Thankfully, we've been pretty good so far about completing projects. I just need to get my FMLA situated and have our pre-registration meeting with the hospital. Victor just needs to finish painting the extra shelves and doing the touch up work on the stairway and I think the bare minimum will have been completed. At this point in my paperwork I would rather his job than mine.

Gear wise I think we have everything we MUST have before baby comes. We've got the car seat, stroller, crib, some clothes and wipes. The only thing we don't have is newborn diapers but a friend of mine said the hospital gives you a bunch so I'm waiting to buy any until we know how big she is and how many the hospital gives us. We also need both baby carriers (Baby Bjorn and Baby K'Tan) but happily those are not cost prohibitive so if we need to buy them ourselves, it's not a big deal.

This week she weighs about as much as four navel oranges. If you look back at week 15 she weighed about as much as one navel orange. So she has quadrupled her weight and she still has the main 9 weeks to go! I did self-portraits again because I wanted to swim so I didn't want to have to hang out waiting for Victor to come home. Unfortunately, it's really hard to hold four oranges at once so I had to get creative.

Good old bedroom mirror shot

Testing, testing

For my birthday my parents gave me a really cute little HD video camera. It's teal. I like it. I never really take videos so I need to practice how to hold my hands steadier. But, it's a handy little thing and I think it takes pretty good video for the size. Here's a video of the nursery. I didn't say anything because I hate the sound of my recorded voice. But, it's kind of creepy just hearing me walk around. I'm going to have to figure out how to add music or something.

Yes, we have aluminum foil in the crib. No, I won't tell you why. It's an old wives tale. We will leave it at that.