Stanley the Dragon

Just saying, Peanut's Dragon is going to be named Stanley, not anything silly like Norbert (cough speed-re-reading through Harry Potter before we go to the movie). I need to go visit mom so I can check out how the dragon is coming along! I just think they're cool, dragons. If you have your own pet dragon, then you have a protector! Who's gonna be mean to you if you have a dragon to sic on them, am I right? I need to keep an eye out for a really cool dragon stuffed animal. It's gotta be just right, you know? Not too wimpy, not too scary. He's got plenty of Pooh stuffed animals, and other animals to live in the 100 acre wood with them, but no dragon to protect them.

I guess I haven't updated in over a week. Oops! Happy 32 weeks! Peanut's -8 weeks old! Tuesday we drove down to Milwaukee to visit Boi's mom and grandma. Everyone was good, ggma seemed to be recovering well from her surgery, hopefully that continues! I got to explore the city a bit more and got to eat cinnabons and sweet and sour pork. Peanut was pretty quiet up until the trip back up. Then he decided that he wanted to press on all my organs giving me a symphony of symptoms while I was trying to ignore my headache.

Boi has been working hard since, fairly long week - 6 days on before his next day off on this coming Tuesday. And then he came home to find out that my dad and brother went out and picked up the chair yesterday. Which of course meant that he got to put it together for me :D The angle of the pic is a little funny, I kind of feel like I'm a tiny person in a huge world in this pic (though our walls are apparently taller than standard) And then we thought about the placement of things, and moved the dresser to the wall with the start of the tree, so I could easily reach water or burpcloths or whatever I need while in the chair. So success!

Sudden desire for waffles... and to work on finishing that tree now that the chair is in.

So now already I like to go up there and sit there. It's still got a little bit of warehouse funk to it, accentuated by the fact that we shut the door last night with one of the cardboard boxes and the chair in there so it built up a bit, I'm hoping it's mainly the box, just since that's the easiest thing.

Speaking of warehouse funk, we're back to looking at getting a mattress, don't want the cheapest bottom of the barrel model, but I suppose I'm not going to get away with a $250 100% organic mattress. On my board several women were saying they loved their semi organic model, two stage mattress (firm on one side for infants then softer on the other for a toddler) coming in at a reasonable price, and looking at the reviews, I was ready to jump on it, but then I clicked on all reviews, and there were a few reviews that had come in just this month saying that despite everyone saying it had no odor, there's did. So I'm guessing maybe either they changed the way they were making it or there's a problem at the warehouse... or maybe just the warehouse there's was being shipped from? 

Not sure how important it is to have a softer mattress for a toddler, other then the fact that I personally hate firm mattresses. I found another one with that feature, it costs more, but I think it's just under the minimum dimensions my crib dictates (it lacks saying the maximum though, which I think is weird).

Specifically how are Peanut and I doing (besides exhausted - Boi was snapping photos last night and kept telling me that I just looked tired in all of them, lol)? Well, I think Wednesday was the best day for us this week. We got a lot done to boot. Thursday I'm pretty sure I was sick/miserable for most of the day... and yesterday I was in a lot of pelvic pain and super emotional. I even broke out the maternity belt, since the one time I really noticed it helped was when I felt a pain similar before, but it didn't do a whole lot, other than removing a little bit of the pressure. I blame Kairi, as she was going CRAZY so I went to go gather her up to give her a little loving and calm her down, but picking her up didn't feel so good. I'm not sure how I'd handle it having a two year old running around like she was! Just deal with a lot more pain I suppose!

T and her daughter O are coming over later in the afternoon, so that should be fun. And it sounds like there will be food too:) Hopefully they make it this time! Gonna try to tidy up a bit (somedays you really just need a reason to do it) and then I'll feel like a better stay at home mom to boot! Yeah I know, I'm growing a person, but I'm still going to feel a bit like flake after Boi comes home after being gone 12 hours if I haven't at least managed to get dishes in the dishwasher or something.

Speaking of which, it's now noon. I should get started!

We've got a changing table!

Ok so this post is just getting completely revamped from last night now that I'm on the laptop and not stuck in a hot corner on my desktop that I quickly posted last night. It looks like it's going to be a long one!

Happy 31 weeks! Peanut rang in the occasion by pretty much sleeping through the night last night :) No partying, no kicking the bed, I was able to just curl up and wait for sleep to come. Though I started dreaming about spare tires.... and then my brain couldn't get off of the subject, so from 6-9ish when we got up... it was a bit weird. As I'm sure you can understand - there are only so many directions you can go on the subject, my brain attempted them all.

Last night, the cats were upstairs guarding their new precious item - a changing table, gifted generously by K's Mom and Dad (Madre and Hercules). I'm so excited :D I'll need to order a changing pad to go in it (and maybe some more diapering supplies :D) and some covers for it I suppose.... Oh and I need to order some boppy covers, we've got one from 'I' and it's a beautiful one but I'm not naive enough to think it's going to stay clean all day :D I'll also likely need to look into a mattress pad, hooooooopefully T will be dropping off O's crib mattress and it'll fit and everything, but I want to get measurements for everything, as I keep seeing comments on things as I was making my registries or just researching products how things were just a half inch or inch smaller or bigger and just that difference alone made things look/feel sloppy or even unsafe... so I think I'll try to get these all in one big order after I can measure things.

We had a coupon for some disposable wipes (seen on the dresser), so I went ahead and got them even though we're planning on using cloth wipes. Plus people have said it's a great place to store cloth wipes too, you can get them a bit damp and  store them in there... or just store them dry in it and use a spray bottle. We'll see what we like best :)

I'm not sure about the placement, other than that wall is likely best for the changing table. I might be able to shove in the dresser next to it, but really the best plan is to wait for the other huge item we're waiting for, the glider. Once that is in, we'll be able to see where's the best place for the dresser. I also still feel weird about hanging pictures until we have final placement on items... but we didn't fill in nail holes, so I guess I could still go in and just pop in a few things... hey, what the heck, I'll go do that right now.

Hmmmm ok, I've got another problem. In my head I was going to use some of the Pooh art I had in my teenage pooh obsessed years, but the frames on these are super super light wood. The crib and the chair should both be a dark cherry, and the dresser and changing table are a medium tone. I was fine with those two, but adding in the light wood just feels... wrong. Plus, you can see some of my experimentation with the tree art, and that also is very dark. Maybe the room will be less Pooh than I alternatively was thinking and we'll go back to fantasy land. I do have some frames I can use that are nice and dark, I'll just have to create some art for them then. We'll see how this sits with me a bit, who knows, maybe I'll decide just to stain them.... but prolly not. Sigh.

Survived a dentist appointment on Wednesday (BP 104/76) and an OB appointment yesterday (BP 96/68 - It keeps dropping, oh no!) Peanut's heartbeat is still good and strong at 144. Didn't gain anything (haha stupid bloat from last time) and my stomach only grew 1cm when it should have been 2 :( Hopefully he catches back up at my next appointment. And my feet just... hurt. They're not swollen (well, not in the morning), they just hurt. I guess that's just from walking around barefoot with this extra weight? I'll attempt to keep at least some cushioning sandals on as I walk around for a few days.

Last night I finally did some cooking. Like real cooking, with measuring and dicing ingredients, thawing shrimp, multiple pans cooking. Made a creamy tomato sauce with shrimp (though I first cooked up some mushrooms for the Boi) over pasta, and even waddled out to the deck to pick some parsley and basil to top it. And it was tasty :) we ate leftovers for lunch today.

On Monday we find out if Boi might be able to get off a few days in a row to fly down to Chicago for Comic Con. Like a birthday gift for me because Patrick Stewart will be there :D It might just kill me, I can't imagine there will be a lot of opportunities to rest and sit down (unless I do as S suggested and cosplay as Prof X - anyone live near Chicago with a wheelchair?), but surely it will still be worth it! Gonna go dream about it... or do some work. Whichever.

30 Weeks and 3 Days

9 weeks 4 days to go, or 67 days. I can distinctly feel a body part in my upper left quadrent. At first it was cute, then it was, aww he must be comfy, he's still there. Now it's like, umm, kid *poke*? You're gonna bruise momma at this rate. I think it must be his feet because I get a few good (becoming increasingly painful) kicks in the spot, which would mean he's likely in a good position, and I don't want to discourage him from liking his head down and in, but sigh.

Oooh ow.

We hit the 30 week mark on our dear friends D&I's wedding. Yayhoo! Peanut was so well behaved the whole day, hardly made a fuss, and even let me go bowling with a 6 pound ball (I joined in just for fun, but Boi was bowling AWESOME and got a 187), but when we got home, started to relax, when my entire middle region tightened up into a giant ball of pain. I could barely stand or walk without Boi, or lay down. Kind of similar to the crib night crash. Ugh! It was only margionally better by bedtime, and then I was still sore the next morning.

Then Sunday I was just completely exhausted and headachey, which I guess I was asking for after being active on Saturday. Yesterday it was all   But my dad called me out of the blue yesterday early afternoon just to tell me he loved me, which cheered me up, and nothing like getting cheered up to take the edge off and help you fight past it all.

Boi has now been happily putting his hand on my belly more and more now that movements are easily seen and felt externally. Which gives me a happy :D This little 3 pound bugger of joy (my new expression, classy I know) likes to give him a show when he feels the pressure from daddy's hand. He worries he's squishing him, but I like it as I'm often laying on my side when they hang out together, and it gives me a break from Peanut kicking the couch.

Well, back to my normally scheduled activities... mainly staying cool.

A Video Post: Season -1 Episode 1

I added an intro, some cuts, music, credits. Hopefully I didn't go overboard. I'll get better at it hopefully after time, and soon enough we'll have Season 0 to make it even more interesting :D

Also apparently I don't like the smell of coffee today, so that matches how I usually feel about it. But hey, my brother took Mom and me out to dinner tonight so yay!

Tree Options

So I realize the statement 'putting the tree on the wall' from last night's post is a little vague, but here are some examples of what I'm talking about. I believe picture number two has the same tree I got - but she must have bought  the flowers separate. Basically it's a tree in like a hundred pieces and you can make one big one or a few little ones, or branches like she has. I kind of like having the bottom of the tree hidden behind some furniture....

That's all, I just happened to stumble across the first picture, and thought I'd post a few samples for you guys.

I have Fanta

And it's delicious. Orangey. Sure it's 160 calories a pop, but they're delicious calories. So they don't count. And this morning  the 4 pounds I told y'all didn't exist vanished on my scale. So Fanta = less water retention. Clearly.

Nothing overly exciting has happened in the last few days. Boi managed to get off for D&I's wedding on Saturday, so that's a good thing. K has been worried that I won't have anything to wear, but I still have a nice stretchy fabric dress left. Just because I don't usually dress up for things doesn't mean I don't have something stored away I can pull out :) The only real thing is shoes... eh.I have a pair of flats that should work, strappy sandals that I'm sure will end up hurting my feet. Unless you have a cute pair of brown shoes for me to wear K, though I know most of your stash is black.

I'm sure Saturday morning Boi will be like "I have nothing to wear" and I'll be like, oh yeah? He does that every time, he has perfectly good summery dress up clothes. But he forgets about them. He'd make a great girl in that respect, always needing to go out and buy something new for every occassion. Oh well, he deserves some props, he survived a very tough day at work today (beyond the stress, it was a 6a-4p shift, yuck) so he is himself enjoying a non-orangey coke and some WoW. I stopped wowing, remembering I have been slacking on this.

Not a whole lot went on today, I remember being sleepy most of the day, but never actually napping. Woke up at like 2 and couldn't fall back asleep forever, then woke up at around 4, and there was a party in my belly till at least 520 when Boi came up to grab whatever he was missing for work. Pretty sure I still fell asleep before 6 at least. Then at 830 I was said to hell with it and got up. Hopefully I'll sleep better tonight.

I think it's been officially long enough with the walls to put up the tree. I just need to decide exactly where I want it. Should it be right next to the crib, or in the middle of the wall, between (the soonish to be here) glider chair and the crib? Though if I do right smack in the middle, are we talking about proper center or the center between the edge of the chair and the crib? I'm making way too much out of this. I can take it down and redo it if need be (though really not sure if at some point the pieces stop sticking as well) but it's so much easier to fret over it and procrastinate. Procrastination is totally the prerogative of a creative mind. Too bad mine is rather dull right now.

Kairi has been a total b*tch today. I opened the patio door while I was making breakfast since it looked so nice out there, a few minutes later I find she's torn through it and is sniffing the wilderness. Fortunately Kiara seemed uncertain about following, as she'll just bolt, while Kairi stops to sniff the roses. Then the proceeded to annoy Kiara and I with her sorrowful meows for the rest of the morning. Then I decided to make sloppy turkey joes for lunch, but the pan I had out wasn't big enough for all the meat, so half went in and I wandered away for awhile... and came back to find her nomming on some of the leftover raw turkey. Eeeeww! Fortunately she didn't get sick, but she did nap then till evening, and she came over and settled next to me while I watched Jeopardy... and she was kneading her claws in my arm but I was barely noticing as Peanut had woken up... only to have her then stop and noticed my arm was all bloody. Argh!

I took some video for an attempt at a new video for Peanut, but alas, I haven't pieced it together. I hardly touched the computer at all today, I got on it for awhile to try to do some work, but my brain just wasn't with it. Boi took me for a walk around the block and I made it the whole way without needing to stop. *cheers* *claps* *good pelvic ligaments* If I could count on them all the time I wouldn't be so nervous about going out and about by myself!

Oh and hay, Mom In Law, if you're reading this, I hear you're going to be in the state next week. When exactly will you be around?

Halfway between 29 and 30 weeks! My new chant is "10 weeks, just 10 more weeks!"

Today was made for relaxing

It's been awhile, but I've been busy! I guess the biggest happiest news was my appointment on Thursday. I managed to keep pretty close to my required schedule that morning, and we got to the clinic on time. I started to get worried though as according to my cell phone, we had one minute  before my hour was up when we got called (plus I was super uncomfortable as Peanut was stomping on my southern regions thanks to all the sugar). But she managed to get the blood drawn in a few minutes (same lady as last time) and we discussed what would happen if I failed with my problems getting poked and my disappearing veins. She said instead of doing a finger poke I'd likely just get an IV thinger put in. FORTUNATELY THAT WASN'T NECESSARY!  Before we left I passed my GD with a 109 - anything over 140 would be a fail. And I'm not anemic either,  I was a 12.1 when I think anything under 9 is a fail. So I was a healthy distance from both failpoints :)

BP and etc were normal, and the great measuring of my uterus showed him on track and his heartbeat was at 150 :) Alas they weighed me in at +8 pounds, which I don't believe, but I've been super swollen so I'm going to attribute it to that. I had been showing myself on my scale as +3, so I'm aiming to have lost a few pounds of water/bloat for my next appointment in... like 12 days. Yay for 2 week appointments now?

I've got Kiara kneading her claws into my foot right now. Hopefully she'll find a leak!

Since I was feeling well, we took off around 11 for Milwaukee. Well, I was feeling ok, but Peanut still hadn't settled down. He was getting his feet into the most uncomfortable/painful of spots during the drive, so not only did I almost continuously wince, but I kept looking for rest-stops to maybe just maybe take the edge off what he was also doing to my bladder. We stopped for lunch at Chili's (of course he calmed down for that, yum yum!) and then it wasn't long after we got back in the car that he started to be mean again! So I gave up, I felt bad for Boi driving, but I just need to get my mind off of it, so I closed my eyes, and managed to drift in and out of sleep for the next hour. He was a lot calmer around Madison. Then we just had to make it to Brookfield to find our hotel and lay down for a few.

Lalala - we all survived the trip. We went to his dad's, but left early knowing I'd have a hard time making it from general parking to the stadium. Boi's dad sweetly offered us his handicapped thingie, but we both felt that that would be a bit underhanded, and plus he likely needed it more. Fortunately we got good parking, right on the edge and by one of the bridges. I needed a break on the way in, but we found something nice I could sit on for a spell. We looked at the baby Brewer stuff, I was happy to see that while it was expensive, it wasn't as bad as I thought. So maybe we'll buy him something next game, even though he'll grow out of it quick :) Or I suppose something way too big the first year ;) We took a Peanut picture for my Aunt M, my shirt didn't really show my bump too well, so I've got it accentuated best I could. And the Brewer's won, yay! Saw someone I knew from my Best Buy days sitting near us - he OF COURSE noticed me shortly after Boi got me a hot dog and I had just taken an elegant giant bite of it. LOL! We made the trip out in one long spurt, but my feet hurt (they were swollen for bulk of the trip) so I just wanted to get my cute tush in the car. Pushing through the side cramp and aches at a slow walking speed for the win!

The hotel's fire alarm went off at 3am that night though :( that certainly didn't have a good effect of the quality of my sleep for the rest of the night! It was mostly uneventful after that though, aside from me attempt to drink as much water as I could and get my legs elevated whenever I could. Thursday was really the big day!

Peanut is now 29 weeks - so third trimester based on everyone's way of measuring it! "Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day."

Guess I should have a glass of milk with lunch, huh? Mmmm lunch. That goes well with a day of keeping my feet up! Boi even reminded me of it this morning before leaving. My swollen feet and ankles aren't pretty to look at! lol!

Woo it's the Pilot

Ugh Morning Sickness, I've been feeling on and off iffy for the last week or two, but yesterday just sealed the deal. We're slowly redeveloping our <20 week miseries. Fortunately I was headed for mom's for lunch, and she nursed me back to health with Mountain Dew and crackers, and they made me a special burger. By the afternoon I was back to my happy self! And luckily this morning I'm doing pretty good, reaaaaaaaallly hoping I'm feeling ok Thursday morning.

Ooooh Pretzels! I was being taunted the other day by soft pretzel posts, so I decided to just go and make my own. Yum yum, 'twas a process, but they turned out pretty darn good. Lots of fun crazy stuff with yeast and baking soda baths. We're still enjoying them though :) Clearly it was best fresh, but reheating them in the oven does an ok job!

Yay Campfire! We had a campfire last night, to start burning all the wood that's fallen so far this year (much much wood, we didn't get close to burning it all) Alas the mosquito's were abundant, so it was hard to enjoy. But we got to get our pyro on, and mom showed up and helped to keep us safe ;) Alas, chocolate was forgotten so vegetarian s'mores couldn't be enjoyed :( but there's always a next time!

Oooh Video! I have another one that I tried to edit with clips and credits and such - but I'm having issues so here is the raw pilot!

I think it's pretty fancy.

So Thursday is going to be tough. Gotta wake up early, take care of normal pre-appointment stuff, start eating before 7am... then at 745 chug my sugary flat fanta-y drink. Do that in 5 minutes, then people online recommend rinsing my mouth so I don't then lose it. But I can't eat or drink anything after that. Then we have to be at the clinic by 830 to make sure I get my blood draw at exactly 845. Then my appointment after that... I imagine after that I'll need a nap to recover. As you can see, having morning sickness that morning would seriously screw things up. Then once we're ready to go, hop in the car to drive down to Milwaukee for a Brewers game. Hopefully I survive the trip down! Then crash, visit with Boi's dad, and head back up.

To be quite honest, I'll be happy when the weekend comes. :) Maaaaainly due to the blood draw. How I hate those!

Fluffy Mail!

I know I just posted last night, but TOO BAD YOU HAVE TO HEAR FROM ME AGAIN!

Got my first fluffy mail today, consisting of a 6 pack of unbleached cotton prefolds, some snappi's and a thirsties duo wrap. Needless to say it took me only a few minutes to put it on, diaper is trifolded, folded down in front and fanned out in the back, snappi'd on, then covered up in cuteness :D

 

 

And complete! No leaks out of you Mr. Bear!

He's got a very large butt, I think I need to go through my stuffed animal stash and find a better infant analogous.

Heat Wave!

It's Peanut's first day with 97 degrees and heat index in the 100's. I think we handled it well - we spent it hiding out in the bedroom! With the A/C! Well, technically as long as we were in bed we spent the bulk of the pre-boi day napping. So I'm pretty awake right now... which isn't the greatest thing in the world. Boi has one more 6am shift tomorrow... so he's already in bed so the air is out of reach for me. 

BUT right now we have the cold front bearing down on us, sporting happy little storms. I think I already hear the wind starting to pick up! *checks radar* it's pretty gosh darn close now, even if we don't get a red cell, I'm going to be pretty gosh darn happy. Hopefully it's blowing colder wind itself, I'll open a window and bask.

In general we just got over two bad days. Well - most of yesterday was just... one of those days. And the night before just kept getting worse. I felt pretty sick by the time Boi got home, a weird sick - I think it was Peanut induced. I think my stomach is changing shape. (RAIN! FASTER THEN I THOUGHT!) It just looks like it pushed down a bit - which would explain the odd pain/pressure I was feeling for awhile. Not like I'm fearful he's dropping or something, just more change.

OOOoooh, there are already little branches rolling down the street, and lightning form far away lighting up the sky. AND the light flickered. Not sure why it did that though, no lightning in the vicinity yet. Just heard the first thunder even. 

So today I decided that if nothing else I NEEDED to get out of the house. So fortunately he got home on time (5ish :D) and we tried Pizza Hut, but they only apparently (power went out for a few seconds! woo! yay laptop - yes I unplugged it) they only serve their buffet on Wednesdays :( too bad he was looking forward to stuffing himself and I was looking forward to cheeeeese! So I was like, ok, chinese buffets don't do it for you, so how about mexican or like IHOP? So we did El Mezcal :D Shrimp Chimichanga, and he took my lead and tried the Bean Chimichanga. It may not be the healthiest thing in the world, but it's guaranteed to fill you up AND it's kind of like a mini buffet on the plate, hehe. PLUS AIRCONDITIONING!

So that was good and nummy. And we came home and wow'd for a bit, then the other day a guy on FB linked to a future interesting looking kinda Star Trek movie, and in the related by bit, it had a link to (ooooooooooo fire trucks? but seriously - still no lightning in the proximity that I can tell - weird) (ok, glanced at the radar, there's a giant red cell missing the house by a few miles, looks like the greater city area is getting hit though) what was I talking about? Ahh, anyways, we watched The Captains' Summit, which was good.

I promised some pictures, and today I'm finally going to give 'em up! Here is the closet - it's all fancy and sturdy - got the clothes in there (Peanut will not be nekkid!) and a few other random knickknacks. We're getting it bit by bit done. I figure it's better that way, if I just tried loading it in, I'd be redoing things till I was blue in the face! And that's no good for Peanut ;) (sips water to stay hydrated)

I have a hungry. I just finished off the strawberries in the house... there is more fruit, but I dunno... I could have cheese melted on grilled bread! That would be delicious! Or I could resist... it is 5 minutes till midnight.

Well, for now I'll resist out of hotness and pure laziness.

This picture is really tall, I want to post the next picture

...

 

OK! So here now we have the pack'n'play, thanks large in part to my sister's gift card! (Also sporting swaddled random teddy bear who was in the crib pic) It'll go next to the bed once he comes, since there's the bassinet insert. Alas first we need to slightly move the bed and furniture to get it to fully fit. So we're BIDING OUR TIME.

I'm tired and hot now, I don't want to type anymore. We're in a storm hole and that makes me sad. Hopefully the next arm will hit us and not disintegrate! I want to run out and play in it!

Oh and Happy 28 weeks Peanut! It's after midnight! Your ability to blink is now activated, and you're forming grooves on your brain. Aww how smart you will be!