Week 26

Week 26.  Time flies!

Halloween was last Monday.  I thought that Dre and I could have a nice meal and then give out some candy to the cute kiddies while eating my weight in chocolate.

WRONG!

The hordes of children descended on our house.  By 6:45 Dre and I, started giving out 3 pieces of candy instead of 5 because there were so many kids.  By 7pm, I was contemplating dashing to the store to get some more candy, but I’d have to dodge the hordes of crazy, sugar rushed kiddies to get there.  By 7:45pm, we got our last trick or treater and we were down to about 10 little chocolate bars.  It was a harrowing experience!  Last year, I stocked enough candy to feed a small army.  I had enough candy for 200+ kids and we barely had 25 ring our door bell.  When it was time to stock up on candy this year, I only bought 3 bags of candy thinking I’d have plenty.  That was our Halloween horror tale this year.  Next year, I’m stocking up on candy so that I don’t have to give my favourite chocolate bars to the kids.

Today, I’ve been searching through Etsy trying to find cute decals of monkeys in trees.  There are so many, but a lot of them are really girly because the tree has flowers in it even if the flowers are blue.  So annoying!  Also, they’re freaking expensive.  I’m talking $165 for a full size tree decal with leaves and some monkeys.  Did they make the damn thing out of gold or something?  I have to go check one of our local stores that carries artsy stuff to see if they have some decals I can use; otherwise, I’ll be spending a fortune on cutsie wall decals.  It’ll totally be worth it though.



Week 25



Week 26

I spent all week at the same exact weight.  170 lbs.  I gained 2 lbs between last Saturday and Sunday and stayed there all week.  It’s the first week that this has happened.  This week my average weight is 169.9 lbs.  That’s a 2 lbs gain for this week making my total weight gain for this pregnancy 16.9 lbs at 26 weeks!  I think I’m on track to gain 30 lbs this pregnancy.  I still think that pictures make me look like a blimp.  Every time I see one that Dre insists on taking of me I go, “Who the hell is making me look so bloated?  OMG!  I look like that.”  I must a reverse anorexic or something.  You know when an anorexic person looks in the mirror and all we see are toothpick bones and they stand there pinching imaginary rolls of fat.  Well, I’m the opposite.  I stand there and think, “170 pounds really doesn’t look that bad on me.  Yes, there’s my stupid double chin making an appearance, but it’s not as prominent as I would have thought.  I look pretty skinny for a pregnant girl.”  So, I’ll keep choosing to see myself as this skinny, pregnant girl because it’s better for my self-esteem. 

This is what Dre tell me yesterday, “I love the baby.  I love the wifey.  Together you’re all one big package.”  While kissing my stomach then gesturing towards me.  Good thing that comments like that don’t give me a complex or anything.  Funny husband!

Dre came home the other day and told me that one of his co-workers told him not to skip the maternity pictures because I’d regret it later on.  The problem with those is that right now I’m living in denial land and refuse to look at pictures of myself.  Also, since my wedding photographer decided that selling houses was a much better career than creating magic with Photoshop, I’d have to hunt for a new photographer for these.  Blah!  It only took me 2 months, hundreds of websites, and 4 appointments to find this photographer.  I’m not sure I can do it again for maternity/baby pictures.  I guess I should add this to my list of things to do/find.

The heartburn is behaving most of the time.  Of course, the only time it acts up now is when my Zantac prescription is not accessible.  I need to start carrying that stuff in my purse.  I did have peanut butter this week and it was heavenly.  So good!  Dre had to steal the jar away from me so I didn’t eat it all.  He even took a picture of me eating from the jar and giving him the side-eye.  He thinks it’s absolutely hilarious.

No BH this week, but with so many girls from my Feb. 2012 mom group on The Bump and FB group being admitted to the L&D because of contractions, pre-term labour, or other symptoms it makes me extra paranoid about every little thing now.  I’m also winning the war against stretch marks for now.  I still have the one lonely one on my boob and it’s going to stay that way. 

According to a lot of online articles, I’m not actually suffering from sciatic nerve pain but an unstable pelvis or something like that.  I think I’m actually suffering from both.  I’ve had sciatic nerve pain my whole life and that fun stuff has suddenly reappeared in my life along with the new pain in my bum when I walk a lot (as in more than the 10 feet required to get my Ben & Jerry’s).  I think the new pain might be this pelvis thing.  

I’m really looking forward to having Friday off this week.  It’s Remembrance Day (Veterans Day for the US) and since I work for the Federal Government that is a Federal holiday!  Yeah!  The only downside is that since that’s the last day of my 26^th week I have to go do my stupid gestational diabetes test.  Ugh!  I’m so not excited about that.  Doctor told me to do it between Week 24-26.  I like to leave thing till the last minute.

Baby is the size of an eggplant or a cucumber depending on which website/book you read.  He’s getting pretty big.  I can tell because his movements and karate kicks are getting much stronger.  Also, he still definitely loves to bounce up and down on my bladder.

Weekend Stuff

The weekends always seem to fly by!

Since the weekend is the only time that I seem to sleep well, I'm really sad whenever Sunday night rolls around and I realize that I'll have to get up at 6am tomorrow while it's pitch black outside.  Although now that we've gone through another time change (I really, really, really hate time change.), it might actually be light outside by the time I leave the house in the morning.  When you drive to work, it doesn't really matter if it's light or not, but when you wait for a bus on the side of the road every morning it matters.  It matters because cars can't see you very well.  This doesn't usually make me feel safe at all.  Thankfully, once December 21st, the winter solstice, is passed the days will start to get longer and somewhere in January it's no longer going to be dark once I leave for work.

Anyways, the weekend I hit up the annual toy sale we have here.  A friend of mine wanted to go and asked if I wanted to tag along.  I didn't think I'd really find anything I needed there since my two nephews have decided that what they want for Christmas is a laptop or an iPod Touch.  Have I mentioned that they're 8 and 5?  So I have no idea what to buy them for Christmas, but it definitely won't be a laptop.  My nieces on the other hand are 16 and 9.  The 16 year old obviously no longer wants toys and since she's a girl I generally just ask her what she wants to give her gift cards.  The younger one lives in Australia and since mailing stuff to Australia takes about 2 months when it's larger than a letter I no longer send her actual presents.  So, I was surprised when I ended up finding all these great baby books in French and English for the baby.  Dre and I love reading and it's a passion that we hope to pass on to our kids.  I love movies and television, but I think that the written word is the ultimate way to convey a story.  There are so many details in a book that you can never get from a movie or TV. 

These were insanely cheap because it was the toy sale. 
Love it that 12 baby books cost less than $20.

When I got back home, I had these good intentions to have lunch and then go out for some errands.  Instead I fell asleep for 2 hours!  I guess what they say about the crazy sleepiness coming back in the 3rd trimester is true.  I'm not quite in the 3rd trimester yet, but I'm definitely more tired than I was a month ago.  We did make it to the store to pick up some stuff for dinner and to check out some video cameras.  The sales person at Future Shop basically told us that if we were looking at the Flip HD Camcorder or the Sony Bloggie Touch Camcorder that we'd basically have the same video quality from recording on our iPhones.  She recommended we go with an actual video camera.  I'm not sure I want to spend $300-$400 on a camera that I'm not sure we really need.  I think we'll look at them when we go visit my aunt in the States.  Electronics tend to be much cheaper over there.

This was what we got done on Saturday.  It was a good Saturday.  Sunday we did a ton of stuff, but I'll have to talk about that later.  My computer is dying over here so I need to go.

Need to Get Moving

Apparently we don't need prompts to write well during the weekend.  Haha! 

The weekend is when I have no time to write and when I do remember to write I just have no idea what to write about.

With all the baby stuff that runs through my head at any given time, I have a hard time figuring out what to write about let alone remember to actually go write about it.  I need to start carrying post it notes with me to remind me what I'm supposed to be doing.

Looking at all the progress that other Moms to be are making on their baby's room, I've realized that I need to get my butt in gear.  I have a picture of what I want to room to look like, but I haven't done much to get it done.  I think part of the problem is that IKEA seems to be incapable of stocking our stupid crib.  I mean how hard is it to stock cribs that you have in your catalogue so that people can buy them?  Dre called them and they have no idea when they're going to stock them...blah, blah, blah.  The thing is that we don't really need a crib to finish the baby room since we'll have him in our room in a bassinet for the first few months.  It just seems as if the room would come together more easily if we could build it around the crib.  Since IKEA is opening its brand-new and huge store in December in our city, I'm hoping that they'll have all these cribs in stock at that time.  We're hoping!

So my project for this week is to find the wall decals I need for the baby's room.  I want to get a huge tree wall decal and some monkey wall decals.  I'm hoping I can hang a few monkeys from the tree and really tie the tree into the monkey theme that Dre loves.  Then I need to take pics of a few things left over from my wedding and list them on Kijiji (like Craiglist for the US) to sell.

Hopefully, I'll have some awesome baby room pictures to post on here in the next month or so.

Keeping your Shopping Cart can be a Full Time Job and Why I Lurve Pens

Yesterday, I went to Costco with my SIL.  I love Costco because it is awesome and they always have new stuff on their shelves.  They’ve started stocking their Christmas stuff and Christmas gift ideas.  So there are about 200 different television series on DVD or Blu-Ray over there and about 100 different books that I wish I could have bought.  The problem is that I only read books once so if I buy them then they spend a long time on my shelves doing nothing.  

If you’ve ever been to Costco, you know how massively huge the shopping carts are there.  It’s like driving a tank down the different aisles.  The aisles around the store are wide so that’s not really a problem, but the aisles in the middle of the store are tiny and packed with annoying people who just randomly stop everywhere.  So trying to ram your cart through the clothing or DVD aisles to see if there’s anything you want is not fun.  

When we started shopping there, SIL and I noticed this and decided that we’d just abandon our carts at the end of an aisle and go wander around the middle.  Then we come back and retrieve our carts and go on our merry way without having tried to kill anyone with a shopping cart.  Anyways, I don’t look good in plaid jail pajamas.  So the point is that yesterday, we left our carts and went to wander.  As we’re making our way back to the carts, 2 sales ladies are discussing our carts and all the food we have in there.  They think they’ve been abandoned and that they should return the food to the freezers.  Pregnancy hormones appeared and I told them to keep away from my cart.  I mean I picked up all this stuff there’s no way in hell that I want to go around the store again and do it all over a second time.  I was a feeling a little testy because this random dude tried to steal our carts in the food court earlier.   Don’t mess with the pregnant lady’s cart full of food unless you want to be seriously injured!

It was a rather eventful evening last night.

Question of the day

When writing do you prefer to use a pen or a computer?

I’ve always loved pens.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve hoarded pens.  If you go through the drawers at my house, you’ll find hundreds of different pens and I love them all.  I can never have too many pens.  The pen aisles at the office supply stores are so awesome.

I especially love gel ink pens.  When gel pens came out in my early teen years, I thought they were the coolest things ever.  I mean you can write on black paper with them…hello…so cool!  Now I hunt for those pens that write like gel pens in more professional colors.  Blue and black are so boring sometimes, but the corporate clients might be shocked if I started signing the contracts and expenses in hot pink or neon green. 

When I was in university, I used a different colored pen for every class.  If I forgot that pen for some reason, I would get back to my place and re-write my class notes in the proper color of ink.  Yah, OCD much? 

So I love writing with pens, but I most often write on a computer.  Why?  It’s easy and fast.  I don’t have the time to write something on paper and then type it up on a computer.  It’s much easier to just type what I want to say on a computer screen and revise it as I go along.  I still love writing, but writing on paper takes much longer than typing those words.  Even though my preferred method to write is now a computer, I will never stop collecting and keeping every single pen I find.  They’re magical!

Lyrics Don't Inspire Me, Music Does

Dre and I didn’t do much last night.  We stayed home and made dinner.  While I was sitting on the couch after dinner 2 boxes of candy were within arm reach and I quickly realized that when I can touch the candy I’m going to eat the candy.  So I had to go hide the boxes away.  Dre thinks I’m hiding the candy from him…that is partially true, but the real reason is that I’m hiding the candy from me this time!

Today’s question is…

Can you listen to music and write?  What song did you hear today?

I can listen to music and write.  Mostly it’s because I tend to listen to the music and not the words of a song. My friends tell me that they hate specific songs all the time and when I ask them why they always refer to the lyrics.  I, then, try to remember the lyrics and I usually can’t unless it’s the chorus lines.  I’m weird like that…I could care less what a singer actually sings usually as long as the music sounds good.  Of course, there are some songs that I love because of what the words say such as “Come What May” from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack.  It was the song we played for Dre and I’s first dance at our wedding almost 3 year ago.

In similar fashion, asking me to remember what song I heard on the radio while driving to the park and ride to take the bus this morning is useless.  I have no freaking idea!  There was music and I liked it, but apart from that I have no clue.  I would make a very bad musician or music industry person.

The perfect meal...or not

At first I thought that there was no way that I’d actually blog about the questions, but now I’m thinking that it could be interesting.

Here is today’s question.

If you know that whatever you ate next would be your last meal, what would you want it to be?

If I knew that this was the last food I would ever eat, I would probably organize a feast.  Why? Because I love food!  I’m trying to come up with a meal, but all I can think about is that I’ll never taste anything else again so I must eat everything.

Things like homemade spaghetti, creamy broccoli cheese soup, ravioli bake with lots of stringy cheese, spicy queso, loaded fajitas, pulled pork, braised beef, heavenly BBQ potatoes, T-bone steak, pizza with bacon and green olives, butter chicken, pho, spring rolls, lasagna, brownies, chocolate cake, cheesecake, heavenly chocolate chip cookies, salads heaped with feta, olives, and avocadoes, and the list goes on and on.

You see my dilemma.  I can’t just pick one meal and make that the last thing you’ll ever get to eat.  I think that’s why I like to enjoy my meals as if it is the last time that I’ll eat this meal.  It makes me enjoy and appreciate the food that I have a lot more.

Moving on to what I’ve been up to in the last 24 hrs.

I started the second part of my pre-natal yoga class yesterday.  It was so hard!  We did all of this balancing stuff which is a great workout, but my friend and I (we’re both at 25 weeks) were dying laughing because we couldn’t do some of the stretches comfortably anymore.  I guess the baby is taking a lot more room than we figured.  Also, we look like very ungraceful and uncoordinated ladies doing all of these graceful yoga moves.  Our instructor is tiny and super graceful which makes us look even worse.  Haha!  We find this hilarious.  Also, we’re really liking the fact that these yoga exercises and relaxing techniques are making us sleep so much better.  Last night, I slept until 5am before I woke up to go pee.  It’s a miracle!  I’ve started getting up 2-4 times per night lately and I always feel like I barely get any sleep, but last night I didn’t even move and slept like a log.  It was great!

Dre and I take the same bus home on most nights.  On the bus, he unzips his backpack and shows me what’s in it.  Guess what it is!  Candy.  Lots of candy!  After a holiday, we usually go to the store together and get some on sale candy.  This time Dre decided to go to the store on his lunch break instead of going with me after work.  Apparently the rows upon rows of discounted Halloween candy proved too much for Dre to resist because he bought 2 boxes of chocolate (90+ pieces), 1 box of chewy candies (90+ piece), and 1 bag of rockets (110 pieces).  It’s dangerous to let my husband go shop for candy all by himself.  Now we have enough candy to last us till next Halloween…but know Dre they won’t make it past ChristmasJ

Life is always interesting!

Joining in the NaBloPoMo!

Apparently today is the beginning of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo…say that 5 times quickly).  

In past years, every time November rolled around at least one blog I was reading decided to participate. And every year I wondered why someone would drive themselves crazy trying to post once a day to meet this imaginary goal.  I guess that I kind of get it this year.

In the past few months, I’ve found that I don’t have that much to say on here apart from detailing how the pregnancy is going (or trying to kill me depending on how you look at it).  When we do something, I try to write about it and find a couple of pictures to add to the story, but really how often do people want to read about me grocery shopping or changing my mind about the crib bedding set…AGAIN.

The idea behind NaBloPoMo (this is going to get really annoying to write…I can tell) is to blog every day which will improve your writing, and grow your blog.  I don’t know about growing my blog, but I could use some help improving my writing.  

When I was in high school, my favourite subject was English.  I love the grammar rules that always applied to the written word and I was quite good at following those rules when writing.  I kept that going through all my university years.  Now that I’ve been out of school for the last 5.5 years, I find that those grammar rules are hazier and that I can’t quite recall certain rules on how to structure my sentences.  I end up arguing with the damn Microsoft Word Grammar checker thingy every time (that thing makes up grammar rules). 

I figure that trying to write every day for 30 days can’t kill me and if I succeed the worse that can happen is that I have 30 boring posts.

The question asked on the official NaBloPoMo website for today is “What is your favourite part about writing?”  I guess the answer for me is that this acts kind of like my online journal.  It’s something that I’ll be able to look back at and read in a few months, years, or decades and recall all the trivial little things that we forget as life happens.  I’m not the best at telling a story, but I hope that my writing can inspire someone to start a blog of their own just as other bloggers out there inspired me to take the plunge and start writing down my story.

So wish me luck as this is my first official post of NaBloPoMo