33 Week Belly Pic

I was so frightened when I looked at this last night.

The first one is of me last night. The second one (with the long sleeve shirt) is of me two weeks ago. Hello!?!?! I didn't know a belly could grow that much in two weeks, especially since I'm in the losing weight stage of this pregnancy.

I can't wait

So, instead of whining about how I feel or what is bothering me, I am going to talk about the things I'm excited to be able to do after this baby is born.

Things I can't wait to do for the first time:
1. Hold this precious gift in my arms and look into his/her beautiful face that is a combination of me and my wonderful husband.
2. Be able to experience all those things of childhood that I loved so much, but this time be able to enjoy them in a different way as I get to watch the joy.
3. Watch J be the greatest dad.
4. Watch this little baby grow into a person
5. Be excited about all the little "firsts" in my baby's life

Things I can't wait to do again:
1. Run. I miss it so much right now.
2. Lie on my stomach
3. Have a drink.
4. Shave my legs on a regular basis.
5. Take a hot bath or go in a hot tub.
6. Eat what I want and not have to worry about heartburn.
7. Feel sexy and be sexy to my husband
8. Bend over to pick something up

The Burden of a Name

I always thought it would be so much fun to choose my children's names. There is a lot of stress associated with it. I think that is why J and I have avoided any real discussion of names.

We have a few that we have shot down, but most of them were shot down last time or very early.

Jeremy liked Peter William. I shot that one down. Why? Because if you say Peter Everitt fast, it sounds like Peter Rabbit.

I liked Garrett William, but J said there was no way we would have a Garrett (bad student I'm guessing). Next I liked Benjamin Scott. Another one shot down because there have been so many rowdy, obnoxious, button-pushing Benjamins he's known. I also liked Alissa Mae. He vetoed that one because of the double vowel thing (ending in a and last name starting with E).

So now, we're at a stand still. No more names that I like and J seems to be a bit useless for coming up with any. We have no decent family names to choose from and have taught way too many kids.

I went through one entire book and came up with nothing. What if we can't come up with anything before this baby is born?

Having 6 years of teaching behind me, I also have to say that I am amazed at how there are trends between personalities and names. Now, this isn't meant to offend anyone, so please don't take this badly. I'll even start with my nephew.

Tyler: All Tylers I know are head strong, great athletes, but kind of pains in the butt
Alex (males): Terrors. Nice enough, but a bit on the devious side
Zach: The clown, needs to be the center of attention, a bit on the obnoxious side
Brittany: Ditsy, overyly girly.

This isn't always true because some names are just overly used: Ashley, John, Kyle, Andrew, Sarah, etc.

Oh, my! What ever are we going to name our poor child!?!?!?!

Catching up

Here is attempt number 3 at catching up. Twice I managed to be dumb enough to delete my post.

Accident Prone:
The first thing I wanted to share was how much my clumbsiness has increased in the last few weeks and how many physical maladies I have had lately. It's just silly. First I burned my hand by setting my hand on the stove top. We have one of the ceramic top stoves and I managed to set my hand on a burner I had just turned off. Brilliant!!!

Then there was the walking and didn't stretch afterward which resulted in the worst calf cramp I have ever had (which is saying a lot for being a soccer player) at 2:00 am.

Then there was the whole drama with the root canal, which I think my dentist is making a small fortune off of. I had the initial appointment to get drilled, then went in yesterday to get the roots filled and then I go in next week to get it filled for good. Are you kidding me?

Saturday I managed to slice open my thumb while trying to open the box for the crib with a dull Swiss Army knife. I know, absolute brilliance again.

So, we'll keep counting the injuries and hope that they continue to stay minor.

I'm definitely feeling huge these days. I'm totally running out of clothes. I even resorted to wearing one of J's polo shirts from his chunky days (he's skinny now, the twit :-). The kids are starting to figure out that I don't have a whole lot to wear and are gently teasing me as they see the same clothes over and over again.

My feet are starting to swell a bit, but not too bad. I can see sock lines at the end of the day, but still have ankles. I think I even forgot to mention earlier that I had to take off my wedding ring. I was heatbroken about doing that. I haven't gone with out my rings on since I got married. I left my engagement ring and wedding ring separate, so even when I played soccer, I left my wedding ring on because it's just a simple band. I hate it and can't wait to be able to wear them again. I don't know why, but I feel funny not wearing them - almost naked.

Junior is definitely an active one though. S/he loves to kick me during class time. I remember when I would only feel him/her when I got home from school and would sit still for a long time. Now, he/she is awake and moving until after lunch, naps during 3rd adn 4th period, kicks up a storm until I go to bed and then seems to sleep when I do. The latest funny thing is the kicks straight out the top of the belly. I can watch my belly jump by looking down, straight between my boobs. At the same time, he/she likes to punch what I think may be a kidney or something on my right side, down by my hip. I think he/she is learning from Adam and doing spread eagles (right, Sheri?).

I've also been having what I'm assuming are Braxton-Hicks contractions a lot during school. Maybe it's from me walking around and being on my feet all day, maybe from stress, or maybe from dehydration (I can't seem to drink enough water). They are less than comfortable as my entire belly feels like it's rock hard. Sometimes I get the shooting pain down to the hoo-hah, but that has stopped since I stopped working out on the Elliptical trainer; walking seems to be going much better for me.

So I now have less than 8 weeks left. It seems like it's so long, but I know it's not in the grand scheme of things.

We have a lot of what we need, which is slightly frightening with two showers left to go. To hit the highlights, at the first shower, we got: a pack-n-play with sheets, bouncer, lots of yellow clothes, lots and lots of blankes, burp rags and swaddling blanket, boppy play gym, baby bjorn carrier, diaper bag, bath tub, towls, lots and lots of wash clothes, books, rattles, a leap frog counting train, socks,hats, and more yellow clothes. I know the yellow comes with the territory of the surprise, but everyone seems to like yellow ducks.

We went on a shopping spree this weekend and picked up things like a mattress, changing table pad and covers, burp rags, another towel and washclothes, baby wash, lotion, diapers, wipes, etc. I feel a little weird about buying that stuff, but I still think it is because I'm scared of jinxing this.

Anyway, here are the pictures of the room. We still have to clean out the closet, but we got the furniture assembled and positioned.







Now that this has taken me 2 days to compose, I'm just going to publish it and have to add anything else into a new post! :)

The Baby Shower's Wonderful Craziness

Sorry this isn't too much of an update; I'll work on that soon.

I did want to show you the madness and generosity of those that are either current or past voices of my life that wanted to show their love and support of me through showering our baby with wonderful presents.





Here are pictures of the mass pile of presents as we unloaded the car and stacked them up in the baby's room (or will be baby's room after we pick up the furniture next weekend).














The next two pictures are of two of my favorite outfits. I'd have to say that the striped giraffe outfit and stuffed animal are my absolute favorite, but the green Pooh outfit with matching blanket are a close second.


















One of the most amazing things about all the gifts we got was how much thought people put into what they gave. I had a friend who taught herself how to knit so she could knit the baby a blanket. My Godfather's wife made us a blanket. J's brother and sister in law bought us their favorite books. It's just amazing how much each present represented who the giver was.








The next pictures are of the beautiful quilt that J's grandma made for the baby. It has all different Winnie the Pooh prints on one side, one print on the other and then is trimmed with satin all the way around.
























Lastly here are some recent belly pics. I am definitely feeling big now. These are taken at 31 weeks. Yikes, that's scary to type.

Worries

I remember when all my focus and worry was surrounding being able to get pregnant. Now that we're approaching single digits of the number of weeks left until Junior arrives, I'm finding myself flooded with a new set of worries.

1. Am I going to know what to do and how to take care of such a little baby?

2. Am I going to be able to find a new job so that I can enjoy my time with Junior and have enough left to be a decent teacher?

3. Are we going to be able to afford the baby, let alone afford for me to drop to part time?

4. Am I going to screw up this child?

5. Are we going to be able to afford to move out of this house?

6. Is this neighborhood going to get worse by the time we can afford to move out?

7. Am I going to be able to breastfeed like our doctor thinks we need to because of J's allergies?

8. What are we going to do about daycare?

9. Can we really afford to raise this baby?

10. Are we ever going to get out of debt?

11. What will J and my relationship be like after the baby comes?

12. Will I be able to lose all the weight I need to after the baby is born?

13. Do I really want to raise my child here or should we move?

14. Am I going to be patient enough to be a good mom?

I know it's normal to have worries and fears before having a baby. I hope that most everything will be fine, but I just can't help worry.