4 Girls and a Baby

Last weekend, I flew up to the Raleigh area to spend the weekend with Heather, Emily (who flew in from Philly), Tera and her 7 month old sweetie, Andrew. We had a great time catching up and eating delicious meals at both Southern Seasons and Tera's house, and taking turns playing with and holding Andrew. He is such a good baby! It's amazing to meet him for the first time and see him rolling around on the floor, entertaining himself with his toys (and legs) and "talking." Tera and Lee are so lucky to have such a handsome and sweet baby boy. I'll put in a good word for him with Panda (especially if he ends up as a UNC man), though I think he's already going to be quite the ladies man!

Labor Sounds Scary

Fall is the best. I love the cooler weather, the start of football season, making the season’s first batch of chili, and most of all, Halloween. If I’m in the right company, I also like to be scared. Haunted houses and scary movies are usually my pick, but I just finished a book so terrifying, so frightening, that I’ve been having nightmares ever since. The book: The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy.

I really enjoyed the first 10 or so chapters of the book. Author Vicky Iovine, mother of four, is very humorous and knowledgeable about the subject of pregnancy. She writes so candidly about things I’ve experienced during pregnancy that her words lulled me right into a false sense of comfort. I read right up to the “labor and delivery” chapter of the book, thinking to myself, “why read this chapter now when I have so much of my pregnancy to go? I’ll just wait until I’m closer.”

But then, I did something stupid. I went ahead and read that chapter anyway. The horror! The bloodshed, the stretching, the stitches, the searing pain; I won’t go into more detail. I don’t want to ruin it for you like a good scare, and don’t want to upset you if you don’t.

For now, I’m just going to try and forget about what will happen to my body in January and focus on Halloween. I’m going as Juno this year and have persuaded Greg to be Paulie Bleaker, thus I have to begin my search for a Goodwill plaid, pleated mini to fit around my mid-section. This might be a challenge. Anyone know if Goodwill carries plus sizes?

Picking and Choosing

Wouldn’t it be great if you could pick and choose the best physical and personality traits between you and your husband to go to your baby? We already know I’d pick Greg’s hair and my feet, and today, I have one more thing to add to the list: my ability to sleep on the eve of an exciting event. This needs more elaboration.

Today, Greg left for a lengthy hunting excursion, and faced a 17 hour drive. He intended to get a few hours of sleep, wake at 4am, get ready, load the dogs, and go. But instead of 4am, the anticipation of the companionship of his friends at camp in WI, the thrill of blasting wild birds behind man’s best friend, and the call of the wild pre-empted sleep. So, after tossing and turning for 2 hours while I slept soundly, Greg called it a night, got up at 1am, and was gone by 1:45. This is pretty typical behavior for my dear husband who regularly sacrifices sleep for stress or general excitement. I just don’t have this problem. I was never the first one up on Christmas Day, and never entertained the idea of pulling an all-nighter. Sleep is just too important to me. So, in the midst of one of Greg’s “episodes” I usually just sigh at him, shake my head at him and go on to sleep. This was before I realized that our daughter could easily inherit this side of his personality.

I couldn’t fall back asleep after Greg’s departure in the wee hours of the morning as I kept having flashes of Panda, ready and dressed for her first day of school, lunch sack in hand, at 1:30 in the morning. Mommy, is the school bus coming soon? No dear, not for 6 more hours….

I guess Greg’s carni feet don’t seem all that undesirable anymore!

The Honeymoon vs. the Babymoon

There are many things different between the honeymoon phase of a couple’s relationship and the “babymoon” phase of the relationship. I could name a few, but why should I when the number one thing is so glaringly obvious by the photo I’ve posted? I’m taking panties, girls. No, not the cute pink number with strings that could be misconstrued by some as an eye patch, I’m talking the gianormous, stretchy “briefs” that, should you be caught off guard without shelter in a thunderstorm, you could take these off and just construct a tent for yourself. And a friend.

I do have to admit fault in explaining why the maternity briefs pictured above are so large. It’s because I bought a large. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m a medium, but somehow, the state of constriction my non-maternity underwear had put me in at the moment swayed my hand to the larges. And because I purchased them in a sealed 3-pack, I could not see that they were of such large proportion. Be sure to note: the picture does not even factor in the stretch element, so these dandies are indeed much larger than pictured. With all my regular briefs disappearing so deeply into the nether region below my growing belly that I can no longer see a swatch of fabric when I look down after putting them on, these maternity monstrosities are my only option on some days. So I wear them. They’re comfortable, the truth is that I’ll probably grow into them, so why not? The honeymoon is definitely over!

My 24 Week Belly

Check out the photo of my 24-week pregnant belly. More importantly, check out the background - Panda's crib! Greg indulged my wildest nesting fantasy and assembled the crib this weekend. Thanks, honey!

I also included a photo of Panda checking out her new threads (if you can't tell, the teal semi-circle in the bottom of the photo is my belly, which got in the way as I attempted to take this photo). I saw this outfit over the weekend and couldn't resist buying it for her. I am sure she can't wait to wear it when she's 3-6 months old!

In other news, Greg experienced some of Panda's acrobatics for himself this weekend. He was able to feel her movements on two occasions by resting his hand on my belly, which he thought was pretty cool. So, if we're that kind of friends, let me know that you want to feel her next time we get together, and I'll see what we can do. She has moments of lots of activity dispersed between lots of moments of chillaxing :)

Panda's Loitering

As Panda and I near the 24-week mark and both start to pack on the LBs, I’ve realized some capacity issues as far as my stomach is concerned. My theory is that Panda camps out on various parts of my anatomy, such as my stomach (but also in recent experience, my bladder), and loiters there for hours, maybe days. This is the only explanation I have for why after a few bites of lunch or dinner; I’m inexplicably full even though I was starving mere moments before. When I ignore those full feelings and finish my food (because it must be a fluke, right?) I then feel uncomfortably full for hours. I know the trick is to eat smaller portions and several snacks daily, sometimes I just don’t have time for that!

Speaking of snacks, my system of keeping snacks readily available proved to have a definite flaw this past weekend. The flaw? My baby daddy knew my hiding place and raided the snack box in my car, taking the last snack while I sprinted unknowingly inside a McDonald’s to pee! When I returned to the car and saw Greg polishing off the last Lance cracker in the pack, I started at him in disbelief before telling him that he’d reached a new low by taking a pregnant lady’s snacks. He was totally unremorseful, and simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “I was hungry” then wadded up the cellophane wrapper, tossed it in my console, and drove us out the parking lot. Clearly, I need to be more creative about my snack hiding places. If you have any baby-daddy-proof spots to suggest, let me know.

My last thought of the day is that I would do you an injustice if I didn’t share the details on my new favorite morning snack. Thanks to my co-worker Jon, I’ve discovered Quakers Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies. That’s right: breakfast cookie. It’s a delicious cookie packed with calcium (30% DV), vitamins, and fiber (20% DV). With only 180 calories (hey, it’s still a cookie!) and 6g of fat, these little gems (found in the breakfast food aisle with the breakfast bars) are my new fave. My pack is safely hidden in a drawer at work – no way am I risking taking these delights home to share! I’ve learned my lesson!

Opening Up Pandora's Box

This is an actual excerpt from an email I received today from my mother. This is 100% real, not edited for humor. I couldn’t make this stuff up!

Mom, “I thought of a name for the baby: Pandora. Then her nickname could be Panda or Pandy. Isn't that adorable? And it ends in ‘a.’"

For those of you that don’t know, Greg’s family has a tradition of naming the girls with names that end in ‘a,’ so that’s the significance of my mom’s last comment. His sisters are Sara, Rebecca, and Tara, his mother was Sandra, her sister is Vera, and so on. The tradition is something we definitely considered in putting together our list of potential baby girl names, but not necessarily the naming mentality we will follow. Clearly, we also do not plan to follow my mother’s naming mentality.

As you can conclude, Mom is not giving up yet on Panda. I give her credit for her persistence, and to this day, am thankful I ended up as Courtney, and not as Sonova Quentin, my mom’s name choice for me before Dad countered with Dawn Carol. Whew! I avoided a close one. Hopefully Panda will be just as happy with her given name when she’s old enough to know better. If not, she can always legally become Pandora and make her grandmother happy!