New stuff, old stuff

This weekend was a good one, filled with baby stuff and new furniture. It was also filled with being double-charged by a restaurant we visited, but I'm going to call them today and ask them why they are charging us a $107 second bill on top of the $52 bill we actually spent. NOT COOL. But I digress...

Sunday, Jon and I went to Colorado Springs to visit one of his friends from Rawlins. They have known each other since preschool, believe it or not, and still keep in touch. She has a five-year-old daughter and offered to give us all her old baby stuff that has been sitting in storage. Such a nice offer, and we happily took it off her hands. Things like a bassinette and some floor toys and a bouncy chair and other stuff. It was really very generous of her and I'm sure we'll end up using a lot of it.

We also bought a rocker/recliner chair. I find it increasingly difficult to get out of the "made for really short people" couch we have in our living room. It is low to the ground, the back is low, the arms are hard...it just doesn't fit me. So we're getting a new chair that I can lounge in, get out of with ease, put my feet up, rock the baby to sleep, etc. I'm soooo excited. I love a recliner. :)

Monday I bought a put-it-together-yourself "entertainment center" to put the TV on and house various electronic gizmos. Our old TV stand was actually a bedside table repurposed in the living room. It was a bit precarious looking, with a big TV perched on top of the DVR and DVD. This new set-up is much better, much more stable. Now the bedside table is being repurposed as a mini-office, with Jon's printer and a few other things. Our little apartment is getting soooo full of stuff as we have to move things out of the guest room/nursery. Our living room furniture had to be rearranged to accomodate the new chair and in doing so the flow is all off. It looks a little weird. I might get used to it. But now everything is about utility utility utility. I think every square inch of floor-wall space will be put to use by the time this baby arrives.

Ooh, and Jon felt the baby kick for the first time last night! Those kicks must be getting stronger. She is quite skilled at the bladder dance, I can tell you that much.

And the whirl whirl whirl of the tornado

Yesterday was a wild day of weather in Colorado, from winter storm warnings and blowing snow advisories in the mountains, to severe thunderstorms and a massive tornado in the northeast. Nearly every part of Jon's family was impacted by the tornado in some way. His mom was driving home from a mini-vacation in SE Colorado and got caught in some snow, but not too bad. Her dogs were kennelled at the vet's office, where the tornado came within a mile of hitting. The tornado was about a mile wide, so being a mile away is not so far. The veterinarians actually watched it go by. Anyway, the dogs are fine. Carol's house was hit with some wind, but nothing too bad. Jon has a great aunt and some second cousins who were in the towns where the tornado actually hit, but aside from lack of power, they are safe and fine. Another tornado hit Laramie, Wyoming, where his sister lives, and again, aside from no power, she is fine. His brother is an engineer on the Union Pacific and the weather was so bad he had to stop the train he was driving. But that's about it. So lots of people were affected by the storms, but no one was hurt. Good thing.

Jon has begun the process of selling his motorcycle. He loves his motorcycle, but it is the right thing to do with a baby on the way. Seems pretty silly to have a car payment outstanding on a dangerous vehicle. We posted an ad in the Denver Post a month or so ago, but got very little response. He parked the motorcycle outside his shop with a For Sale sign two days ago and got eight calls! Hopefully he'll sell it soon.

I took Sophie to a new groomer yesterday and she finally looks like herself again! Cute and symmetrical.

No big plans for the holiday weekend except driving down to Colorado Springs to procure a lot of baby items from my husband's high school friend. She is very generously giving us all her daughter's old stuff. I'm pretty excited.

Ultrasounds and summer on the way

Yesterday was my third ultrasound, the follow-up to the ultrasound I had two weeks ago. I was scheduled for this appointment because the U-sound tech previously couldn't get a good picture of the heart or placenta due to the location of the baby. Well, despite the constant cheerleading competition going on in my belly, the kicks and spins and elbows to the bladder I'm feeling quite frequently, the baby had not moved positions. Still squirming away, still blocking the view. I tell you, she's a trouble-maker already. But luckily, after many attempts, many "you feel little bit pressure" from my russian-accented technician, and many forceful presses just below the belly button, she got the good pictures. Heart looks fine. Placenta is sitting a little too low. This latter issue is one that will likely resolve itself over the next four months, but if it doesn't, could be an issue. Mostly it means I'll have to have yet another ultrasound to check the placement again at 30-ish weeks, and even more if the placenta is still low. I am not worried about it.

But the craziest thing is, the baby looked significantly bigger in this ultrasound than in the last one. Jon and I both thought so. It could have been the angle or the way the pictures were showing up, but she's growing fast. It's pretty amazing.

Yesterday was also Denver's first taste of summer weather. It got to about 85 degrees, which isn't crazy hot, but hot enough that I realized how much this summer is going to suck. Jon and I drove to Greeley to get his mom's truck and while on the way his car started running just a little warm so we couldn't use the a/c. It was hot. Very hot. And I was very uncomfortable. I felt like I couldn't breathe properly and my head hurt and I ended up punching Jon in the arm for no reason. Not my finest moment. Once we arrived at his mom's house I layed down for a bit and drank some ice water and felt better. Eating dinner helped as well. But this was a mildly hot day, not a crazy hot day, like 95 or 100. And I'm not super huge pregnant yet. Oh the summer will be such a delight. I think I'll be seeing a lot of summer movies just to sit in the air conditioning for two hours.

23 weeks pregnant

This week marks the 23rd week of pregnancy. So what can I expect now? Well, according to the American Pregnancy Association, the baby has now reached one pound in weight and 10 inches in length. My uterus is now positioned directly above my bladder, making bladder control an issue. What a joy! I'm not dealing with that, but I am going to the bathroom 100 times a day. I can feel the little one moving around all the time and I might start feeling braxton hicks contractions. I don't know if I'm feeling those yet, but I am feeling a lot of pain in my lower abdomen, which usually gets worse when I'm being active or trying to sit up or roll over or sneeze or laugh. When it's really bad, it wraps around the side to my back and shoots down my leg. All just growing pains, I've been told, and totally normal. But I do have to sit down a lot when I go shopping or out for a long walk. If it means the baby is growing normally, I guess I shouldn't complain.

The newest thing I'm getting lately is darkening of freckles on my face. Not just the normal "start of summer" freckle explosion, but a very specific existing-freckles-becoming-extra-dark-overnight thing. Apparently there is a thing called "chloasma" or the "mask of pregnancy."

From the APA: "Mask of pregnancy" is also referred to as melasma and chlosma. Melasma causes dark splotchy spots to appear on your face. These spots most commonly appear on your forehead and cheeks and are a result of increased pigmentation. When you become pregnant your body produces more hormones, which causes an increase in your pigmentation. Nearly 50% of pregnant women show some signs of the "mask of pregnancy".

I noticed a blotchy freckle above one of my eyebrows a few weeks ago, and another in the same area last week. Then this morning I woke up and a freckle on my chin is way darker than it was yesterday. I'm also getting red blotchiness all over. Ergh! As a fair-skinned woman who always has skin cancer concerns in the back of my mind, overnight changes to my skin pigmentation is a little scary. But knowing that it is a normal part of pregnancy makes me feel a little better. My dermatologist will be getting an urgent phone call if it doesn't go away after I give birth, though! I really don't want the whole "mask" of pregnancy, though, because that doesn't look good. A few dark freckles, a few splotches...fine. But no more. Earlier in the summer I bought a big floppy hat to wear when I walk the dogs to cover my face so hopefully that will help keep too much pigmentation at bay.

Nothing else exciting going on. I bought a pass to Chatfield Resevoir since we seem to take the dogs 2 or 3 weekends a month and the day pass rate went up to $7! The $60 annual pass will certainly pay for itself over the summer, and it lasts until next May.

My first knitted baby thing

I started knitting my first baby thing, a cute little cardigan sweater. It's also the first article of clothing I've tried to knit (not a scarf or hat or dishcloth, etc). Very exciting. I bought a nice gray-green color that is gender neutral. I'll either keep the sweater for my own baby girl, or give it to Alisa's baby boy. Depends on how it turns out and how many mistakes I knit into it. :)

Mother's Day and Furniture

Happy mother's day to everyone. This was my first mother's day as a mom, sort of. Maybe half a mom. Jon got me a very cute maternity t-shirt that he made. It has a robot graphic on the shoulder and says "made in Japan, assembled in America" on the belly. Made me laugh.

I talked to my mom, Jon and I took his mom to brunch, and then we headed to the shops to look for a dresser for the nursery. We wanted something low, something that can double as a changing table, and we ended up purchasing this sassy item from Z Gallerie. We actually looked at it, then went to three other stores, and came back. It was on sale, almost 50% off, and it is lovely. Not very "cutesy" or little girl like, but it will work. Now the last big baby furniture thing we need is a comfy chair.

Such a pretty face

Can you see the face in this ultrasound? Jon was excited because our baby's first picture just looks like a skull, and he loves skulls.

It's hard to see, but it is the face with a hand partially covering it, and an elbow sticking out. The print-out we got was pretty small so the scan isn't very big either.