March 2006 has been the rainiest March in about 100 years! Last news report I saw…I think that we only had 6 or 7 rain-free days. I’m super glad that S didn’t follow-up on an opportunity that would have moved us to Seattle. This weather sucks. (No offense to my Seattle based friends or to those that have lived there.) I’ve purchased cute maternity tops and pants and skirts here, here and even here, that are either just hanging in my closet or neatly folded in my dresser, begging to be worn. Same goes for the comfy, new sandals I bought that haven’t been taken out the box yet.
The good thing, if there has to be one, about this rain is that my tulips look gorgeous and one of my hydrangreas is finally blossoming. (But so is a lot of other stuff in our yard…weeding party anyone?) And, oh yeah, no worries about a drought this summer…if we ever make it to summer.
21 weeks left and counting…
So I’m at the point in this pregnancy where I should be feeling the peanut move. And I know peanut is moving since I saw it on the ultrasound monitor with my own two eyes. Unfortunately, since this is technically the first pregnancy, I can’t tell the difference between tummy rumblings or fetal movement. Driving home a couple evenings ago, I was pretty sure I felt movement right around the time I was listening to J. Lo’s Get Right. Who knows for sure? I’m hoping that is was fetal movement which means this peanut’s got rhythm (and won’t have the white person dance gene – no offense). š Either that or J. Lo tunes, sad to say, give me gas.
I’ll see what I can do about getting belly pictures posted. Maybe I can model all the cute tops I bought?
So this past Friday was the peanut’s second photo shoot – a bit more involved than the first photo shoot 9 weeks ago. This appointment took longer than I had thought it would be – I think we got out of the hospital 90m later (after registering and taking a slight detour to the nursery).
A few days prior, S had been debating on whether we should find out what the sex of the baby is – so, before we got settled, I told the radiology tech that we didn’t want to know the sex…right? Right. So when time came to explore “the area”, she asked us to close our eyes / look away from the screen. Fortunately, she says that she didn’t “fight” to find out since we didn’t want to know.
Aside from that, peanut’s got 4 chambers in the heart, a spinal cord, 2 arms, 2 hands, a total of 10 fingers, 2 legs, 2 feet, a total of 10 toes (& other stuff they’re supposed to have, I’m sure), approximately weighing in at 9 ounces and is looking good. The MD commented on what a “beautiful profile” peanut has! (We couldn’t get a clear view of the brain because Peanut’s head is/was right below my belly button and the tech poked and prodded but Peanut wouldn’t budge – rather, there was leg movement and what looked like a “don’t-bug-me” punch.)
Pix from the photo shoot are posted on S’ blog here.
If you need to take a break, check out this highly addictive game from Adam.
Folks, she really wasn’t kidding! I saw the ad last night in my complimentary copy of american baby magazine for this.
| How to make a kelly |
| Ingredients: 1 part friendliness 5 parts brilliance 3 parts joy |
| Method: Layer ingredients in a shot glass. Top it off with a sprinkle of wisdom and enjoy! |
thanks to Wendy for this link! š
Iāve been both so anxious and excited lately these remaining 19 (23) weeks canāt go by fast enough! (Famous last words, eh?) Today was my third pre-natal visitā¦got the good news that my AFP test came back ānormalā and got to listen to the babyās heartbeat again. A quickie visit today. S had asked Dr. F where he could get one of those portable Doppler devices so that he could listen to the heartbeat ā surprisingly/jokingly Dr. F replied, āoh, these, you can rent them from some place on the internet.ā Then she added the disclaimer that the ultrasounds shouldnāt be done too often. Iām slowly gaining more weight ā well, of course I am! They keep weighing me with my shoes ON! I just canāt take them off fast enough. Itās flip-flops from now on!…well, weather permitting, of course.
S seems to have come down with sympathy symptoms lately ā aside from the sympathy weight, we think that heās to starting to develop āpregnancy brainā. He couldnāt remember, for the life of him, that his mom had told him that they had received our belated holiday gifts…a while ago.
Iāve been home the past couple with a cold (blame the weather coming down from Canada & Alaska) ā figuring that I should really be taking it easy and not make that huge effort to get my butt to work.
There are no plans for celebrating St. Pattyās day, nor any plans to eat corned beef and cabbage and potatoes ā though it does sound quite tasty right now. š
Hope yāall have a safe and enjoyable St. Patrickās Day celebration!
…Or do you?
(To preface this blurb – S had carpooled to work and I had taken the A3, leaving our Montero at home in this infamous parking spot.)
So, when I arrived home last night, I had noticed that our I’ll-place-my-trash-bins-in-this-parking-spot-so-you-can’t-park-here neighbor’s trash and recycle bins were on the sidewalk, right up against (read: touching) the car. Of course, I didn’t see any scratches, but dude…that’s just flat-out rude. Unnoticed, the bins had been moved from the sidewalk to behind our car…S went out to check for scratches (there were none), but he noticed chalk marked arrows on the sidewalk exactly matched up to the center of the tires. Hmm. We wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and decided to write a polite note asking him to be more careful when placing his bins next to our car (when it’s parked there).
This am, S saw that the bins had moved in and took the opportunity to ask him about being more careful about the bins, our car, etc. He denied putting them there…okay not a problem. THEN, he wanted to talk to S about US constantly parking in his this spot. He starts to say that he’s an SF native and that though the street parking is PUBLIC parking, it’s an unspoken courtesy to not park in front of a house that’s not yours. (wtf! anti-dog lady across the street, is looking more agreeable, wouldn’t you say?) S rebutted saying that because of the construction/sewer replacement on our thoroughfare, there isn’t much parking and the bus stop is right in front of our house (this will soon be moved, so hopefully soon, we will have a spot in front of our house). S finished with asking him to be mindful of our property – nasty neighbor (NN) #1 said “of course” and that was that.
Okay – first of all – just because you are an SF native, doesn’t grant you any special treatment – maybe some oohs and ahhs from some people who aren’t from here and the right to wear the SF native tee shirt. Secondly, I’d would be more sympathetic to his argument if we were in a neighborhood where PUBLIC street parking (in front of your own house, nonetheless) was a hot commodity. But you know what – it’s not – so, deal NN#1. Thirdly, NN#1 is the only person in the NEIGHBORHOOD who has “complained” about us constantly parking in a parking spot. And finally, if the spot’s open, you never park there anyway – so again, what’s the big deal?
So friends, family, I beseech you – if that spot is open – TAKE it! Courtesy, my a**.
(more…)
What a crazy and emotional week itās been! It all started last week when my grandmother was admitted to the hospital after the folks at the home found her unresponsive. Sadly, it concluded this past Sunday when she passed away and with her funeral on Wednesday. Without airing too much dirty laundry, I hadnāt talked to or seen my grandmother in over 10 years, yet at the funeral I was bawling along with the rest of my cousins. Iād like to blame the walking hormone cocktail that I have become, but it probably wasnāt that. Who knows what it was. Anyhow, it was a nice, private service with a nice Chinese luncheon afterwards (weāre Filipino, so lord knows why we went Chinese). I took the three days bereavement my company allowsā¦Wednesday, for the funeralā¦Thursday, for helping my mom and my uncle start to clean out my grandmotherās houseā¦and today, Friday, for sleeping late and running errands.
The Lab as my 2nd home
Today I went in for my 2nd blood drawing, the AFP test. The woman at registration had asked if I had been here beforeā¦ha! This place feels like my second home, Iām here so often (or so it seems)! Unfortunately, Don couldnāt tap into a vein the first try, so he had to draw the blood from my hand. š This time it wasnāt badā¦I had blood drawn last Fall from some guy who probably didnāt pass his examā¦he poked my right arm ā nothingā¦my left ā nothingā¦finally, someone else had to come in and rescue me from being pin cushion, and drew the blood from my hand. Only one more test to go ā the glucose test and hopefully the blood drawing will be doneā¦for now.
That stroller costs how much?!
S and I started our baby window shopping last weekend. Itās quite overwhelming if you donāt have a game plan.
We started out with furniture ā the cribs had either no price tags or hard-to-find price tags, so you know thatās a bad sign. We saw some nice piecesā¦but I think that weāll be checking out IKEA ā Iām not sure that the quality would be same, but at least we can say that we at least looked.
Then we ventured into strollers and carseats. Oy! Talk about a ga-zillion choices! At this point, Iām glad that S bought the Consumer Reports book on baby stuff. Safe to say that we WONāT be getting a Bugaboo. Though cute and design friendly, they cost a pretty penny. I just canāt justify paying SO much for something that youāre going to use only for a few months!