Bedtime experiments

For the last week or so Bryan and I have been experimenting with putting Penelope to bed awake... and when I say "Bryan and I", I mean Bryan since I only have bedtime duty one day a week (soon to be more once he's in softball, soccer, and school). We go through the routine (clean-up, bottle, bath, teeth, PJs), she's then rocked for 5-10 minutes, and put into her crib sleepy but awake. Tonight B added a lovey (her stuffed cat) and so far it seems to be working.

I'm really excited that it seems to be working so far. I really hope that it continues to work as it will make bedtime easier once "&" gets here... especially since at least one night a week (possibly two) I'll have to put both babies to bed by myself. If Penny can get to sleep on her own then I really only have to worry about "&".

Hopefully once he/she arrives Penny won't regress (our Ped mentioned it might happen) because that would be a major headache. We'll see.

We're also working on her proficiency with utensils. She ate soup on her own the other day (and when I say "ate" I mean "bathed in") and when I give her oatmeal she does pretty well getting most of it in her mouth. Baby steps :)

She does love to feed herself, and makes quite the mess... but practice makes perfect. I know she won't have perfected anything by April, but the better she gets at it the easier meal time will be once baby arrives. I could just make nothing but finger foods since she's fantastic with those, but that's just boring - and besides, she'll never get better if I don't give her opportunity to try.

Alright, time to get back to work, I have a little more homework to do and then I'm done with this class! Only one class left before I take a short maternity break from school...

Things that are dangerous for pregnant women

*Undercooked meat
*Skydiving
*Some medicines
*Cigarette smoke
*A dish full of JellyBelly Flops

I don't have to worry about the first four things on the list, but #5 is currently tormenting me while I write my final paper for this class. I have 400 words left and I have a feeling that for every word I type I'll eat a jelly bean.

Sweet delicious temptation - how I love and hate you.

Appointment Update

Just a quick update - we had our 33 week appointment today. As predicted, it was rather uneventful. Next appointment is in 2 weeks.

Stats:
My BP: 98/60
Baby's HB: 160
Measuring at 33 weeks exactly

I apparently have a lot of amniotic fluid so they weren't 100% sure of baby's position. They're pretty sure he/she is head down, but it should be easier to tell next appointment. IF baby is breech we'll work on turning him/her, but I'm not worried. Since most of my kicks are up and to the right it feels as though baby is head down with its back facing my left side - a lot like Penelope was at this point in the pregnancy. Baby's head is still floating and not really anywhere close to my pelvis. This explains why I'm carrying so high and my plentiful amounts of amniotic fluid explain why I'm much further "out" than before.

Kaleem and Marlene mentioned that the baby was still small - which isn't abnormal - but I am hoping that this one is slightly smaller than Pen. She was 7.15 and I wouldn't mind delivering a baby in the mid-low 7lb range (instead of a 8lb or more baby). No matter what the size I know I can have a successful natural vaginal delivery, but if I had any control over it the smaller side of normal would be preferable :)

Soon I'll make up a spreadsheet so people can start placing bets on date/time and gender! We're getting close to the end!!!

33 weeks, 7 left

Today I am officially 33 weeks pregnant. I have no idea what that is in months. Since months don't really tell you much I tend to ignore them, plus one "month" has an extra 2 weeks in it to make up for the first two weeks after your LMP so the whole month thing is just silly anyway. If you didn't understand that last sentence don't feel bad - it means you're lucky enough to have never read one of the countless books on pregnancy (the worst offender is What to Expect When You're Expecting - horrible book, I wouldn't recommend it to any pregnant woman. Dr. Sear's The Pregnancy Book is 1,000x better).

Anyway. 33 weeks. So I have 7 weeks left until my due date and 4 weeks left until I'm technically full term. Since due dates are estimates and based off of a 28 day cycle they're not generally very accurate. Although my EDD is based off of my ovulation date (since I'm weird and know exactly when I ovulate - down to the minute) my EDD should be pretty accurate. Although who knows. This baby may decide that he/she doesn't need the "extra" 3 weeks of baking and is ready to meet the world sooner rather than later. Or he/she may decide that my uterus is super-awesome and decide to stay in until Kindergarten.

I'd rather deliver at 37 weeks than go "overdue" but since I really don't have any control over when I go into labor I'll just have to take what I get.

Tomorrow I have another appointment with our midwives (I feel like I just had one - well, I did... two weeks ago). It should be uneventful.

I really, really, really, should be writing my research paper for this class. School has me a little stressed out lately - there's just so much I need to do before the baby comes! Ok, back to work.

She's how tall?!?!?!

Our prediction? 33 inches, 29lbs.

Ha. Hahahahahahaha. Boy did we ever underestimate our Amazon princess.

34.25 inches.
(28.8lbs)

Yeah, you read that right. 34.25 inches tall. A week shy of her 15 month birthday.

Holy Lasso Of Truth Batman!

Here's her charts, the first is height and the second is weight:



Everyone said, "oh, she'll slow down" and "this growth pattern can't last"

Yeah. Uh huh.

I'm sure she WILL slow down. But I'm also willing to bet she'll hit 36" before her 2nd birthday. She'll probably hit it by 18 months... even with a slow down.

Of course, I could be wrong. She could hang at 34.25 inches for a few months. But I just really don't see that happening. Only time will tell! Bryan is convinced she'll be at least 6 feet by the time she's done growing.

It'll be interesting to see how baby #2 grows in comparison to his/her sister. If I end up as the short one in the family I'll be pissed. I'm 5'8" for goodness sake! Oh well, at least I'll always be taller than my mom :D

In unrelated, but super awesome news - I put Penny to sleep drowsy (but awake) in her crib after a 3 lullabies and she went to sleep on her own! She let out a halfhearted cry when I closed her door, but I haven't heard a peep from her since then. Score. It's probably because she napped for all of 30 minutes today (which sucked), but at least bedtime wasn't a hassle. Bryan is playing softball tonight so I was on my own - and I'm very thankful she made it easy for me. The Belly and I aren't really up for a long bedtime fight.

Tomorrow is another packed day (well, for me) I have a giant paper to write and Penny gets to spend the day with Grandpa. I'd rather hang out with her and my Dad, but homework calls. I'll be so happy when I'm done (and then I'll probably complain about how much I miss the world of academia - never satisfied am I).

Alright, time to work on some of this paper so tomorrow's task isn't so daunting.

Oh wait, I lied. Her new pediatrician! I really like her. She's due with her first child a week before "&"'s due date :) Penny seemed to like her, and didn't freak when it was time for the exam (like she did with our old pediatrician, although he was a man so that may have been why). I also brought her doctor's kit (which she loves to play with) so she had her toy stethoscope, thermometer, and other random doctor's toy. Her ped listened to her heart with the toy stethoscope and then used the real one, and that put Penny at ease. She also let Pen play with her light-thingy (yeah, I'm technical).

When the pediatrician switched the light to green, Penny said "verde"! Super score! We've been working on our colors (in Spanish) for a few weeks. P's gotten good at recognizing verde and rojo (green and red). So I was super proud of her.

The Ped is impressed with P's skills, especially her signs. Although she does want us to watch her verbalization since Pen was saying a half a dozen words and has stopped since she started walking (she still speaks, but her vocabulary is halved and it's mostly babbling). The Ped isn't super worried, but just wants to make sure she stays on track.

Pen is on schedule or above on everything else. We go in again at 18 months.

She also said we can flip her to forward facing if we want, but I'm not comfortable with that yet so we're waiting until Penny outgrows her rear facing carseat. In the seat we have now she can rear face until 35lbs OR 36 inches. So we'll have to flip her around in 1.75 inches - sooner than I would have liked. I really wanted to wait until she was 2, but we can't really afford to buy a new carseat and I don't want to exceed the manufacturer's specifications.

Ok, that's really all for now.

Today and tomorrow

Today Bryan and I were planning to take Penelope to the SF Zoo (my brother was going to join us as well), but the rain ruined our plans so we took her to the JellyBelly Factory instead.

For those who don't know, the JellyBelly Factory is about a hour away from Sac - the tours are free plus you get free samples. Sounds ideal, right? Yeah, not so much.

While good for babies and older kids - it's really not a great place for toddlers. Penelope was alternately bored and scared during the tour (watching the videos bored her and the loud packaging machines were a bit scary) and threw more tantrums than I've ever dealt with before. Luckily her tantrums are pretty mild in general, some people might not even classify them as tantrums - and she did ok when being held or when walking (it was the stopping to watch the silly videos that would start a tantrum), so Bryan and I did a lot of "pass the baby".

While it wasn't an awful experience, we've decided not to taker her or "&" to the factory again until they're old enough to really enjoy the tour... so probably around 4 or 5.

Add in the political campaign signs in the front entrance (for Meg Whitman - ick, makes me want to puke in a bucket) and I really could have done without the trip.

We did get some bellyflops, which are misshapen jellybellys - still delicious! And free samples, so it wasn't all bad. The zoo would have been much more fun. Oh well... we'll plan a trip for a weekday when it's not raining. Maybe in March before "&" arrives. There's nothing like waddling through a zoo to make me feel at home among the animals *lol*

I did get a couple of hilarious pictures of Penelope. This is the face she makes when you ask her to show you her teeth - priceless!



Wandering around the empty cafe area:


Attempting to get jellybellys out of the machine:


Tomorrow is going to be another packed day. My brother has an appointment at ITT Tech to learn about the BA program in video game design, so P and I are going to go with him. She has her 15 month check up, and I'm going to get a MUCH needed haircut. Still not sure what I'm going to have Jim do with my hair, but it probably won't be too drastic. Or maybe it will :)

I'll probably post tomorrow night with Pen's stats from her appointment. Bryan and I both predict: 33 inches and 29lbs.

The blog drought is over!

So it's been awhile since I updated, things have been busy! I'll get right into the updates...

I'm 32 1/2 weeks pregnant - less than 8 weeks to go! This baby feels much higher than Penelope - you be the judge. Here's a picture of the belly today & then one of me with Penelope at 33 weeks:





Kicks are right in my ribs - and they're VERY uncomfortable. Baby is most active at night, but kicks around all day. I think we're all ready for this pregnancy to be over, but we're still not quite ready to have an infant in the house :)

Bryan is busy fixing Penny's new room so that the nursery will be open for "&" - and I'm busy making diapers so that we can cover his/her little butt! Here's a picture of two diaper patterns:



There's also playgroups, music class, school (me, and soon Bryan!), job hunting (a seeming exercise in futility, but necessary nonetheless), and everything else. I have a hard time keeping track of the days, they tend to run into each other.

In Penelope-news, she now has all 16 teeth (and has for a week or so). So teething is *almost* at an end. They've all broken through but are still moving into place, so soon we'll be done with teething (until her 2 year molars). This is very exciting, we'll all be so happy when teething is over.

She's also off formula. She still gets a bottle before bath time, but it's whole milk. At some point we'll need to wean her off the bottle, but it helps her sleep better so for now it stays. One bottle a day isn't going to hurt her and we brush her teeth afterward so I'm not going to sweat it.

Wednesday she has her 15 month appointment (technically a week early, but still - 15 months?!?!?). She's a pro at walking, tries running, is getting very good with her sign language (she can combine signs now - so she'll say "please eat" or "more eat"), and is constantly babbling. We have a lot of fun together during the day...

I probably have a lot more I could write about, but it's late and I'm exhausted. I'll try and update regularly, especially as "&"'s due date gets closer. For now I'll leave you with a picture of Penelope and Orson.

D@mn you Morgan Freeman!

I blame pregnancy, but every time I hear Morgan Freeman's voice in *any* commercial (and boy does he do a lot!) I get all teary. So watching the Olympics requires a box of tissues.

Especially that commercial about the speed skater and his sister Jane. Even thinking about that commercial makes me cry. The story line is emotional enough, but add Freeman's voice into the mix and I'm a veritable waterfall.

But if Morgan Freeman voiced a commercial about Viagra or birth control pills I'd probably cry. Good thing we don't own that penguin movie...

So as I mentioned previously, we went on a hunt for bedding for Penelope. We went to Pottery Barn Kids, JC Penny, Macys, Sears, Kohls, WalMart, and Target. Both Bryan and I are wiped out, it's been an exhausting day.

I found a quilt at Pottery Barn kids that I liked, but wasn't prepared to spend $189 on it... there was a duvet cover at Macy's we both liked but it would have been over $200 since we'd need to buy a feather comforter as well, and Penelope likes anything you stick in front of her.

I didn't see anything at Sears, Kohls, or WalMart.

We did find the perfect bedding set at Target but all they had was a twin size set and I was SO disappointed... so I bought another quilt that is "ok" but not great. The color scheme is such that we won't have to re-paint (the room is currently light blue) but it's still feminine (and not super bright pink thank goodness). Bonus, it was in our price range.

But when we get home I felt the call of the other bedding and so I went onto Target.com and voila! I found the quilt online and in a Queen size! Here it is:

http://www.target.com/Circo-Love-Nature-Quilt-Set/dp/B002R38Y8I/ref=huc_ic_3_IMG

Tomorrow I'll return the other quilt and then buy the one I really want online. This one is a tad pricier than the one we bought today, but over $100 less than the one we saw at Pottery Barn Kids that I like.

To be honest, it's not exactly what I had in mind when I started this hunt - but I haven't seen a quilt anywhere that matches the picture in my head - so short of making it myself I'm going to have to settle. What's nice is that even with this new quilt we shouldn't need to re-paint. The light blue of the walls will work well with the quilt and keep the room from getting too girly.

Ok, time to warm up some leftover Thai food.

My feet hurt

We spent three hours at the mall today trying to find bedding for Penny's new room. No luck. Well, I found some stuff at Pottery Barn Kids & Macys, but there's no way I'm spending upwards of $200 for just a quilt or just a duvet cover. No. Way.

After P's nap we'll head to Kohls and WalMart to see if they have anything... We may or may not try Target but the last time I was there I didn't see anything I liked.

We contemplated buying Star Wars sheets (for us, not Pen) but didn't... they're on sale at Pottery Barn but they're still really expensive for sheets. I could probably buy the fabric and *make* sheets for 1/4 as much as we could buy them. That would require sewing on my part and after I'm done with the diaper project I may be sewed-out for awhile.

I do have some pictures of Penny - I'll upload them later... and I need to do a belly-shot of "&" with comparison pics of 32 weeks with Penelope.

Maybe later I'll blog about school (this latest class isn't as annoying as previous classes) and talk about B's school (which should start at the end of March). But for now it's time to do some job searching!

I really should be doing homework

Today was spent sewing diapers - and Sarah and I made a lot of progress. Although we still have a lot more to do. It's a little overwhelming, but we'll get there. Once we're done we'll probably do something silly like decide to make a bunch more to sell :)

I received some rather annoying news today regarding my wrongful termination claim, but since it was based on blatant lies I'm not going to stress myself out. Whatever happens, happens. I have facts & truth on my side so regardless of the final outcome I can sleep knowing that I did everything I could to stand up for myself.

I really should be finishing this paper... it's due Sunday. I only have a few more paragraphs to write, but I'm finding it hard to motivate myself. If I finish it then I'm done with homework until next week - which would be nice. It would free up tomorrow for focusing on nothing but sewing and it would mean that Sunday the three of us could have a family day without me worrying about writing. So I guess there is plenty of motivation for me to finish...

Should really get to that paper.

Like now.

Really should.

Today WILL get better

Last night sucked. There's really no other way to put it. I don't know why Penny had such a bad night (no fever, no outward signs of serious illness) but she ended up in our bed at 11:30. I think it was probably a combination of teething and the fact that she hadn't really napped that day - she took a 30 minute catnap in the car, but I couldn't get her to go down for a nap later in the afternoon... I tried for over and hour at one point but she just wasn't having any of it. There were a lot of tears (some of which were mine) during our nap-battle - and in the end she won out. I was too exhausted to push it any further.

So hopefully today will be better and she'll nap for my Dad (he has her all day).

I have a 9am appointment at the Employment Development Department to go over my resume and get "tips" on job searching. We'll see how that goes... plus today is my usual homework day so I'll search out someplace with free wifi and get as much done as I can. Later today Bryan has an appointment at the University of Phoenix to talk to someone about getting a BA in webdesign so I'm going to go with him to that - and then my grandma gets in from Reno this evening so we have dinner with her and my parents.

Busy, busy day.

Which will be made all that more difficult considering I slept like crap. Penny spent half the night sleeping on me and the other half on Bryan - so neither one of us got anything resembling decent sleep. Plus she's super cranky this morning. It'll dissipate once we get to my parent's house... she's never cranky for Grandpa :P

Ok, I need to finish getting Cranky McPants ready. Hope everyone is having a much more pleasant morning than we are!!

31 week appointment

Today was our 31 week prenatal appointment. Next appointment is at the end of February, already into our every 2 week appointments!

So here's the stats:

Baby: heartbeat 154, head down (but still floating, not in the pelvis), feet are lodged into my ribs, measuring at 34 weeks on one side and 31 weeks on the other - so we're going with 31 weeks.

Me: Blood pressure 98/60 (eep!), Iron 10 (low as well), and I'm gaining more than I'd like but not more than I should.

So I need to take my Iron supplements (I've been lax), get in plenty of cranberry, and walk when the weather is nice.

6 weeks until I'm full term and 9 weeks until my due date.

Tomorrow is going to be crazy-busy so I should at least attempt to sleep.

Sleep, glorious sleep

For the last 4 nights Penny has slept through without waking and stayed in her own room. This is made of awesome... although I still wake up at least a half a dozen times. Today I got up at 6:45 and was able to eat breakfast before P woke up at 7:30. I really, really hope this phases lasts - it'll be nice to catch up on a little sleep before we start back at square one with "&".

Next weekend we get her room done and will probably move her over so she can get used to sleeping in her "new" bed. I hope the transition goes well, although since "&" won't need the nursery for awhile after he/she is born it won't be a big deal if Penny needs to stay in the nursery for a couple of months longer.

This week is going to be busy. On top of the perpetual job searching, we have music class, a Rice Krispy Treat party, a prenatal appointment, I teach a cloth diapering workshop, I have to attend a class at the Employment Development Department (part of receiving unemployment - they look over my resume and give me job search tips), Grandma Barbara is in town, I have a paper to write, and Sarah and I have diapers to sew!

Today P and I went over to Sarah's and I sewed the pocket part of 17 diapers. After the first they went pretty fast - we still have a lot to get done (cutting the rest, pockets on the rest, elastic, snaps, and then sewing them all together) but so far we're off to a good start. They're going to be SO CUTE when they're all finished!

The Great Diaper Experiment

So today was Day 1 of "The Great Diaper Experiment" and it went really well. From start to finish it took us about 2.5 hours to finish one diaper, but it was our first and we had to make patterns, discuss steps, and figure out how to work the snap machine. Once we get into making the "real" diapers things will go much faster (especially if Sarah is able to cut a lot of fabric - go Sarah go! I hate cutting, so if she can get a good chunk of it done before we meet up again Monday I will love her forever).

Anyway, once the cutting is done we can focus on doing a sewing/snapping assembly line and they should come together pretty quickly. They certainly won't all be done in one day, but I don't think it'll be more than 3 days of sewing to get all 60 finished (40 for Sarah and 20 for me).

I have to admit I was starting to get really overwhelmed by the project - sewing + school + job searching + being a full time mom = holy crap! But thanks to Sarah's friend Deborah (who guided us through the process) we have a much better handle on how to get these done and I'm now excited and confident that we can make it work.

It's going to save us all a TON of money on cloth diapers and they're going to be SUPER cute. I promise to take pictures and post them once we're done.

Sarah found out she's having another girl, so most of her fabric is girl-ish (and it's all really cute). I went with what I thought were gender neutral colors, but some of mine will look more boy-ish. I'm ok with this though because even if "&" is a girl I have NO problem putting my girls in blue. Although (slightly hypocritically... ok, *really* hypocritically) I think I would have a problem with putting a boy child of mine in pink. I'm annoyed at my own hypocrisy - and annoyed how much America's cultural prejudices have seeped into my unconscious. It shouldn't matter what colors my kids wear. And if "&" is a boy and he wants to wear pink or other colors traditionally associated with girls, then I will do my best to let him do so. (And yes, I know that pink used to be a boys color way back in the day, but it's not anymore!)

So that was today's adventure.

Tomorrow is the Superbowl. I'm rooting for the Saints (although I do like the Colts - but I have a soft spot in my heart for the city of New Orleans). I hope it's a good game and not a blow-out...

Next week we have a midwife appointment, and the week after that we start on Pen's new room in earnest. My due date is fast approaching! I'm getting really excited to meet "&" - find out if it's a he or a she - and settling into life as a family of four. 10 weeks left!

Some fun things

1. Penelope slept through the night in her own crib again! She did it yesterday night as well, but woke up at 6:15 (a little over an hour early) so I wasn't as excited about that particular night's sleep as I am about last night.

2. She's currently walking around the living room swinging my old purse around and chatting (loudly) to the dog. Cute.

3. I need to mop the floor, P's socks are filthy. Or I need to buy her black socks.

4. Pen's sign language is improving. She can either sign or recognizes and responds to: eat, more, please, thank you, all done, and milk. I've been lax about introducing more signs but I'm going to break out my cheat sheet and start using more...

5. She also responds to a handful of Spanish words (and I'll probably spell all of these incorrectly) - leche, manzana, oso, oveja, and agua. I need to get back to my Rosetta Stone Spanish program so I can use more Spanish words with her. We'd really like to place her and "&" in a dual language daycare once they have to go into daycare - and I'd like to speak more Spanish at home. I do speak some French to her, but my vocabulary sucks since I haven't used it for so long...

6. One of her new favorite things to do is push her dolls/stuffed animals around in the toy stroller. It's pretty funny... she usually ends up crashing them into something though.

That's all for now! :)

Pools, rooms, and teeth

This afternoon Pen and I met up with a bunch of our mommy friends for lunch, play, and pool-time. There's an indoor pool in Roseville that has inexpensive open swim, so after a delicious lunch (thanks to Sarah & Alisha), we headed over and hopped in.

Penny was in love. She's been swimming before, but it has been awhile since she's been in that much water. The pool was a little on the cool side (although not as cold as it would have been had the pool been outside) but Penny didn't seem to care. She laughed, splashed, and did her very best to escape from my clutches. She thinks she can swim, and as soon as she got comfortable (it was loud and new so it took her a few minutes to warm up to the place) she wanted nothing to do with me and spent the rest of our time in the pool pushing me away and kicking furiously (while laughing and screeching with happiness). It was cute, but exhausting. This summer should be a lot of fun :)

Yesterday we started the long process of getting P's new room ready (so "&" can have the nursery). I sorted through a ton of clothes Pen's outgrown, pulling out all of the newborn-3 month sized outfits and boxing up everything else (by size - so when we need them they're easy to access... provided "&" is a girl). Those, plus a bunch of my pre-pregnancy clothes went into the garage. We have to move the furniture out next (and by "we" I mean Bryan), rewire some stuff, put in insulation, sheet rock, texture, and paint.

We weren't really planning on repainting, but the more I think about it the more I don't want Penny to have a blue room. I certainly don't want her to have a [i]pink[/i] room, but plain blue walls? Doesn't really sound appealing. Of course, having a theme and doing anything fancy requires money that we just don't have. I'll have to do some searching online to get ideas on how to make her room cute without breaking the bank. She'll need a sheet set for that Queen sized bed so maybe that will dictate what the room looks like. I'll have to keep an eye out at Target or even Ross and then we'll go from there. It's certainly not essential that Penelope has a coordinated room, but if we can make it work then I'd like to have one for her.

As for teeth... I think the light at the end of the tunnel is approaching. We need one more canine to break through and then we technically have all of her teeth "in" - they won't all be fully in for awhile, but at least they'll all have at least broken through the gums. Of course, we only have a little break until she gets her two year molars. And then she'll loose all the d@mn teeth and get her adult ones later >:|

Have I mentioned how much I hate teething???

Tomorrow Bryan is taking her to a museum with Daddy/baby friends while Sarah and I make cloth diapers! Wish us luck, I hope they turn out - it'll save us a ton!

Are we there yet?

This post could have also been titled "Get me out!"

Apparently "&" dislikes his/her solitary confinement.

I'm tired of it as well... but we both have to hold out at least 7 more weeks. These are going to be a long seven weeks. "&" has not stopped moving all day. While it's nice to know that he/she is active and healthy, it's getting incredibly uncomfortable. I don't remember Penelope being this active - maybe she was and I've forgotten just how much I dislike this phase. Or maybe this one is just much more exuberant than his/her big sister.

I'm also getting to the point in this pregnancy where sleep is nearly impossible. Between my hips (which ache and burn no matter what position I'm in), my back, leg cramps, having to pee often, and the baby's movement, I'm getting less and less sleep (not that I was getting a ton beforehand).

Our next appointment is next week, I'll be just about 31 weeks (I'm 30 weeks today). In about 5 weeks we'll take maternity photos (and by "we" I mean me... and Penny will come as well - I want to get pictures of her and the belly).

Tomorrow Pen and I will spend some time with other mamas, having lunch, and going swimming in an indoor pool. Should be fun :)

The "Sprinkle"

Lately a lot of people have been asking me about my baby shower... and this time around we're doing something a little different. I know some people think showers for subsequent children are unnecessary (well, some people I know use harsher language), but I also know people who think every baby deserves a celebration. So to compromise between what I feel is proper etiquette, giving everyone who wants to a chance to celebrate this baby, and reducing my pregnancy stress - we've decided to forgo a traditional shower and instead have a "sprinkle" after "&" arrives.

This will also allow those that choose to purchase gifts (since gifts are never a requirement) to chose gender specific things if they want.

People have also asked what we need. And really, we don't need a ton - certainly not as much as we needed with Pen! We have a crib, clothing storage, and a stroller. Sarah and I are going to make our own cloth diapers modeled after the Bum Genius ones we already use and love. We're going to turn in our old infant carseat and get something larger (and by "we" I mean my parents, thanks mom & dad!!!) - since Pen outgrew her infant carseat so quickly I want to make sure we have more time with this new baby in the infant seat... plus carseats expire and I don't want to cut it too close on the expiration date.

But there are a few things that it would be really wonderful to have, so we're going to create a registry. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but it will be through Babies R Us, so if anyone should wish to purchase something for this new baby you can always go onto the Babies R Us site and search for mine or Bryan's name. We would greatly appreciate anything anyone decides to get for us - although please don't feel pressured into getting us a gift!

So anyway, after the baby is born we'll have this "sprinkle" and everyone can meet the baby and we can celebrate his/her arrival. Exact date/time to be determined later, and if I remember correctly my mom offered to host (thanks again mom! :D ).

You know, I should really be reading for class... I'm just so very unmotivated. I know *why* but I'm not quite ready to blog about it yet.

Random Monday Morning Pictures

First off: Happy Birthday Bryan!!!

This morning Penelope stole his lunchbox, and I took some pics:









Pen and I have a metric ton of stuff to do today, wanna bet none of it gets done?