Pregnancy Details

The original intro to this blog post was a big fat "I told you so" to Seth that it was past my due date (it was yesterday) and I was still pregnant in spite of all his warnings to the contrary.
Yes. I was so sure that the baby wasn't coming early I had already typed it up, ready to post today.
So a big, fat "I told you so" from Seth to me, as all his warnings came true and my six day old baby is asleep in her chair beside me.

Anyway, as I'm pretty sure this is my last baby, I wanted to document some of the things I experience while pregnant because I know I will absolutely not remember any of this in the coming years. I have slowly been adding to this for the past nine months so if the grammar seems weird in parts, that's why.

Food Cravings: Same as the previous two. POTATOES. Any kind. Mashed, baked, fried. Especially french fries. My lust for McDonald's french fries was particularly bad this time around. I don't think I ever buy McDonald's except for when I'm pregnant, and then I go crazy.
Second place was tortilla chips with melted cheese on top. Third place was pasta.
I also spent the first trimester being extremely picky. Dinner could only be ONE THING each night and it sometimes took me a long time to figure out what exactly to make that wouldn't make me feel like barfing, which sucked because I was always STARVING. Seth got quite a few panicked texts from me - "What should I make for dinner? Decide for me!" I usually hated all his suggestions.

Luckily I never actually got sick or threw up. Just nausea. Yay.

Tired: SO tired. I used to actually do things during the girls quiet times. Now I just hurry and eat my second lunch so I can go take a nap. The TV watching has increased at our house because I have no energy for anything else. I consider laying down a "to-do."

Maternity Clothes: I "popped" waaaaay earlier. Like after 2 months, instead of the usual 4-5. Also I'm pretty sure I'm larger with this one than with the other two because shirts that lasted me all the way through the last couple of times suddenly no longer cover my belly. Yikes.

Baby Tessa

I forgot: How skilled I get at using my toes to pick things up off the floor, so I can minimize how often I have to bend over.

How my hatred of scrubbing tubs and putting the sheets on the bed increases exponentially while pregnant.
How much my hips hate me.
How annoying it is to get clothes out of the top-loading washer with a baby bump in the way.

How crazy I get when the nesting phase starts, as documented here.

I didn't forget: How much fun it is to feel the baby move and kick.

The constant sinus issues. Yes, I AM using the humidifier in the middle of a southern summer when the humidity outside is already 75%.
How nice it is to have a built-in excuse for my laziness.
How annoying it is to come up with suitable baby names with Seth, the King of Ridiculous Baby Name Suggestions.

Baby Hailey

Unique this time: I have low iron with this one, which means I have suddenly become obsessed with chewing ice. I pour myself a big cup every day and if I'm ever out and about, you know I'll be stopping at Sonic for a cup of their pebble ice. Mmmmm. So good.
Cankles.
Round ligament pain, how I loathe thee. As if getting around when you're large and in charge wasn't bad enough, now I get stabbing pains in my hip/leg with every movement as well! It's been a constant source of frustration for the past two months. Boo.

How strong of a kicker this baby is. I never understood how women could say "Oh there's the foot. There's the elbow." when feeling the baby because it all seemed like indistinguishable lumps to me. But now I know. I know it painfully well. 

The girls reactions: They go through phases of not caring one bit or being completely obsessed. I like the not caring a little better actually. Then I don't have to answer "the end of October" to the million-times asked question of when the baby will be here.
Hailey does NOT appreciate the fact that I can't pick her up and carry her around as much as usual. They both miss sitting in my lap.
Sometimes they rub my belly. They've both technically felt the baby kick, but I don't think they quite understood what was happening.
They now think baby and belly are interchangeable words for everyone. We'll have to clarify this eventually.

They like to stick dolls up their shirt and talk about their own babies. Usually they are having a girl like me, but sometimes they decide they want a brother and it's a boy.

Baby Claire

So very happy I am not pregnant anymore.

Seth's Keepsakes

In my effort to clean and organize the entire house, I have been sorting through a bunch of Seth's old things, trying to consolidate them in one space. I had to rearrange his keepsake box in order to add a few things, so we went through all the stuff in it.
Would you like to know the important and meaningful and memorable things in his keepsake box? Besides the usual trophies and medals and journals, I mean. Here is a small sampling:

Old floppy disks. There is nothing worth saving on these (mostly old games or pictures he already has on the computer) but he insists on keeping them. I don't know why.

A copper pipe. When I asked him why this belonged in his keepsake box, he said "because it's cool." No other reason.

An old See-N-Say music motor . Again, "because it's cool." No plans to use the mechanism for any project (which is where most of his collecting habits stem from.) Just "because it's cool."

Leather strips he took off an old belt. And here is the story he told me as to why it's a keepsake: Just in case he's out exploring and he comes upon a sword (yes, a sword) or a knife that is missing it's handle. Then he'd be able to wrap the leather around it and wield it without hurting himself. 

Seriously. 

My response (besides incredulous laughter) was that while I was glad the realm of possible adventures to befall him was so wide, at the moment I didn't think old leather strips belonged with his keepsakes. 

He still wouldn't let me get rid of them, but at least they're with his other tinkering things now instead of taking up space in the box.

My personal favorite: the shriveled up chip bags. Seth and his friends microwaved these, causing them to shrivel up into miniature chip bags. He has had them since high school. He refuses to get rid of them.

Me: "Oh, someone's old pocket watch! That is a keepsake. Where'd you get it?"
Seth: "Walmart."

Not pictured: the can of soda he saved from a field trip because it was supposedly the most disgusting drink he'd ever had, an old-fashioned square nail, and a plastic cup filled with hardened epoxy. Among other things I managed to get him to throw away or donate.

I just have to remind myself that Seth's fascination with details is one of the reasons I love him.

And one of the reasons he loves me is that I will keep him from one day appearing on an episode of Hoarders.

Baby Names

Many of you know that Seth is very fond of coming up with ridiculous baby name suggestions. This time around he hasn't come up with nearly as many, and that's because the girls are doing all the work for him. Here are the ones they've suggested throughout the course of my pregnancy:

Pumpkin Head
Boxnapkin
Animal Guy
Gunther
Gumball
Binky
Punkus
Micole

Bunder
Bundernickel

Light Princess

We will be using none of these.
Actually, we still have yet to decide on a name and my due date is 10 days away. Hopefully we leave the hospital with a named child and not "Baby Girl Winsor" but we'll see....

Nesting

I'm assuming everyone has heard of the nesting phase in pregnancy. It's supposedly when a woman tries to get her home ready for the baby.
I kind of scoff at this idea, except I am totally guilty of it, especially this time around. My normal organizational and cleanliness traits kick into overdrive and I find myself making lists that look like this:
1. Vacuum my headboard
2. Clean out the washing machine
3. Organize and label all files in the house
4. Wipe down all the doors

And other crazy stuff that I normally wouldn't care about. Now it NEEDS TO GET DONE IMMEDIATELY. It's driving me nuts. I want to clean out all of our closets too but I'm afraid I might not get to it before the baby comes. (I added it to my list anyway.)

The problem is that this phase kicks in right when I am at my most unwieldy and tired stage of pregnancy. The other impediment is that I have round ligament pain pretty bad this time around, which is sharp, stabbing pains where my leg connects to my torso. This means it hurts to sit, stand, walk, and roll over in bed. Basically anytime I move. This has made it doubly difficult to check things off on my nesting to-do list.
But it has to be done, or I will go crazy.
Well, crazier than I already am.

Here is Seth checking off yet another thing on my list, cleaning and fixing the vacuum. The retractable cord kept retracting while vacuuming. I was quite pleased he had to take it almost all apart to do so because that meant I could clean every nook and cranny! It was really an inappropriate amount of excitement. For cleaning a vacuum.

Only four more weeks of this madness. Please tell me to stop adding things to my list.

Five on ...Saturday

1. We finally bought a minivan. Cue the huge sigh of relief, as we've been looking for a reasonably priced one all summer long and there are only two months left until baby #3 comes along. The girls think the automatic open doors are the most amazing feature ever, and I have to say I agree.

2. Seth didn't get home until eight o'clock last night because some crazy man called the office and threatened to come and shoot his girlfriend (an employee there) and everyone else she works with. They put everyone in lockdown until his whereabouts could be confirmed. It was a long night for both of us.

3. Tessa started preschool! It is three days a week for just a few hours in the afternoon. The only person sad about this is Hailey, who has burst into tears the two times we've dropped her off. I'm hoping this wears off soon.

4. Hailey's new favorite joke is to say "I'm walking like mommy!" and then waddle in exaggerated fashion across the floor. Seth thinks it's real hilarious. I do not.

5. Our grocery store just added these little mini shopping carts for kids. The girls love it and I hate it. If I don't let them use it, I get to deal with the tears and the whining. If I do, I get to deal with being smacked in the face with the little flag (happened yesterday), getting my ankles run into, and yelling at them the entire time "Look out! Watch where you're going! Don't run with that!"

Seriously, grocery stores. This idea is THE WORST.