It's a good life.

It’s been a while since I’ve come here to write, and that is because it’s been a busy couple of weeks! I don’t even know where to start.

First off, we painted the baby’s room, which was quite a feat. Dan and I did it ourselves all in one weekend (plus Monday evening), and it was quite the process. We had to freshen up the ceiling because of a roof leak a few years ago that left us with some yucky brown spots that we never dealt with. Also, I’m an idiot and insisted on painting the freaking closet four years ago when we did it the first time, so that had to be painted again. I think the closet itself took about the same amount of time to paint than the rest of the room, there’s just so much trim in there to paint around, lots of little details. So yea, the closet only got one coat, because the closet can suck it.

Lots of hard work, but it felt good to accomplish something so tangible, that was a huge item on our list, and we had given ourselves until Memorial Day weekend to do it, and I kinda-sorta can’t believe we actually stuck to that self-imposed deadline. And it looks wonderful, and I love the color, which is sort of a soft blue/green or “robin’s egg” shade. I haven’t taken pictures yet, but will be sure to post as soon as we get some of the massive pieces of furniture out that are stacked together in the middle of the room. Right now, there is just no where to put them, with our basement being worked on and the treadmill in the future guest bedroom on the first floor. You can go here and see my “before” pictures though, which of course display those lovely massive pieces of furniture in the middle of the room that currently have no permanent home.

That same weekend of painting we celebrated our five year anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been that long, I almost can’t wrap my head around it. The funny thing is, I remember when we first got married, and I was totally against having a baby right away. I told Dan I was thinking I would be ready in about 3-5 years. While he was on the baby train much earlier than I was, he was totally respectful of my reasons for waiting, though I think he was counting on getting the whole thing going more around the 3-year mark than the 5-year mark. And then we made the decision to do the grad-school thing two and a half years ago, and nearing the end of it were both starting to get incredibly impatient to get going on starting a family. I’m so thankful we didn’t have to wait too long to be blessed with this pregnancy. We celebrated our 5-year anniversary by painting our baby’s nursery, and I think that’s quite fitting. We did go out for a nice dinner the next night at the St. Paul Grill, which was delicious and expensive, so we weren’t totally homebodies. ;)

Last Tuesday we started our Bradley Method birthing class, which I was nervous about. If I’m being honest, I pictured the instructors as dirty hippies, which is completely ridiculous and a horrible stereotype of people passionate about natural birth. I hate that stereotype, but obviously have been influenced by it a bit. The two women were actually incredibly nice, young, attractive individuals that look and talk like normal people, imagine that! There are six other couples in our class, and it’s out of the one instructor’s home, so that first night was a bit of a doozy as it was a lovely and refreshing 93 degree evening. In May. (Minnesota is insane.) I think the class will be very informative and helpful, it’s nice to talk and learn about natural childbirth without feeling like you’re getting eye-rolls and judgment from others who have made different choices and had different experiences. If I’m being honest, I know I’m really more of the issue, I’ve always been too worried about what other people think, so with this whole process I’m trying to become more self-aware, and think about what’s best for my family and my baby, because it’s not at all about proving anything to anyone. I’m trying to let go of all those negative thoughts in my head and my fear of failure.

I’m getting much more introspective here than I had planned on! I think pregnancy might actually be turning ME into a bit of a hippie. =)

Back to my busy life then.

(Oh, last weekend we spent Thursday night to Monday morning at the cabin with Dan’s family, which was wonderful and relaxing, but not suitable for getting anything accomplished, obviously. A perfect weekend though, lots of time in the sun, reading, long walks, and excessive amounts of eating.)

So basically my weekdays have become booked so that there’s something going on every single evening. Yoga on Mondays, childbirth classes Tuesdays, Dan’s softball games on Wednesdays and Thursdays, with board meetings thrown in there once a month, and every once in a while I actually like to have a social life and spend time with family and friends. So yea, my house is a mess. I still need to plant flowers in our window boxes. I am constantly out of something like shampoo or Clorox Wipes, items that necessitate a trip to Target that I just don’t have time for anymore. We have yet to register. I am due for a trip to the dentist, an appointment with my hairstylist (desperately), and in the next week or so am supposed to be going in for an appointment with my Midwife and to drink that nasty McDonalds orange drink stuff to test for Gestational Diabetes. Also I still haven’t asked the lady who I keep telling people is making our crib bedding if she’ll actually make our crib bedding. My life is a bit shambled. But I’m upbeat, no worries! I have tomorrow off and no plans for Saturday, so the plan is to get my life and home back into some semblance of order this weekend. Thank goodness for those Fridays off, I must say, I’m not sure I would survive without them.

Summer is crazy for everyone though isn’t it?

Allow me to be a sap for a bit

Yesterday the weirdest thing happened. At the end of my prenatal yoga class, the instructor always turns down the lights for Savasana, and we lay there just in complete relaxation mode. It’s my favorite part of the class, for obvious reasons. Well yesterday, as I lay there, I focused on clearing my mind and meditating on my baby and how much my life will change in about four months. All of a sudden I was just this swirl of crazy emotions, thinking of Dan and how incredible it is that we have together created this living being, a true combination of the two of us. I thought back on these first five years of our marriage, how much we’ve grown as a couple, how close I feel to him, how lucky I am to have this other person in the world that really truly knows who I am. And then I started imagining our life with a baby, our Sunday mornings reading the paper, making breakfast together, taking the dog for a walk. Very soon there will also be a child with us on those Sundays! Our little family that I love and cherish so much will be comprised of four! What will he or she look like? What kind of personality will he or she have? Will our child be stubborn, impulsive, and scatter-brained like me, or even-keeled, practical, and honest like Dan? I just know that I can’t wait to find out, and these were all the things running through my mind as I lay there in the dark, and I just totally started crying. I couldn’t help it, tears were streaming down my face and it felt really good to be in sort of a “place” where such huge emotions were possible. It was just unfortunate that there were other massive pregnant ladies lying on the floor all around me. ;)

I am lucky. Today I feel giddy even. I can’t wait to witness Dan being a dad, I think there’s no question that he’s going to be pretty kick-ass at it. I can’t wait to introduce our baby to Bella. I can’t wait to see what she thinks of all the crazy new toys we’ll have all over the house, she’ll clearly go nuts trying to get at and tear apart every single thing.
Things are really going to change aren’t they?

I can’t wait to be a mom. I am lucky.

I hate bras

I am so exhausted, I just spent my lunch break trying on about 25 different bras for about an hour. By the time the hour was up, I was so frustrated, tired, and just spent by the whole ordeal, that I just HAD to get out of there. Not without spending more than $80 on stupid, huge, and ugly boob supporting contraptions though. Ugh. I have gone up an entire cup & band size. When I left the house this morning for work wearing a sports bra, I decided, enough is enough… I had to go shopping as soon as possible.

And now I really feel like I need a nap.

Oh and what is it with those HUGE cardboard tags the size of coffee mugs that they put on all bras at the store? How am I supposed to be able to put on a shirt and really see how well of a job the sucker is doing? Someone needs to do something about that please.

I hate bras. I hate boobs.

So without further ado, here is my 23 week belly picture. (Notice how my boobs are sagging pretty much down to where my waist would be if I wasn’t carrying this little munchkin? Blergh, clearly today’s shopping trip was overdue. You know that when you’re totally planning outfits around undergarments, you really need some new ones. At least now I can make full use of my closet again, and start wearing some of those shirts that looked so terrible with my stretched out, too small, crappy quality target bras.

Dad, if you read this, please don’t tell me about it. I’d prefer to pretend you didn’t just spend five minutes reading about your daughter’s boobs.