Perfect Saturday?

Perhaps :) We were super productive today, and almost everything we did had nothing to do with the bathroom, which felt really nice. We actually (unexpectedly) bought a new bed today--I know, what?! So we get to look forward to that lovely king-sized delivery tomorrow (which, paired with the snoogle maternity pillow I got yesterday should make sleeping more comfortable). [Side note: I had no idea that one could go from feeling totally normal to not being able to sit up overnight. One day I'm moving around like my old self, and then bam!--sometime this past week I realized that my stomach muscles have completely given up. It's really comical watching me attempt to sit up in bed, or get up from any prostrate position.)

Joey also did a TON of work cleaning and organizing the upstairs of our house, which made me incredibly happy. Having not had much time to do Christmas-y things yet this season (we finally decorated our tree at around 9pm a couple of nights ago), we were feeling like it was a good day to get into the holiday spirit. Joey made a fire, and I baked all day (wondering if this might signal the onslaught of the nesting phase of pregnancy). Check out the fruits of our very domestic labors:

27 week photo

So we decided to skip 26 wks altogether--too busy to mess with photos. We finally got around to the 27 week one a day late, though. Enjoy :)

If I look harried or tired or generally unkempt it's because I just finished grouting all of the tile on the walls of the bathroom moments before this was taken. I also stayed up until 1am last night finishing the tile so that I could grout today. Looking forward to sitting down with some tea to relax now (followed shortly by bed).

In other news (that doesn't include anything about me being pregnant or the bathroom), we got our Christmas tree last weekend and it's one of the best I've ever seen. I'll have to take photos when we eventually get around to decorating it. Also, check out the sweet trailer on the tree lot:

A Quick Note

I'm taking a [very] quick break from [yet another] day of tiling the bathroom to make a note about an important subject: the pregnant butt. Or, more specifically, my pregnant butt. My mom has told me on more than one occasion that she had "the best butt" during her pregnancy with my sister due to constantly stepping over the baby gates she and my dad erected for their new dog while carrying me on her hip.

I'm going out on a limb to challenge her for "the best pregnant butt" thanks to two things: 1.) our own baby gates that we have set up for Lucy and that I step over several times daily, and 2.) the fact that our tile saw is set up in the basement while the actual tiling job is on the 2nd floor of the house. I've walked up and down multiple flights of stairs (while stepping over gates) about 15 times today already. There has to be a silver lining to all of this work, right?!

Poor Puppeh

What a bruiser our little Lu is. She got in a 'scuffle' at daycare last week and somehow ended up on the losing end (not something she's used to, I'm sure). After we got past our concern about the small bite marks that the in-house vet had to treat, we took some shots of our little girl.

Sadly the antibiotics they put her on that day gave her some gastrointestinal distress (read: diarrhea). Not fun at all to deal with at any time, let alone when you're in the middle of a somewhat stressful renovation.

We're all recovering, and Lucy has since gone through some tummy discomfort, another vet visit, different antibiotics, and new bland diet, etc. But the good news is that her poo issues appear to be going away. Thank goodness.

Week 25 Picture (about a week late)

I've been slacking off a bit--sorry about that. There are definitely a few updates, mainly having to do with the fact that we gutted our bathroom, but also with a few other things I'll post about shortly. First I wanted to make sure I got the week 25 pic up, since I'm due for my week 26 photo already.

Things have been going well, nothing super exciting to report. We heard the little guy's heartbeat at our last appt. about a week ago. It's going strong at about 150. He's also moving around a lot--he likes to get wiggly around bedtime, which I hear is a popular time for lots of babies. This week has been a little weird with all of the craziness in our household, so I'm feeling a little off my game. I haven't been eating as well as I'd like thanks to us being generally exhausted by the end of the day and not getting around to dinner until around 9pm or so. We've got our fingers crossed that we'll be finished with all of this soon (in the next week or two), and I'm looking forward to getting back on a regular schedule. More to come soon!

Belly Photos. Finally.

It took a while for me to get around to posting these. I've got photos from weeks 21, 22, and 24 (sorry, skipped 23).

Looking forward to a relaxing and laid-back Thanksgiving today. Joey and I will be heading to mom's house for turkey (her), cranberry relish (her), rolls (her), mashed potatoes (her), roasted parsnip bread pudding (me), brussels sprouts (joey), and triple chocolate mousse cake (joey). Yum. And yay for the maternity pants that will let me fit it all in comfortably :)

We're also looking forward to getting over to mom's house early this year so that we can shower. Joey got to work ripping out our shower (and a good portion of our bathroom walls) yesterday. Here's to starting another renovation project--photos of that to come soon as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And home again :)

So glad to be back home from my work trip. Made it back in one piece, and the flight back was better than the one there (I actually slept a little!).

Highlights:
- Dinner at Vive Sol with Jeff (delicious mexican...fabulous enchilada)
- Getting to see/catch up with Chris--who looks very distinguished with his cane now that his cast is off
- Catching up w/Noel and Hoyle, former team members who I miss
- My SURPRISE BABY SHOWER at work!! Seriously, my team really is amazing, and when I thought I was heading down to a 'career discussion' with my manager I walked into a room with balloons, tons of desserts, cards, and GIFTS :)
- Seeing Alton Brown speak and getting a free copy of his book 'Good Eats: the early years.' Got it signed, too, as well as a photo with him. It was an awesome talk--he's hilarious

Anyways, I came home to my wonderful husband, his brother in town from Jersey, and a pretty crappy Michigan/Ohio St. football game. I made the mistake of trying to clean while the boys were out and now my back is back to hurting. Oh well, my fault...also gives me an excuse to do absolutely nothing on this lazy Sunday. Will follow up later today with a post of belly photos, since I need to start getting those up :)

CA

ha HA! Take THAT back pain! The bean and I have successfully made it to the Bay Area for business, and the flight wasn't even as bad as I thought it would be (although it wasn't great, either).

I even had a good luck sign: I found Led Zeppelin on the radio on my way from the airport to my hotel...I never find good music on that ride, so I'm hoping that bodes well for the week. Stairway to Heaven, no less.

Intro this blog. Also, why I hate my sacrum right now.

So I might be one of the most slacker first-time moms that I know. For someone who's relatively excited about this whole baby-thing, I have to admit that I didn't get around to taking even one belly pic until 21 weeks. My husband had to force me to first consider writing things down since he pointed out that I might like to look back on what my first pregnancy was like. Huh, this blog is my way of telling him that I think he's right.

The details: I'm currently 23 weeks pregnant with my 1st kid--a boy. Yes, we're considering names, no we're not telling anyone what we're considering. You can call him 'the bean' for now...we do. (Although we did go through a brief phase where we referred to him as 'the colonel' just because it sounded funny.) I'll try to work in some info. about the first 22 weeks of this pregnancy in future posts, but for now I'll stick to today's topic: my sacrum (subtitle-my first experience with really uncomfortable pregnancy pain).

Until very recently I've had managed to get away with only a few benign aches and pains, but nothing to date has compared to whatever I did to my lower back/upper butt (aka: sacrum) yesterday evening. I was getting situated in bed when our beloved dog, Lucy, did something that I didn't like. While on my knees I sprung forward to reprimand her, and was hit with extremely sharp pain on the left side of my sacrum. Didn't think much of it at the time (although I'm sure I swore at least a little when it happened).

Later, when I tried to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, I discovered that I couldn't straighten my body, but weight on my left foot, or really do anything at all. Poor Joey got out of bed to try and help me but couldn't do much. Things were not better in the morning, and we paged the doctor on call with my OB (sorry doctor-lady...I'm sure it wasn't pleasant to have to call me back at 8am Sunday morning). My instructions were to ice for a few hours and possibly hit the ER if mobility didn't improve. The good news is that I'm pretty sure this is nothing super out of the ordinary: everything in my body is stretching and the sudden movement I made last night obviously pinched or pulled one of those ligaments or connections. The bad news is that I had a 5 hr business flight to CA today...the last one I'll probably be able to make for quite some time.

Long story short I've slowly become more mobile over the course of the day, and while I'm moving slowly and with some pinchy nasty pain I can definitely walk around. I've rescheduled my flight for tomorrow, rebooked my hotel, and need to collect a doctor's note first thing in the morning to take to the check-in counter (to waive my change fee). Let's all hope that things are either status quo or better in the morning...