Cabbage Patch Kid

Hello Third Trimester!! It's week 28, and baby is the size of a....

Chinese cabbage!!



Meanwhile, I'm the size of a...



I can't believe how rapidly everything is growing now! When I look at pictures from a month ago, I look so much smaller.

I'm fully aware that I have three more months of expansion ahead of me, but logically, I just can't wrap my mind around it. How can my stomach get that much bigger?!? I feel like an overstuffed pinata. Except instead of being filled with candy, I'm filled with a wiggling miniature human. Hopefully no children try to whack me with sticks. That would ruin my day.

Embarrassing Moment Number 42

This afternoon a gust of wind blew my skirt up revealing....well, a lot more than I would like to reveal to anyone outside of the delivery room...and some guy on the street whistled at me!

Who the hell whistles at a fat pregnant lady who has obviously just been publicly humiliated? A guy standing outside the China Ruby restaurant wearing a wife-beater at 1 PM on a Friday afternoon, that's who!

(I've included a visual so you can get a better picture of what this all looked like.)


My face turned just as pink as my disobedient skirt. I think this was even worse than being heckled by the Walgreens Lady.

On a more positive note, the reason I was walking down said street was because I went to several baby consignment stores in the area today, and they were all awesome!

I went to Noah's Ark in Littleton, Buttons and Bows in Acton, and Kid to Kid in Natick. I tried to go to Baby B's in Maynard, but they went out of business :( To add insult to injury, that is also where the whistle heard round the world occurred.

The stores had really high-end stuff at really, really good prices. I'm pretty sure half of the clothes there had never even been worn. I had to resist buying every adorable outfit I saw since baby doesn't need twenty sun dresses...especially since she'll be born in October. But, I'll definitely go back with baby after I meet her and have a better feel for her fashion sense.

As it is, I bought five items of clothing for about $25....and that included my $13 splurge for a sweater from Janie and Jack with the tag still on it.



Good deal! Baby consignment stores are the way to go!

Week 27

It's week 27- the last week of the second trimester!

I can't believe how fast the weeks are starting to fly by. Summer is going to be over before we know it.

This week was pretty low key. I had what I think was food poisoning over the Fourth of July weekend. (Nothing's worse than being pregnant at a fair and not being able to eat any fried dough.)

It's also been really hot so I've been spending lots of time escaping the heat by lying low in the air conditioning.

Baby is getting bigger. Sometimes at night my belly will all of a sudden become really lopsided, and if I run my hands along it, I can feel the outline of her body. I don't know if I'm touching her head or her back or her bottom or a leg, but there's definitely a baby in there! I think it's really cool. Eric thinks it's really weird.

I also took and passed my glucose screening. No gestational diabetes for me! Hooray!

I have my monthly doctor's appointment next week which I always look forward to, and then we'll just continue to watch baby grow for the last three months!

Food Cravings: Diary of a Fat Pregnant Lady

Have you ever wanted something so bad it makes you cry? (Isn't that an old Brandy song?) Well, this morning I came this close to shedding tears for a guacamole dip I remembered my mom making when I was a kid. I wanted it THAT badly.

The strange part is that back in 1995 when I last tried the dip, I didn't even like guacamole or sour cream. (Clearly, I was a stupid child) So, why then did I suddenly decide at 11 am this morning that I HAD to have that particular dip?? Because I'm pregnant and hormonal and apparently experiencing what they call cravings. I don't know..it's all very scientific; you can Google it.

I interrupted my mother's vacation in Vermont for the recipe, and because she would beat Martha Stewart in a throw down, she happened to have it on file! After giving me the recipe, she asked where I was headed. (Obviously making an extravagant party dip implies that I'm heading to a party.) Slightly ashamed, I had to admit that the only party I was having was a guacamole-induced-coma party with myself and my couch.

The next step in my epic quest was to get the supplies at the grocery store. It is, however, hotter than Salma Hayek's left buttock here, and the thought of carrying groceries from my car to my apartment in this weather was something I couldn't even comprehend. After all, I do have a history of flipping out in hot weather. That's why I decided to wait for Eric to get home from teaching music lessons so he could help me out!

As soon as Eric walked into the AC of our apartment, he announced that he was not going grocery shopping because it was too damn hot and there was too much damn traffic. I accepted this graciously, and decided that he was probably right. I'd just eat a bowl of Cheerios. But my heart was broken for my dip, and for the next half an hour, I could talk about nothing else but how good it was. Eventually Eric decided it wasn't so bad out after all and we could go. Apparently when given the choice between battling the heat of Hades or listening to me whine about guacamole, Eric would rather face the heat.

While at the grocery store, I decided I also HAD to HAVE a BBQ pulled pork sandwich so we picked up supplies for that too. It was a double win! The rest of the afternoon was spent eating my dip and waiting for my pulled pork to roast in the slow cooker. Amy even came over, and while she doesn't like guacamole, she did watch me eat it while we sat and watched two hours of the Tyra Show. It was a perfect afternoon!

I love my mom for giving me the recipe, I love my boyfriend for taking his crazy girlfriend grocery shopping when it's 101 degrees out, and most of all, I LOVE my guacamole dip!

There's Nothing Funny to Say About Cauliflower....

It's week 27, and baby is the size of a...

Cauliflower!



Meanwhile, I'm the size of a...

Week 26

This week's post could also be entitled, "Hippie Crap I Plan on Doing."

First, we went to a breast feeding class last night. (Or, as Bob calls it, my "I Don't Know Nothin' Bout Birthin Babies, Miss Scarlet," class.)

When I first told Eric we were going to this class he was a little confused as to why he had to go. Isn't that whole business in my department?? Come on, Eric, you mean you weren't looking forward to sitting in a class full of pregnant woman talking about their leaking breasts? But, he was a trooper and, in spite of being worried that he'd be the only dude there, he came along without complaint.

(I think Eric was worried he'd have to wear one of these during class...)

We were both a bit anxious that I'd have to practice bare-chested in front of a room full of strangers, but luckily it was nothing like that, and there were lots of other guys there. They basically just went over the benefits of breast feeding, different positions, (We got to hold creepy life-sized baby dummies! I named mine Carlos.) what your baby's poop should look like, and different strategies for going back to work.

I'll probably forget everything we learned by the time baby comes, but honestly, I think breast feeding must be one of those things that you just sort of figure out as you go along. After all, women have been doing this since the beginning of time without fancy breast feeding classes to teach them how.

Still, I learned a few valuable tidbits. Apparently, my newborn's poop will look like black tar for the first two to three days of her life; and babies lose about 7% of their birth weight in the first few weeks after being born. Good things to know because otherwise seeing tar leaking from my anorexic baby would completely freak me out.

My top three reasons to attempt breast feeding:
1. It's much less expensive than formula
2. There are a lot of great health benefits for the baby
3. It burns 500 calories a day!!!

Secondly, I really want to attempt cloth diapering, so I ordered a few brands to experiment with. If I like them, then I can order more after baby is born. I ordered some bumGenius, gDiapers, and I want to order some Fuzzi Bunz as well.



Most people I've mentioned my plans to think I'm nuts. I think people picture the old fashioned methods of pinning and folding when they think of cloth diapering...at least that's what I thought of before I started looking into it. But, now cloth diapers can have snaps, Velcro, and built in water-proof covers. They basically look exactly like a disposable diaper, but you can wash them. I realize it will take more work, and it may end up being a big yellow-poop-filled disaster, but I figure it's worth a shot.

Some benefits to cloth diapering:
1. It's cheaper in the long run
2. It's environmentally friendly
3. Less diaper rashes
4. I want to prove Eric wrong.

Thirdly, (although this doesn't fit in with my hippiness as much as it does with my yuppiness) we went to Ikea and bought an armoire for baby's room. Eric put it together, and it looks adorable!


Her room is really coming along now.

Remember when it looked like this?


Well, now it looks like this!


Progress!!!

Twihard with Avengance: AKA Total Eclipse of My Pride

"Omigawd Mo-o-om, you are soooo like embarrassssssing me!"



This is what baby girl would be saying if she knew that I went and saw Twilight: Eclipse at the movie theater yesterday. Luckily, baby is still a baby, an unborn one at that, and doesn't even know Twilight exists. Therefore, she didn't have to experience the utter embarrassment of watching her mother waddling into a theater full of adolescent girls yesterday.
(Bonus embarrassment points??? I balanced a bag of popcorn on my belly.)

When the movie was over, Amy leaned over to me and laughed, "We should be way too old to be watching these movies. I know they're so awful, but I just can't help watching them!" She's right. The books and the movies are not very good, and I'm keenly aware of that as I watch/read them, but I just have to do it! It's like Lady Gaga, crack, and McDonald's french fries combined.

In reality, walking into the theater wasn't as embarrassing as I had envisioned. I may have been the only pregnant woman there, but I wasn't the oldest. There were plenty of moms there with their middle-school-aged daughters. The moms seemed just as excited to be there as their children. I read an article not too long ago (Wish I could remember where) about how moms and their daughters are both developing heavy crushes on Edward Cullen. It basially said that since he's both 17 and 109, and that he can stay frozen in time, he appeals to a wide range of ladies. I bet Joan Rivers loves him too.

I'm glad baby has missed this pop-culture phenomenon. I'm ashamed of my Twilight addiction enough as it is. I can't imagine sharing my crush on Edward Cullen with my teenage daughter. That'd probably scar her for life.

Still, who knows? By the time baby is 15, there will probably be some new fad out there. Maybe one about teenage leprechauns or moody, misunderstood Yeti. In the meantime, I'll just pat my belly and be glad she doesn't have to watch her mother make a fool of herself...yet.