Saturday, June 30, 2012
Belly Harness
Found this at the giant baby store also. Had a bit of trouble at first (including putting it on fully backwards), but once on properly it did actually provide some instant relief to my back and belly.
Belly gawker
We're currently on a train to NYC for our double birthday/anniversary vacation celebration. I have of late been noticing that people in public have been staring at my growing belly--in the bathroom, in restaurants, while I walk down the street.
As I shared this observation with Frank in the dining car over a ginger ale, I suggested we play a game to demonstrate the extent of my visual gravity on the way back to our seats 3 cars back. I have since titled this game "belly gawker".
It's simple. You walk past a bunch of people, preferably those facing you, and see how many of them succumb to the urge to oogle your lovely baby lump.
Frank walked behind me, and counted EIGHT Belly Gawkers in the very first car we traversed. I was cracking UP through the whole second car, where there were three more. Frank was entertained, and intrigued.
Should be fun on the streets of New York.
As I shared this observation with Frank in the dining car over a ginger ale, I suggested we play a game to demonstrate the extent of my visual gravity on the way back to our seats 3 cars back. I have since titled this game "belly gawker".
It's simple. You walk past a bunch of people, preferably those facing you, and see how many of them succumb to the urge to oogle your lovely baby lump.
Frank walked behind me, and counted EIGHT Belly Gawkers in the very first car we traversed. I was cracking UP through the whole second car, where there were three more. Frank was entertained, and intrigued.
Should be fun on the streets of New York.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Baby Furniture Part 3
After spending over three hours in Great Beginnings, we had 2 finalists for furniture, and by the time we got home, we decided on this set:
Although the pictures don't show it, these do match. They were also on sale, which I am never opposed to. We had some generous help in buying them, and were able to have them delivered this past week!!
This is a third piece we picked up--it's a mounted flip-top changing table (that still needs a pad cover). Maybe I'm missing something, but I've always found it strange that almost every single changing table is designed to change a baby from the side instead of from the front. I have never once seen a parent change a diaper from the side when it wasn't on a changing table, which leads me to believe it's not very convenient, and I didn't want to pay for something that would inconvenience me.
This flip-top allows for both versions, if necessary, and can be folded away when it's not being used.
Makes sense to me! Plus, it can be removed by loosening four screws on the back of the dresser. So functional.
Frank came home after the furniture was all settled in the room, and went on this hilarious mock-angry riff in a deep sort of voice while doing king in the castle arms:
"Baby, whai don' you go to sleep? I'm so tired, rah rah rah"
He's a natural--all it took was some quality furnishings.
Baby furniture adventure, Part 2
THIS...is what happened.
Frank called me from around the corner--"Carla, I think you need to come look at this."
I followed the sound of his voice, not expecting much, as we'd already seen ninety-percent of the bedding and furniture on exhibition in the enormous floor display, and I had yet to be wowed.
And then there were turtles.
I stuck out my bottom lip, placed my hands on my own cheeks, and began to well up. This reaction was similar to when I found my wedding dress, although this was much less expected, and somehow much more emotional. I didn't know baby bedding was supposed to have that effect.
Although, maybe it was the lamp that really got me.
I had a previous vision of bright, solid colors with a few character-filled accent pieces--reds, oranges and greens, the occasional blue or yellow, but alas, I fell for the motif that I swore months before that I never would. As you know, I have a pet turtle, and didn't want to succomb to being "the turtle people", but then again I think just having a turtle gets that done, so what did we have to lose, really.
It was so easy and sweet to picture putting our baby to sleep in a room like this, even with the framed pricing sheet resting on the mattress. It took me a good ten minutes to fully recover from the [very slow] truckful of sentiment that ran over me.
Funny how much the same, I pictured my wedding dress to have some sort of lace top, and a straight skirt with a small train, and it was nothing of the sort. It was strapless, which I swore I would never go with, with a tulle skirt. Go figure.
Frank called me from around the corner--"Carla, I think you need to come look at this."
I followed the sound of his voice, not expecting much, as we'd already seen ninety-percent of the bedding and furniture on exhibition in the enormous floor display, and I had yet to be wowed.
And then there were turtles.
Although, maybe it was the lamp that really got me.
It was so easy and sweet to picture putting our baby to sleep in a room like this, even with the framed pricing sheet resting on the mattress. It took me a good ten minutes to fully recover from the [very slow] truckful of sentiment that ran over me.
Funny how much the same, I pictured my wedding dress to have some sort of lace top, and a straight skirt with a small train, and it was nothing of the sort. It was strapless, which I swore I would never go with, with a tulle skirt. Go figure.
I guess lots of unexpected things happen to work out perfect.
Baby furniture adventure, Part 1
Frank heard from one of his clients about a fabulous, extremely large and wonderful baby store out in Gaithersburg, which is about an hour from our house. We ventured to Great Beginnings on a day off, and boy were we happy we did!
This was the first thing we noticed.
And all of this was the second.
WOW. This place has 80,000 square feet of nothing but baby madness. Furniture, bedding, rockers, strollers, clothes, toys, EVERYTHING! I was so excited, that I left my wallet/purse somewhere in the midst of it all, and had a hard time staying focused long enough to find it.
This was one of the coolest alphabet blankets I've seen--M for Moustache, K for Kiwi.. I was very close to suggesting that this be our motif for our room, although I wasn't completely sold on all of the colors.
But then...something incredible happened. (See Part 2.)
This was the first thing we noticed.
This was one of the coolest alphabet blankets I've seen--M for Moustache, K for Kiwi.. I was very close to suggesting that this be our motif for our room, although I wasn't completely sold on all of the colors.
But then...something incredible happened. (See Part 2.)
The baby did it...
I'm getting a little too good at eating half (or more) of a pizza in one sitting...
Clocking in at 164.8lbs this week--that's over 11 pounds gained. My lower back is has been hurting for a couple of weeks now, and I fear it's here to stay...although I can't say I'll be deterred from eating pizza.
A bad night's sleep
I'm at a little over 25 weeks at this point. My belly has become kind of an egg-shape, and that egg is changing my tolerance for all things physical, including sleeping. I now monger blankets in order to tuck them wherever it seems I need a cushion--the small of my back, between my knees, under the egg. There are pillows too--ohhh there are pillows, although the illustrious "Snoogle" I mentioned in another post is now for some reason intolerable and unhelpful. It's a uniform width, and it seems that the more the size and shape of my body vary, the more I need my supports to vary as well--length, width, firmness and softness are tolerated in different amounts as the recent weeks have progressed.
Last night I woke up at some random hour, of course, having to pee. When I laid back down, my mind started reeling, the baby started kicking, and absolutely nothing was comfortable. I tried to spread out, tried to lay perfectly stick-straight on my side, but wanted desperately to just fall asleep on my stomach. Not possible.
Best of all, I was woken from the sleep I finally got back to with a MASSIVE calf cramp. Like, I was already screaming when I woke up. Usually, I can flex my feet and work it out within a pretty short period of the time, but I'm pretty sure this was like a whole hour (three minutes) of miserable whimpering and groaning and writhing before the ball of muscle in my leg relented.
In the midst of this eternal suffering, I had a mindful experience. I remember thinking, If labor is anything like this, I'm not going to do well." Then I tried to breathe slowly and controlledly through the leg contraction for a few breaths, and quickly resigned to whining and crying.
Maybe after a few more I'll be ready.
Last night I woke up at some random hour, of course, having to pee. When I laid back down, my mind started reeling, the baby started kicking, and absolutely nothing was comfortable. I tried to spread out, tried to lay perfectly stick-straight on my side, but wanted desperately to just fall asleep on my stomach. Not possible.
Best of all, I was woken from the sleep I finally got back to with a MASSIVE calf cramp. Like, I was already screaming when I woke up. Usually, I can flex my feet and work it out within a pretty short period of the time, but I'm pretty sure this was like a whole hour (three minutes) of miserable whimpering and groaning and writhing before the ball of muscle in my leg relented.
In the midst of this eternal suffering, I had a mindful experience. I remember thinking, If labor is anything like this, I'm not going to do well." Then I tried to breathe slowly and controlledly through the leg contraction for a few breaths, and quickly resigned to whining and crying.
Maybe after a few more I'll be ready.
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