Watch Me Grow!

I love it when other people post pictures of their pregnancy growth, but now that its my turn, I'm not so pleased. But ah well, puffy faces happen. Don't judge too harshly. :)

12 weeks- Was I ever so petite??

19 weeks

23 weeks

26 weeks

29 1/2 weeks

35 weeks

35 weeks at Alex's Commissioning

38 1/2 weeks. Thats as good as it get for now I'm afraid. :)

Ragnar!!!

Now say that in a somewhat piratey voice, and you'll sound like my bro-in-law. Add in a hooked finger for good measure. Are we having fun yet??

Because we sure did!

It started with a phone call on Wednesday night at about 10pm. It was a friend of ours from church, and I assumed he was calling about a service project for Hubby to come help with. However after a moment or two of conversation, Hubby was saying things like, "oh cool", and "wow, yeah!". My curiosity reaches a peak when he says "hold on let me ask Laura".

Then he mentions Ragnar.

Having lived in Utah, we had heard about Ragnar. I knew it was a relay race involving a team of about 12 people, during which each person runs 3 legs of varying distances and difficulties, and that the race spans about 200 miles. I had some previous co-workers had participated and loved it.

The only thing was that the start of the race was a grand total of 36 hours away from that phone call time. So when he asked me if he could go I naturally said "Sure. Lets just hope I don't go into labor!"

I was of course concerned that I would be sitting at home with a whole lot of nothing to do all day Friday and Saturday, so when I got a phone call from a different friend from church saying that she and her husband had also gotten phone calls to be runners (I guess several team members had dropped at the very last minute) and she needed someone to watch her 4 kids, I said "might as well!"

and that my friends is how we spent our weekend. :)

Hubby got to be in a van full of 6 people, run a total of about 14 miles in 3 different legs (without actually training for them I might add- I'm so proud!), sleep two hours, and earn a cool medal. I got to play with 4 awesome kids between 4 and 13, including a trip to the pool, and playing soccer mom for the morning. We ended Saturday exhausted, but we both had lots of fun.

Maybe for the next Ragnar I'll be able to run too.

Define: Nesting

According to Merriam-Webster: 

(of a bird or other animal) Use or build a nest: "the owls often nest in barns"; "do not disturb nesting birds".

Fit (an object or objects) inside a larger one: "the town is nested inside a large crater on the flanks of a volcano".  

According to Laura: 
The desire and or attempts of an expectant mother to achieve and/or maintain a level of cleanliness that is unattainable, unreasonable, or unhealthy. Also the desire to finish all partially completed projects regardless of feasibility. 


Alex is studying furiously for his finals next week. It is rather hard to believe that we're already 1/4th of the way through medical school! It seems to have  gone by at hyper speed, but then things tend to to that when you're busy. After that he'll have 10 weeks off for the summer to help me attain and maintain a perfectly spotless home 100% of the time put a crib together, and maybe even go golfing with some friends. He has worked so hard this year, and it will be a much deserved break (though he will be doing research part time with a professor). Not to mention it will be the last summer he has off, um, ever. So we're going to live it up! (Ha)


In the meantime, work has lightened for me quite a bit. Things were busy through March and most of April, but now that the national April ACT test has past, things have gotten quite a bit quieter. Seems like not as many kids are studying for the June test. Go figure. This has left me with quite a bit of time on my hands. Which  may not be the best thing for a near term pregnant woman. In fact, I am only blogging now to keep myself from going at the baseboards with gloves and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. In fact, this is how I have been feeling lately:

Excellent Image

This- feeling- has been exaggerated by the fact that it is spring time, and its natural to want to clean all the things in spring time, also it is shedding season for one black Labrador who shall remain nameless; but she wanders and leaves her black shadow all over my floors, wall, couch, and anything that touches her, or anything that touches something that touched her. Ever. We also just had two successive sets of house guests. (Grant, Trevor, Shelley, if you read this I am so glad that we were able to have you over, and that we were able to share our air-mattress with you.)  All of these things are contributing to a building sense of anticipation and mania that will probably only cease when i am too exhausted to continue, or my husband hauls me away in a maternity strait-jacket. Which he may do in the very near future. Like in two weeks when he isn't busy studying. So in the meantime, with my husband distracted by neuroanatomy, I am going to go clean all the things. Probably twice. 


Cheers. 


I also found this article to be entertaining, and also a little too close for comfort. Let the irrationality begin. Err... continue. 

Get low, get low!

The title of the post refers to a couple things today:

31 1/2 weeks! I'm down to 9 weeks left and I can't believe it. It's pretty difficult to describe the emotions at this point, but its still a mix of anxious, excited, worried, and relieved all at the same time. The balance shifts from day to day, but excitement is definitely in the forefront of all of the emotions. I feel like these last two months are going to fly faster than ever, and that I'll blink and suddenly have a baby in my arms.

I had my (almost) 32 week appointment today, and while I have indeed slowed down on the weight gain as per the nurses orders (only up 23 total now!), there was another tiny cause for concern today.  When my doc went to measure the height of the uterus, which has been measuring a little small recently, she found that it was about 4 or 5 centimeters shorter than it should have been. She gave me a sideways look, and told me that I looked like I was carrying really well right out front, but that she wanted to do an ultrasound to check fetal size just to make sure. So in we went. Babygirl measured right on schedule, putting my due date at June 21st, and doc said she looked looong. By gum, she's gonna have her daddy's long legs, I can already tell! Anyhow, doc said I was measuring small for fundal height because I'm carrying super low- which really explains why all my clothes are fitting so strangely. Weight estimate of babygirl is about 4 pounds 1 ounce at this point. Can't believe it! I am convinced that I'm going to deliver a) a large baby and b) before my due date. We should start a pool for bets guesses...

The Best Laid Plans

For those who don't know my birthday is about this time of year... :)

And this year we got lucky! My tutoring center happened to be moving locations yesterday, so I got the afternoon off! And Alex gets out of class at one on Fridays, so even though it wasn't my birthday we decided to make an afternoon of it. He thought it would be fun to take me to the Shedd Aquarium, then wander around town and get some dinner after. Sign me up! I was so excited! Seriously, go look around at the website and check out the exhibits that they have. Not to mention, it was my first time going downtown in the daylight. We've kinda been slacking in the exploration department...

So Friday rolls around, and I spent an hour and fifteen minutes trying to track us down some tickets; which are a good idea to get ahead of time fyi, but are not on sale day-of... Mistake 1. So Alex gets home a little after 1, we eat lunch, do a few things around the apartment, and we're finally ready to leave at 3. Mistake 2. It took us an hour and fifteen to get there when it could have taken 45, so we get to the parking garage at Soldier Field at about 4:15, knowing that the aquarium closes at 5. We rush over and they are no longer selling tickets. Wop, wop......

I guess they weren't the best laid plans, but we had been excited for them. And in our defense, we both grew up in medium-large cities (populations of 608,000, and 600,108 according to the 2010 census), and our plans would have worked there. But we forget that this is Chicago: Population 2,884,382. Sooooo things work a little differently. 

Feeling pretty sorry for ourselves, we decide to walk around the Museum Campus there. For those that haven't been to Chicago, the Museum Campus is pretty awesome. The Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum, The Adler Planetarium, and Soldier Field (Da Bears...) are all on the same strip of Lakshore, and there is a pretty neat jetty/peninsula to walk on. It also connects with paved trails to the park along Lakshore Dr. and where Buckingham Fountain are. These are pretty major Chicago-y places. 

So we walk along the peninsula and take some pictures:

Did I mention it was almost 80 degrees and gorgeous? All week? I try not to brag...

Then we walked to a Thai place about a half mile away. Ma & I was good! On the way back to the car we decided to walk through one of the statue parks to play, and take pictures of course... 

Can you see him?

And just then it started to rain. And rain a little more. 

We walked as fast as our full stomachs could to an underpass to ride out the storm. 

The Shedd Aquarium from the underpass. See all that water!? The storm lasted about 20 minutes, and by the time it was done we saw 3 building struck by lightning, including the one next to the Shedd! There was also 3-4 inches of standing water on that pathway...

Then the gutters started to well up with water from below. 

Once the rain quit, it made for an amazing sunset (with clear skies I might add)

And it turned the water the most stunning colors...

All in all, I'm glad we didn't get into the aquarium, because we probably wouldn't have been caught in the rain. :)

....But next time we'll plan better. 

20 up, 15 to go, and a Cornucopia

20 up:
I had my 24 week doc appointment yesterday, during which they did all the normal monitoring stuff, and it was also my glucose tolerance test. The stuff wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't as bad as everyone says either. Drinking something that tastes like a melted popsicle? I've had worse. The thing that wasn't so fun was stepping on the scale, having my nurse check my charts and say "Ooooooh sweetie". I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm up 19 pounds: 16 depending on which pre-pregnancy weight you use. At 25 weeks, that may be on the high end of the recommended amount, but really? I'm pregnant for crying out loud. I'm not overly indulging, I'm not laying on the couch all day long. Boo. But that exclamation will probably give me an anxiety attack now, so I'm cutting out my morning glass of orange juice, and switching back to herbal tea instead of hot chocolate should I choose to indulge in a warm drink at night. Booooooooooo.

15 to go:
I'm pretty sure it was last month that I peed on that stick. Yes it was in October, but when did it get to be March? This is going by faster than I expected, but I feel like I've been pregnant forever now that I've gotten used to the idea, and I feel like I will continue to be pregnant forever. Thank goodness this is not the case.

Cornucopia:
I love fresh fruit, but my husband does not. He pulls a face if I offer him even the most delicious bit of strawberry, or the crispest juiciest apple slice. Silly boy. I usually only purchase small amounts of fruit at a time because I know I will be the only on eating it; which means I probably don't get enough of the stuff during the week. Well at church the scouts sponsored some kind of fruit purchase from a guy who gets them fresh off the boat (they have not fallen off the back of a truck). Since the fruit is purchased by the case, that meant that some friends in the ward had extras, of which I was the beneficiary. So in addition to my modest supply of mini Gala apples, I now have a heaping bowl full of the freshest oranges and grapefruit you could imagine. It reminds me of a cornucopia because there isn't room in the bowl for everything, so I have apples and oranges on the counter top next to the bowl. At least this will be good for my new... regime. Because I'm not on a diet. Really...

Happy Valentine's Day and Songs That Take Me Back!

Happy Valentine's Day to you! Have you seen Google's video? It's a cute one. Go watch it. Alex and I had our Valentine's date already this weekend. Today he needed the car so that he could go shadow a doctor this evening and practice taking patient histories. So I took the evening off -to spend all by my lonesome- so he could drive.

Don't worry, we had a fun date this weekend. We went to a sushi place nearby (I had teriyaki and sampled the cooked rolls, don't worry) then came home and watched one of our favorite TV shows together. It may seem silly, but we rarely get to even sit on the couch together, so it was a relaxing and enjoyable evening.

But I do want to give a list of good songs that take me back. This one is romantic, most of them are fun reminders of high school or something silly like that. :)

#1 Song that takes me back: Michael Buble and Nelly Furtado: Quando, Quando, Quando

This one always makes me smile and want to hold my husband's hand. This is our wedding song. This is also the song that was on repeat in the background on our third date when we sat in the car and talked for hours. Then that rascal leaned over and stole a kiss! After eating J-Dawgs with pickles, onions and jalepenos. Risky move pal, risky.

#2 Tim McGraw: Something Like That

Oh man, an oldie but a goodie! This one reminds me of church dances with Mary, Carma, Amber and Kara. Or just high school. This is just a great song, that's all there is to it. And what an introduction to country music!!

#3 All American Rejects: Swing, Swing

This one is definitely silly, and a bit telling. This song reminds me very specifically of the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. A group of us lonely (single) friends went on a bike ride to the lake and we were singing this one on the way there. I happened to be the only girl in the group, but those guys were, and are still in some cases, some of my very best friends.

#4 Britney Spears: Oops, I did it again

Was there ever a time when red pleather body suits were cool? Yes. The answer is yes. Was it also cool to learn the dance and do that with my friends? Maybe only to us. But this song instantly transports me to that time. How could it not?

#5 Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody

It is difficult for me to admit that the first time I heard this song was at my 15th birthday party. How could I have been missing out for so long? Two friends, incidentally both named Paul, performed a talent show style lip sync/ not quite interpretive dance of this song at my party much to everyone's delight. I wish I had a recording of it that I could show to their wives and future children. What a fantastic song. And an even better music video!

I'm sure I'll come up with more songs to add to the list later, but this was a sufficient dose of nostalgia for me. And sufficient Britney for quite a while. Next time will HAVE to include N*SYNC. I'm sorry, they were part of my adolescence.