July 30th

Done the painting, here's the room w/ the crib and chair. VERY nice, we think (not that we're at all biased.
Bob especially worked SO hard on this room. We still just go in there and sit & talk or adimre it. :-)
It's been a nice day. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, trying to take breaks for sitting in between. Bob spent the whole day outside doing yard work in the nearly 100 degree heat! I was worried about him all day, I kept checking to make sure he was ok out there. I got the house cleaned by 4, and we both went for a dip quickly w/ Max, then showered and it was meal prep time. I'm getting better at that, trying to figure out when stuff needs to be started so it's all done at once. When you're cooking for 7 it's a bigger deal that cooking for just me & Bobby. D
Dinner went well - I rubbed the chicken breasts w/ that really good chicken rub and Bob grilled 'em up. I made brown rice, corn, wheat and white bread, and salad. Bobby's folks brought water ice for dessert - and a special cup of blueberry for Bob and pear for me. We all played "Encore" which is a fun game if you're one of those crazy people who knows every word to every song out there. You also get over any fear of singing in public really quickly.

We were really happy with how the evening went. Now off to bed...*zzzz...zzzz...zzzz...* 

X-hausted.

Today we finished the boxes and the moons & stars in the nursery, and ordered the carpet. We got up early and I called a dozen or so carpet places to get estimates. Bob's mom said to go to a carpet store and see if we could get a remnant installed, because it would be cheaper. I would have loved to, but it just wasn't in the cards (I hope they don't freak when they find out how much we paid.) You'd have to settle for whatever remnant they had, God knows what quality it would be, and then the installation at most carpet places takes at least 2 weeks. One place said, "Oh, it'll be about 2 weeks." and in the next breath told me they could get us in for October 9th or 10th. Yeah, 2 weeks, 2 1/2 months, same difference. NOT.
We called Empire to get an estimate, and although they weren't the absolute cheapest, it was a solid price, not an estimate like we got at Home Depot (cheaper by $100) and they could install the carpet tomorrow. We also used them before and liked them, for the most part. We wanted one more day to paint, having the nasty old carpet as our drop cloth, and so we asked for Friday to be carpet day. The price we got from them was still about $100 less than most of the carpet places - and those were just estimates, which you can count on going up. So we had to book it to get the other painting done.
We did the taping for the dark blue boxes, painted those and found that the paint had bled undermeath the tape and looked like crap. So we had to move each piece of tape, carefully keeping it level, and paint a second coat with a tiny paint brush so that we'd have perfect straight lines. Which we do. And on top of them we now have reasonably neat stars and moons in yellow. THAT was a bitch. Stenciling sucks. It doesn't work. We had to go back over each star and moon with a tiny brush once with yellow and once with the dark blue, to clean up the lines and make the shape look, well, not retarded. I think they came out pretty well. :-) We decided right before dinner to alternate shapes and paint in the dark boxes only. Less busy (and less work) that way.
I'm freakin' exhausted, now, of course, because any amount of standing longer than 1/2 an hour leaves my back a mess. I attempted a nap today, but that wasn't in the cards, either. We went swimming, that was fun. Bob made burgers and dogs on the grill w/ pasta salad. Then we cleaned up and did the stars and moons and farted around on the computer and soon I will fall asleep at this desk.
Tomorrow is a very exciting day - shut up, you'll understand one day - REGISTERING!!!
There is nothing so greedily gratifying as walking around a store you love with a scanner gun and basically saying "I want this, and this, and this, and this, and..." It's all stuff we're going to need for the kiddo, and a lot of research actually went into a lot of these products - shut up, yes, I researched strollers and high chairs and stuff like that, and I LIKED it. Again, one day you'll understand, if you don't already.
SO we get to go to Baby Depot (the baby store inside Burlington Coat Factory - good selection, many locations near family & friends, way better prices than Babies-R-Us) and take our official LIST and point and scan like mad. I'm psyched.
And I'm also half-dead. Night. 

Our crib set & crib! Bob actually put it together the other day to see how tall it was, to see how high we had to make the chair rail in the baby's room. The crib was NOT staying in th middle of the living room, though, and we sadly had to dismantle it to get it back in the guest room. Why are cribs so big when babies are so small??? Makes no sense to me. Still, I love our moon & stars motif (cartoon characters are banned from my nursery, too overdone). Can't wait till we're done and we can put it all in and get the rocker and I get to just sit in there and rock and look up at the stars...in daylight! 

July 25th.

Nice day, for the most part. I'm a ridiculous weepy mess sometimes, earlier this afternoon being one of them. I mean, getting teary over sweet Hallmark commercials is one thing. I was crying, CRYING like a whiney baby, at "The Nanny". *That sound you just heard was me hitting a new low.*

It's bizarre, I was never one of those PMS girls ( at least I hope not, people don't usually tell you when you're driving them nuts and obviously on the rag) but lately I could literally cry at ANYTHING. And it's not like I'm walking around unhappy and mopey - most of the time I feel great. I could just burst into tears two seconds after laughing at something hilariously funny, that's all. Yeah, it's hormones, it's pregnancy, it's nuts. I'm a little (more than a little) worried about getting PPD - Post-Partum Depression. I'm hoping I escape that entirely, but we'll see. I think a lot of women assume that their troubles are over once they're done being pregnant, and that it's all going to be warm, fuzzy, happy moments with Daddy and Baby and a clean house and healthy bank account. I pride myself in KNOWING that it's going to suck for a while. No sleep, messy house, mountains of laundry, no extra cash to speak of - I've accepted this. I'm not going to say I'm ready, because who the hell really is? But at least I THINK I have a decent picture of the future, and I know that it involves lots and lots of wiping.

The guy at Wal-Mart's pharmacy knows me by name now. I walked up to the counter and he said, "You're So-and-so, right?" and I officially aged 40 years. I make a joke that yes, I'd been here a lot, because all my meds aren't running out at the same time, and I'm suddenly on a LOT of meds, 1 prenatal vitamin, lancets, test strips, and insulin pills for the GD, and my good ole Nexium so my stomach doesn't catch on fire. (I am the only pregnant woman who can eat pepper jack cheese with tabasco liberally sprinkled on it and feel awesome.) In fact, that sounds damn good right about now...

Finally got my hairs cut today - all million of them. It was just getting out of hand. I LUV having my hair washed at salons, am I the only one? Seriously, the $13 plus tip doesn't begin to cover how nice it is to have your head massaged for 5 minutes...am I nuts? Nice and short and summery now, barely touching my shoulders and that's the way *uh-huh uh-huh* I like it. Bob went too, so now he looks all cute and not mountain man-ish.

Made cookies for the new neighbors, yes, I'm Mrs. Cleaver, shut up. We were SO happy to see the old ones go, they were the noisiest people you'll ever meet. The dogs alone would drive a sane person to drop valium over the fence, not that that EVER crossed my mind. ;-) They would literally bark from dawn till dusk some days, two of 'em, really high-pitched and grating. Then their car stereos, with the bass that had to be booming so you could hear it in your house and be able to tell what song they were listening to. Then the mom screaming like Frau from Austin Powers at her two children and her "husband" who she kicked out the house to sleep in the car for a month. I found that quite entertaining, actually. So they're gone, and a younger couple moved in. They're not particularly our type, I bet at least 5 years older than us, and both have a few more tatoos than the average PTA parent, but they've been nice so far. They have a 2 1/2 year old daughter, and their baby son just came home from the hospital yesterday. So we have kids in the neighborhood now! So they got a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a friendly welcome from us, in the hopes that they will A) be quiet and B) make good playmates for the kiddo here.

Speaking of the girl-wonder, she's been quiet today (which sends most pregnant women into a panic until they feel baby kick again and relax), but she's moving a good bit now, so I everything's cool. She's usually pretty darn active late at night *greeeaaaat* but we have to go to bed early tonight so I'm hoping she settles down soon. You have no idea how hard it is to sleep when you keep getting poked from the inside. And not just your stomach. Cervix, bladder, INTESTINE, you name it. How do I know that's where she's kicking? Trust me, there's no sensation quite so lovely as having your daughter sit on your lower intestine in a Home Depot, making you wonder if adult diapers aren't a bad idea after all. Have I said too much? Good. The good news is that I'm starting to be able to feel her kicks faintly on the outside more now. Of course she still stops whenever I tell Bob and tries to feel. Stubborn kid.

The guy from Empire carpet is coming tomorrow to give us an estimate on carpeting the nursery. So far the cheapest for non-remnant carpet is Home Depot at $270. For one tiny room? Yes, carpet is expensive. Empire can do it pretty much whenever we say, though, so they may be our choice even if HD is cheaper. And of course they're coming tomorrow at the disgustingly early hour of 9 (god I love summer), and before that I want to call a few more places to get estimates. So it looks like I'm setting an ALARM CLOCK tonight - blech! What is this world coming to?

Die, bugs, die.

I'm being eaten alive by these damn mosquitoes! They love me! You have 50% more blood in you when you're preggers, and they can supposedly smell it - no, seriously, they can - so I'm now a freaking Old Country Buffet to these critters. Doing dishes a while ago I got 3 bites on the forehead. They come in whenever the door's open. And I just learned today that I'm not supposed to be using any bugspray with DEET in it. So apparently I'm just going to have to seal myself into a plastic bubble now. I don't get cute little itchy bumps, either. They bite me and I get a 2-inch circle of red with a nickel-sized welt in the middle of it. Gorgeous, I am, with 3 on my face. Lucky me.

I FINALLY finished the trilogy that was eating my life for the last, well, let's not share when I actually started reading the first one. Philippa Gregory rocks. And now I can read a trashy romance or something. Some Jane Green might hit the spot. Maybe not, I can never actually root for her heroines. They're ballsy and independent and fabulously dressed in designer everything, yes, but...I have literally no respect for people who dress in designer everything. So it's hard to actually like the materialistic shallow bitches who you can tell Green wants you to root for. The Greogory's were SO cool, though. All the parallels between the 3 books, following 3 generations of women in this one (utterly crazed) family. Good sex scenes too. You have to appreciate books with a well-timed, carefully written sex scene or three. Not one every 3 chapters like the book I will inevitably start reading tomorrow which has something to do with "burning loins" and "soft, creamy skin".

Bob made SUCH progress on the nursery today. It's beautiful!!! Laura came over to help paint, too, which I thought was very nice. She did the light blue stripe that will eventually turn into half of the chair rail, and she very carefully painted on a beautiful crescent moon, above where the crib will be. Bob did another coat of the light blue, and then stenciled on yellow stars on the ceiling. He wanted me to place them, so I walked around the kid's room with a sharpee taped on a pole, making little black dots on the ceiling. I was going to just use the ladder, but my back said otherwise.

Oh, yeah, I threw my back out yesterday. I'm apparently now to the age where you can actually do that. I'm now freakin' 80, it seems! I was bending over to apply - you guessed it - bugspray and when I straightened, up, BOOM, couldn't move. I guess it's muscular, because the heating pad makes it MUCH better. I spent the majority of the day on the couch, reading. We did order lunch and go for a swim around 2, which was actually quite back-improving also, but yeah, I was set up with the laptop, a glass of water, string cheese, my book, and the remote while Bob and Laura painted. I feel bad, I have yet to paint one thing in that room. It's supposedly not good for you to paint while you're pregnant, because apparently this causes your child to be stupid and like Nascar or something. (I asked the doctor, he said it was fine, but while I'm cutting out essential things like coffee and bugspray, what the Hell!)

ACK! Just killed (hopefully) yet another mosquito. Trying to eat ME, leaving the dog and Bob totally unharmed. I guess I taste good. Hey! I shouldn't taste too good, I'm on a low-carb, low-sugar diet and I take insulin. My blood can't be that sweet! This means war, damn it.

Die, bugs, die.

Behold, the bestest glider chair on earth. Fully upholstered, glides, rocks, swivels, soft blue gingham, and your butt just sinks in and gets a nice little nap. It's beautiful.

Ok, anybody out there who has kids, plans to have kids, or thinks that someday they might want to hang around kids, please take note. The above is the single best kids' show/albumn on earth. Yes, it's hopelessly 70's. Yes, it's written and created by one of the biggest feminists known to man. (What's wrong with that, I don't know.) But it's gold.

I can't believe I found it.

Mmmm...dark chocolate...transcendent, baby.

Yes, I'm allowed. 30 g of carbs, well within my night-time snack limit. Nights are better than days. That's twice the carbs I'm allowed to have at breakfast. LOVE dark chocolate...MMMMMM

Been a nice few days. Bob got the first stage of painting done in the nursery - light blue for the ceiling, light leafy green for the walls. Then we do the chair rail of light blue and dark blue squares, with yellow stars and moons alternating inside the boxes. LOTS of measuring and taping carefully. Fun stuff. But it'll be gorgeous when we're done. Several times today we both just went in and stood in there for a while, going "WOW, this is our KID'S room. Wow."

I cleaned out the fridge today. Yep, that was my major accomplishment for the day. Hey, it was time. Stuff may have walked out on its own by the end of the month. J/k, but seriously, keep your fridges clean, people! Don't spend an hour kneeling on a tile floor with your head inside the produce bin trying to scrub out GOD knows what from the crevices. Such fun.

And we went out to dinner, Peter's, of course. I can NEVER finish my meals there. But hey, that means yummy lunch leftovers tomorrow. So I walked around Wal-Mart feeling like the Good Year blimp (and just as inflated, if you catch my drift - one of those lovely side-effects of pregnancy nobody talks about because it isn't cute.)

Oh, found out that my Dad is coming to visit next month. All the way from Sunny CA! He called and said he'd been thinking that he wants to see me pregnant. I thought about it, and yeah, he was going to miss the whole pregnancy, wasn't he? Saw him last December - no baby yet, no THOUGHTS of baby yet, and by next Christmas, baby'll be here. I'm thrilled that he's coming, flying all the way out here. I just hope I look more pregnant by then. Seriously, unless I have a shirt on that screens "MATERNITY", you might just think I gained 40 pounds or so. The belly's sticking out, but it's kind of lumpy still...sorry, too graphic? It's a myth that you have a cute little basketball sized bump, all smooth and soft. Baby grows where she wants to grow, and right now she's decided to push all belly fat I originally had up to my boobs. I look SOOOO lovely right now. Well, hopefully 4 weeks will make a difference. It's weird to think that he's coming out here specifically to see me pregnant. And weirder and more disappointing if I don't look that pregnant in the first place. Now, throw on an empire-waisted shirt and suddenly I'm 8 months, but that's all because the kid keeps pushing everything forward and up. (Thanks, kid.)

There was a man in line behind us tonight with a little girl, about 4 or 5, and he was buying her a doctor play kit. With a plastic stethoscope, fake thermometer, one of those doctor headbands with the metal disk on them, a lab coat, etc. I was like, DUDE, my kid's getting one of those. Smart Daddy. The little girl seemed thrilled, too. She's also getting a Brio train set (German company, had them growing up, fabulous toys, require actual imagination) - my mother in-law and I already decided.
And a baby doll, because every little kid should have a baby doll. No, not every little GIRL, every kid. Nurturing is a skill that boys need too, and sorely lack today, I think. They kick the crap out of each other, they should know how to fix each other up. There will be much Play Dough, and MANY pieces of paper and crayons galore. Sidewalk chalk for the driveway, too. And one of those carpets with city streets printed on it, that comes with lots of little cars and people. And a kitchen set, cause those are cool. And if I can help it at all, the only video game system that MIGHT come into this house is a V-Smile (purely educational). At least until Middle school. Holy crap, she'll go through Middle school. Save me.

On that scary-ass note, good night.

And what we in the baby-growing biz refer to as the 'money shot'. In other words, here's how we could tell it's a girl. Little white lines.  

Here she is, in profile. She's totally turned around since last time!  

It's a GIRL!!!

Yep, the dozens of people I talked to who looked at me and said, "You're having a boy" are sadly mistaken. Girl-time.

Baby was SO cooperative (thank you!) this time. The transducer was on my tummy not 30 seconds when the tech said, "Looks like a girl". They don't just look for the presence or absence of a penis, they have to see these little white lines (the labia I believe?) and that confirms that baby's definitely a SHE.

SO happy just to finally KNOW! It's wonderful! I don't know how people wait till the birth!

We're not sharing the name we picked out for her. I LOVE it though. I should have known that it was a girl, I was so in love with the girl name we picked, and had to be convinced on the boy name.
Baby looked very healthy, measuring right where she should be. I'm doing fine, too, everything was normal in the monthly tests they make you do.

We're unfortunately VERY tired, cause we had to get up at the ungodly hour of 8:30 this morning for the 10AM ultrasound & appointment. Then we buzzed over to Bob's parents house to share the news and pick up a few things we left on Sunday (me running purely on adrenaline and joy). We had party leftovers for lunch there and headed back to the house to clean before Mommom and Poppop (Bob's grandparents) came over for dinner. That went well, but it was stressful; you have to behave, make dinner, see that the dog doesn't eat them alive, etc. Actually, Max did really well. We're working on him with company a lot more. We want him to be the sweet, gentle, quite boy he his at home with us when people come over.
Now I just emailed everybody who's addresses I have about the GIRL and blogging and then hitting the hay, HARD.

Wow. I'm going to have a little girl. I'm going to have a daughter. WOW. Thank you!

Mon, July 17th. Hotter than Hell.

Ugh, you could step outside and melt today!

Tomorrow's supposed to be the real scorcher, though. My forecast says 101F!!! And no time for swimming tomorrow...rats.

Today we took Max to the Vet, he got a clean bill of health and behaved very well. We're starting a new 'trick' with him, called "go to your spot". It was in the trainer's handbook from class but we never did this one. Basically you train the dog to go to a specific spot whenever you give the command. This keeps him from pulverizing anybody who comes to you door, and licking your company to death. I'm excited.

We went shopping for a few more maternity clothes and found NOTHING, of course, because people who aren't a size 10 or lower don't deserve real clothing, apparently. What I did find was high-maintenance and a little too see-through for my taste. "Fat pregnant tramp" is not in style this year, so I passed.

Received my medic alert bracelet in the mail today, and took that to be engraved. Such fun. But it brings more people who had GD out the woodwork - the woman who did the engraving at Things Remembered was like, "oh! I had that with my first baby!" Nice to know that somebody had it with their first but not their second...hope?

Swam and lazed by the pool, reading. Made fajitas for dinner, did laundry, cleaned the bedroom, and did my usual goofing around on the computer.

Tomorrow's potentially a big day for us; our "big" ultrasound (anatomy scan) is at 10AM. I'm REALLY trying not to get nervous, not to get worried, and not to get my hopes up about finding out the gender of the baby. I've seen this kid in action now, I know how uncooperative he/she can be. I have no 'mother's intuition' whatsoever on this one, either, like everybody else I've talked to who just knew it was a girl or a boy. Either way, I'm thrilled to have him/her and thrilled to know. Hopefully the prediction is accurate - I've seen several people who have been told they were having a girl and out popped a boy. Not heard of any the other way around, I guess it's the absence of a penis thing that confuses people. Little guys must have been hiding it, in those cases. *gulp*

I'm basically just hoping and praying that everything's as it should be, 10 fingers, 10 toes, etc., like every other mommy-to-be. I have a slightly higher risk of birth defects, because of potentially having had diabetes before this pregnancys, so that's a cause for concern in my book. (What would mothers do if they didn't worry?)
Baby's gender would be icing on a healthy-baby cake.
But again, trying VERY HARD not to get my hopes up. I was SOOOOO disappointed last time when the tech couldn't tell. I was so sure that she'd be able to, going into it. Well, we'll see.
It's not like we won't ever find out, after all!

Crossing fingers for no crossed legs, sunny-side up, and a very healthy baby tomorrow morning!!!

*yawn* good two days

Friday was fun. We went to a party at my art-teacher friend Stacey's house. I love hanging out with Stace, she's just got a very fun/natural way about her. Plus she has 2 adorable twin babies, 4 months old, and she's happy to share 'em. We kind of gave Bob a little bit of baby boot camp, at least showing him how to hold the babies, comfort them, etc. He was SO cute with them! Terrified at first, but SOOOO damn cute. We're going to borrow them for some babysitting fun some time, too, for more boot camp experience for both of us. It's not like I've changed a diaper in YEARS, anyway. Fun times.

Today we basically hung around, swam, I took a lovely nap *GOD I love naps!* and we went over to Bob's folk's house to see what they needed us to do for the party tomorrow. See, it's his dad's 50th birthday party. His mom originally wanted to throw him a surprise party, and do it at our hosue so Dad wouldn't have to lift a finger, but his sister really wanted to give him a "kickass" party, and kept TELLING him about it, so now it's at their place, and his dad was out mowing in 90 degree heat and setting up the volleyball net and weeding the garden, while the younger two are off doing other things. *sigh* Well, I'm sure they both helped with the party in their own way. Anyway, they were both gone all day, so Bob and I came over to help.
Bob vacuumed the pool, did some outdoor decorating, set up the tables outside, etc. His mom and I figured out what needed done tomorrow, what food we had for this shindig, and then went to the party store to buy lai's (sp?) for party favors (and dress-up fun!) and decorations. We ended up droppping $70+, but we got TONS of lais, bracelets, shell necklaces, and special lais for the D'Errico clan. Plus a parot necklace for Bob's dad. He's the man of the hour, he's got to have a special necklace!!!
We ordered pizza and wings (and I'm going to pay for that pizza when I take my sugar, I'm sure), took the two tags off of each freakin' lai/bracelet/necklace, all 60 of 'em, and went home. Tomorrow we're heading over there early to set up the rest of the decorations, do the food prep, and help Bob's mom any way we can (since she desperately wants Bob's dad not to have to do anything for this, and I don't know how much other help she's going to have).
I still can't decide if I'm going to bring my swim suit. It's cute, it's black, it's got a lot of room for my ever-expanding tummy...but I swear to God the weight I've gained in this pregnancy has attatched itself just to my upper arms, which weren't exacctly lovely to behold to begin with. And no amount of swishy material at my waist will disguise all that flab.
On the upside, baby's movements are stronger and stronger every day. Every now and then I'm like, "WHAT the hell are you doing in there?" I can totally confirm the ultrasound technician's measurment of the legs - about 2 weeks growth longer than average? Uh, YEAH. Eh, he/she's, his/her father's son/daughter.
And in other mundane-but-important-to-me-so-screw-you details of my life: I finally found a sleeping position that doesn't suck. Or leave me feeling like I didn't sleep at all. All it takes if 4 pillows. 2 under my head, lie on my side w/ 1 at my side that I kind of hug and put under my tummy, and 1 between my legs. Wouldn't this all be easier with a pregnancy body pillow? Yes. Do I feel like shelling out $70 for a pillow I won't use that long? Hell no.
SO tomorrow's party day. We're staying till it's ALL clean, I don't want Bob's mom to have to do all the clean-up, and then we'll have Max's vet appointment on Monday, plus cleaning the house majorly because Mommom and Poppop are coming for dinner on Tuesday night *gulp*. Tuesday is ALSO our 'big' ultrasound, which I am trying not to get very excited about because I've seen first hand that you don't always find out the sex just because you want to. Phooey. *To baby: PLEEZ cooperate? I'll buy you a neat toy on the way home! PLEEZ!!!*
I'm also hoping everything's ok, 10 fingers and 10 toes and no heart defects. And a solid indication of what's between those leggies.

Today was nice. We did a little Marlton shopping (love snob world!) I got a baby book. The Good Housekeeping guide to Pregnancy and Baby Care. Pretty good. Full of good advice, one of those manuals you can pull out in the middle of the night when the kid is screaming and you don't know why. Full of naked women, too, surprisingly. Well, the baby section WAS across the aisle from the erotica section at Barnes & Noble.
We had gift certificates to burn, so burn 'em we did. Bob got 2 more books (I am SO happy that he's reading and LOVING it, even it is is all John Grisham and court case stuff). Then we trotted over to *snobby Brittish voice* "The Promenade at Sagemore" and hit L. L. Bean with a $50 certif leftover from Christmas from one of Bob's overzealous Neeta School parents. He FINALLY got a jacket that looks like someone over 20 might wear it - his spring/fall jacket is from 1999, seriously, it was TIME. And that was on sale *hooray* so I got a cute little boat & tote purse. I feel more yuppie already.
We then hit Coldstone Creamery, which if you've never tried, you must. Find one near you and go there NOW. I behaved, got the "Sinless Sweet Cream" w/ strawberries and blueberries mushed in (right there, on the cold marble slab, baby!) Pure heaven. GOD I love ice cream. Mmmm....getting hormonal here...oh dear. Bob may be making an ice cream run soon...

We attempted to go swimming but that didn't work because apparently there was thunder. So I got in, got out, peeled off a wet suit, read and did the dinner thing, then got back in and did laps w/ Bob, and floated around like the large bloated manatee-woman that I am ever-increasingly resembling. At least before I got pregnant I had a waist! An hour-glass figure, to be kind. I got nothin' now. I'm all blob, floating there...still lovely, though. At least I've got an excuse.

After drying off I organized all those photos that have been left to sit in boxes into labeled piles, chonologically ordered. The albumns will be purchased, the photos will be stuck in, and all will be well, and I'll get my kitchen table back, damn it.

Bob made a mock up of what we want to do with the baby's room. I REALLY can't wait to start painting this - yes, I checked, it's ok to paint. I'm going to double-check with my doctor on Tuesday, but I'm told it's ok, as long as I have a mask and keep the window open. Here's an artist's rendering:

Babyshopping and other fun stuff

Had a blast slowly picking through Baby Depot, item by item, with my friend Stacey. Stace has her twins 4 months ago, and has since become my baby guru, helping with things like, "don't get this, waste of money; get 2 of these, they save your life!". I actually walked through that store (2 hours!) with a clip board with labeled sections, writing down all the info. Besides have a blast (GOD I love shopping. Baby shopping especially), I now have a more than decent list of stuff to register for, and I didn't spend a dime. She, on the other hand, walked out of there with 3 outfits and a $40.00 walker. :-) Afterwards she took me out to lunch at this awesome BBQ place to celebrate me having a baby and her getting the hell out of the house. A good time was had by all. I came home and typed (yes, typed) the offical We-Need-This-Stuff-for-the-Kid list, shared w/ Bob, and we're all set to register. I don't know if I want to wait until we know the gender or not...I think I do. As much as I want to try to stay gender neutral, so as to use with kid #2 later who may or may not be the opposite sex as kid #1, there is SO much cute stuff there, mountains of it, that I want to dive into and buy buy BUY. Or at least register for. Hormones make you crazy-spendy, let me tell ya.

Came home and read, lounged by the pool, went swimming and did laps, did grilled chicken w/ this awesome rub for dinner, and got the crap beat out of me at Uno by my loving husband. We set up our google calendars to sort of talk to eachother (shut up, we're geeks) and now it's just blog and fall asleep. That was the one thing that bugged me about today; had to get up at 7:30 to meet Stace in Marlton by 9. I don't do 7:30 in the morning lately. It's summer.

And MY what a lovely summer so far!

Tomorrow we're going "Marlton Shopping", or shopping in snobby-snob land, which is always fun. God I love summer.

A little montage of our little one's progess. Sorry it's blurry. That's how ultrasounds are. You learn to deal. But itsn't that COOL? 

Here's the best u/s shot of the little one so far. Head's on the right, lying on her back, in profile. Daddy's nose.  

*Sigh* Yesterday was a rough day. Well, it had a rough start.
Baby was SUPPOSED to show us whether he (it's not necessarily a he, I'll explain later) is a he or a she. Didn't happen. Nope, baby is beautiful, healthy, perfectly-proportioned stubborn little thing. Eh, I might have guessed that, it's my kid afterall. I'll remember this when he keeps mouthing off to me at 12.
OH, the he thing: Bob's idea. On even numbered dates, baby is a he. On odds, a she. Simple as that. I know, sounds weird. Well you try calling your baby, your child, your little sweetie pie an
"IT" for months and see how you like it. Today, baby's a he.

We had the disappointment of not finding out, and that was bad enough. But then we got other crappy news heaped on us, and it was pretty much one of those "stop the world I want to get off" moments.

The perinatologist looked at my blood sugar records, and as of today, I have to start taking an insulin pill (thank god no shots yet!) before dinner and before bed (because pregnancy hormones are highest at night and in the morning, hence higher blood sugar then). And because this pill can sometimes cause low blood sugar in quick bursts, which causes fainting (yeah, great. Get me my smelling salts!), I now have to wear - that's right! A medic alert bracelet stating that I'm diabetic and pregnant. Such fun. BUT I have also have to carry around a bag of candy in case I have an episode of low blood sugar. Mmm, gummy bears!

Of course, there's more. More than grandma jewelry and possible fainting? Yeah, its gets better:

Now we're not extremely concerned about this, it's just a precaution for baby's sake, but:
There's always a possibility with gestational diabetes that the mother actually had diabetes in a milder form before she got pregnant, and it was just never caught. Babies with diabetic mothers run a higher risk for birth defects, particularly heart defects. Yeah, yikes. SO baby has a fetal echo cardiogram on August 1st to check for heart abnormalities. Because we had a strong heartbeat right from the beginning, and I never showed any cause for worry with the -ahem - urine sugar tests in early pregnancy, they're not freaking out. The diabetes may very well just go away after that baby's born. Then there's also the possibility that it won't, which also sometimes happens after you've been insulin-resistant for so many months. And you have a higher likelyhood of developing diabetes later in life. But I now know exactly what goes into that, and that doesn't scare me much now. Watching carbs really isn't that hard. Somtimes I can't believe it's time to eat again. And it's not like you can just say, "oh, I'm not hungry, I'll eat later. Baby and blood sugar monitor say "no, you will eat NOW!".

So yeah, fun stuff galore. To sum up, everything's ok, I'm eating VERY well, I get to wear 'special' jewelry and carry around candy, and oh, yeah, stick myself 4 times a day. That's a part I won't miss, assuming I get rid of this crapola disorder.

Tomorrow my sis is visiting, which is nice. Of course it means I finally have to clean our floors, which have been left dirty for weeks because every day Bob (and Max) are trampling in dirt and sand from working on the deck.

The deck, by the way, is almost done. Bob put half the railings up tonight, and the rest will be done tomorrow.

Whew. My sugar was 79 before I ate my early-nighttime snack. Yes, I have two now, because apparently you have to eat after you take your sugar and again before bed, when you take the the insulin. I felt all woozy and shakey before I had those grapes and cheese. My body must think I'm nuts, frankly. All this sugar up and down crap, the baby kicking and poking, and I swear to God I still have caffeine withdraw.

OH well. Time to put it to bed. After I eat 5 triscuits with red pepper hummus. Good for the protein. Oh, God, I've turned into one of those label-reading food counting freaks!

Deck Views!

My hunky carptenter, hard at work on the deck frame! 

And we have a deck!!! 

Lazy Summer

Even though it doen'st particularly FEEL like summer, what with it being 70 degrees and overcast. The good news is that there's MUCH less rain on the forecast, so Bob can finish the deck. He' s done a fantastic, quick job of it, and I'm thrilled to have it, believe me. I'm just worried that he won't be happy till it's done, and he's kind of become a man obsessed lately. I'm grateful, seeing as that means the deck is done sooner, of course.

Especially since I need to get out there and swim more! We met with a nurse who specialized in diabetic care today, to talk about the GD GD (still love that!) and apart from being told to excercise more - and who wants to hear that? - I liked what she told me. I'm following the prescribed carb/protein amounts pretty well. She took a look at my 2-day food diary (I hate that Weight Watchers phrase!) and said that I really wasn't eating ENOUGH of protein or carbs at some meals. So I have to be careful to eat enough. GOD did I love hearing that. :-) Who wouldn't? Maybe those freaky skinny people, and they can bite me..."I can't possibly choke down another piece of cheese, I'll barf. Again, after the scheduled barfing, that is." So yeah, it was nice to be told that A) this is officially not my fault (I play the blame game too much) B) I'm doing a good job of following the plan, although I could eat MORE to be on the safe side and C) I may have to go on medication to further lower it, as my insulin resistence is pretty high, but that will keep the baby out of harm's way. Damn pregnancy hormones.

Today's plan includes LOTS of laundry, and searching for all the pictures that are not in albums, sorting them, and figuring out what kind of books I'll need to buy tomorrow to archive all of them. I'm not having this kid until I have all the pics from my previous years together. I can't take the disorganization.
I'm also going to eat lunch (careful to eat enough carbs and protein - yay for food!) and then - grrr!- hop on the treadmill. Oh such fun. I walk for 2 Simpsons episodes (off the DVD, no commercials = 40 minutes) and I'm home free. And for the rest of the day I will resisit the urge to go to Baby Depot and Dunkin Donuts. Then I believe I will build an amusement park on Rollercoaster Tycoon, and finish my book. GOOD GOD I love summer! Why aren't more people teachers? It's definitely worth it. Huh. Talk to me in April and see how I feel... anyway, happy lazy summer day!

Happy (belated) 4th!

We had a very nice, quiet 4h of July. Well, quiet except for the (illegal) fireworks my neighbors decided to set off. Hey, as long as nothing of ours catches fire or blow up, I'm good. Bob made great progress on the deck. For starters, it's a deck now! It's way bigger than I imagined, and it looks great. Of course, there's no way to get up onto it, because the stairs aren't done, and it's not safe to be up there, because the railings aren't done...but whatever. It's a deck.
I'm such a house frau. The previous day I spent 2 hours scrubbing all our plates with this stuff that's great at getting silverware scratches off dishes - with a ridiculous amount of elbow grease, it worked wonders. Yesterday I tore out the contents of several cabinets and purged the stuff we haven't used in a year, made a cabinet shelf for baby stuff, and rearranged some other things so that the tupperware doesn't com cascading down onto our (usually sandy) floor. Bob's parents and brother came over to see the deck and ended up staying for dinner, so we had a nice little cookout. We also went swimming, which was nice. Gotta get the sugar down! (sooo much fun this is.)

It occured to me that I barely left the property yesterday, and that was only to run to Wawa for more rolls (which I couldn't eat, ironic/annoying, huh?). Today Bob wants to go to Home Depot...I said I'd come along, so I don't start feeling like a shut-in, but now I'm not so sure...there's that whole having to get dressed thing. See, how sad is that? Well, that's the kind of energy I've got sometimes. Zip. What I REALLY want to do is go do registry stuff, since 2 people in 3 days have asked about it now. I get the feeling I'm supposed to have done it already. Who knows.

Today, I lounge around, read, blog, surg, research baby gear/products online, clean out the linen closet and possibly the pantry, maybe go swimming if the weather holds up, do the 2-day food diary cause -HOORAY- my meeting with the GD nurse is tomorrow. Such fun. Bob says after that would be a good time to go pre-registry shopping, so at least if the meeting sucks I'll have that to look forward to. And the NEXT DAY...growth scan! Where I will be clinging to the table and demanding the tech to take a closer look if he/she can't find out whether it's a he or a she.

See, I know it sounds like I'm obsessed with baby stuff. Baby-baby-baby.
Well it's a huge, life-changing thing. It's almost constantly bumping around where I can feel it now. And it's DAMN cute. Why wouldn't I be obsessed?

Tummy Update

I've been asked to post a tummy-update shot, so here it is. The shirt helps by saying, "no, not getting fatter, PREGNANT!" And of course Max had to get his butt in the shot, too. His front end is a little camera shy.  

Listening to Blast! Sountrack, loudly, through my laptop speakers, aimed directly at my ever-expanding belly. My evil plan is to saturate this child's auditory world with brass instruments, and 9 years later convince him/her to play trombone. And the next kid, tuba. So the D'Erricos will be a nice little brass quartet, suitable for hiring out for Christmas parties. :-)

Handfull of peanuts and an 8 0z. glass of 1/2 carb/sugar OJ. Mmmm...I find it just a little sad that that is a satisfactory snack for me. Sugar, carbs, blah blah, blah have become somewhat of an obsessive topic for me. With the Gestational Diabetes, or as I like to call it, the GD GD, that's a borderline-unhealthy snack. Seriously. A little high on the carbs. I'll be doing a lot of walking this afternoon, though, so that ought to settle things down.

It's easier doing this when you're doing it for someone else's sake. I heard a story about a baby who died because his mother's blood sugar was out of control, he'd grown too big, and his lungs couldn't function in his bigger-than-it-should-be body. That is not happening to me.

Back from G'burg and having some decompression time. I feel so taxed emotionally, leaving there. Visit are mostly nice, but I stress about the dog being good and seeing everybody we have to see - Mamu and Papu's house left us drained. Poor Bob asked if they'd had septic work done, since a section of their back yard had obviously been dug up. Dug up, is that right? It ended with her crying and doing a screaming, finger-shaking impression of this apparently evil septic contractor who is supposedly a good Christian man (and LORD do I hate the phrase "good Christian") and Bob out back in the heat doing yard work for them. My grandmother said the contractor wasn't very Christian to her. I'm sure there's another side to this story, but I've never heard of any type of contractor demanding money up front - around here, they do the job, and you're legally responsible for their bill, period. Deciding he wanted $150 and then two days laster another $150 when the job wasn't finished and he left without warning...on the other hand, 1 hour with my father's parents is enough to make me want to pull my hair out. I have a feeling they were VERY annoying to work for. Eh, Bob back hoed the spot that the man left exposed, covered the concrete slab, and WE brought lunch, which meant it wasn't disgusting for a change. Ask me about the hybrid tuna salad/egg salad experience. I still can't eat either of those.

So today is shopping (we need groceries in a BAD way) and that's a lot more complicated now, with me not being able to eat, well, ANYTHING. No, that's not true. 15g for breakfast, 15g for snack 1, 15-30g for lunch, 15g for snack 2, 45-60g for dinner, 15-30g for snack 3. And yes, you have to eat all those snacks. The idea is to keep your blood sugar stable, so that baby's is as stable as possible, too. Otherwise baby grows too fast, and there are complications like low blood sugar and "I have to squeeze an 11-pound baby out of WHERE? Nope, sorry".

It's really cool, though, I've been feeling stronger and stronger movement. I can't wait till Bob can feel it too. I've gotten a few random ka-POW kicks, that I'm sure could have been felt, but they come and go as they please, only once in a while. A few more weeks, perhaps.

We hopefully can find out the sex on Thursday. One of the only perks (no, sorry, the ONLY perk) of having GD is you get more frequent ultrasounds to check the baby's growth. Our growth scan meausres the baby's head, waist, and thigh length. Now you tell me, if the doctor is hanging out near the thigh, how he/she couldn't see what baby was hiding last time? I'm REALLY hoping we can find out - otherwise it's another long 2 weeks until we have the next u/s.

Everybody keeps saying "he" to me, I've said it lots, and I keep going, 'oops, no, might be a she'. But I don't know. The more I think about it.. he? Eh, who am I kidding, I've got no clue.