braxton hicks contraction

 On Saturday I had my first (maybe second) Braxton Hicks contraction. We were in the car on our way to see Harry home from Somaliland when all of a sudden I felt extreme cramping in my belly. This was kind of alarming, but the hot flash that followed it was even more so, I had never had a hot flash before. It was in the 30s outside but I had to roll the window down to get some cool air. It seemed to last for several minutes and I was thinking it was possible I might have to go lay down, although I had heard that typically for Braxton Hicks contractions if you change positions it will go away, unlike real contractions. We had just come from a long walk with Irina and Sam, and I've heard that activity can cause these contractions to happen, although I haven't had any resulting from exercise otherwise. The 'mental sensation' of the Braxton Hicks contraction was very strange, I felt super focused on my body and my head felt clear and light but also very alert. Is this what labor feels like? I don't know. Was not the most comfortable sension but I would actually like to have a few more because it did seem like good practice for the real deal. I hope it doesn't happen while I'm on a work call or something though, but I think I would get a pass.

merry christmas bump - week 32

Eight months...! The countdown is on. I think I mostly solved the glute pain I was having by swimming 3 times last week. Swimming cures all ailments. 

Zach said that my belly is starting to look 'obscene' in these bump pics. Hope it can be handled. Doglet is as big as a napa cabbage this week and weighs almost 4 pounds which is pretty sizable. This happened a while ago but my innie belly button has definitely turned into an outie. 

Also please forgive the equally obscene tree topper. This was our first year with a tree and we don't have a topper, so we put our Halloween decoration up there. I got the tree at Eastern Market and it smells great, was nice to have a tree up this year. 

We had the tree and the menorah going this year. It was also the first time lighting the menorahs...I like lighting the candles. I think we skipped a night or something so we had extra and I kept lighting them after Hanukah ended. Zach said this was sacrilege but I did it anyways. Each night I would question him about the Hanukah story to keep him on his toes.

On Christmas eve we made a big meal, braised beef with onions and carrots in a wine/tomato sauce, mashed potatoes (note to self do not boil the potatoes whole, cube those guys up), a salad with candied pecans (surprisingly easy to make), cranberries, apple slices and blue cheese, and homemade ice cream (also surprisingly easy to make). 

I've been wanting to make no-churn ice cream for a while just to see what it tasted like. It was actually surprisingly good, the texture really didn't stray too far from 'real' ice cream. I spiced it with nutmeg, ground cloves, cinnamon, and all spice. 

Since Doglet isn't hear yet for me to spoil, I got Zach many presents this year, including a new set of cream stoneware plates and bowls for him to show off his cooking concoctions (and we will now own more than 2-3 plates), a charcuterie board for whenever we have people over again, a nice herb saver for cilantro etc., some chocolate from Austin that had won some Spicy Chocolate Awards (apparently an annual competition), a santoku style knife, and a skin to skin shirt. I got myself a skin to skin shirt as well, I am so looking forward to these shirts. They aren't baby carriers but they have kind of a little pouch in the front and a tie at the bottom so you can secure baby in there while you're sitting down. So many things to look forward to but the idea of simply just chilling on the couch with Doglet curled up on me like a little pudge ball sounds wonderful. Skin to skin is also supposed to stimulate milk production, etc. but hopefully Zach does not have this consequence when he wears his shirt.

Overall it was obviously a weird holiday season not being able to see people for the most part but Zach and I tried to take advantage of it just being the two of us for the first and probably the last time. We've really spent the last few weeks just enjoying extended time with each other since it won't be that way for much longer. I think we have even a greater appreciation of each other than before the pandemic started? But soon it is time to finally make this a trio, we've had 17 years of just the two of us and it's time to share the love :)

In other news, on December 23rd we also replaced all our windows 😮 They are so, so much nicer than our old ones, most of which we couldn't open, had so much condensation we could barely see out of them, and were framed with crappy drywall instead of trim. In addition to making it easier to sell the house, we're thinking we will still be here in a few years, so might as well enjoy them. 

We are really busy getting ready for Doglet. We still need to finish up our kitchen project, now we need to reinstall blinds, I'm replacing all of the smoke detectors in the house, etc etc etc etc etc

bricks and bumps- week 31

 Week 31 is here and Chunkers is as a big as a coconut, and all 5 of his senses are fully developed. Maybe after this weekend he now has a 6th sense for detecting brick under drywall because we now officially have uncovered the maximum amount of brick possible on the first floor. Bump pic with our newly finished brick:

We discussed the plan with a contractor and Zach and I hid upstairs on our room with masks and the windows open (even though we had turned off the heat to prevent air and dust transfer upstairs) on while he went to work. We felt like we were stuck in a hotel room all day because Zach got us takeout and we ate it at my work desk like you would in a hotel. Since we've done other brick work in the house I'm pretty comfortable with the process and didn't feel that I needed to monitor too much and could for the most part keep a safe distance. He had the right historic lime mortar, we talked about the color, which bricks needed to be replaced, the acid wash, etc. I wasn't using my preferred contractor since they weren't available- we had to use one of their subs they recommended which I wasn't super stoked about since I didn't know their work and this is a pretty big project for us. I found the guy who owned the company, Oscar, not quite my style but ultimately they did a good job. He would always go through the scope of work like a hurricane and ultimately got it wrong several times, including the day of when work was starting and he was looking at the brick he kept saying "diablo, diablo" and I heard him counting how many bricks needed to be replaced in Spanish, because it was more than he thought. He had seen the condition of the brick before so I had 0 sympathy when he tried to change the price on us to go higher, which I kind of just ignored and said it's the same number of bricks that it has always been. We even removed all of this cement off of the brick ourselves to get it ready for them which required a start and stop in the middle of the project. He did have to run around getting some special bricks from other jobs because the historic bricks are longer and shallower than the bricks we think of today, but to me that was his problem and he just needs to get himself together. Like I said, his guy Victor did do a good job and I do have sympathy for him because I know this work is back breaking having done it a bit, so when Victor went outside I gave him an orange that my parents had sent us from Florida, and Zach got him a coffee earlier in the day 😃 And I made sure to let Oscar know we were very happy with the work in the end. 

Here's the brick column after taking the drywall off but only half of the "crazy cement" off. That stuff was really hard to get off of this face, but Zach and I did it together. It was a little harder than usual for me to do this kind of work. When this was in use it would have been for the exhaust for a wood burning kitchen stove. The house is so old..

Process pic after they got that worthless part of the wall down. Don't have pictures of it but this room got hermetically sealed off to prevent dust from the mortar removal and more equipment was brought in.

Coming back downstairs again after they left to inspect our new space. It's not much but after living here for 8 years with that stupid arch in the doorway and tight circulation this new view took my breath away. I really wanted from the dining room to be able to get a glimpse of the brick around the corner in the kitchen for "architectural interest"(can't totally shake off that arch degree). That way when you walk in hopefully this will be the focal point now and you can ignore the amateur drywall job in this room...and also be able to better see Zach in the kitchen who is inevitably whipping up something good. We didn't think about this too much until afterwards but it will also have the added benefit of being able to put Chunkers in the doorway of the kitchen so we can see him while we're in there but not be stepping over him. 

We still have some work to do to fix the flooring and we're going to put a small pantry in the gap here that Zach and I are designing together but we are well on our way. All the finishing work will be done by our favorite contractor, Eli, this Israeli guy who isn't always the cheapest but has a great eye for detail and isn't just one of those guys who is like "tell me what to do", he'll actually provide ideas and suggestions too. Although when he first saw the brick after I had taken the drywall off he kind of freaked Zach out because after talking about it for a while he told us to just close the whole thing up and forget about it essentially because the brick column has a slight lean that will be a little visible with the wall finishing, fixing the floor is going to look a little quirky, the drywall isn't square, etc. and his perfectionist mind couldn't handle the detailing issues. So then Zach started calling me Icarus and saying I had flown too close to the sun with the brick 😄 However, I know Eli and Zach are two peas in a pod when it comes to this kind of caution so I did not feel too deterred but I did get a little nervous that the heat is on for this project since I'm dealing with a tough customer.  Ultimately, these projects are about a little experimentation, working through problems, and having some fun though :)

We've really come a long way in our renovation skills- I didn't realize until the end of the work that the proposal did not include sealing the brick (I'm cursing Oscar for this) which to me is a standard part of brick work and I didn't notice that it wasn't in the proposal. I was going to make a deal of it to Oscar but then I remembered that we sealed the brick wall on the stairwell together after repointing it and we still have a lot of sealant left, so it's annoying but we got this. So I am going to contract Zach to do this work instead so we can just move forward and I don't have to breathe the fumes. So feeling good in what we've learned and accomplished over the years.

I guess I was feeling pretty good afterwards because I made Zach take these pictures of me lol. Be thankful that I am not pregnant during the summer because I would be wearing this phases of the moon crop top all the time. 

I got Zach to take a pic but he refused to pose. But then I realized it was perfect because this photo unintentionally captured his true self- Peg Leg. I luv this guy.

no doula for me

 I can't remember if I wrote about this already or not, but I found out about 2 weeks ago that I can no longer have 2 support people at my birth due to rising covid cases, just one. So unless I wanted to swap Zach out for the doula, it's just going to be me, myself and Zach. 

I was pretty bummed when I got the news. I went from feeling very confident that it was fine and we could make due, to getting very nervous about it and wondering if we would be equipped to get through something like this without the additional support. I put up a post on MOTH (moms of the hill) to see if people who were only able to have 1 support person earlier in the pandemic had thoughts on using a virtual doula. My initial inclination was that it's a lot of money to have someone being wheeled around on a computer in the background. 

I got a ton of responses- with very mixed thoughts. Some people still felt that having a virtual doula was very helpful, while others said they didn't use them at all and it was more of a bother than anything else. People were so, so helpful though, and even responded to some follow up questions, so now I can at least make a semi-informed decision in this whole mess. 

The timing of the email from GW was pretty bad, that morning I literally had that email and a contract in my inbox from the doula that I had finally decided to go with. I had been holding off on booking them because I was kind of worried with how things were going that they were going to go back to 1 support person. I finally decided to just bite the bullet because I didn't want them to get booked up and then I would be kicking myself for that. Couldn't have won either way I guess. 

To make a long story short, I think I've ultimately landed on not having one. After the change I decided to attend another "Meet the Doula" session with the group to see what they said about going virtual again. It was weird, because earlier in my pregnancy I was really on top of my game with the doula search and usually had one of the farthest out birth dates for these types of calls. Now on this call, there was someone on there who wasn't due until June, so I'm like an old guard now. I was able to connect 1 on 1 with the doula leading the call afterwards, and tried to see if there were any options for creating a modified contract that included doula support while we were at home (which I heard from the MOTH thread was still incredibly useful) and no support while at the hospital. That didn't seem to be the case. I expressed to her my concerns about using a virtual doula- that I just couldn't really see it happening. For one, Zach would have to be all over it to make it work and the guy, bless his heart, barely even checks his text messages as it is.

We talked for a while, and the doula asked me where I was delivering, and I told her GW. She said she wouldn't have said this about many places, but that GW is awesome, and that their midwife unit and L&D nurses are so on the ball she thought for the type of birth I was planning that I would be in good hands there without a doula. That was definitely a major relief to hear that from her. So that's where the chips seem to have fallen. I hope I'm not cursing this decision while I'm agonizing through labor or have bad tearing (gross). Plus they shut the tubs down, and I started watching some unmedicated births on youtube this week and they were all in the damn tub. I want the tubbbbb. 

I also watched some videos on labor breathing to start practicing that. It's pretty simple but there are different techniques in different stages of labor and they have small nuances to them. Since I'm going to need Zach to help me with them, I showed one particularly helpful video to him so he could get in the know. There is one breathing technique you are supposed to use while pushing the baby out called "J Breathing" You make a weird mooing sound when you breath out and try to send your breath down to the baby and up and out, hence the "J shape" of the breath. Zach practiced it and immediately said that it made him feel like he had to poo. I was in shock. We hadn't gotten to the end of the video, but the doula says at the end that a good time to practice this breathing technique is while you're pooping, because I guess it's somewhat similar muscle involvement and ideas. I guess he was immediately better at it than me because I did not get this same sensation when I was doing it (or maybe he just already had to go and so it all connected 🤣). Regardless, I've decided now that ZACH IS MY DOULA.

funny dreams

Some funny dreams I've had recently:

Little Chunks' first word was "nothing". He was only a few weeks old and he was crying, so I rhetorically asked him "Aww, what's wrong baby?" And then he said, "Nothing". I was shocked that he was already starting to speak, and then I was shocked that my child's first word was "nothing". From here, he mentally developed at a very fast rate although physically he was still a newborn. I went to some kind of fair and I forgot to bring both a stroller and baby carrier, so I was running around with him in my arms the whole time, and he was complaining about that. 

Another dream I had was where my mom was concerned that my belly had gotten too large. I thought it was normal sized for how far along I was, but she thought I had some kind of syndrome that caused an over-bloated belly. Rude.

I need to write down more of my dreams because they amuse me but I tend to forget them..

return of the bump- week 30

 Hello 30s! The countdown is on. 

This week was a bit more of a struggle than some previous weeks have been. I guess it was technically during week 29, but I felt tremendous pressure in my belly one night that wouldn't go away. It kind of freaked me out. My belly was rock hard, bloated, and cramping all at the same time. It was very uncomfortable, and I imagined that Doglet felt like he was in a pressure chamber and that it might be harming him. 

When I looked down, I noticed that there was a small line on my belly that was kind of red, and I thought I was getting my first stretch mark (wasn't too excited about that). I couldn't believe that there was so much pressure in my stomach that it induced a stretch mark on the spot. However, it wasn't there the next day so I think it may have just been a popped blood vessel or something, still very crazy.

This kind of feeling is not totally abnormal in pregnancy, so I didn't get too bent out of shape about it besides feeling discomfort. There are a few things that could have caused this sensation- Braxton Hicks contractions (false, pre-labor contractions to prep your body for the real deal), your belly growing and ligament pain. I would also add another category called "eating Chick Fil A earlier in the day". I hadn't eaten fast food in months and just felt like having an unhealthy day, so I grabbed a Spicy Deluxe and some waffle fries. When all this was happening, I definitely thought it might be because of the Chick Fil A, but I couldn't believe that I went to Chick Fil A one time and it gave me a stretch mark a few hours later, what severe punishment. Regardless, moratorium on Chick Fil A now. 

I also started getting some pain in my glute this week, that seemed to be made worse by my prenatal exercise class. So I cancelled my next month of classes to try to go easy on it. At least for this month, I'm going to focus on swimming for aerobic exercise and maybe starting up some prenatal yoga. I have another prenatal session starting in January that I already paid for so I guess I'll just hope things are back on track again by then. My favorite exercise move from that class are the speed skaters, which is a lateral movement where you hop from side to side, get low, and cross your leg behind your standing leg. I still feel pretty fluid on so it makes me feel good and nimble. However the motion crossing my leg behind my back was definitely not feeling right. It's weird- all the referred pain from my back issue has always been on my left side, I've never had pain on my right side. But when you go from sitting to standing and feel a shot of excruciating pain going into you, you know you're doing something wrong. Ima figure it out. 

smokey's got the wiggles

 Before getting pregnant, I had always heard about the baby "kicking" and thought that meant that it literally felt like the baby was kicking around your body. It sounded very violent and unpleasant, and like I was going to get the wind knocked out of me. I am here to report that at least so far, it does not feel like that. 

In the beginning, it mainly felt like little wiggles. Gradually, the stronger wiggles felt more like squirming, and as of this week, it has started feeling a bit more like pushing. This weekend Zach and I were in the car talking when suddenly I felt a movement so strong that I stopped mid-sentence out of surprise. It felt like the baby was trying to escape my body through my right rib cage. Smokey loves my right rib cage, he's always tickling me up under there. I have no idea why but I feel so much more movement on my right side than my left- I don't know if what I'm feeling on my right side is his hands or his feet. 

I woke up before my alarm this morning and didn't fall back asleep because Smokey was moving a lot. I'm not sure if he woke me up or if I kind of naturally stirred and would have normally fallen back asleep except his movement kept me from doing so.

It's really fun now that he's moving around everywhere. I still feel like I'm in a sci-fi movie and there is an alien in my belly though. 

how I've changed since becoming pregnant

Here are things that have changed about me since becoming pregnant:

• I switched to non-scented deodorant in my first trimester because the scented smells were very strong for me, but I can't see myself going back to it. Why do I want a strong scent of "cucumber" coming from my armpit anyhow? 
• I sleep like a ROCK. I literally fall asleep in seconds after my head hitting the pillow and it's the most glorious sleep I've gotten in years. If this could continue I would be eternally grateful. I think I've tried to stay pretty active throughout the pregnancy (swimming 1-2x  per week, prenatal virtual exercise class 2x per week, walks, and occasionally riding my bike too), and work has been pretty busy recently, so by the end of the day I'm just donezo. 
• I drink so much water. If I go 20 minutes without drinking water, I am suddenly parched and need to chug a whole glass. I was always a pretty avid water drinker carrying my water bottle around everywhere (and often losing it) but this is excessive. 
• I will probably surpass Zach in weight soon. I feel like I'm compressing our couch cushions when I sit on them.
• I'm back on decaf coffee, and loving it. I'm pretty sensitive to caffeine, but love coffee so I drank decaf coffee for years before getting up at 6am to make my way over to Jacobs (stupid early riser engineers) and was desperate for some juice to keep me going. We got an aeropress which makes really good coffee and I've been enjoying a mellow cup of joe every morning. They say a cup of full caf coffee a day is okay while being pregnant but I figure if I don't need it, why do any at all. 
• I've developed a skin allergy to my wedding ring :( I haven't been able to wear it in weeks and my skin on my ring finger is still irritated. I should probably see a dermo. I've heard that some allergies that manifest during pregnancy can stick around too :( :(
• I feel a lot more responsibility for what I'm eating since doglet is eating it too. Out of anxiety about getting enough veggies I eat an entire whole carrot almost every single night before bed. 
• I want to show off my belly at all times. I started swimming in a bikini because that's all that fits and feel no shame about letting it hang out while I'm on the deck. In fact, it makes me feel proud.  I realized this week that I'm really sad we can't have a work holiday party this year because I would have loved to have bought a cute maternity dress for it. I may have done some online window shopping and picked one out anyhow...cmon how fab is this dress for showing off the bump?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

I asked Zach if anything had changed about me while being pregnant to add to the list, all he said was "bigger belly" lol. So that concludes it.

week 29

Last week of my 20's! Trying out new bottoms again. The problem is that all the maternity clothes cover up the bump and I want the bump to be free! So not too many options.

 

week 28

Seven months pregnant + Thanksgiving =  excellent combination. It's amazing how much you can eat at a time in the day when you normally wouldn't be eating. Despite it just being us and Zach's parents we had a full Thanksgiving meal. 

I figured I'd dress up since there's not too much to dress up for these days. Mask and dress color coordination.

Really surprised I could still balance after all that food:

Proud parents of baby chonks

week 27

I guess I thought my shorts were starting to get inappropriate so I put on some pants :)

But the pants were appropriate enough to do this, lol. Funny looking back at these pictures.

Zach and I had a little date day on the Union Market rooftop. I like this set up they have- lots of space to spread out but still feels kind of normal. Zach got an Italian sandwich and I got a huge burger and a milkshake- I was really hungry that day. Note that Zach was wearing a t-shirt, it was November 21st! It wasn't that warm but the sun was really bright that day. 

The leaves had popped on Gales Street!

week 26

 Wow, my bump really popped a lot this week. 

I've been doing a virtual prenatal workout class twice a week with FIT4MOM, and I wear this to every class (thank you Margaret!). I didn't think I was going to like doing a virtual class, but I've gotten used to it. Its been the same people every week doing this 'session' together so at least there's a little continuity there. It's good to have a few other soon-to-be moms in the same kind of isolated pandemic boat.

week 25

 The bump finally looks like it was starting to pop here. I still fit within the confines of the brick column though, lol.

week 24

 

I found this on my phone post bump pic

week 23

 We finally cleaned out most of the second bedroom, so we celebrated with a bump pic. I hated getting rid of our nice desk but there was no where else for it to go. I feel good that it was purchased by some guy who works for Casey Trees who had just gotten back from living abroad (Peace Corps maybe) and he really wanted it. He hired someone with a flatbed truck to take it out and sent me a picture of it in his new space- it looked better there than it did here. Now to repaint soon...

week 22

 

election

 The election still doesn't quite feel as over as it should but this about sums it up:

If you haven't watched Community...get on that.

To deal with the anxiety that night, I cut another hole in the wall? Zach must have all the pictures from this because I was initially going at it, but I found that I had an extra paint scraper (why, I don't know, we've never painted) which is what we've been using to get that stupid cement off of the brick. So we listened to DC101, ignored the news, and went at the brick together until we were ready to pass out. The cement was harder to get off of this side than the other side and actually ended up taking us several rounds. I have my 2091 respirator and particulate filter on to do this kind of stuff. Ultimately, we've decided that we're going to take that small part of the wall down on the left because it is stupid and pointless and makes circulation into the kitchen tight. 

After much effort the brick now looks like this. I also took down the part of the wall on the right side as quickly as I could while Zach was out. We're going to build a super tiny open-shelf pantry on the side there because otherwise it's just kind of wasted space and we can't spare it in our tiny kitchen.

PS, the ceiling already had a hole in it. I improperly installed a fruit basket when we moved in which damaged it, and then was too lazy to fix it, which was good because our bathroom is directly above there and we ended up having a leak from our tub which completely damaged the drywall in the exact spot where the fruit basket had messed it up. Now we only have to fix it once- win. PSS who the f slathers all this brick with cement and puts it under drywall, I hate them.

At any rate, this all started on election night. Glad we didn't sit there and watch it because it ended up dragging out for several days due to it taking longer to count the mail in ballots this year. 

gender reveals

 We did 4 gender reveals, getting maximum usage out of the board. The one we did with my family at the baby shower was actually the second reveal, and the night before we did the first reveal with Zach's parents. Being the first go at it we didn't quite know how it was going to go but it didn't disappoint.  

Zach's parents both took very aggressive stances while popping the balloons, in fact Zach's dad knocked the board over several times and we finally had to secure it with some heavy books. 

They made it pretty far through the board. I For this one I experimented with putting colored paper in the balloon which would flutter out upon popping, but all I had was a very dark navy blue tissue paper which I cut up into small squares, and I think with the dim lights in their living room they were not able to discern that the paper was blue. They just kept looking at it trying to understand what it meant, but I guess they kind of got it because they started talking about dongs?? (LOL). Finally after watching them struggle for a bit I found the ultrasound paper for them so they could open it up and be sure that dongs were relevant to the gender. I need to get the video from Zach to put up because the whole thing was hilarious. 

The third reveal was with Abby, Noah, Olivia, Jeremy, and Margaret. I have 0 pictures of this one because I was holding the board from behind while we tried to get little Abby to pop the balloons. It was a challenge popping them because we had left up most of the unpopped ones from the previous reveal with my family out of laziness, and they had slightly deflated. So it was real obvious I think which ones were the new balloons that would be most likely to hold the answer. Noah got it soon after when he relieved Abby from her duties. Team girl was the desire for this reveal since they all have girls, but I'm sure little chunks can have some gal pals too. 

I do have a picture of a stack of bagels that we consumed, mainly because they got our order wrong and I guess I thought this picture would prove that for a refund haha. We ate the bagels in the cold rain (what a nasty day) and Margaret went REI mom on us and nursed in a rain jacket. 

The fourth and final reveal was up on Katherine and Ben's rooftop also with Prav, Tor, Irina and Sam (who had just gotten engaged that very day!!!). It was supposed to be the day after Halloween, but with said craziness about potentially putting in an offer on a house that weekend I was donezo by Sunday and so we delayed by a week. It was a good thing we did, because we had unseasonably warm weather on the day we did it. I wore a flowy dress again, but this time I was smart because I have a tie dye'ish one that is blue and pink so I wore that. Most people thought I was having a girl, but Prav guessed that I was having a boy, I assume because I had seen her and Riggins for a walk a few days beforehand and it was impossible to talk about the baby without using gendered pronouns. At the very least I probably dropped a thousand hints, and at the very most I probably actually used the word "he", lol. Sam also guessed it was a boy, because he was sitting closest to us that night and previously Zach had said something that I had to elbow him in the side for that definitely made it pretty clear that it was a boy. We are the worst at this. 

With a few reveals under our belt, I had strangely noticed some patterns as to where people often popped first. Armed with this knowledge, I was able to put the reveal in a balloon that would get them pretty far through the game board, and it worked, there was a lot of popping. 

The only non-blurry photo I got during the popping session was of Ben, who was carefully making his move. 

Irina got the balloon with the reveal! The feet are not on the ground, lol. The truth is out there now. 

I gotta say that the highlight of the evening was this cake that Katherine made. IT'S AN OREO CAKE. SHE MADE THIS. I don't think I told her that the game had the name "He or She" in it but we somehow coordinated. I'm sitting her dreaming of this cake now, it was probably the best cake I've ever had, I can't think of another one that's been better. I don't want to commit because all milkshakes are great, but Oreo milkshakes are probably my favorite and this extends to cake now too. I got myself a nice big piece and Zach asked to share it with me, and for once I told him to go get his own :) My pictures were bad that night so picture by the chef:

All in all, we had so much fun with the reveals- thank you everyone for helping make pandemic baby still a lot of fun. 

baby showah

Alright it's official, Gail, my Mom and co know how to throw an excellent party. Thoroughly, thoroughly, enjoyed our baby shower. The decorations were spiffy, it was a gorgeous October day, and it was actually nice to do just a small thing with family. Because of covid we haven't gotten to do a lot of timeouts to celebrate baby kind of stuff so this was much needed. I don't know how many timeouts I need but definitely more than covid allows for, haha. Plus with work and everything, even though we're at home, it's still really busy preparing for the baby and this gave me a minute to just relax and enjoy what's happening.

This picture says it all- BABY

In case you couldn't tell, the party is for THE BABY

The baby's breath had sparkles in it. I don't do "insta" but this is insta worthy.

Here is the fammm (minus Becca, who's at school :( ). Most of the party consisted of brainstorming/arguing about the baby's name. I believe this occurred prior to even revealing the gender, which doesn't really make any sense. My dad likens himself a baby namer, and has a long list of baby names to choose from, including surprisingly hip names, names that he has concocted himself (like Scottlyn), weird names (Smokey), old fashioned British names, and Pittsburgh Pirates players from the 70s. You've really got your pick from his list. However, I think Greg may have won the name game for that day- after seeing the ultrasound that revealed that the baby is a boy, he started calling him Goliath 😂

I messed up a little that day. I wanted to wear a flowy dress, knowing with the cold weather coming I wouldn't be able to wear them much longer, and my long blue dress is my favorite. However, I did not consider that this color may indicate the gender of the baby. I think it was one of the first questions I got- was whether the blue dress meant that I was having a boy. I still tried to be coy regardless, although I knew I had made a grave error. At least Mallory still thought it was a girl. Here is me answering that question:

In hindsight I realize now that I still wasn't rocking too much of a bump yet, but I was feeling like a pregnant goddess regardless:

After eating (I gorged that day for sure), we did the gender reveal. I saw this game on Pinterest or something and watched a Youtube video of it and it looked fun, plus it looked like we could reuse it to do a few reveals with different sets of people and keep things socially distanced. The idea of the game is that one of the balloons has something inside it that reveals the gender. I also decided to put a "red herring" in one balloon that doesn't actually reveal the gender, but when you pop it and see something come out, you might think you are about to learn the truth, muhaha

My dad sat in front of the game board like he was a kid in front of the tree on Christmas morning, but wasn't that interested in actually popping the balloons, he just wanted to watch (and point?)

Gail popped the balloon with the clue and revealed the gender to everyone! :) However, besides the fact that the ultrasound paper said "I'm a Boy!" on it, she definitely wasn't sure what she was looking at, which is kind of funny because once you see it it's very obvious, and people either seem to see it right away or not at all. The ultrasound picture is just taken from a weird angle, I *think* from his bottom looking up. 

It was all very exciting. Then we opened gifts, and since it was a small shower I could take my time and take every single one out of the box and play with them. Zach got fitted for the baby carrier and modelled the baby bear hoodie towel. He was looking great. 

Can we celebrate baby every day?