Babe Watch

Today, I had a doctor's appointment. Though I managed to pack on another two pounds in the interim two weeks, I didn't have enough uterine growth to satisfy my physician, so it was off to ultrasound. There they did all kinds of different measurements and came to the conclusion that everything is fine, in fact, the estimated due date by this study was January 26 - just one day off my original due date (I never bought into that Feb. 1st crap anyway)!! While we were there, we asked for a "gender check," and indeed it looks like we can stick with the current super pink wardrobe.

So it is a girl, the size is fine and the due date is back in January. The only downside: my daughter has a huge head! Not exactly what I wanted to hear. The size of her head was about a week ahead of the rest of her - still within the normal range, but I would've preferred it to be on the small side!!

Posted by Pam at 06:54 PM | Permalink

I passed the eight month mark earlier this week and have quite a belly to show for it!
One month to go!

Merry Christmas!

Posted by Pam at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today the only thing I wanted to get done was to check out the Goodwill to see if we could find a dresser to use as a changing table. After taking all the necessary measurements (40" max length, must accommodate 32" changing pad) we set off.

The Goodwill has all of the furniture pushed together in large islands three or four pieces deep to conserve space, but I spotted something with potential right away.

"I think I see our dresser."

Mac headed for a dresser in the first aisle, pulled out the tape measure and came back with the verdict: "Nope, it's 46 inches long."

"Actually, I was talking about the dresser in the next aisle over." Mac headed over while I perused the rest of the stuff in the first section. When I got over to Mac, he informed me it was too short - only 30 inches.

We headed to the third and final conglomeration of furniture...nothing. "Are you sure my dresser was too short? It looked like it would have been perfect." I walked over with Mac following, knowing it wasn't right. He measured again while I looked on - "Nope, 30 inches."

As I looked down to corroborate, I noticed something sandwiched behind the dresser. "Hey what if we just buy this changing table instead!?" For there, hidden in the middle of all the old stuff was an actual baby changing table! And better yet, we decided it really didn't need to be painted, unlike all the dressers we had seen - ten dollars well spent!
"It may be a changing table, but I'll never change - I just see a new bed!"

Posted by Pam at 03:58 PM | Permalink

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Mac set out to put up our Christmas lights. We had two strands of lights that didn't survive the off-season, so when it came to decorate the tree, I didn't have enough lights. I headed off to Fred Meyer to get some more. Freddy's had an impressive Christmas set up, dedicating two aisles just to lights. "Perfect," I thought and I began my search for the standard 100 count strings of mini-white lights. Up and down the aisles I went, passing by the strands of all red, all green, even all blue and all orange lights. I found plenty of icicle lights, bobble lights, chili pepper lights, and extra large lights, but no white ones.

I headed down the street to Safeway where there were only a few choices - all colored. So back past Fred Meyer's and off to A-boy. There I found the the most technologically advanced light selection - fiber optics, ultra-mini's, and specialty twinkling patterns in addition to icicle lights but still not what I was looking for. Exasperated, I bought a strand of ultra-mini lights and left. Not only did I not get what I wanted, I paid $5.99 which further annoyed me as I got all my light strands for $1.99 last year (perhaps why the life-span was short).

Tonight we did our Christmas grocery shopping for Thursday's dinner gathering. I am making a peppermint cheesecake for dessert with a crushed candy cane topping, so of course, I need candy canes. Off to the Christmas section. There I found boxes and boxes of candy canes at $.99/dozen. The problem of course, was that they didn't have peppermint! There were oodles of rootbeer, tooty-fruity, and cinnamon candy canes, even Starburst and Jolly Rancher candy canes. The only box of peppermint that I could find was sugar-free. So I picked out a few of the big, thick, individually sold (and more expensive) single candy canes, but I didn't really want big, thick candy canes.

Call me old fashioned, but I don't want to bask in the glow of chili pepper lights while sucking on butterscotch candy canes. I want to celebrate Christmas with white lights and peppermint! Is that too much to ask??

Fortunately, Santa's elves were looking out for me tonight. Heading to the check-out line, I spied a box of candy canes on the floor, under the gum rack. Deftly swooping down to check it out, I was rewarded with a box of peppermint candy canes! I felt pretty triumphant to find the only box of regular candycanes in the whole store - in fact, i was downright merry!

Posted by Pam at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This morning, after a fun but late night at Jeremy and Jennifer's Christmas party, I woke up with a "hangover:" dry cottony mouth, hungry-gurgly stomach, sore restless legs and a bit of a headache. Who knew the sparkling cider could be so dangerous?

Morning sickness in men is a well reported phenomenon during a partner's pregnancy; it even has a fancy French name (that I can't recall). The reasons are unknown - some suggest extreme sympathy, others extreme fear and worry on the part of the father-to-be. Perhaps I experienced a similar phenomenon as Mac took full advantage of having a designated driver last night. Perhaps after watching him pass out in the car, stumble into the house, and throw back a few prophylactic Advil tabs followed by a large tumbler of water (a bedtime routine I hadn't seen in many years), I could only sympathize and fear what was to come to the point of my own unease. Or perhaps after twelve months of abstinence, I was intoxicated by Mac's alcoholic breath as he slept beside me. Whatever the cause I was feeling a little sluggish this morning. Mac, on the other hand, jumped out of bed feeling great and in a disposition sunny enough to match the beautiful morning. Perhaps I should have taken some Advil, too!

Posted by Pam at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

For those of you who are interested in the countdown to delivery, today is 40 days out. Except for one problem: my OB moved the due date back!! I've been running a little on the small side the past two visits, but the rate of increase has been steady so she didn't think that there was a serious underlying problem. Instead she reviewed all the generated due dates from the different ultrasounds that I had and decided Feb. 1 was probably a better estimate, not Jan. 25 - it nicely explains why I'm "small." (I am not sure anyone with a 17 pound bowling ball in the abdomen should be called small). So now even the end of January will be "early."

Posted by Pam at 02:44 PM | Permalink

Monday I headed down to Salem for an interview. It was a nice first interview as I was already acquainted with a few of the people working there, plus I had visited the lab before so I knew my way around a bit. The only real downside was the timing as I had not planned to do any interviewing while so massively pregnant. I quickly learned that pregnancy and professional attire don't readily mix. Fortunately, I was able to come up with something I thought was fairly acceptable based on things I already had (plus some new jewelry from Santa).

As you can see, I had to make some accommodations for my pre-pregnancy skirt. Fortunately, those extra long maternity shirts kept my un-zipped state unknown.

I thought the interview went quite well and I was impressed with the operation. Everyone seemed to get along well. And despite all the nasty things people have been telling Mac about Salem, everyone there seemed to think it was a great place to live.

A lot of the interview day was spent describing different aspects of the job. The docs all work the standard pathology week (4.5 days) when they aren't enjoying their ample vacation time. In the off hours the pathologists are engaged in activities like building mansions, buying horses, and driving Porches. I think it would be a struggle, but that I might, in time, learn to tolerate that kind of thing. Anyway, I am hoping they offer me the job, which is why I am off to write a suck-up thank you letter (even though I really should be writing thank you's to my family for all the nice shower gifts).

Posted by Pam at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

On Sunday we had the distinct pleasure of joining Harrison's birthday celebration at the zoo lights. Mac and I had never been and I was quite anxious to go this year. I started out very cranky and worried about my sore back and my big interview the next day, but as soon as we got into the zoo, I was so glad we had said yes.

I was a big fan of the crocs.

This was me, trying to be cute, but it just started a kid fight over who got to climb the goat next. We went to sit down and left Jeremy and Jenn to deal with it. :)

Posted by Pam at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last Sunday we got our Christmas tree, a cute little thing just about my height. Wednesday I finally got it all decorated.

Posted by Pam at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The last few months I have had a terrible time sleeping. The bowling ball abdominal attachment I am sporting these days just makes things really uncomfortable. Many people have advocated the use of multiple pillows to alleviate some of the discomfort, but the suggestions didn't really help. Putting a pillow between my legs seemed as uncomfortable as having a sack of potatoes between my knees. Sleeping with a pillow on either side of me not only hogged more of the bed than Mac usually takes, but also made me like I was rolling over the cats all night long. This week I finally found a pillow configuration to help. I gathered almost all the pillows in the house (one night Mac had to go on a hunt for a new one) and built a huge pilllow tower at the head of my bed, an inclining slope starting at my back and terminating in a stack of four pillows at my head. It's a little awkward for "pillow talk" with Mac on the mattress flatlands a good two feet below, but it is so nice to be able to sleep on my back again!

Posted by Pam at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today is 50 days from D-day - but I am taking an optomimstic view and hoping I won't have to make it that long before popping out a little human. In fact, the little one seems to be trying to find a way out on a near continual basis, kicking me in every possible direction, sometimes quite forcefully.

Posted by Pam at 08:39 AM | Permalink

Yesterday Mac put the lights up on the house. After trimming the eaves in white, he went to add one strand of colored lights. As he plugged that strand in there was one glorious millisecond before everything shorted out. Fortunately, the fuse was easily fixed and the colored lights now have a different power source.

We also took dinner to the Cronks yesterday, which served as our first chance to meet Henry. Courtney kept telling me how much better it was to have him out than in, but I didn't need any convincing.

Posted by Pam at 08:14 AM | Permalink

After two surprise showers (with two full suitcases worth of stuff), Mac has been feeling over-pinked. I used to hold up outfits at random times and say, "Look how cute this is!," and he would at least nod in acknowledgement. Now he just replies in a flat voice, "It's pink." At the showers I tried to psyche him up with each non-pink gift: "Look, it's not pink," but that got tougher, too, when he declared, "Lavender is the same thing as pink." I tried to employ J. Crew tactics, using names like periwinkle and melon, but he wasn't buying. Mac did warm up to one pink outfit - a cute little T-shirt printed with the words "Daddy's little princess."

I still love all the pink. I feel like I get to live a vicarious girlie childhood after spending mine as a tomboy. But after taking pictures of everything, I am amazed at how fast we have accumulated so much pink in our house.

Shower gifts

More shower gifts

Other gifts

Hand-me-downs: Things used by me, Mac, my mom and Mac's mom when we were all babies.

Posted by Pam at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mac and I spent the Thanksgiving holiday down in Southern California visiting all of our extended family. Since leaving for college, I haven't traveled "home" for Thanksgiving, opting instead to go for the longer Christmas break. But I'll be too preggers to travel at Christmas and so it was Turkey Day with the relatives this year.

Our plan was ambitious, but well crafted to include visits with anyone we are even remotely related to. First it was Thanksgiving dinner with the Smiths (22 people), then we were off to Lake Arrowhead after dinner to spend a few days with the Siechert clan (15 people), all of whom were camped out at my aunt and uncle's three story mountain home for a couple of days. Saturday we were down the mountain again and off to my grandma's for an early Christmas celebration. Afterwards it was dinner at Mac's with my immediate family so that everyone could catch up and all the grandparents-to-be could talk about the baby. Finally, we had a Sunday visit with Mac's uncle who couldn't join us for TG due to a recent quadruple bipass and then it was dinner with my aunt and uncle who we hadn't yet seen due to work conflicts. Whew!

Highlights of the trip included two surprise baby showers (one at the Smith Thanksgiving and one at Arrowhead), lots of cards and games with the cousins including a whopping four dollars of winnings at Texas hold'em (the Smith card sharks cleaned up as Mac came away with an extra six bucks. My dad was the only other winner from our high stakes five dollar buy-in game), and the very successful Proffitt family new gift exchange (we drew one name only this year).

With the Thanksgiving rush behind us, we are now looking forward to a quiet Christmas at home!

Posted by Pam at 09:03 PM | Permalink