nearly 7 months…

I'm discovering that there are a few distinct disadvantages of being pregnant in winter.  I've been really happy to know that I won't have to worry about being hugely pregnant in the dead heat of summer but a winter pregnancy is turning out to have its own problems.

Namely – I don’t look pregnant when I have my coat on.

I know that I specifically went looking for a non-maternity coat that I would be able to wear while pregnant without having to be that girl who can’t button her coat over her belly. For some reason the idea of just not buttoning my coat bothered me but I didn’t really want to buy a maternity coat either because that seemed like a waste of money.

My mom and I found the perfect coat in Lord & Taylor – dark loden green, empire waisted, only 3 buttons, stand-up collar and nice deep pockets.

 

Only problem was that the coat was popular and ran a bit small. I couldn’t find the right size in L&T in two states! But I did manage to find it in Macy’s in Tyson’s in a nice light grey. I like grey. I actually had to hold myself back from buying a mid-length grey coat last winter since I convinced myself that I had plenty of coats. So I was sold.

But I don’t look pregnant with it on. My plan worked too well.

There inherent problems with not looking pregnant while commuting on public transportation.

Here are a few things that I would like to tell people:

• “No, I am not going to run for that train. There will be another in under 10 min. No need to run the pregnant lady over.” This doesn’t apply to the bus since those only come every half hour but I DON’T like doing it.
• “No, I am not going to walk any faster than this. Any faster and I get out of breath and a cramp in my side.”
• “Yes, I am going to very carefully pick my path through the snow and ice. I prefer to protect myself and my baby by not landing on the ground.”
• “Yes, I want your seat when you get up and no, I’m not likely to look up again once I have it to see if anyone else is more deserving.” I still try to avoid sitting in the handicapped/old people seats though.

I had a friend ask recently if I was dreading my commute yet. Not quite yet but I can see where I may over the next few months. See, transitioning from sitting to standing pretty much always makes me feel like I have to pee. Unfortunately, I have to walk to the bus, sit on the bus, walk to the metro, sit on a yellow train, transfer to a green train, and then walk a half mile to my office to get to work. That’s – what four transitions from sitting to standing? I can handle it all the way to my office for now but I’m foreseeing a day when I have to stop at the Sbux by the DoT after I get off the train before heading to my office.

cute stuff

Ok there are a few things that make me wish that we knew what we were having… little baby clothes types of things…

Splendid for Target – I’d never heard of Splendid before but, man, is this collection getting buzz in all the blogs I read. Both baby and design blogs.  Very cute stuff.  But it’s one of their limited designer collections so it won’t last long.

I saw this in the Gap a few weeks ago. It’s part of their Valentine’s Day collection so there’s no chance that it’ll still be around in April if we have a girl.

 
Come on it’s heart-shaped strawberries. You can’t get any cuter for a future ZTA legacy.

Old Navy has the cutest clothes but there’s NOTHING that’s gender neutral.

Cute stuff for girls:

Cute stuff for boys:

  

Technically filed under boys but could be construed as gender neutral, I guess…

 

Even my one of my favorites – Boden – doesn’t really have anything that’s gender neutral. But that doesn’t keep me from wanting every last tiny little outfit.

Girl stuff:

Yeah, apparently you can take the sorority girl out of college but you can’t sever the love of all things strawberry that it inspired. 

Boy stuff:

I did manage to get this cutie jacket on clearance though –

It’s a 12-18m so hopefully it’ll fit when it should.  I’m pretty sure I got the last red one because right after I bought it, I couldn’t find it on their website for anything.  I was only able to get the picture because they must have found a couple more grey ones to sell but the stock picture is the red.  And I consider red to be neutral ;)

25th anniversary of the challenger disaster

There’s been a lot of talk today about it being the 25^th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. 

It’s gotten me thinking about those “where were you?” moments that we all have in life.  Our parents’ generation has the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and when we landed on the moon.  Our grandparents have the attack on Pearl Harbor, D-Day and victories in WWII. 

Here’s what ours are so far.

Where was I when the Challenger blew up?  28 January 1986

I was in afternoon kindergarten at the time so I was sitting on the horrific blue plaid carpet of our family room in Texas watching the launch all by myself on TV.  Other than that I don’t remember anything.  And maybe I’m remembering it wrong – I was only 5.

Where was I when I found out that Princess Diana had died?  31 August 1997

I was a senior in high school hanging out at my friend Stephanie’s house.  We had just finished watching The Princess Bride on video.  It was actually the first time I’d seen the whole thing even though it was such an iconic movie for most people my age and several of her friends had been quoting the whole movie the entire time.  Upon turning the video off, the news of her car crash and subsequent death was running as a “breaking news alert” on the TV.  We didn’t quite believe it so we tuned to CNN for confirmation and they were running nothing but the story.

And the one no one will ever forget. 

Where was I when I heard about the 9/11 terrorist attacks?  11 September 2001

I was a senior in college on 9/11.  I happened to not have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays that semester so I was in bed asleep when it all started.  I can’t remember if I’d set my alarm or if I just woke up around 9 on my own.  I remember my housemate Gina was in her room drying her hair but she had the TV up really loud too which seemed weird.  Because of the hair dryer, I couldn’t make out what they were talking about on the TV but I got the overwhelming impression that they were concerned about something.  We didn’t have a TV in our room so I went downstairs to get breakfast and watch the TV in the living room.  All I had to do was turn the TV on to realize that something was very wrong.  It took a bit to understand though because I turned the TV on very shortly after the plane struck the Pentagon.  That’s all I knew.  I was stunned.  I was even more stunned when they cut back to New York as the second plane hit.  I still didn’t know that there had been a first plane.  Once I had a basic understanding of what was going on – I called my mom.  She doesn’t watch TV during the day normally.  My brother and sister had already gotten her so she was watching.  Unfortunately, she’d had to put the family dog down a few days prior and my dad was in Houston for a conference so she was home alone.  And we have family that live and work in NYC.  There’s more to the day but that’s my story of how I heard about 9/11.

6 months down

It’s kind of hard to believe that I’ve already been pregnant for SIX months.

There have been a couple of requests for pictures of the bump.  It really only got obvious in the week before Christmas so there aren’t many and they aren’t very good but here you go….

from Christmas day.

from New Year’s Eve.

baby pictures

ok… so ultrasounds are amazing but also a little on the creepy side.  We don’t have a scanner so even though the babe will be undergoing monthly and then eventually weekly ultrasounds, I can only post pictures occasionally.

Here’s a few that we have so far…

Seven weeks… they don’t look like much but that’s a baby… 

That white blob in the second one – not the head.  That’s the yolk sac.  Gross, huh?

Twenty weeks… a bit more baby like…

the traditional ultrasound view but the baby wouldn’t turn profile (hence the slightly alien-y look).

So the tech turned to what we like to refer to as “the creepy baby pictures” – yes, we think it’s creepy even when it’s our own kid – the 3D ultrasound.

Don’t look at me.

 
Who turned on the lights?  We know that it’s just an illusion but it does look like there’s a light shining in there.

   
now those are better…

Oh and after all the debate, we decided to not find out what we’re having.