Momma Guilt (gone to the dogs)

Tonight, after work, Kevin will go home to check out the now re-finished wood floors, air out the house for a couple of hours and most importantly, pick up Bailey from the vet where we had her boarded this week.

We've felt guilty all week about boarding Bailey and naturally we've made things worse by talking about it at length and discussing various scenarios:

1. Bailey probably thinks we abandoned her like her last family did.

2. Bailey is confused and wonders if she did something bad and is being punished...

3. Bailey is going to be really-really mad when we pick her up and never forgive us.

4. Bailey blames Kevin and not me because he was the one who dropped her off but she blames me for not saving her.

5. Bailey was so excited to go for a car ride with Kevin and go to the vet (really she loves the vet) and feels betrayed and tricked, and is so scarred from it she'll never be excited about going for a car ride or to the vet again.

6. Bailey is sad, lonely, scared, hungry and bored.

Boy if you could've seen our long faces when we talked about Bailey, you'd see how pathetic and sad we were about the whole thing. I can picture someone reading this post somewhere and thinking to themselves "They're just dogs..."

I think a sign that dogs are more evolved than us is they've figured out that guilt is the most useless of all emotions. I wonder if we're going to worry about the baby in the same way. Stupid question really- of course we are.

I have plans tonight in Seattle and I am sleeping over in Kent one more night ::snaps fingers:: so I won't be able to join the welcome-home committee for Bailey. I'm bummed but in some ways I'm relieved that Bailey won't associate me with the vet-boarding experience. But I can't wait to see everyone tomorrow (especially the dogs) when we head to Shelton to spend the weekend at my mother-in-law's. A week without my dogs is too long!

Oh yeah, I'm excited about the floors too!!!

More Nursery Inspriations

Thanks Mom for the heads up!

The Better Homes and Gardens website has some great nursery photo galleries and I found one nursery, courtesy of my mother, in my color scheme, - blue & green, that I just adore.

Check out the link to the B&H web page and view both pages of the Calm & Collected Nursery photo gallery and descriptions.

http://www.bhg.com/decorating/kids-rooms/nursery/calm-and-collected/

Cute huh? I'm really digging the tree mural and have already tagged it as the perfect project for my sister. I'm also going to do a similar version of the window bench storage box. The rugs aren't to my taste, but I have to admit they're cute. I will definitely be on a mission to find the perfect fluffy white rug. I anticipate white isn't going to be the most practical of colors but I can't help it.

On the second page of the B&G Calm and Collected nursery, I'm drooling over the reading/nursing corner with the soft green chair and the hanging lamp shade. Babies R Us has a very similar chair that I have my heart set on. Kevin and I have tested it twice now and we both agree it is the most comfortable, plush chair we've ever sat in. It's pricey though so it's good thing we've started saving!

Check out a couple options from Babies R Us online:
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3096499

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3096516

This is fun!

Nursery Inspirations

Because we're not finding out the gender of the baby, some have suggested that decorating the nursery will be a bit of a challenge.

Hardly.

One of my favorite bloggers of the blog Becoming-Home.net has another blog Becoming-Mom.net and I fell in love with the color scheme for her nursery. Soft, muted greens and blues.

Check out the link below:

http://www.becoming-mom.net/2008/07/29/nursery-tour/

The room we've designated as the nursery already has the same soft blue on the walls (in need of a fresh coat of paint), nearly a periwinkle blue. Very neutral, if blue could be such a thing. I especially adore the soft lime roman shades on the Becoming Mom nursery tour photographs and how the green of the shades plays off the blue walls, white trim and hardwood floors, all things that we have in our nursery. The faux animal print rug in the photos is something I'm leaning towards, but I almost prefer something softer, more fluffy, and akin to a sheepskin rug (faux of course).

Fortunately, I have the benefit of a creative sister and a talented mother who will each have a hand in shaping the final result - helping me make bedding, curtains, find just the right lamps, etc.

I can't wait to start on the nursery- I suspect after the floors are refinished, the nursery will be my next big project.

Kevin says what I really mean is that the nursery will be his next big project. Well, he's halfway right. I'll purchase the items and he can put the crib together, paint, etc. Go Teamwork!

Have pillow, will travel

One of the cooler tips in my Pregnant Lady Bag-o-Tricks is to always keep a pillow and blanket in the car. I'm sure legions of pregnant women have discovered exactly how handy it is to have a nap-kit ready at all times.

For me, it has been a life saver. Naps are an unpredictable thing- it's hard to predict when you will need one and harder still to predict when you can actually take one.

Having a body pillow and a soft blanket lets me sneak away to my car at the best of times and sometimes at the most desperate of times to comfortably nap.

Sometimes I'll have time before meeting a friend for lunch for a quick snooze while parked in the mall parking lot, or at someone's house (someone's very understanding house, mind you) when I've gone visiting and the urge to sleep overcomes me.

I've spent countless lunch breaks at work napping in my car. Once, I napped under my desk after work before my evening commute home to recharge my batteries.

Like I said, have pillow, will nap.

That bitter taste

For the last 36 hours I've had an extremely unpleasant bitter taste in my mouth. Imagine letting an aspirin tablet dissolve on your tongue and having it linger for two days. That's the kind of bitter I mean- medicinal, nasty, gag-inducing.

Drinking and eating food masks the bitterness momentarily but as soon as you swallow, it comes back. But the problem is I'm so far from hungry that it's an effort to even eat bacon. I never thought I'd live to see the day when I'd have a hard time getting excited about bacon. I LOVE bacon. Just not in my mouth right now.

I've been completely ambivalent about food the last couple of days but I know I need to eat something. I'm willing my appetite to return! I have Top Ramen (not the best thing I know, but it's my chicken noodle soup of the moment), fruit, vitamin water, crackers, more fruit... The protein thing I'm still struggling with but will start tackling this week, I swear!

My last doctor appointment I had lost over 12 pounds in one month. I got a "get out of jail free" card because I was in my first trimester and lots of women do lose weight the first three months.

The doctor did ask me if I felt okay, and if I was having trouble keeping food down- at the time I felt great and no, I had no trouble keeping food down. I was completely mystified that I had lost weight, the only thing I could thing of was that by eating smaller meals throughout the day, I ultimately was eating less food quantity-wise and eating more healthy to boot.

Well now I feel crappy, don't' want to eat, and can't keep food down. I'm starting to feel panicked and am crossing my fingers that by my next visit, I haven't lost any more weight. First time in my life I'm actually grumpy about losing weight. This pregnancy thing has turned everything topsy-turvy.

If the past two days are any indication of the next few weeks, I'm in for a bumpy ride. I keep telling myself it's temporary, and it means my body is working to make a baby- so it's all good, right?

Still I get that nagging thought - the second trimester is supposed to be when I start feeling better, not worse!

But at the end of the tunnel, I'm going to have a darling little Green who is hopefully just like her/his daddy and a wee bit like me. February feels so far away!

Just when I post an entry about how easy this pregnancy has been, I have a not-so-easy afternoon.

Really I'm sure I'll look back on this and laugh.

Kevin and I went to Burlington Coat Factory to chase down a rumor that their baby furniture is significantly cheaper (not true) and buy a plastic bin at Target for me to store some odds and ends as we finish up getting the house ready for the floor re finishers.

Well in an attempt to get me to eat protein, Kevin and I made a hop and skip over to The Ram. I was supposed to order a hamburger and share it with Kevin. But it was only 2:30 and while I had yet to eat lunch, I wasn't in the mood for a hamburger. So we ordered cheese sticks. I ate 1.5 and Kevin ate the rest.

Almost immediately I became tired and wanted to go home.

We get home and I had this pressing urge to run into the house. Where upon entering, I had an even more pressing urge to run into the bathroom.

But I didn't make it in time. Puking on the way there (in my mouth)... I puked all over the toilet seat (didn't stay in my mouth), then puked on the way to the sink. And then because my poor bladder was so full from all the Sprite I drank at the restaurant and weakened under the constant heaving... I peed myself.

Fun.

Now I get it, the 9 months of preparing for a baby, the momma-to-be loses control of her bodily functions and regresses to infant-hood.

I cleaned up what I could, showered and headed off to bed- leaving Kevin to finish up the job. Poor guy. Him and bleach have become buddies.

Turns out I clogged the drain so well and good that I backed up the plumbing into the walls (Kevin took it apart, vomit-goo and all)... so now we're in need of a plumber. More fun. Wonder if they give pregnant lady discounts. Kevin tells me its' okay, and it's fine, and don't worry about it honey. Wait until he gets the bill.

New house rules: chew my food better or puke in the toilet. Well I would've except that the toilet seat was DOWN.

New amended house rules: leave the toilet seat up AND chew my food better.

Kinda glad I didn't get the hamburger though, that would've been especially gross.

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14 Weeks begins and Crystal's hungry

This past Thursday I began my 14th week of pregnancy. It's surreal to be three and a half months pregnant. The whole thing still has a touch of surrealness to it- but day by day the pregnancy becomes increasingly tangible.

I'm still waiting to feel the "quickening" or the baby moving around. Some feel it as early as 10 weeks. I'm obviously one of those who feel it later- still nothing. Someone told me the sensation is akin to swallowing a live fish or having a fish swim around in your belly (interesting!), another person said it's like butterfly wings beating inside your stomach. Once I thought I felt something, but turns out it was a gas bubble.

Oh yeah. People don't tell you how much gas pregnancy gives you. Just ask Kevin. I've turned into a gas machine- If I drank soapy water, I'd be making bubbles all the time.

People often ask how I'm doing and how I'm feeling. Quite honestly I feel pretty lucky to have a relatively easy pregnancy so far. Sure I was falling over tired the first three months and going to bed at 6:30 or 7:30 at night was a pretty typical event. My nausea didn't kick in until week 10 but it was of the come and go variety and could be prevented as long as I ate something every two hours. That's right every two hours. If I woke up in the middle of the night and it had been more than two hours since I'd eaten, I'd have to go get something to eat.

Now that you have the impression I've been eating nonstop let me state that while my desire to eat more often increased, my ability to eat large quantities of food fell off dramatically I can only eat a few bites before becoming "full"- leaving Kevin to finish whatever is on my plate. We quickly learned to cook for one person around here- letting me start and letting Kevin finish the rest.

I definitely have more energy and am less tired now I have entered my second trimester. But Kevin is still finishing my food for me ha. Good thing I'm not craving pickles on my ice cream yet or he might start complaining.

I don't have any particular, repetitive cravings or specific turn-offs- but I always know what I want to eat, and I want it NOW. Not in an hour. Not in ten minutes. Right. This. Second. Now. Then I feel bad because I only eat two or three bites. It doesn't help that it's something random & specific- bruchetta, bahn mi sandwiches, mizithra pasta. Kevin wishes I'd crave PBJ sandwiches because at least guaranteed we have it and it's easy/fast.

I've made progress in that department though. Thursday night I craved Top Ramen. Easy. Fast. Cheap and a quick run to the grocery store away.

But last night I relapsed and decided at 7:30 pm I HAD to have rice krispie treats, rice krispie chicken AND a baked potato. Between the food shopping, the marinating of the chicken in buttermilk and the baking... it took over 2 hours to get the food ready. I ate four bites of course. It was 10 o'clock by then.

Another piece of good news and progress is that I'm back to cooking my own food, praise Garlic. One less thing for Kevin to have to do.

At least one of us is taking the "Eating for Two" more literally. Kevin's eating enough for the both of us. When he talked about eating fudge sundaes at 2 am in his previous blog post, please don't make the mistake of thinking he was teasing or worse, exaggerating. Anyone who knows Kevin, knows what a chocoholic he is, and how much he likes to eat. He's been truly enjoying his "sympathy" symptoms and apparently gets nauseated if he doesn't eat every 2 hours too. Ha.

You know- obviously I'm thinking about food, a lot. And because I can't eat too much food I started a companion blog to this one where I can talk about food to my heart's content. You'll find me posting there often because well, that's what's on my mind of late. www.tacomaeats.blogspot.com

Hello from Momma-to-Be

Okay now that was embarassing- our dogs used to treat our bed like their personal couch. You can even see my little foot in the lower right hand corner of the picture of Ginger sleeping in our bed back in the pre-pregnancy days. She looks comfortable doesn't she?

We're so used to the dogs being our children and so it's interesting to demote them in a sense.

I do wonder if they can sense my pregnancy? Ginger definitely cuddles more and looks me in the eye for long periods of time.

Bailey has taken to the increase in her training regimen quite well and with an enormous amount of patience on her part. I say patience because we instruct her to sit, stay, come, heel, no-get-down multiple times a day. She's much bigger than Ginger and has a habit of jumping on us when we arrive home- something we've now put a stop to.

These are the things we've been thinking about these days- getting the dogs and the house ready for the baby. We haven't really focused on getting ourselves ready because we're still wrapping our heads around the idea of being expectant parents.

We're having a great time announcing our pregnancy and responding to everyone's well wishes and congratulations. I especially love listening to the advice and words of wisdom from those who are mothers. You can bet I'll be asking tons of questions! You know who you are smile.

Eventually we'll start to get the nursery ready, think about our birth plan and all of those logistics. For now, we're content to dwell in the newness of our pregnancy and sharing our joy with loved ones.

GingerBailey in Bed

With news of a baby on the way, we decided it was time to implement a new house rule: No dogs on the bed. Prior to the whole getting pregnant thing, the standing policy in the house was no dogs in bed when we’re sleeping, but anybody who wanted to lounge on the Tempur-Pedic was welcome to do so.

After a few weeks of gentle consistent reminders about the new policy, GingerBailey are finally starting to accept this rule as something we might be serious about.

Ginger is the 8 year old beagle-basset. Bailey is the 5 year old yellow lab. Together they are GingerBailey. They’re easier to talk to as one creature. Anybody who stays with us long enough will hear the same exclamations again and again: "GingerBailey, you ate my sandwich!” or “GingerBailey, it’s 4:30 in the morning – go to sleep!” or if Crystal’s talking, “GingerBailey, who wants to cuddle!!?” You get the idea.

One of the more daunting tasks on our long list of baby proofing preparations is to baby proof the dogs. We’re taking it as a challenge to refine…okay develop…a set of parenting skills as we actively work to undo all the behavior we laughed at, applauded and even encouraged in GingerBailey.

No longer is it acceptable to do running long jumps over us as we sit on the couch. No longer does a fly in the house warrant mad fits of barking that would make neighbors think somebody’s tail was on fire. And yes, no dogs in bed.

Big Changes

Hey hey, we're online! This past weekend we finally came out and admitted to being pregnant. We made it past the first trimester and decided it was safe to make the announcement before people started asking about our constant hunger/nausea.

I should probably disclose that I don't actually have the baby in my belly. Most of the pregnancy books we stocked up on say that not only do I get some of the credit for making a baby, but I also get to have sympathy symptoms. I'm taking full advantage of this new sanction. If I want a fudge sundae at 2am, it's fine...we're pregnant!

You don't want to hear about me though, you want to hear about the newest little Green. She/he/it had a healthy heartbeat of 162 beats per minute during our last visit to the doctor. All the books use fruits and vegetables to describe the size of the baby and in week 13 it grew from a large lime to a regular lemon. Referring to the baby as a piece of produce was a little weird at first but we got used to it.

We don't know the gender and as many of you know, Crystal is set on not learning until the little watermelon pops out next February. I'm working on changing her mind. My current tactic revolves around the logic that once we know, we can buy appropriate clothes. If we do decide to learn the gender, the doctor can tell us at our Sept 25th ultrasound.

Oh yeah, the photo. That's a photo of our niece, Alyssa. Alyssa found out she was going to be an older sister in May. My sister Jessi, let Alyssa make the announcement. Jessi and her husband Dustin are expecting their second child January 24th, less than four week's before us. Crystal is due February 19th.