Twenty-One weeks

A long and slender week, apparently...but I suppose we are to focus on the length, only. Week of the banana.

And that weight guess is right on because our boy weighed 13 ounces at his big US! And speaking of weight and the lucky number 13....guess who's packed on 13 of the big lbs? (And yes, I got my hair chopped off tonight. Could not take it anymore. Does it make my face look fat?)



Yeah, totally freaked out at my 20 week appointment last Tuesday. Where are those 13 pounds, I ask, because I'm still in normal clothes and people are still badgering me about not really being pregnant. I asked the doctor if that was an obscene amount of weight to gain thus far. And do you know what that saintly woman told me? "Oh no, that is actually low. I would have liked to see you at 20 pounds at this point being halfway through already." To which my eyes bulged in reply--we've never discussed weight gain before, so this was news to me. I asked, "Do you mean you want me to gain 40 pounds total?" and she informed me that yes--I am to shoot for the stars with this pregnancy. Something about me being on the borderline of 'underweight' for my BMI before pregnancy and so she wants me above the standard 20-35 pound mark. Score for me, I guess? I cannot fathom stepping on the scale and seeing a number FORTY FREAKING POUNDS heavier than my norm. Sorry for yelling, but holy cow. I guess it's doctor's orders so I won't complain too much. But please, Lord, let me lose the weight fairly easily. I'm so tempted to sign up for a half marathon next fall just to taunt myself with jumping headfirst into training again, but alas...I will not to that to myself just yet.

Besides the majorly awesome milestone of seeing our little man on the US screen last week and falling totally, madly in love with him, mister man has also turned up the kicking a notch. To the point where my new favorite pass time is laying down, pulling up my shirt, and watching the show he puts on for me. Nate is still working out the timing on these performances by our guy because he still gets a bit shy with daddy watching. But the kicks are insanely powerful right now and I wonder if this is the happy medium for movement during my pregnancy: when he has enough room to go nuts and kick like crazy, before he gets too cramped and has to deliver dull nudges instead. I suppose we shall find out.

The big question everyone wants to know now that the cat is out of the bag with his gender is: "So have you thought of names?" The short answer is yes, we have. The long answer? We (and by 'we' I mostly mean 'me) have been compiling very large lists of both boy and girl names that we (ahem, I) liked since even before I got pregnant. I went through the lists with Nate a few months ago and jotted down his reactions to some of my choices and got hilarious responses. From 'Okay, but dorky' to 'Not going to happen in a million years ' to a flat out 'NO'--he certainly had his opinions. So I let it drop, figuring it was way too early to decide something this monumental anyway. But on Friday morning, as we drove up to Madison and back to pick up our amazingly awesome dresser/ changer from Craigslist, we really narrowed down the name options. The night before we both made our own separate boy name lists of seven options each. Then on Friday we went through the lists and consolidated a Top Four, if you will. We each like all four of the names and although Nate informed me that he could make a final decision immediately, I want to wait it out just a little longer. You know, let the big four marinate a little bit, ponder it, and probably second and third guess all of them. THEN I might be ready to commit.

But it looks like we might be keeping this big decision a secret. Nate would prefer it this way and I guess that makes sense since we did find out the sex and everything. Either way we know the middle name will be Nate's middle name, Anthony, which is also Nate's dad's first name and Nate's late Grandpa's first name. Something about four generations of men with the same name is just way too cool in my opinion. My middle name is the same way, so someday we already have our girl's middle name settled (Lorene) !

So that's that. We now have a pimped out dresser changer that needs to be re-painted white and needs new knobs AND if that weren't exciting enough, we might have found our rocker, too! You'll never guess where we found it. No, not on Craigslist, despite my devoted stalking every day. No, not some other online store, or even a store at all. We found it in my in-laws attic. You see, they LOVE to store furniture up there like it's no one's business. When we needed a dining room table, we scoured stores for months before we decided we didn't like any of them. And then my in-laws informed us that they had three spare full dining room sets for us to choose from. Isn't that insane? You need a little step stool or a side table? Head on up to the attic of my in-laws and go crazy....they have it all. And we knew they had at least 3 rockers up there but we didn't think they'd like us to paint any of them white, since most are sentimental antiques. And I will not budge on the 'all white furniture' idea. But Nate's dad let us know about one of the 'somewhat modern' rockers that could be painted and whaddya know? It seriously looks just like the rocker from Ikea I've been stalking! All it needs is a little sanding, priming, and painting white. Then add two fatty upholstered cushions and voila...our nursery furniture is almost complete!

I am purposely not showing you pictures of the dresser/changer and the rocker to drive you mad. Not really, but I want to do a big reveal on both pieces once I get them both finished. My parents are making the trek up north to see us this weekend and I have a list of about 10 projects my mom and I will try to tackle while she's here. So patience, my friends. I'm dying to see them finished, too:)

Baby boy is moving right along on his developmental time line this week and get this: he is growing taste buds! Just imagine him, gulping down some yummy amniotic fluid and practicing his digestive process. Isn't he squeezable? But the weirdest thing is that some studies say that after he is born, baby might be more interested in tastes he's already experienced through my amniotic fluid. Guess this boy is going to love sweets then, huh? I totally need to lay off the sugar but it was Halloween and I just love them, okay? Okay.

I think that's it for week 21. I also had an eventful and fun weekend down in St. Louis throwing Hannah a baby shower. Pictures to come!