31 weeks: four oranges

Thirty One weeks: 3.28.12





Photo Thoughts: It's hard to hold four oranges at once. And I really do love my 'new' clothes my friends have let me borrow.
 
Size of baby: Very random. Four oranges according to BC and still a squash or maybe even a pineapple. But I'm going to use that bad boy around 33 weeks-ish. I guess not all of the remaining fruits are totally random but this week...four oranges is just a funny choice.

Cravings: Nothing really. I fought off an urge to have a glass of wine last week after the stress of a sick toddler and moving came to a head. Mostly because I knew I'd be asleep in 0.2 seconds, not because I was really that worried about it affecting baby girl. Very much looking forward to a day I can have a glass of wine and not feel guilty and also not fall asleep immediately. Wonder when that will be?

What I love: Being just 9 weeks away from d-day. This is no joke, guys, she is going to have to come out sometime very soon!

What I'm looking forward to the most: The birth itself. And nursing. Both of those things have been on my mind a lot this week.

Worries: I wasn't too happy with baby girl last week when she scared me with very obvious Braxton Hicks contractions. I even got out the contraction timer on my phone and they were consistently every 9 minutes apart. But then I decided to just chill out a bit and drink water and it did get better. It was also a night (early morning?) when I was lugging my sick boy around and a little stressed, and as many of you commenters said---second time around the body knows what to do and gets prepared a little sooner. I still want to ask my OB about the BH contractions on Thursday when I see her and hopefully she does not care at all.

What is different this time around: With Truman's pregnancy at 31 weeks, I was getting a chubby face, I finally bought my own maternity wardrobe, we had just attended our childbirth class and found out we were going to get five freaking baby showers. This time obviously no showers and no classes and luckily I have amazing friends who have upped my maternity wardrobe very nicely this time around. Also, I think maybe my face is not yet *that* fat and my bump is just about caught up to last time. For being 31 weeks I feel both more prepared and somehow less prepared than last time. I guess more prepared because I just don't stress about all of the little details this second time around. But less prepared because baby girl does not even have a nursery set up yet and only has about 10 outfits to wear for her whole life. I realize it will all come together in good time and I'm hoping the next 9 weeks provide for lots of nesting/baby prep time.

Symptoms: My skin to the right side of my belly button is KILLING me at times! I keep checking for a stretch mark but there is nothing---just really sensitive skin. I vaguely remember something like this from last time but it was much higher up my belly. Getting BH contractions also goes down as a symptom. And it's still odd to feel so clumsy when changing positions.

Sleep: Still, no issues. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever had true sleeping problems even with Truman's pregnancy. Count me lucky on this one!


Movement: I love it. She's wild and the movements are definitely more rolls and vague jabs instead of jumpy little kicks. I've been worried that she won't get head-down in there but this week I swear most of her movement is up under my ribs, so maybe her feet are finally settling in a bit.

The belly: It's there and I know it's just going to get bigger in the next 9 weeks but man, it already feels pretty big! My belly button actually pops through some shirts now. I can definitely feel the baby across my entire torso now and she seems really high up there. This is a week when I love the baby bump and can't help rubbing it at times.

Milestones:  She is a big girl in there at 16 inches and almost 3.5 pounds. I remember my two friends Erin N. and Erin R. saying that week 31 was the MOST movement they'd ever felt because after that the babies run out of space in there. I believe it and also cannot believe it's my turn to be at the 31 week mark when the Erin's were JUST HERE, it seems.

Amusing comments from the general public: Mostly good this week, actually! While furniture shopping I had one lady ask when I was due, and when I told her she said, 'You look SO good for being that far along.' Then the next dude at a different store had an interesting approach. He asked when Truman was going to be a big brother (since T was with us) and I told him 'end of May.' The dude stopped for a second and asked, 'Of what year?' Never heard that one before!

Best moment of the week: Sort of a rough week around here with Truman being sick and Nate working a ton, and with the realization that we are moving NEXT WEEK on Friday. I think the best moment was probably on Sunday when Truman really turned a corner and started feeling good enough to laugh and play again. Everything before that was just crap but we are hanging in there, and very thankful that Nate and I didn't get the Virus From Hell.

House renovations, more painting...

Yep, still painting over here. But it's almost done, HALLELUJAH, and it's time for another house update.

1. Our white woodwork!

I always brace myself a bit when talking about painting our woodwork white and Nate thinks I'm highly sensitive to it, since nobody really disapproves as strongly as I fear they will. As I said before, I know that keeping original dark woodwork is really important to some people and I respect our home's style and age. However, after living in a home from the 1920s for 4 years, knowing that all.this.wood is just NOT our style and doesn't fit our vision of our house, I knew I'd want white woodwork whenever we bought a house. It's brighter, more modern, and cleaner to me although I'm sure some disagree. And it was also a HUGE pain in the butt to convert it all, as expected, but oh so worth it. Pictures first, then details:













So we still have to paint all of the actual windows but we are waiting to do that until we can take the time to really care for these ancient babies. And it's a lot of work just to paint the frames on the outside since we don't want to paint them shut, and with old windows you have a lot of really different parts to consider. We plan to really clean them, caulk them, replace some weights and maybe some of the glass, too. So whenever that happens we will also paint the remaining parts of our windows. Also, we have yet to do any doors and for now, most of them are still off the hinges. And of course, the entire kitchen woodwork is still natural for now but that's nothing compared to the huge list of 'to paint' projects that began this process. And we DID keep the built in buffet and windows above it natural in our dining room, and I really do love it that way.

If you are at all curious on HOW we did this massive project in a few weeks, I'll briefly touch on that now. I kept track of how much time we spent on this woodwork painting project because I just knew it would be insane. I was right: 8 hours of just prep work, 12 hours to spray the primer and first coat of paint, 5 hours to caulk the cracks, and then 20 freaking hours for me to paint ONE final coat with a brush. That's 50 hours, folks. And a few fits of rage were thrown in there for fun.

To prep the wood we sanded it all down really well with sandpaper, then wiped it down with a damp cloth and then a tack cloth. Then Nate demanded to use his spray gun for the primer, since that isn't something I could do by hand anyway in my pregnant state, so we had to tape off all of the walls and cover the floors very well. Nate had his first breakdown with the sprayer when using the primer because it was a LOT harder than he thought to get in all the nooks and crannies with different angles on the gun. We waited 24 hours for all of that primer to dry and then Nate agreed to do the first coat of latex paint with the gun, too. Like I said, his two coats took 12 hours and my one coat by hand took 20 so you do the math. After the sprayed coat of latex was done, we realized we had to caulk the cracks in the woodwork or it'd look horrible. This caulking business was my LEAST favorite part by far. So tedious and annoying but it really did make a huge difference, just like all of the articles online said. You can see why we had to do it in these pictures:



So after that was done, I had to sand it down a bit again. And then I got to work on my brushed coat--and really, even with the expensive Benjamin Moore Advance paint we used, it needed a THIRD coat in places to really look nice. I'm a pro with cutting-in now, what can I say? I absolutely love how it all turned out and during Nate's day of 'I will not do this anymore because my sprayer hates primer and I might kill someone before painting this stuff by hand' attitude, I was really nervous we'd made the wrong decision. But once that primer and the first coat were on, my heart really skipped a beat when I came downstairs and I almost cried (again, for the third time that day) seeing it all come together. The white wood makes it feel like home to us. And I hope we never, ever have to do a 'full paint' project again. Touch ups over the years are fine, but man---that was rough.

2. Sunroom ceiling:

This wasn't too bad considering the woodwork debacle. But I really wanted the ceiling in here to make the crown molding pop. Can you even tell the ceiling is two shades lighter than the walls? I hope so. :)



3. The baby's nursery:

Remember how her woodwork was yellow, and I hated that with a passion? Converting it all to white, to match the rest of the upstairs bedrooms, was quite the task. It was my first taste at painting woodwork and so I knew what awaited me downstairs in the future. I think it took a total of 10 hours just to do her room, but maybe that included lots of daydreaming breaks as I pictured my baby girl coming home to this room:)





And I might as well throw this in here, too--- the rug that will be in her room looks like this:



And fabrics have been purchased for my mom to make a quilt, Roman shades, a bedskirt, and changing pad covers!!



I'm so excited to see it all come together I could barf. Still have to paint the crib a hot pink, find a rocker, and make a few art pieces but it's really not TOO far off anymore. Just seeing the room totally painted is a huge step and that rug makes it even prettier. Many more updates on her room will surely come along soon enough.

So yeah, lots of freaking painting. Have to do the woodwork in the kitchen, the kitchen walls, the half bathroom walls, and the upper full bathroom walls and trim. But honestly, I'm thinking most of this will have to get done once we move into the house. Because, um, we are moving NEXT FRIDAY if I haven't freaked out enough about that on this blog. Can't wait...slash...am scared we might die in the process.

Keeping it real re: sick days

I just need to vent a bit, which is something I rarely do on here anymore. Hope you don't mind.

Any mom out there understands how awful it is to take care of a sick child. Anytime Truman even has a slight cold I automatically have two thoughts that swim through my head constantly: 1. I am so thankful that Truman is almost always healthy, and any illness we've encountered has been relatively minor compared to what some children and families have to endure. And 2. Priorities fall into place because nothing else matters half as much as getting Truman well again. Not work. Not house stuff. Not any of the other seemingly important things on the To-Do list that were so stressful just days before a sickness hit my boy.

I dropped Truman off at daycare on Monday to the news that 3 of the kids there were out that day with fevers and hand/foot/mouth disease. And so began the anxiety, the waiting for any signs of the stupid illness that nearly broke us all last August, the over-analyzing every fussy moment and inspecting every body part for tiny red dots. I was on edge and anticipating all of the chaos that this illness would mean for our family, especially when I got the text from my friend Erin that Henry now had it. And even more when Lori herself called on Tuesday night to say SHE had not even been spared, and that she couldn't take any kids on Wednesday.

I was happy that Truman was one of three kids still well and I continued to pray that he would be spared. I pushed all of my Wednesday patients off until Thursday afternoon the best I could, so Nate could have Truman on one of his shorter days at work, and I could still see some patients. Then Wednesday Lori called to say she still couldn't work on Thursday. And on Thursday she called to say she was even worse and was out for Friday. Now things were just getting scary---Lori has never had more than one sick day in a row, and apparently all of the affected kids were still really sick, too. Five freaking days after it first hit.

But Truman was still well, so I tried to make the best of the situation. I'm not going to lie, though, the stress of rearranging my work schedule to accommodate the lack of childcare was starting to wear on me. As a working mom---and one with a very flexible work schedule---I know that part of the deal is going to be balancing my career with my parenting job. Most of the time I feel very well-balanced in this task and am grateful for having the job that I do, when it needs to be shifted around for our family life. But then there are the times when I resent Nate for having a more rigid, more demanding, full time job that very rarely allows him to take time off to help with childcare. And I resent not being a full time SAHM because although it still sucks to care for sick kids when you aren't working, it just adds another dimension to the suckiness when you do work outside of the home. I feel guilty for missing work if I'm home with Truman and guilty if I work instead of being with Truman. I worry about letting my boss, my patients, and my co-workers down if I put my family life first and I worry about being a bad mommy if I put my job first. It's a lose/lose situation and the constant pull between my job as a PT and my job as a mother is really difficult to manage at times.

After a near break down to Nate on the phone Thursday, I guilted him into taking Friday afternoon off so I could actually see the patients that needed me that day. I made it through my late day on Thursday night and came home to my boys in great moods. Things were looking up and I was feeling really lucky that Truman was still well. Maybe he'd miss the bug all together!

And then Friday morning happened. He was fine when he woke up at 5:30--happy, playful, active. I took a shower and was getting ready to take Truman with me to Target and the coffee shop when I came out to the family room to see him laying on the couch, whining, and looking really lethargic. Crap. I took his temp and it was only 99.9 but he just looked sick to me. He ended up falling asleep on the couch which he NEVER does and I went ahead and gave him Ibuprofen just in case something was starting. He slept on my chest for about 1.5 hours, which again, means something is totally off with my son. I never get those cuddles anymore and I definitely didn't mind but I knew it was only because he felt so crummy.



Nate got home at 1 on Friday and our schedule was completely off because of the early nap that day. T was fussy when the meds would wear off and just wanted to lay down and watch TV. I left to see my patients and had that horrible sinking feeling that I should be at home with my baby, and my mind was elsewhere while I plugged through my six patients. Truman did okay for Nate, taking another 2.5 hour nap and then requesting to go to bed at 6:30 that night, before I even got home. It wasn't my finest evening: I was tired from a long day with patients, hormonal from pregnancy, stressed about the house and money and the fact that we are moving in two freaking weeks and have SO much to do, and worried about my boy.

At 1am Truman cried for me and was completely burning up when I went in there. His temp was now 101.8 which is super high for him and he was just crying and saying 'Owie, mommy' over and over. Break my heart now. I gave him more meds and laid with him for an hour while they took their sweet time to kick in. At 2 he started sweating it out and felt a lot better, to the point that he was ready to play in the family room. What the heck--might as well make the most of the rare moment when he is actually well enough to be happy and playful. So we were up from 1 until 4:30, playing, watching enough Thomas and Elmo to make one want to vomit, and giving the dog some treats. Apparently Truman is very giving when he's sick:) He fell asleep on my chest again at 4:30 and although I was so beyond tired at that point, I knew that was one of the sweetest moments in the recent past. Moonlight coming in from our windows, the house completely quiet except for the sound of my child breathing sleepy breaths, with his sweaty little head on my chest. Definitely one of those moments when I'd like to freeze time for a little, just to soak it in some more, but instead I settled for snapping a few pictures.





He was up again at 5:30 and then stayed awake for good by 6:30, so I'm pretty sure I got about 4 hours of broken sleep---something that might not seem like a big deal to those new moms out there, struggling with newborn sleeping habits. But for this mom who hasn't gone to that 'sleep deprived/everything is so awful in the world and it will never get better' place of mind in the past year, it was pretty rough. So freaking tired the next morning that I even got wild enough to make my cup of coffee with actual caffeine---well, a 'half caff', but still pretty crazy.

And now, Truman will point to his throat and say, 'Owie' and he wanted me to look in there with a flashlight. Sure enough, the red spots have appeared. He officially has hand/foot/mouth and of COURSE he gets it 4-5 days after the other kids. Which means not only did last week suck because of lack of childcare, but next week will suck because he's sure to be sick at least 4 days total. All he wants is popsicles, Thomas, water, and mommy. And he just wants to wear his sandals at all times, refuses to take off his Thomas jammies despite the snot/sweat/drool all over them, and won't take a bath for us.

Just to drive home that point that this virus is truly sent from hell itself, Truman just woke up from his nap crying hysterically while I was typing that last paragraph. Not sure how I got him back to sleep but for now, he is resting again. He is truly miserable and I feel so helpless. I feel guilty (theme of this post!) for even saying this, but I can't help but worry that my days are numbered, too. As he coughs directly on my face and while I lay on his sickie sheets with him I just know I'm going to get hit with this stupid thing, too. And how awful will THAT be if both me and T are down for the count and I can't even take anything good to reduce my fever. Nevermind that last night when we were up in the wee hours of the morning, I felt like I was having true Braxton Hicks contractions for the first time which totally freaked me out. Drinking lots of water and attempting not to jump to any conclusions seemed to help and baby girl is forgiven for now, but man---isn't it a little early for pre-term labor scares?

Enough of my complaining and rambling. Just wanted to type all of these thoughts out while they are still fresh because I'm sure there are other moms out there who can empathize with the misery of a sick child. I really hate to be so negative and whiny because I know we are still so blessed and a measly little virus is not the end of the world. It could be so much worse. And the stress of balancing motherhood with a very good career is really a good problem to have, I suppose. But days like these are not like anything I anticipated before I actually became a mom. Hoping that Nate and I are spared and that Truman kicks the bug in it's nasty little butt before we all morph into zombies from sleep deprivation. Fun times!