In the News

This article from hotair.com I found both hysterical and ironically disturbing all at the same time:

Duke University cancels motherhood event when pro-life group participates.

There are days when I realize how fully I just don't understand some people/organizations. Not just disagree with but truly--I don't get it.

Registry and Baby Bottles

I went out this afternoon with a dear friend and started working on our baby registry.

First of all, I have to say the following. The amount warnings and things to avoid is kind of ridiculous. I suppose I could just stick Blueberry in a bubble for a few years and be done with it. Of course that kind of takes the point out of, well, life....but hey! I'll be following all the warnings (as long as the bubble is bpa free and latex free and lead free and....).

Any ways, other than that minor detail--it was simultaneously fun and stressful. Fun because registering in general is always fun. Stressful because there were so many things that I felt I couldn't make an educated decision on because, well, I don't know enough!

For example. Let's talk baby bottles. Glass? Plastic? How many do I need? I'm planning on breastfeeding, hopefully exclusively, but with the offer of a breast pump from someone, I'd like to be able to utilize bottles occasionally as well. This evening I spent some time online looking at reviews on bottles. Found ones that people love; and the exact some ones are ones that other people hate and swear they will never use again!

I finally wound up putting 4 different ones down on the registry (we're registering at 2 places: Target and Babies R Us). But I'm not sure I particularly want all those bottles on the registry. It's kind of more of a placeholder for now until I can narrow it down further. Here's what I have currently. Any suggestions or insight are more than welcome!

• Everflo glass bottles
• Dr Brown's Natural Flow (plastic)
• BornFree plastic
• Tommee Tippee (very British!) plastic

And while we're at it. What about pacifiers?

And by the way, I'm probably going to putting up several posts along these lines. So come with your thinking caps on!

And Blueberry is...

a girl! And no, we don't have any names picked out yet.

However, if you've paid attention to the baby ticker at the top of my blog, you will notice that we've traveled back in time two weeks. My due date has been reestimated to be August 17 instead of August 4. As this is closer to the date that I thought it should be, I'm actually okay with this change. Although it was a little sad to have hit the half way point and then have to go back two weeks!

Here's Blueberry's first picture. You can just see her little hand all scrunched up by her face.


I think the ultrasound lady (I have no idea what the technical name for that position is) thought Chris and I were just weird because we had, of course, to have our fun with the whole procedure. He was making comments about how the pictures of her spine made her look like this weird creature from the Matrix, and I was commenting on how one picture of something looked like an alien. At which point the lady made a comment about how Blueberry wasn't going to cooperate and give us a good picture of her face if we kept picking on her. But then Blueberry started waving one of her hands around and with the angle we were at, it looked like she was waving at us. So I think she got over it. And so Chris proceeded to point out that it looked like she had 7 toes on one foot :)

But in all actuality, I think she's beautiful and adorable and I'm very, very happy with my little girl.

It all seems so much more real now. I'm going to be a mommy.

My Guess

I honestly have no idea.

These women who talk about just "knowing" what their baby is--I'm not one of them. I truly have no clue, no opinion, and even no real preference!

For the fun of it, I've taken a few of the various gender predictor tests you can find online--they are actually split down the middle on whether we're having a girl or a boy.

However, every single person I've talked to in person seems to think it's a girl.

So, just to be different. I'm going to go with a boy! Just so I can say "I told you so" if I happen to be right :)

Stupid Daylight Savings

I hate Daylight Savings. I think it's one of the worst ideas ever. And every year my hatred of it is backed up by news articles like this one that cite the increase in heart attacks and negative job production the week after the changeover.

That hatred was reinforced this morning when I woke up after a decent night sleep, rolled over, looked at my clock, saw that the alarm would go off shortly giving us just enough time to get up and go to church, and then suddenly was hit with the horrified realization that I hadn't set my clock forward last night. And so the charming hour we had to get ready had been rudely stolen from me and we should have been at church already.

Bah humbug.

7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 12)

1. Springfield weather is once again proving it deserves the crazy reputation it has. Last Sunday was my birthday. And the weather was beautiful. Best weather we've had in months. Upper 60's, sunny, bright, light wind. Gorgeous all around. And today, as I get ready for work, the weather report comes on the radio. Cold, wet, and oh, by the way, we might have snow tonight.

Snow? Seriously?

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2. We have started the actual crazy process of doing the grand swap in two rooms of our house. Our current guest room is becoming our new study and our old study is becoming Blueberry's room. We decided, because it is a complicated process, to do it stages.

So last weekend we had four very wonderful people come over for a painting party who helped us move out all the furniture in the new study and Spackle/paint it. Nothing super exciting color-wise in that room--just an off-white very similar to what we already had. My brother will be coming soon to put in carpet into that room, and then will start the process of transferring furniture/belongings from the old study to the new study.

Next weekend, we will have second painting party and will tackle the painting (and large furniture moving) of the new nursery. Once that's been painted, my brother will come back in again and put the new carpet into that room and then, short of actually getting furniture for Blueberry, the major renovations should (hopefully!) be done.

Yay progress!

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3. I have survived (and by survived I mean caved in to) my first actual pregnancy craving. Last weekend, along with trying to paint rooms, direct furniture moving, etc, I was obsessed with cinnamon rolls. I actually have a recipe that I've been wanting to try for awhile (read about a year) for GF cinnamon rolls, so Friday night, I decided that I would just make some and get it over with.

Being a, sometimes, sensible cook, I checked my ingredients first. And discovered--to my dismay--that I was nearly out of Xantham gum. Being tired, I didn't think to actually measure the amount left, I could just tell I didn't have enough to make the recipe. Well, I woke up the next morning still craving cinnamon rolls. So I finally measured the amount of xantham gum left--perfect for half a recipe!

Craving became shortly satisfied with delicious succulence. Taste slightly like whole-wheat cinnamon rolls because they're made with sorghum flour, but still gooey and delicious in every good way.

For those of you who like GF recipes, go to Gluten Free Homemaker's blog for the recipe.

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4. Interestingly enough (well, ok, I think it's interesting, you might just think I'm a weird obsessed, pregnant woman), Blueberry seems to be a big bread fan. I'm not normally a big bread eater. Normally, I can bake one loaf of bread, slice it, freeze the slices, and it'll last me a month or more. I can do the same thing with muffins and unless my husband gets his hands on them, they last for ages. But the last few months, I've really been into bread a lot. And it's not just carbs in general but actual breads. I guess we'll find out for sure in the long-run, but that's just my observation so far.

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5. The stretch marks have begun. And worse than the stretch marks, itchy skin has settled in. I hate itchy skin with a passion. So after doing some reading, the most popular recommendation I could find for both was cocoa butter. So I picked some up the other day, and thus far it's working really well, at least in terms of making my skin stop itching. We'll see the long-term results on the stretch-marks (not holding out much hope there).

Cocoa butter is a very weird substance. First of all, it's edible (listed that way on the jar!) because at least this particular jar that I bought is literally 100% cocoa butter. No, I have not tried some. But I did find that amusing considering it's sold in the beauty section!

Second, it's very, very hard. The way to use it is to either dig some out and melt it in the microwave or immerse the whole tub in warm water for several minutes or rub it between your palms until it softens enough to spread elsewhere. Personally, I've used the microwave method with the most success thus far.

Third, it leaves you smelling like, well, chocolate!

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6. Betting on Baby Blueberry: Next week, Wednesday, 1:15ish is our first ultrasound. Assuming Blueberry cooperates, we will find out whether s/he is a she or a he. Place your bets now and no coming back to me later and saying, "Oh I thought it was a ____ (insert male/female gender of your choice here). I'm pretty good guesser on these things, you know."

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7. Just for grins and giggles

My husband:

My general attitude towards work lately: