Saturday, December 31, 2011
I'm getting bigger!
Remember my last picture at 18 weeks?
(18w0d)
Here I am at 23 weeks, wearing the exact same outfit:
(23w3d)
Can you see the difference? ;)
Friday, December 30, 2011
Should the World of Toys Be Gender-Free?
Should the World of Toys Be Gender-Free?
By PEGGY ORENSTEIN
Berkeley, Calif.NOW that the wrapping paper and the infernal clamshell packaging have been relegated to the curb and the paying off of holiday bills has begun, the toy industry is gearing up — for Christmas 2012. And its early offerings have ignited a new debate over nature, nurture, toys and sex.
Hamleys, which is London’s 251-year-old version of F.A.O. Schwarz, recently dismantled its pink “girls” and blue “boys” sections in favor of a gender-neutral store with red-and-white signage. Rather than floors dedicated to Barbie dolls and action figures, merchandise is now organized by types (Soft Toys) and interests (Outdoor).
That free-to-be gesture was offset by Lego, whose Friends collection, aimed at girls, will hit stores this month with the goal of becoming a holiday must-have by the fall. Set in fictive Heartlake City (and supported by a $40 million marketing campaign), the line features new, pastel-colored, blocks that allow a budding Kardashian, among other things, to build herself a cafe or a beauty salon. Its tasty-sounding “ladyfig” characters are also taller and curvier than the typical Legoland denizen.
So who has it right? Should gender be systematically expunged from playthings? Or is Lego merely being realistic, earnestly meeting girls halfway in an attempt to stoke their interest in engineering?
Among the “10 characteristics for Lego” described in 1963 by a son of the founder was that it was “for girls and for boys,” as Bloomberg Businessweek reported. But the new Friends collection, Lego says, was based on months of anthropological research revealing that — gasp! — the sexes play differently.
While as toddlers they interact similarly with the company’s Duplo blocks, by preschool girls prefer playthings that are pretty, exude “harmony” and allow them to tell a story. They may enjoy building, but they favor role play. So it’s bye-bye Bionicles, hello princesses. In order to be gender-fair, today’s executives insist, they have to be gender-specific.
As any developmental psychologist will tell you, those observations are, to a degree, correct. Toy choice among young children is the Big Kahuna of sex differences, one of the largest across the life span. It transcends not only culture but species: in two separate studies of primates, in 2002 and 2008, researchers found that males gravitated toward stereotypically masculine toys (like cars and balls) while females went ape for dolls. Both sexes, incidentally, appreciated stuffed animals and books.
Human boys and girls not only tend to play differently from one another — with girls typically clustering in pairs or trios, chatting together more than boys and playing more cooperatively — but, when given a choice, usually prefer hanging with their own kind.
Score one for Lego, right? Not so fast. Preschoolers may be the self-appointed chiefs of the gender police, eager to enforce and embrace the most rigid views. Yet, according Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist and the author of “Pink Brain, Blue Brain,” that’s also the age when their brains are most malleable, most open to influence on the abilities and roles that traditionally go with their sex.
Every experience, every interaction, every activity — when they laugh, cry, learn, play — strengthens some neural circuits at the expense of others, and the younger the child the greater the effect. Consider: boys from more egalitarian homes are more nurturing toward babies. Meanwhile, in a study of more than 5,000 3-year-olds, girls with older brothers had stronger spatial skills than both girls and boys with older sisters.
At issue, then, is not nature or nurture but how nurture becomes nature: the environment in which children play and grow can encourage a range of aptitudes or foreclose them. So blithely indulging — let alone exploiting — stereotypically gendered play patterns may have a more negative long-term impact on kids’ potential than parents imagine. And promoting, without forcing, cross-sex friendships as well as a breadth of play styles may be more beneficial. There is even evidence that children who have opposite-sex friendships during their early years have healthier romantic relationships as teenagers.
Traditionally, toys were intended to communicate parental values and expectations, to train children for their future adult roles. Today’s boys and girls will eventually be one another’s professional peers, employers, employees, romantic partners, co-parents. How can they develop skills for such collaborations from toys that increasingly emphasize, reinforce, or even create, gender differences? What do girls learn about who they should be from Lego kits with beauty parlors or the flood of “girl friendly” science kits that run the gamut from “beauty spa lab” to “perfume factory”?
The rebellion against such gender apartheid may have begun. Consider the latest cute-kid video to go viral on YouTube: “Riley on Marketing” shows a little girl in front of a wall of pink packaging, asking, “Why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff and all the boys have to buy different-color stuff?” It has been viewed more than 2.4 million times.
Perhaps, then, Hamleys is on to something, though it will doubtless meet with resistance — even rejection — from both its pint-size customers and multinational vendors. As for me, I’m trying to track down a poster of a 1981 ad for a Lego “universal” building set to give to my daughter. In it, a freckle-faced girl with copper-colored braids, baggy jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers proudly holds out a jumbly, multi-hued Lego creation. Beneath it, a tag line reads, “What it is is beautiful.”
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Why Books Are Better than e-Books for Children
I already told Mike that I don't want any kids books on Kindle, especially early reader books. Glad to hear the research supports my intuition in this area!
Why Books Are Better than e-Books for Children
By KJ DELL’ANTONIADo you read to your children from your iPad or other device, or encourage them to use an e-reader to read to you? Many of us do, at least on occasion — even I, who wrote here some weeks ago that I rarely read on my own iPad anymore because I want my children to see me reading books, recommended an app for creating fun picture books for travel last week. If you have a tablet or e-reader, why not add it to your child’s reading repertory as well?
The answer, according to Lisa Guernsey of the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative, is that when we read with a child on an e-reader, we may actually impede our child’s ability to learn. Ms. Guernsey interpreted recent research on childhood literacy for Time magazine, and found that parents interact differently with children over an e-reader than over a physical book. That difference may make children slower to read and comprehend a story.
Children sitting with a parent while an e-reader reads to them understand significantly less of what’s read than those hearing a parent read. Researchers at Temple University, where the study was done, noted that parents reading books aloud regularly asked children questions about the book: “What do you think will happen next?” Parents sitting with the child while a device read to them (like a LeapPad or some iPad apps) didn’t ask these questions, or relate images or incidents in the book to the child’s real life. Instead, their conversation was focused on how to use the device: “Careful! Push here. Hold it this way.”
Ms. Guernsey, observing videos of parents reading to their children from iPads, found a tendency to do the same, even when the device wasn’t doing the reading. Readers with an e-reader were focused on the device, not the story. Children whose parents talk to them about what they’re reading gain reading skills faster, but children reading with parents from digital rather than physical books aren’t getting as much of that kind of interaction.
Does that mean we should never read with or to our children from our various gadgets? Not necessarily. In our house, we find the devices themselves too distracting for regular reading, but I imagine that a child who’s more accustomed to an e-reader wouldn’t be convinced, as mine are, that the book represents a preliminary activity to a rare game of Angry Birds. If I did read from my iPad, I’d look hard at how I talked with my child as we swiped the pages and ask myself whether the tool was changing the conversation. I don’t, so instead, I’m asking myself the usual guilty-parent question, and worrying about whether we read together enough in any medium.
Do you read with a child from any kind of e-reader, or have a child who regularly uses an electronic tool to read? Do you see any ways your child’s reading experience is different when she reads from a physical book as opposed to an e-reader, or when you use books or e-readers together? What’s your call on the e-reader versus the paper book for children?
The answer, according to Lisa Guernsey of the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative, is that when we read with a child on an e-reader, we may actually impede our child’s ability to learn. Ms. Guernsey interpreted recent research on childhood literacy for Time magazine, and found that parents interact differently with children over an e-reader than over a physical book. That difference may make children slower to read and comprehend a story.
Children sitting with a parent while an e-reader reads to them understand significantly less of what’s read than those hearing a parent read. Researchers at Temple University, where the study was done, noted that parents reading books aloud regularly asked children questions about the book: “What do you think will happen next?” Parents sitting with the child while a device read to them (like a LeapPad or some iPad apps) didn’t ask these questions, or relate images or incidents in the book to the child’s real life. Instead, their conversation was focused on how to use the device: “Careful! Push here. Hold it this way.”
Ms. Guernsey, observing videos of parents reading to their children from iPads, found a tendency to do the same, even when the device wasn’t doing the reading. Readers with an e-reader were focused on the device, not the story. Children whose parents talk to them about what they’re reading gain reading skills faster, but children reading with parents from digital rather than physical books aren’t getting as much of that kind of interaction.
Does that mean we should never read with or to our children from our various gadgets? Not necessarily. In our house, we find the devices themselves too distracting for regular reading, but I imagine that a child who’s more accustomed to an e-reader wouldn’t be convinced, as mine are, that the book represents a preliminary activity to a rare game of Angry Birds. If I did read from my iPad, I’d look hard at how I talked with my child as we swiped the pages and ask myself whether the tool was changing the conversation. I don’t, so instead, I’m asking myself the usual guilty-parent question, and worrying about whether we read together enough in any medium.
Do you read with a child from any kind of e-reader, or have a child who regularly uses an electronic tool to read? Do you see any ways your child’s reading experience is different when she reads from a physical book as opposed to an e-reader, or when you use books or e-readers together? What’s your call on the e-reader versus the paper book for children?
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
more on names
Thanks for all the wonderful name suggestions we've gotten so far! I can't believe that pretty much every has suggested Sophie/Sophia. That's not going to be her name, but funny have everyone loves that name!
I have to admit that I'm just absolutely fascinated by baby names and naming trends. In fact, I'm such a nerd that I've been following the Baby Name Wizard blog for the past, oh, five years or so - ever since I read the Freakonomics chapter on baby names (see here for a very brief summary, in case you haven't already read the book). BNW is my favorite blog! (Well, that and Cake Wrecks and Post Secrets, but those are each a completely different topic!)
Plus, the BNW website (not just the blog) has some super cool graphs and charts. (Oooh, how I love statistics!) For example, you can see here how Sophie/Sophia has skyrocketed in popularity in the last ~20 years or so. Crazy!
So I'm going to give you all some hints about the name we're leaning toward:
1. It's a family name (first name from one side of our families, middle name from the other - just like how we were both named).
2. It hasn't been in the top 100 names since the 1950's.
3. It's popularity has been stagnant since the 1960's, so hopefully Baby won't be one of 5 with her name in her kindergarten class.
Okay, from now on mum's the word. You'll just have to stay tuned until April to find out what we're calling her. :)
I have to admit that I'm just absolutely fascinated by baby names and naming trends. In fact, I'm such a nerd that I've been following the Baby Name Wizard blog for the past, oh, five years or so - ever since I read the Freakonomics chapter on baby names (see here for a very brief summary, in case you haven't already read the book). BNW is my favorite blog! (Well, that and Cake Wrecks and Post Secrets, but those are each a completely different topic!)
Plus, the BNW website (not just the blog) has some super cool graphs and charts. (Oooh, how I love statistics!) For example, you can see here how Sophie/Sophia has skyrocketed in popularity in the last ~20 years or so. Crazy!
So I'm going to give you all some hints about the name we're leaning toward:
1. It's a family name (first name from one side of our families, middle name from the other - just like how we were both named).
2. It hasn't been in the top 100 names since the 1950's.
3. It's popularity has been stagnant since the 1960's, so hopefully Baby won't be one of 5 with her name in her kindergarten class.
Okay, from now on mum's the word. You'll just have to stay tuned until April to find out what we're calling her. :)
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
updates
I'm at work so have to make this update brief, but wanted to let you all know that we had another medical appointment this morning and everything still looks great! My uterus is right where it should be, and baby's heartbeat (about 140) is right where it should be as well. And my nurse practitioner reassured me that the weird sensations I've been having intermittently for the past week or so are probably actually Baby moving!! I didn't want to get my hopes up and accidentally get excited about gas or indigestion or something, but it seems like I'm actually feeling movement and it's okay to get sentimental about that. :) Hopefully Mike will be able to feel him/her as well in the coming weeks.
Other than that, I've just been taking it easy as I continue to recover from yet another common cold. I'm really getting sick of this whole suppressed immune system business during pregnancy. But I'm now a staunch advocate of the Neti pot - if you get me started, I'll talk your ear off about it!
Happy holidays!
Other than that, I've just been taking it easy as I continue to recover from yet another common cold. I'm really getting sick of this whole suppressed immune system business during pregnancy. But I'm now a staunch advocate of the Neti pot - if you get me started, I'll talk your ear off about it!
Happy holidays!
weeks 22-24: papaya
Apparently growth isn't so rapid anymore, so now we switch to size updates every few weeks...
Monday, December 19, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
week 21: banana
Note:
From weeks 5 to 20, measurements were taken from crown to rump. Now from week 21 on, measurements are taken from head to toe.
From weeks 5 to 20, measurements were taken from crown to rump. Now from week 21 on, measurements are taken from head to toe.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Call for Names!
Now that we know the gender (although we're not sharing it here, because neither grandpa wants to know ahead of time), we're starting to think more seriously about baby names. We have a short list of names we like, but we're also open to suggestions! Serious "bonus points" to anyone who suggests a name we're already considering. But, if nothing else, at least it will be fun to record your suggestions in his/her baby book. (I was always fascinated to think I was almost named Holly!)
So if you have any name suggestions, please email them to me! :)
So if you have any name suggestions, please email them to me! :)
Fox News Anchor Pushes Paid Family Leave
Hmmm...Never thought I'd agree with a news anchor from Fox, but here I do!
Fox News Anchor Pushes Paid Family Leave
By KJ DELLANTONIAMegyn Kelly, a Fox New anchor, is proudly and unabashedly, a working mother. As Pamela Paul wrote in the Sunday’s Styles section, the new generation of women news anchors juggles career and family life “full-throttle in front of millions of viewers,” and Ms. Kelly has become a surprising ambassador for working mothers. When Mike Gallagher, a conservative radio talk show host, mocked her three-month maternity leave, calling it a “racket,” Ms. Fox invited him onto her program and confronted him.
“What a moronic thing to say,” she told him. “The United States is the only country that doesn’t require paid maternity leave.”
That last line isn’t exactly true (the United States is the only remaining industrialized nation that doesn’t require at least some employers to offer a paid maternity leave — Australia introduced paid parental leave this year — but we are in the proud company of Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland). But as an attitude, and particularly the attitude of a prominent voice in conservative news, Ms. Kelly’s approach to maternity is liberal and practical, as is her inclusion of every woman in her criticism of family leave policy in the United States.
“We’re populating the human race,” she says. “It’s not a vacation. It’s hard, important work.” Who else hopes to hear more prominent parents stepping up to say that?
“What a moronic thing to say,” she told him. “The United States is the only country that doesn’t require paid maternity leave.”
That last line isn’t exactly true (the United States is the only remaining industrialized nation that doesn’t require at least some employers to offer a paid maternity leave — Australia introduced paid parental leave this year — but we are in the proud company of Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland). But as an attitude, and particularly the attitude of a prominent voice in conservative news, Ms. Kelly’s approach to maternity is liberal and practical, as is her inclusion of every woman in her criticism of family leave policy in the United States.
“We’re populating the human race,” she says. “It’s not a vacation. It’s hard, important work.” Who else hopes to hear more prominent parents stepping up to say that?
Sunday, December 11, 2011
cramming
We got home a couple hours ago from a busy day of various events with family and friends, and I just spent a ridiculous amount of time updating our registries. (Thanks to all who offered feedback about cloth diapers and about baby registry stuff in general!! Much appreciated.) As I was winding down from this activity and couldn't decide what to do next, I realized that the frenzy in my mind was similar to when I was in school and was frantically trying to procrastinate on anything with a deadline. Hmmm....
(Maybe I can "psychologize" myself?)
Then it hit me! All of the sudden we're only about four months away from the biggest change of our lives, and I have no idea how babies work!!! Seriously, I've never even changed a diaper. And I'm such a neophyte that I don't even know what else I don't know!
So how did I use the rest of my evening? By reading ahead in my pregnany month-by-month book? Nope. By reading the stack of books on our coffee table about how to get baby to sleep well? (thanks, Ryan!) Nope. By doing something unrelated but fun, in order to end my weekend well? Definitely (sadly) not.
Instead, I spent more time online by researching the "best" baby books. So we now have a couple baby books on order from Amazon. Oh, and I also signed us up for our prenatal education class: March 10!!!
Once our books arrive, I think I may have to create a study schedule for the next few months, just like I used to do in the old days...
Sleep well, everyone! Hope you all had a good weekend.
(Maybe I can "psychologize" myself?)
Then it hit me! All of the sudden we're only about four months away from the biggest change of our lives, and I have no idea how babies work!!! Seriously, I've never even changed a diaper. And I'm such a neophyte that I don't even know what else I don't know!
So how did I use the rest of my evening? By reading ahead in my pregnany month-by-month book? Nope. By reading the stack of books on our coffee table about how to get baby to sleep well? (thanks, Ryan!) Nope. By doing something unrelated but fun, in order to end my weekend well? Definitely (sadly) not.
Instead, I spent more time online by researching the "best" baby books. So we now have a couple baby books on order from Amazon. Oh, and I also signed us up for our prenatal education class: March 10!!!
Once our books arrive, I think I may have to create a study schedule for the next few months, just like I used to do in the old days...
Sleep well, everyone! Hope you all had a good weekend.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
cloth diapers
Mike and I decided awhile ago that we really want to give cloth diapers a shot. (Before you judge us, let me just tell you that they've come a long way since the 70's!) Our primary reasons are:
1. better for the environment
2. less chance of diaper rash
3. much earlier potty training (avg is 2.5 years with cloth and 3.5 years with disposables)
4. fewer leaks
5. no carcinogens, as in disposables
6. cheaper in the long run (compared to the estimated $1500-2000 for disposables from birth to potty training - see these links for details)
So, having made that first decision, we were then faced with the daunting task of choosing a CD (i.e., cloth diaper) system.
Which turned out to be totally overwhelming.
So, like the good students we are, we did as much research as possible: We asked friends and family for advice. I read a book on the topic. We went to a free class run by the owner of this local, on-line store. I scoured the web for sites like this. And I checked out Peapods, which has the reputation of being the go-to CD store in the Twin Cities area.
And then we just took a giant leap and picked something. Hopefully it was a good choice!
Here's a very brief overview of the options (which I'm primarily typing out in case we need to make any changes to our plan down the road!):
1. Prefolds with Covers.
These are the closest to the old-school diapers of yore.
Pro: cheapest option
Con: may have troubles with fit, depending on how baby is built
Price: prefolds are $20-30 for a dozen, covers are $8-14 each. Total needed: 2-3 dozen prefolds and 6-8 covers (aka ~$180 for 3 dozen)
2. Hybrids / All-in-two diapers (AI2s)
These have a waterproof outside with a liner that snaps into place.
Pro: covers can be reused throughout the day
Con: slightly more expensive than prefolds
Price: 2 covers and 6 inserts = $50 (aka $200 for 2 dozen)
3. Pocket diapers
These have a waterproof outside and you stuff the liner into an interior pocket
Pro: very easy for grandparents, daycare, etc. because (once stuffed) these are basically like disposables
Con: have to be stuffed after laundered, price
Price: about $15-18 per diaper (aka $400 for 2 dozen)
4. All-in-ones (AIOs)
These are just like they sound: everything is already prepped and ready to go, just like a disposable diaper
Pro: Super easy to use, no work required (other than laundering)
Con: slow to dry, price
Price: about $18-20 per diaper (aka $450+ for 2 dozen)
I already listed the general CDing "pros" above, so I might as well list the general CDing "cons," just to be fair:
1. having to do laundry (with special detergent) every 2-3 days
2. most "one-size" CDs don't fit until baby is 7-10#. So you can buy special newborn size CDs (which increases the total price), or you can use disposables for a couple weeks (which compromises your morals) - we decided on the latter (so much for morals!).
3. not all brands fit baby the same way, so you may need some trial and error to find out what works best for you
Overwhelming, isn't it?
So after all that investigation, we decided on AI2s (specifically the Flip system) since we figured they be a good balance between price, convenience, and versatility. But just to be on the safe side, we registered for a few prefolds, pockets, and AIOs as well. Hopefully it's fun to play around with these, and hopefully we made some good choices.
If anyone has any cloth diapering advice for us, please let us know!
1. better for the environment
2. less chance of diaper rash
3. much earlier potty training (avg is 2.5 years with cloth and 3.5 years with disposables)
4. fewer leaks
5. no carcinogens, as in disposables
6. cheaper in the long run (compared to the estimated $1500-2000 for disposables from birth to potty training - see these links for details)
So, having made that first decision, we were then faced with the daunting task of choosing a CD (i.e., cloth diaper) system.
Which turned out to be totally overwhelming.
So, like the good students we are, we did as much research as possible: We asked friends and family for advice. I read a book on the topic. We went to a free class run by the owner of this local, on-line store. I scoured the web for sites like this. And I checked out Peapods, which has the reputation of being the go-to CD store in the Twin Cities area.
And then we just took a giant leap and picked something. Hopefully it was a good choice!
Here's a very brief overview of the options (which I'm primarily typing out in case we need to make any changes to our plan down the road!):
1. Prefolds with Covers.
These are the closest to the old-school diapers of yore.
Pro: cheapest option
Con: may have troubles with fit, depending on how baby is built
Price: prefolds are $20-30 for a dozen, covers are $8-14 each. Total needed: 2-3 dozen prefolds and 6-8 covers (aka ~$180 for 3 dozen)
2. Hybrids / All-in-two diapers (AI2s)
These have a waterproof outside with a liner that snaps into place.
Pro: covers can be reused throughout the day
Con: slightly more expensive than prefolds
Price: 2 covers and 6 inserts = $50 (aka $200 for 2 dozen)
3. Pocket diapers
These have a waterproof outside and you stuff the liner into an interior pocket
Pro: very easy for grandparents, daycare, etc. because (once stuffed) these are basically like disposables
Con: have to be stuffed after laundered, price
Price: about $15-18 per diaper (aka $400 for 2 dozen)
4. All-in-ones (AIOs)
These are just like they sound: everything is already prepped and ready to go, just like a disposable diaper
Pro: Super easy to use, no work required (other than laundering)
Con: slow to dry, price
Price: about $18-20 per diaper (aka $450+ for 2 dozen)
I already listed the general CDing "pros" above, so I might as well list the general CDing "cons," just to be fair:
1. having to do laundry (with special detergent) every 2-3 days
2. most "one-size" CDs don't fit until baby is 7-10#. So you can buy special newborn size CDs (which increases the total price), or you can use disposables for a couple weeks (which compromises your morals) - we decided on the latter (so much for morals!).
3. not all brands fit baby the same way, so you may need some trial and error to find out what works best for you
Overwhelming, isn't it?
So after all that investigation, we decided on AI2s (specifically the Flip system) since we figured they be a good balance between price, convenience, and versatility. But just to be on the safe side, we registered for a few prefolds, pockets, and AIOs as well. Hopefully it's fun to play around with these, and hopefully we made some good choices.
If anyone has any cloth diapering advice for us, please let us know!
Friday, December 9, 2011
Baby looks healthy!!!!!
All parts seem present and accounted for. Brain is symmetrical. No gross evidence of club foot, cleft palate, or major genetic/anatomical abnormalities. Due date is still 4/25/12.
Woohoo!!!
Email me if you want to know the gender! Only caveat is that you can't tell my dad or mike's dad, as they want to be surprised. Oh, and you can't buy baby anything obnoxiously pink or baby blue :)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
still nervous
I find it really hard to believe that we're done with week 20 tomorrow! Half way - whew! (Although, not really halfway if you think about the fact that you don't know you're pregnant until after 4 weeks. So really, hitting week 22 would be the halfway point of knowing that I'm pregnant.)
Anyway, I still keep waiting for things to really seem real. I'm more open to talking about pregnancy with people (early on I was afraid to say anything for fear of jinxing it), but I still feel like we have all these milestones to pass. First it was getting pregnant. Then staying pregnant past week 8. Then finishing the first trimester. Now it's getting through our big ultrasound on Friday. Then it will be getting past week 25, when my coworker lost her baby. Then getting past week 28-30 when baby will be "viable." Then getting to week ~37 to be full term. Then keeping baby alive after s/he's born. Then all the anxieties about parenting.....
So maybe there is no time when the anxiety goes away? At least I'm thankful that my anxiety has decreased (marginally) since the early days. Although I would feel a lot better if I could feel movement! (My doctor says it looks like I have an anterior placenta, so I may not be able to feel anything until week 22-25. Ugh!) Right now it just feels like I've eaten several very large dinners in a row.
So if you see me, please tell me that I have a cute baby bump, because that will help reassure me. And if you have any spare "good vibes" to send our way for Friday, that would be much appreciated as well!
Anyway, I still keep waiting for things to really seem real. I'm more open to talking about pregnancy with people (early on I was afraid to say anything for fear of jinxing it), but I still feel like we have all these milestones to pass. First it was getting pregnant. Then staying pregnant past week 8. Then finishing the first trimester. Now it's getting through our big ultrasound on Friday. Then it will be getting past week 25, when my coworker lost her baby. Then getting past week 28-30 when baby will be "viable." Then getting to week ~37 to be full term. Then keeping baby alive after s/he's born. Then all the anxieties about parenting.....
So maybe there is no time when the anxiety goes away? At least I'm thankful that my anxiety has decreased (marginally) since the early days. Although I would feel a lot better if I could feel movement! (My doctor says it looks like I have an anterior placenta, so I may not be able to feel anything until week 22-25. Ugh!) Right now it just feels like I've eaten several very large dinners in a row.
So if you see me, please tell me that I have a cute baby bump, because that will help reassure me. And if you have any spare "good vibes" to send our way for Friday, that would be much appreciated as well!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Thank you!
I have some pretty awesome friends and family.
Today I am thankful for:
1. Santa (aka Jack and Marsha), who left an early Christmas present on our back steps last Friday. I finally have something to wear other than the 2 pairs of maternity pants I've had in rotation for the past several weeks! Plus, I have some shirts to wear now that my regular shirts are starting to get too small. (I really did pop!)
2. Megan, who loaned me her entire maternity wardrobe!! Not only are we the same size (long/tall pants and everything!), she is much more stylish than I am, so I have some snazzy outfits to look forward to. :)
3. Dotty, who is hosting a friends' shower for us!
4. Louise, Janice, Anne, Leah, and Ashley, who are hosting a family shower for us!
There are so many other of you that I am thankful for as well! Thank you all!!
Today I am thankful for:
1. Santa (aka Jack and Marsha), who left an early Christmas present on our back steps last Friday. I finally have something to wear other than the 2 pairs of maternity pants I've had in rotation for the past several weeks! Plus, I have some shirts to wear now that my regular shirts are starting to get too small. (I really did pop!)
2. Megan, who loaned me her entire maternity wardrobe!! Not only are we the same size (long/tall pants and everything!), she is much more stylish than I am, so I have some snazzy outfits to look forward to. :)
3. Dotty, who is hosting a friends' shower for us!
4. Louise, Janice, Anne, Leah, and Ashley, who are hosting a family shower for us!
There are so many other of you that I am thankful for as well! Thank you all!!
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