Y’all: I will be officially 36 weeks pregnant tomorrow.
This means that the arrival of this baby is startlingly close, and it also means that the Heather Drive Baby Pool is about to close—tomorrow (Tuesday) at 9 p.m. Eastern, to be exact. So if you want to get in on the action and have a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card, you best be making your bet guess right away.
If you missed the details (including all terms and conditions, only one entry per person, yada yada) the first time, the link to all of the information is here: Step Right Up: It’s a Baby Pool!
Otherwise, you can go straight to the entry page here: Heather Drive Baby Pool
PLEASE remember to enter your email address in the “How do you know the parents?” field so we have a way to easily contact you should you win.
Good luck! Now all we do is anticipate this baby’s arrival. When will the big day be?? I can hardly stand it.
A while back, I did a post compiling recent “Nora-isms” as a way to share the funny, but mostly just document, things that Nora says and does. I’ve been working on this one for a while, adding things over time. Seems like it’s about time I actually hit “publish”! :)
After we got home from work/daycare one night, Michael ran upstairs to shower. Nora kept asking me where he was, so I told her that he was in the shower because he was dirty and smelly. Nora was sitting at the table doing puzzles or coloring or something when Michael came down from shower. When she saw him, she said, “Daddy, are you nice and clean now?”
It was raining as we left the house one morning. Standing in the garage, Nora said, “Oh no, it’s raining!” I said, “I know, what do we say to the rain?” As we ran out to the car, her little voice started singing (and I chimed in), “Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.” Nora paused for a beat and then, as I was loading her into her car seat, said, “It’s not working!”
We often talk to Nora about her day at daycare, what she did, and we ask what the other kids do, too. Her answers will vary by the day for most of the kids, but there is one child—the only boy—for whom her answer is ALWAYS the same. We ask her, “Nora, what does Liam do at Mary’s?” Her answer, without fail, is always “Play cars.” If we ask her “Does he play with blocks?” or “Do you play with him?” the answer is always “No.” One day, we changed the follow-up question to “What else does Liam do?” Nora’s answer: “Nothing.” Totally cracked us up. I texted Liam’s mom—a friend of mine from way back in 1st grade, actually—and she died laughing, too! I guess it sounded pretty accurate.
Browsing a picture book about animals, Nora was telling me about the animals she was seeing. She pointed, “Baby chicks!” And then, her attention was drawn to a little brown spot on the back of a baby chick… “Went poo poo,” she added. Allllllriiiighty then. :)
Sitting next to Tessa on the couch one morning, Nora was taking Tessa’s front paw and putting it into her own palm. “Tessie high fives!” she exclaimed.
As usual, Michael was singing to Nora. And as usual, she wasn’t having it. But her response was new! Suddenly, “Stop singing! My ears hurt.”
Nora and I were sitting on the couch one morning reading books. Michael came downstairs in his boxer briefs and T-shirt to grab his shorts out of the dryer. But before doing so, he decided to mess with Nora. He came into the family room where we were and asked, “Nora, how do I look?” Her first reaction was, “Good!” But then I said, “What about his shorts?” Nora glanced down at Michael’s legs and then got this incredulous look on her face. “Daaadddddyyy…” she said. Then, unexpectedly, “TOO TIGHT!” Michael and I just about died.
On yet another rainy morning, Nora was in her rain coat. At a stop light, I look back and she was pointing to the Oshkosh logo embroidered on her sleeve. Out of the blue, she said, “Mommy, coat says, NO MORE RAIN!”
At the dinner table on my mom’s birthday, we asked Nora if she could wink. We showed her how to do it, and of course, as she attempted for herself, she closed both eyes (with great exaggerated movements) instead of just one. When she caught on that she was closing both, she took her hand and attempted to pry open/hold open one of her eyes while “blinking” with the other! What a goof.
While we were eating dinner one night, Tessa was misbehaving by being a “shark” around Nora’s chair. Jumping up onto Nora’s chair to grab any little morsel of food, and just generally being annoying. Michael finally got fed up and grabbed her and took her to her crate in the other room. As soon as Nora heard the door to the crate close, she started crying. “What did Tessie do?” she asked. She proceeded to go on a several-minutes-long schpeel about how “Daddy no tease Tessa” and “Be NICE to her!” and “Tessie in crate make me MAD!” and more. It honestly made me tear up a little bit because it was the first time I had seen her really, truly feel emotions for someone else besides herself. Yes, it was the dog, but she was so upset that Tessa was being punished—it was too sweet. AND I was so tremendously proud of her because she expressed her feelings so well using words! It wasn’t a tantrum, it wasn’t a bratty demand. It was seriously a conversation with Michael about how she felt, why she felt that way, and what she wanted him to do to help fix it. So big!
Well, hell, I’ll just start off with the big news of the week—I somehow managed to gain FIVE POUNDS in the two weeks since my last appointment. I have never, in all the appointments involved with my two (successful) pregnancies, gained that much weight in such a short period of time.
Whoops.
The funny thing is that I don’t really know WHY. It’s not like I’ve suddenly taken to eating a lot more than is typical for me. I’ve found myself wondering if it’s “true” weight gain or if I was just caught on a bad day this time (retaining water or something?). You better believe that now I’m curious and will be weighing myself at home over the next few days to see if it goes back down at all. I just have to know!
I’m trying to relax a little and chalk it up to the fact that I had a little catching up to do since I lost a decent chunk of weight while I was in the hospital for appendicitis during the second trimester. And hello, I’m also trying to put it into perspective—the 5-pound gain puts me up to a total of 21 lbs. gained so far this pregnancy, which is within perfectly normal range. In fact, it puts me within a pound or two of where I was at this point in my pregnancy with Nora. So I’m not going there, believe me. I’m not all, “GOD, I’M HUGE” or anything like that. But weight gain during pregnancy is different for everyone and this has just never been my experience until now. And who knows, it very well may even out in the end. It was just a little bit of a shock. I hate the scale!
34 Weeks Pregnant
Weight gain aside, the belly itself is still measuring small. After seeing the scale, I half expected to see a big growth spurt on the part of my uterus, too, but no. I’m measuring 31 cm (only up from 29.75 cm two weeks ago). Whatever—my doctor seems pretty “over it” at this point since we had the growth ultrasound that showed the baby’s growth to be right on track, fluid levels to be normal, good blood flow from the placenta, etc.
My blood pressure is also still looking good. It was 107/78 today. Starting to pay more attention to those numbers now since this was around the time in my pregnancy with Nora when my blood pressure started “creeping up,” which went unnoticed by me until my doctor called it to my attention to it at 38 weeks. At that time, I was diagnosed with “late-gestation hypertension,” which didn’t end up causing me any real problems, but was leading to my doctor planning induction shortly before my due date. Thankfully, I went into labor with Nora on my own before that ever had to happen. I’ll be curious to see if I follow the same pattern this time or if the blood pressure remains a non-issue.
I have another doctor’s appointment in two weeks, at which point I will begin going EVERY WEEK! Crazy.
So that’s the state of my size and my health. :) At home, we’re working on getting ourselves prepared for this baby. Michael and I took a trip up to IKEA last week to buy some new furniture for Nora’s room so we could move the dresser (which matches the crib) into the baby’s room. The painting in the nursery is done, so Michael got it all cleaned out and we put together the crib in there. Want to talk about something making the impending arrival of this baby feel more real? It was seeing that crib ready and waiting. Wow.
There’s still a lot to do before this baby’s arrival. The room is still mostly bare so there is some decorating in order, and we want to get the closet doors installed. We have some shopping to do, too—just a few things that we need new for this baby. We have to dig a bunch of baby stuff out of the basement and do some laundry.
I’ve excitedly begun purchasing cloth diapers to help build up the stash again. I ordered a few newborn all-in-ones last week and when they arrived in the mail, I just about died from the cuteness. SO TINY. I can’t believe I’m going to have a baby that small to fit into those diapers. Freaking adorable.
We haven’t taken any maternity photos this time—we DIYed them last time!—and I don’t know what we’re going to do. I really wanted to have someone take them for us this time around since I’d like some nice ones including Nora (and she’s so hard to photograph right now!), but I don’t think it’s going to happen. We are replacing our furnace and central air conditioner next week which is a big investment, so we’ve been trying to pinch pennies in other areas. Getting professional newborn/family photos is a must come the baby’s birth, so I may just have to sacrifice maternity photos. Blah.
There’s a lot to do, and time is running out. And that means that time is about to start flying.
We are only six weeks away from my due date, and reality is starting to set in that our cozy little family of three is about to be rocked by a new person. Looking at Nora, I’ve started to get a little sad that we don’t have much longer with her being my ONLY baby.
While we have the opportunity, I decided I want to take her out on a few “dates”—special outings, just the two of us. I know I’ll need to make time for these one-on-one outings once the baby is here, too, but right now it’s markedly easier so I want to take advantage.
When I picked up Nora from daycare today, I asked her if she wanted to go someplace special with Mommy. I told her that we were going on a date to eat pizza—”just you and Mommy.” A small smile crossed her face and she immediately said, “No Daddy? And no Tessie, either!” And then she told me she wanted pepperoni. Easy to please! :)
We stopped home first so I could change my clothes and Michael could see Nora for a few minutes. He jokingly asked her a few times if he could come with us, and Nora kept telling him, “No, Daddy! Just me and Mommy! Mommy DATE!” I loved to see how fast she had latched onto the idea of this being a special thing for just the two of us, and how excited she was for it.
On our way out the door, I grabbed the camera so I could document our date with some photos.
Only included this one because her hair was PERFECTION today. God, I wish I had her curls!
Nora loved the pizza, and I loved the opportunity to sit across from her and talk to her about her day. We do that every night at dinner, really, but it was different when it was just us, in a special place, bonding over pizza. :)
After dinner, we took a walk nearby the pizzeria. Nora had a ball running around, finding flowers, jumping over cracks in the sidewalk, playing with her shadow, throwing stones in the water, and commenting on the people around us.
Nora eventually got a little crabby and was clearly getting tired from walking so much. We headed back to the car, which she protested a bit—she didn’t want to go home!
When we were walking, we saw some people with ice cream and of course Nora was interested in a “treat” and as we were making our way back to our car, kept asking me for a “snack.” Since we had already indulged in pizza for the evening, I told her she could have a peach when we got home. The girl loves her fruit! We’ve been spending a fortune on produce lately—so much good summer fruit right now.
During bath and bedtime routine, Nora kept leaning in to give me a thousand kisses. “One more kiss,” she kept saying. Heart-breakingly cute, and I had to wonder if she was feeling so loving because she had so much fun with her mommy. :)
We’re definitely going to have to try to fit in another date or two before the baby makes his/her arrival. And I think Nora needs to get in a couple of Daddy-Daughter dates, too!
Do you go on “dates” with your kids? What are your favorite things to do with them for special one-on-one time like this? I had trouble coming up with ideas, especially for weeknights.
I’m late getting this post up this week, but figured better late than never. Too bad my 34-week post will be “due” in a couple of days here. I’m full of excuses every week, aren’t I?? :) Anyway, this week’s pics are from 33 weeks, so just pretend I typed this up on time.
Things are going well, I just had a busy week. Work has been a little nuts, and it’s getting really weird with each passing week, knowing that I’ll soon be out for a long time. It’s crazy to think about.
Nora photo-bombed a few of my pics this week. It was the cutest!
Love her hugging my leg. How fun it is to be this little one’s mommy. :)
Anyway, back to the one we’re still waiting to meet… I had my growth ultrasound and as suspected, things looked fine. Baby’s measurements were all within normal ranges. In fact, they estimated the baby to be about 4.5 lbs., which was the 66th percentile. Normal fluid, normal blood flow from placenta. Baby has been head down, which is obviously good. So now we just wait and see what my measurements are like over the next several weeks.
We had the nicest ultrasound tech this time. She was so bubbly and happy, and really seemed to share in the excitement of her patients. I love when people love their jobs like that! She took a lot of extra time to try to get a 4D picture of the baby’s face for us. Even when I was like, “It’s OK…” she was all, “No! I’m not giving up yet!” The problem was that the baby would not move its hand out of its face. It sounded awful familiar, since I had an ultrasound while in the hospital at 23 weeks where the tech also had to work hard to get a pic of the face—because baby’s FEET were in the way! This little one is just not going to make it easy on us to get a sneak peek at him/her. This was the best one we got:
Over on the right, you can see the baby’s left profile. A closed eye, the little nose, and lips/mouth. And CHEEK! It actually looks like a baby now. I can’t believe that’s my CHILD. Pregnancy is so surreal. But don’t worry if you can’t see it. Even Michael had a really hard time until the tech took a few moments to really point everything out in detail.
We had a few nice evenings this week when we were able to take family walks. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do such a thing since Nora refuses to go into the stroller. Any walk we’ve taken in recent months has been with her in her Step 2 push car, which is better than nothing, but is not conducive to the long walks we like. Finally, I had a brilliant idea: A good bribe. We gave Nora a Dum-Dum sucker and not only did she go into the stroller, but she stayed quiet/happy the whole time. By the time we got home from a 2+ mile walk, she was not even halfway through the sucker (or lollipop, I know “sucker” is a regional thing, ha!). SCORE! I know bribes are bad and all, but hey, sometimes you have to do what you have to do to do what YOU wanna do. You feel me? :)
At any rate, on these walks, Michael and I had some time to talk about things. And one of the topics that came up were the BABY NAMES. And guess what? I think we’ve decided. We were having a hard time with the girl’s name in particular. Once we were pretty sure on the first name, the middle name was a big challenge, too. BUT we did it. At least I think we did. We’ll see what happens when the baby is actually born. So, big news! Our baby (probably) has a name!
33 Weeks PregnantOther than all of that, we’ve still been plugging away on getting things ready around here. I have been working on finishing up the painting in the nursery, and starting to make plans for the whole cloth diaper situation.
Things are moving along!
(If you haven’t entered the Heather Drive Baby Pool yet, and want to, there is still time. Enter your guess today for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card!)
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
