Dreams

I had my first gender dream last night. I was at my ultrasound appointment, only it was today not Wednesday. I was in an office that I've never been to before, seeing a doctor I never saw before. When they did the ultrasound, it was more like they were taking a picture. They got a perfect picture of a full-term, fully developed little boy. And yes, it was very clear that it was a little boy.

Going by the Old Wives' Tales, this means I'm having a girl... Theoretically, what you dream you will have is the opposite of what you will have. I'd be interested in raw data behind this. Anybody who's had a baby recently remember what you dreamed you would have?

I also want to congratulate Christine and Paul on the arrival of Maura on Saturday!! (I know, I'm supposed to keep quiet, but I didn't link to you, Christine!) Best wishes to the new parents!

How I Spent My Day

Today was another big project day. Rearranging furniture and organizing files as well as moving all the junk around that we have to keep. I shredded about 5 plastic grocery bags' worth of documents that Brian had accumulated, as well as sorted and filed 2 years' worth of pay stubs and bank statements. I worked on this project from 10AM to 6PM with only a few short breaks in between. Whew! So this is what I have for my efforts: (Remember, these are kitchen pictures since I don't exactly have a nursery right now...)

This is the new shelving unit that replaced the glass shelves I had on this wall. It now holds most of what was on the potting bench.



This is, of course, the Pack 'N Play, which is where the potting bench used to be (right outside our bedroom door). I need to find a new spot for all those pots, though.


And of course, all the stuffed animals we've accumulated for Peep already!


I figured I easily earned over $100 for my efforts today (at least if you compare it to what I make at work for my time) so I gave myself a treat. I had been contemplating the issue of the 2nd stroller for Peep for a while now. I already purchased a Graco Metrolite LE during a moment of temporary insanity (blog of that moment can be found here). I mainly bought it because it worked with the Snugride carseat we bought and matched it. I didn't think much more about the whole thing. Now, all this time later, I've had time to read Baby Bargains and other people's reviews, as well as see how bulky it actually is even when folded up, and it's made me think. I really would like another less bulky stroller to keep in the Blazer. Then I don't have to worry about remembering to bring the stroller because it will always be there. And I wanted something that would maneuver well in places like the mall. Other women who are expecting around the same time I am have been talking about strollers on Fertility Friend lately which lead me to research Zoopers. As you might recall, we picked out a Zooper highchair already (which I doubt anyone will purchase for us, so we'll probably be buying that, too). I looked into what the book Baby Bargains had to say about them, as well as the message boards for the book. I had narrowed it down to the Rhumba or zStreet since I could get both at a huge discount on eBay from a very reputable seller. While I was initially looking for something like the Rhumba, the zStreet won out for all the extra features you get for only $12 more than the Rhumba, plus the fact that I can snap in the Snugride. Too bad I can't return my Metrolite! But anyway, since I worked so hard today, I bought myself the Zooper zStreet. Brian isn't too thrilled...he keeps saying we should let others buy us this stuff. But I told him this is a discontinued model at a huge discount (I read somewhere that they sold for $250+ when they first came out, and I was able to snag this for $92!). He also seems to forget that my family is quite frugal (and also prone to ignore registries) so I couldn't expect to get anything quality out of them anyway. There will be plenty of other things they can buy that we will need, but I wanted to make this choice for myself. So here it is, my new stroller-to-be:

Brian is going to kill me!!!!

Blogger Games

While trying to pass the time waiting for news about the impending arrival of a friend's baby, I thought I'd catch up on blogs. I found this game first on Kether's blog, but I better source it to the correct person which would be The Kept Woman. Here we go!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

"The Internet, of course. Case in point: Overstock.com, the premier liquidator of dot-coms. This company has an excellent web site that sells brand-new merchandise at 50% off and more."
Baby Bargains ~ Denise & Alan Fields

I'm so embarassed! Actually, that just happened to be next to the iBook because I was comparing something I found online yesterday with what the book said... But the rules were to "pick up whatever is closest" so I merely followed directions. :)

My kitchen, BTW, is a huge mess... This project isn't working out as planned. I better get back to it before it sends me over the edge!!

Plans

Big plans for this weekend. If I can get myself motivated, that is. I haven't been feeling too great this week and I'm TIRED. But I need to finish. As I've said before, our apartment is pretty small. But I decided I would show you. Granted, this isn't perfect... I took the sketch from work for the house and modified it as best I could to represent the room divisions and such. Technically, each floor is 777 square feet but there's a hallway to the other floors in the middle, so I usually estimate our apartment to be closer to 700 square feet. In the sketch, the hot pink areas inside the apartment are the unmoveable things (counter, tub, closets). On the outside the "FEP" and "FOP" are porches...you can ignore that. We have 3 entrances into our apartment... 2 in the kitchen (1 from the hallway, 1 from the FOP) and 1 in the living room (from the FOP in the middle). I tried my best to put boxes and such where our furniture is, but obviously, it isn't perfectly to scale.



As you can see, it's a bit cramped. The plan is to take the potting bench out of the kitchen (that's between our bedroom door and the hallway door) and store it at my MIL's house and put the Pack 'N' Play there in the kitchen so the baby will be close to our bedroom in the beginning. Obviously, there's no way it will fit in our room. But there are things on the potting bench so I plan on looking for a baker's rack to hold that stuff tomorrow. That baker's rack will go next to the fridge where I used to have another piece of furniture. Then in the baby's room (which is more like the junk room right now) we will move the desk to the outside wall, put the crib where the desk is currently, and take out the cabinet that the TV is on right now so there will be room for the armoire. Brian doesn't want to move the TV out of there, though, so I will be looking for a corner stand so I can put it between the armoire and desk. It might just work!



Ambitious, I know, but now's the time to do it. I've gotten a lot accomplished, but I still need to do this before I'll be happy.

EDITED TO ADD: I'm at home now comparing my rendering to the real thing and I'm off... the hallway is wider, thus making it so that the baby's bedroom wall doesn't meet up with the kitchen/living room wall. Our bedroom wall is in a direct line with the end of the closet/tub, too, so there's no corner area in the kitchen there. Oh well, I'm not an expert at this sort of thing. You get the idea at least. :)

Where Did This Stuff Come From?

Over the past couple months (well, longer really if you count during the summer during my last pregnancy) I've been on a decluttering mission. I'm so sick of the *stuff* that's everywhere. We live in a 700 square foot, 4-room apartment and there's only so much room. What's really sad is that we voluntarily moved here from a 250 square foot larger apartment when we bought the house. But that's neither here nor there right now. In any case, this has been an on-going battle. We ditched a lot during the tag sale in August, and I've donated and tossed quite a bit since then. Yet, we still don't have enough room. This evening I tackled another project I had been thinking about for a while: clearing off the 3-tiered glass and iron shelf in the kitchen. It was supposed to be for decorative purposes, but since there is a marked lack of counter and cabinet space here, it ended up accumulating a variety of junk instead. I finally got rid of enough junk that was on it to move the rest elsewhere and get rid of the shelf. I feel a real sense of accomplishment. But I'm still not done. I have at least 2 more pieces of furniture that need to go elsewhere so we can fit the baby's crib and armoire here. I also did some thinking about the items on our registry and removed the swing, realizing that we just don't have the space to devote to a monstrosity like that. The bouncy seat will be sufficient.

Who knew there would be so much preparation involved? And where did all this stuff come from anyway? Where were we hiding it? Sometimes it feels like I haven't made any progress at all, but there are mounds of things that have gone out our doors so it was all in here somewhere originally. I did learn one thing...no more knicknacks! No more dust accumulators! Because they'll just head back out the door in a few years when I go through another decluttering frenzy. :)

Holy Sh!t!

Literally! After coming across the link to Trixie on Kether's blog, I was intrigued. I went back to the beginning (as you can see by the link I provided) and was seriously freaked out by what I found. Okay, I knew there would be diaper changes 10-14 times a day. I knew from Kether that babies, especially boys, have a tendency to wet through their clothes requiring a change of attire in addition to diaper. But I was not expecting that babies actually get poop on everything on a regular basis. I knew about occasional blow-outs, but from what I've read about their adventures with Trixie, it sounds like this isn't an occasional occurrence. I don't think I'm ready for that. I don't know if I ever will be. And I have to admit that I am more than just a little bit grossed out by the whole thing.

I Am Officially Pregnant

I've crossed that line into the cravings zone. I was pretty smug before about how I didn't really have any cravings, just aversions, and how I was in complete control of everything. Then I saw the OB at 20 weeks, who told me to watch my empty calories, and it was like Peep decided it was time to start making demands. Yesterday I actually craved Ben & Jerry's Dublin Mudslide ice cream at 9:30AM....and tried to talk my boss, the office next door's boss, and even my brother into getting me some! I had some at home, but it would be another 3 hours until I would be able to go there and I wanted it NOW. Even 2 hours later, I could think of nothing else but Dublin Mudslide. Ironically, by the time I got out of work at 12:30PM, the crisis had passed. Double ironically, I've actually been really good about my portion sizes of the junk food. I eat only 1/4 pint at a time, which is a serving size, and no more than that in any given day. I mostly stick to the serving size of all of the junk food I've been eating. It's just the fact that I've been eating multiple types of junk food every day, without much interest in veggies or fruits, that's making me feel guilty. But heck, once I have this baby, I won't be able to eat like this anymore. So I guess I should just suck it up. At least I don't eat more than a serving's worth. ;)

Which reminds me. In the beginning, I had no interest in sweets and especially chocolate. I wanted crackers and baked chips mostly, and still ate my veggies. This was supposed to indicate a boy according to the Old Wives' Tales. But that's turned around entirely. Chocolate is a staple now and I'm even having dairy (in addition to cheese, which I have always craved, pregnant or not). I find myself drinking a huge glass of skim milk with my chocolate Pop-Tarts (which are at least fortified with vitamins!) and enjoying it immensely. I hate drinking milk, but here I am, enjoying it. Dairy and sweets cravings are supposed to indicate a girl. So which is it??? These Old Wives' Tales are so confusing and contradictory. Guess I'll just have to wait out the next 17 weeks 5 days to find out for sure. :)