Rockin the Suburbs

So here is the 34 weeks photo… ugh!

34 weeks

Had a wonderful baby shower on Sunday. So special thanks to Sue, Jen, Kathleen and Mom for such a great event! The theme was “Baby Bling” and Jen did a spectacular Tiffany-themed cake. the jewels inside were edible! We also had brownie lolly-pops and a watermelon baby stroller. So fun!! I wish I would have thought to take a picture of the crowd – but we all had a lot of fun!

baby shower cake with bling!

awww – down to the last detail

Unnamed person: “Hey Steph, when are you due?”

Me: “September 25 [insert big sigh]”

Unnamed person: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yeah, pretty sure – it ain’t 1860 anymore”

Unnamed person: “How tall is your husband again?”

…

In other words – yes, I am a giant cow – and WTF? Sue assures me that Erich was a perfectly normal size at birth.

30 weeks – 10 more to go!

Yep, can’t see my feet. Which would probably explain all the tripping! Oh well… Saturday will start week 29, almost three-quarters done!

So I did the baby registry yesterday – and that was probably the worst experience of the pregnancy (yes, worse than throwing up every 4 hours). I went to Babies R Us since that has the most stores around and just about had a panic attack or seizure trying to weed through all the crap. I was trying to keep it simple… but they design those stores the way they design casinos. They want you to ping-pong around inside for awhile and hopefully get you to buy stuff off the endcaps. Then I went to Target for those of you in babies r us free zones and basically had the same problem. I was looking for more neutral things – teals and grays and dots or whatever so that if we have another baby and it’s a boy I could use this stuff over again. Well these retailers have figured that little trick out – most everything is PINK or BLUE. the only middle ground is a green that I think is just terrible – really bright and neon-ish. So to my future son I say, man up – strong boys can wear pink too! Ugh – what a horrible experience.

Oh, and I would like add that E and I are not opposed to hand-me-downs – if you have something that is in good condition and you think we need or could use, by all means we’re perfectly content with that. We are TRYING to keep it simple and not get bogged down in the over-conveniences of the modern baby.

Huge! I feel gi-normous… and I think this picture is a fantastic illustration

Johnny, Steph, Veronica and Erich

She lays diagonally with her head next to my belly button and her little butt in my ribs on the left and her pointy little feet are jammed in between my ribs on the right (I have a bruise!) ugh kid, flip over!

Yes, her name will be Veronica. The whole name will probably be Veronica Isabella. Initials: VIM, which is roman numerals for 994. or VI which is roman for 6. I think Six will be the closest nickname we have for her.

I thought I’d post a general update.

Construction continues on the bathroom. There were some tricky framing obstacles, so we ended up hiring a carpenter to re mediate them for us. So now the walls in the bathroom are probably the strongest in the house! They also fixed some previous bad decisions by other renovators (don’t cut giant notches in the boards that hold the house up – just an FYI). So here is the progress.

the green line of tape on the floor represents where the bathtub will be when it arrives. the line on the wall is for the tile. We have some more stuff to finish up, then the window will get replaced, probably next weekend. Then it’s just drywall and tile! (ha ha) I’ll probably head to the tile store on Friday afternoon to see what is what. I have an idea of what I’m going to do. Samples here and here.

As far as the biological construction project everything is going very well. I am well and the peanut kicks and kicks and really likes to sit diagonally with her butt in my ribs on the left and her bony little feet crammed in my ribs on the right side. I just had a short massage here at work (Massage Day!) and the masseuse was able to move her down a bit. I swear I just took my first deep breath in a week! (awesome)

I’ll try and get a new picture up – since we’re at week 25 and bump-tacular!

I thought I’d post an update that all is well and we are all doing just fine. Little Frankie is growing like mad (and consequentially, so am I) My new catch phrase is “I’m hungry”. I don’t have the courage to look at the scale too often, but I don’t think I am getting out of control. (Although I do make and eat one pan of brownies every week…and it takes all my self control not to just eat the whole thing instead of dinner – lets face it… in addition to dinner!)

E and I have been shopping and making decisions on what sort of nursery we are going to have, how ridiculous we are going to be about furniture etc… We were looking at a “lifetime” set of furniture… but then I thought back to my own childhood and remembered some stories from Erich, thought about my brothers furniture and noted some stories from our niece and decided that is a ridiculous notion and I am going to get something functional and practical. There is a cute dresser at IKEA that I like and Target has cribs that are reasonably priced. I came to the realization while at Babies R Us or Buy Buy Baby (can’t remember which). That the baby crap industry and the wedding industry are close cousins… They know they have your attention for a limited amount of time and their goal is to sell you as much junk as possible before you wise up. So now our motto is “keep it simple, stupid”

Here is a photo of the bump taken a few weeks ago and last night… expansion happens!

May 19th – 21 weeks

April 20th – about 18 weeks

update: The Doctors office called and our ultrasound was “completely normal”

We had our ultrasound last night and Frank is a girl! whoo-hooo! Of course this just proves many of Erich’s theories, namely the more convinced I am about something the more likely it’s the opposite. But I am no where near disappointed. I can’t wait to meet our little baby girl! Here’s the first pictures:

I think she looks like Erich already – she’s got his cheeks!

Here is some video of her moving around:

Yep – finally. E and I can say that we will be pleased to welcome a new baby on September 25. I am 15 weeks along and so far all is well, with the peanut anyway.

The following post is the saga of how we got here if you are interested… I was just putting down all the stuff I couldn’t say in case this time went like all the others.