Treat Yo Self

This past weekend my mother and sis-in-law invited me out for a girls day!

We met up and trekked down to Walnut Creek for a shopping spree at the "good" maternity store - A Pea In The Pod.

The goal was to get some comfy loungy clothes and a dress for my shower (actually the dress will be for 3 big events I have 3 weekends in a row in May/June - a wedding, my shower and another wedding).

My MIL said she'd up front she wanted to buy a little something for me on the trip, she's so sweet.  

Click to play

Oh these gals...they are GOOD shoppers.  Good shoppers + a good store + well, me...it was an expensive, but oh so fun day.  My MIL surprised me by picking up the entire tab which I was not at all expecting.  

Dress #1 we bought - SO cute and flattering

Dress (SPLURGE) #2 Nicole Miller - HOT mama!  This one is for my shower!

We then headed out to a fancy, yummy lunch at Lark Creek before going home.

While the shopping was fun, the hanging out was the best part.  I don't get to spend a lot of time with these ladies because well...life is busy for all of us...but it was nice to be invited out, spoiled and have a day for just us to laugh and talk and grow closer.

I came home with my new clothes (and a bouquet of really pretty flowers too from them ) and a deep satisfying sense of gratitude for these two ladies who care so much about me and baby boy B.

Daddy's First Kicks

This week, your Dad got to feel you kick for the first time.

I've been feeling the flutters and thunks for a couple of weeks now, but finally you're big enough that he can feel them when he puts his hands on my tummy.

He said it makes your arrival seem more real!  

You've started moving around a lot more.  You're hanging around low in my belly a lot less and I can feel your little hands and feet exploring up higher and towards both sides of my body too.

Some days you're very active and some days you're more quiet.  I really love night time when we're watching TV or laying in bed, that's when you move the most!

Being Nice to Pregnant Ladies

So far once, only once throughout my pregnancy has anyone commented on how BIG the belly looked.  It was a blow to my confidence, but I tried to take it in stride seeing as I am doing the best I can with exercise and food and oh you know…working full time and commuting and remodeling all while keeping track of 3 dogs, a horse, my husband and my sanity.

How I feel, I don't need reminding thankyouverymuch ;)

But today, I got a really nice compliment.  I got to tell a stranger I was expecting and she asked if it I knew if it was a boy or a girl yet.  No sooner than the words were out of her mouth did she say… 

“Nevermind, it’s so early on for you, you probably don’t know yet!”.

I thanked her for the BEST compliment ever…telling me {indirectly?} that I looked SMALL!

Why thank you for acknowledging my tininess today!

I then told her we’ve known for about a month that it’s a boy and that I’m 24 weeks along.

It's all so confusing!  Month 6, Week 24, 2nd Trimester

Advice...for your own health and well being, let alone the mother's self esteem, never use the words BIG, HUGE, LARGE, TWINS (unless you know for sure she's having them), or any other word synonymous with ENORMOUS around a pregnant lady.  This includes prego to prego too!  

Registered!

My shower invites went out...

SO cute!

With my registry info on them of course...

Only one small problem though...

I hadn't registered yet!

My friend Jen and I fixed that this past Saturday though.

To get ready for registering I sent an email out to a handful of my mommy friends who have boys to get their advice on what I needed (and didn't need).

The response was amazing and overwhelming.  11 pages of emails later I was able to whittle the list down to around a mere 100 "must have" baby items, gah!

After hyperventilating just a little over where exactly all this baby goodness was going to go in our little house I got excited to shop!

We went to Babies R Us since it's local to us.  We zapped and talked and himmed and hawed and ended up with a registry of about 90 items.  Phew!

Her little man was with us too, he's just the cutest.  He calls me "Kiku" and I will never ever correct him because I love my Auntie Kiku nickname picked specially for me all by his 2 year old self.  

I am so thankful for friends like Jen.  We've known each other since we were kids, grew up riding together, stayed friends throughout all of life.  She's a constant, tried and true. And she's a great mom to her little boy.  It meant the world to me to have her there helping me and guiding me as I navigated all the choices.

Overall I'm pleased with the selection and BRU, but many items felt generic.  I ended up doing a registry at Buybuy Baby as well to capture the cute factor.  Their selection of things like Aiden and Anais and other more 'designery' brands is more my style.  Here's a few of my fave registry picks!  

Halo bassinet

Graco SnugRide 40 

New Ergo baby carrier

City Select Jogger

Boon Drying Lawn

BabyGanics gift set

Aiden & Anais Giraffe Swaddle

Skip Hop Chevron Diaper Bag

Week 22

Week 22...getting bigger!

The word of the week is MOVEMENT!

Baby boy is moving and shaking...not all the time, but way more than he was in previous weeks.

The first big dance party happened last Friday night at Uncle Yu's with my good girlfriend.

Baby likes Chinese food?

After a few bites of Veggie Chow Mein baby was rocking and rolling, kicking and moving.  

It's the most I've ever felt him move and he didn't stop for seemingly hours.  In fact, we met up with hubs later on and baby was karate kicking me in the bladder the entire time.

It's so fun, and sort of startling all at the same time.  He's really in there!

The kicks are still very low in my abdomen, baby likes to hang out low low low, but this morning I'm feeling some low and some high in my stomach, so I think we've got arms and legs moving around now.

They didn't hurt, they just felt like little zings! 

At this point I've pretty much stopped riding Pongo.  My trainer said he felt a little funky so over the weekend I hopped on for our usual walk and bumbled around at the trot and canter just to feel for myself.  Yes, he felt a tiny bit foot sore, but nothing to warrant a vet call.  I called all his 'people' aka the chiropractor, farrier and massage therapist to give him one major spa week next week before he moves to his new barn for pasture board.

Feeling Baby Move

I've been waiting WAITING to feel this baby do something in here!

Finally at almost 23 weeks (and right on schedule to what my OB said) I am finally feeling him dance around.

I felt his first kick at 21 weeks.  I had just hopped in the shower, belly facing the stream of steamy water and he gave me one little jab in the lower abdomen.  

From there, I've felt flutters intermittently, but nothing that couldn't have been mistaken for something else going on in my belly.

But, at 23 weeks, he's there!  I only feel him a few times a day, usually around 9 or 10 in the morning at work and then again around 5 or 6 with sometimes some flutters/kicks while I'm laying in bed about to go to sleep.

The kicks are my favorite, because there's no mistaking that it's him.

Those little feet!  Keep on kicking buddy!

20 Questions

The baby questions...for me they’ve gone a little something like this…

Pre-Kids...

How many kids do you want?

Are you thinking of having kids?

Are you trying?

Are you pregnant?

Are you READY for kids?

While Preggers...

When are you due?

How many weeks are you?

Have you been sick?

How are you feeling?

Do you know what you’re having?

Are you going to find out what you’re having?

What do you want (gender)?

What does your husband want (gender)?

Did you want that?  (once you’re telling people the gender)

Have you thought of names?
Do you have a name? 
Are you telling the name? (usually followed by 'Come on, you can tell me the name'" after we tell them we are not sharing the name until he is born)

What’s the nursery going to be like?
Have you felt him moving?

Are you breastfeeding?

Are you having a c-section/giving birth naturally?

Where are you giving birth?

Are you going back to work?

What’s your maternity leave like?

Are you READY for kids?

The questions range from reasonable to absurd…my LEAST favorite is the “Are you READY for kids?” question.  Both my husband and I cringe, even though we know people are 99.99% well-meaning when they ask this of us and not actually questioning our ability to keep the baby alive.  We have 3 dogs a horse and each other and no one has kicked the bucket yet…we’ve endured broken bones with the horse, tummy aches from all the animals and this year the joys of major surgery for one of our jack russells.  Sleepless nights, poop in our bed…we’re experts.  

At least the baby can wear a diaper unlike one of our dogs who refuses to be housebroken (good thing for him he’s the cute one). 

VERY cute...VERY leaky!

I smile, I answer the questions asked as best I can and for that one annoying question I’ve just started saying “Well, if it turns out we’re not, are you volunteering to adopt him?”…haha!  I mean, there's no getting out of the predicament of pregnancy I'm currently in at this point in the game ;)

Aviation Themed Nursery Plans!

I found out Baby B is a boy on a Saturday and by that Sunday night, the nursery was planned.

For girl nurseries I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  Exactly.  Incidentally, the same goes for names!  We had not one but TWO girl names ready to go...boy names, not so much yet!

For a boy nursery I had no clue what I wanted to do.  As I thumbed through sites and looked at bedding and pinterest boards I got to thinking...

Since this is a boy room, what does his Dad like that could maybe be carried into his son's room?

My husband is into Jeeps and Airplanes.  Nearly every night as I am nodding off in bed, he is on his iPad watching youtube videos of airplane take-offs and landings.  It's his thing.  As I thought about this, I realized that is exactly what my guy and my new little guy are going to be doing together, rocking in a chair, late at night, watching those airplane videos. 

From there, the airplane nursery idea took flight!

The theme of the nursery is more vintage aviation than say Disney planes.  I wanted the room to have touches of 'baby', but not be overly colorful or cartoonish.  I wanted calm, cool colors with a old timey feel.

Luckily there was plenty to choose from! I started buying the pieces (which are from stores like Restoration Hardware - Baby, Pottery Barn, Pier 1, Pilotmall.com and wayfair).

The items have started arriving one by one!  We still need to pick out a crib and a rocker, but we're getting there!  The absolute Pièce De Résistance is the crib sheet...a flying jack russell doggie pattern from Aiden & Anais...it adds a touch of puppy dog personalization and baby whimsy too perfectly accent Baby Boy B's nursery.

Looks just like our dog Louie!

Lou-doggy

Grammy bought the steamer trunks, she found them at a Danville consignment store.

Social Media Reveal

This post is a bit late since we announced Baby B's arrival a couple of weeks ago (the day of the 20 week ultrasound).

Here's how we chose to tell the world...or at least those connected to us via instagram!

And on April Fools Day no less, but rest assured it was no joke!  Baby B is coming!

I used my horse, Pongo to help share the big news.  After all, he's one of my very first fur-babies.  I'll have had him for 8 years in September this year.  Time flies.