Baby blog #5

There are all sorts of thoughts and conversations one has with oneself when pregnant that you would never imagine coming up. Such as the term "mommy." Mommy has always been a term to refer to MY mommy. Or the mommy of friends who are also my age. Yes, my mommy has a mom, but she's grandma to me. So when the moment comes that one has the conversation with oneself about the appropriate time to be referred to as "mommy".. it's kind of a strange, almost debate with your own thoughts. "I'm not mommy- not yet".."Well I guess I could refer to myself as the mommy of our baby"... "It's still to weird to say it out loud, I'll wait"... "Did I really say mommy out loud? I must be getting used to the idea"... "No- saying mommy about myself is still too weird."... "Oh man, 10 weeks left and then I'm going to be a mommy. Wait, I'm going to be a mommy. I'm going to be a mommy? Weeeeiiirrd." (haha- now you have insight into my odd thoughts)

Another thought that I had this morning was that, oh ya, Joel will be there to help. It was an "ah ha moment" as the commercials say. I'm glad I didn't make this discovery while talking to someone because I'm sure they would think "Duh.." But hear me out. So far.. It's pretty much been all me. I mean, Joel contributed some genetics, but after that it's been all me. I carry the baby. I feel the movements. I get sick due to baby. I'm the one with this motherly attachment already. I'm the one getting things ready for when baby comes. I bring up the conversations of names, furniture, choices, ideas. And finally, I'm the one who will be doing the actual giving birth!  So you can see how my mental mind almost forgets that after we have the baby, Joel can be an active participant as well. If we hypothetically went on a family camp out with a baby, Joel can take care of him too! It's really an amazing thought :) Or rather, a stress relieving thought. Thanks honey for all the help I know you'll give :)

Summer

In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned that Joel and I are trying a new thing for dinner. The 4-week meal planner. It's actually going really well aside from my 'random craving' days. Having a meal plan for the whole week has really helped us both financially and nutritionally. We spent right around $60 for two weeks of groceries. That's pretty good if you ask me! The fun part has been being able to try new things. We've made a home made alfredo sauce for fettuccine alfredo (way better than canned stuff!!!!), we made a salad with lime vinaigrette last night (had a new flavor but definitely way healthier than smothering it in ranch...plus we made the vinaigrette ourselves), we made a spiniach lasagna that was actually pretty good (and if you know me you know I'm not a lasagna fan). Overall, I think the best part of the meal planning is that we have side dishes with our meal instead of just a main dish. It's helped us eat smaller portions of the food as well as incorporated a bigger variety of food groups. A balanced diet definitely hasn't been my forte in the past.

As for the vacation I mentioned earlier as well... wonderful!! We left early on a friday (I mean, we were packed and on the highway by 6am) and drove the 9 hours to the coast. What a long drive!! Luckily my hubby was kind enough to let me sleep if I needed, so I only suffered through half the trip. Each day in Newport, we did something new and had so much fun. We really enjoyed the free things we were able to do because they were surprisingly the neatest things. By the time Tuesday came though, I was pretty tired of seafood. We had a great time going to beaches, exploring tide pools, eating the food, visiting the shops.. it was great. The ride home was another story. We made it safe, don't get me wrong. But I was so ready to be home. Joel and I were pretty tired of seeing the signs that said "Road Work Ahead, Fines Double"... Oregon, take down the construction signs when you're NOT using them anymore. We got caught in quite a bit of construction on our way back too. My favorite part of the whole trip was talking to Joel and being able to laugh at ourselves. We are strange people when we're by ourselves. We discovered that we both felt a "bond" to a car we'd been following for a couple hours. Strange, I know. I guess we were both just tired of being tourists. So... Car that we followed that was also from Idaho AND the same county as us- we enjoyed following you and getting annoyed when slow pokes got between us :) ...haha... As fun as going on vacation was, it was nice to be home. Your own bed, your own dishes. It's just nice.

My baby shower is getting close. Eeeee! Am I excited? Oh yes! Registering was lots of fun. The things people have invented just for a baby are sometimes neat and sometimes- well, lets just say my mom and I would say "seriously... someone is selling this?" I enjoyed it though. I wish I could be there when the people I invited go shopping. I just want to buy things so I would live vicariously through my guests :) I guess that's what presents are anyways. (Things people buy, haha)

My summer is luckily busy! Starting with the weekend of Joel's birthday: Vacation to Newport, Joel's work party/ Father's day, Mom's birthday, 4th of July, Baby shower, family reunion, Sister and 2 brother in laws birthday. I mean, June- July is packed every weekend. I'm so grateful for that because I know I'm going to be miserable in the heat and in the anticipation. August... that's another story. August will probably go by way too slow for my liking (since Bentley isn't due until the first week of September). That's it for now.

Baby blog #4

The emotions that come along with being pregnant can sometimes be overwhelming and annoying. In the moment, I feel right and completely understandable, but upon reflection I find how silly my reasoning is. It seems that the only time I am truly aware in the moment of how silly my emotions are is when I am crying. Last night for example, I was listening to the news as I got ready for bed and a story of a kitten riding from Utah to Provo, ID in the engine compartment of a vehicle comes on. Kitten was fine, just suffered minor injuries. But me... I'm sobbing without any hope of stopping, thinking of the poor kitty and it's feelings and it's injuries and all the things I imagine it was going through (as if it were human non the less). But it was fine.. and was going to make a full recovery they said. I mean- sad story maybe.... but 10 minutes of uncontrollable crying... no. And the whole time I'm thinking, "of all the stupid things I can cry about." Luckily I was able to successfully hide from my husband while I worked at stopping the crying. He's pretty certain that every time I cry, it's his fault. I just didn't feel like having to say over and over "It's not your fault" because obviously I wasn't going to say "the stupid kitty story on the news is making me cry for 10 minutes even though it had a happy ending." haha.

When I feel the most stupid is when I look back on a disagreement or moment of anger I just had with Joel and realize yes, what he did was not the way I wanted it done, but no, it was not a very good reason to be angry or short with him. Thank you really supportive and understanding husband for not reacting negatively to my insane outbursts! Washing your face with my facial moisturizer would probably have been funny had I not been pregnant. :) Oh the 20/20 vision we have looking backwards.

As for dreams- I have been having a lot of strange dreams where I am with my ex boyfriends again. At first I would wake up guilty that I was dreaming of other guys. But upon reading a dream interpretation for pregnant woman's dreams, I feel a lot better. Apparently dreaming of previous relationships suggests that I am becoming bothered with my new appearance. And dreaming of previous relationships is a way of me feeling "desirable" or beautiful still. I didn't realize how conscious I was of my personal appearance until it was pointed out to me. Being pregnant, you do become very aware of everything on your body. Your skin, weight, clothing (ie- the way it fits or DOESNT anymore) So I feel safe in saying that my brain does not have some kind of other motive I am unaware of. (one starts to question themself when their dreams become progressively odd)

And as for baby Bentley- he has made his preferences known already. He likes sugary things. Fruit and ice cream (not together) in particular. He makes me crave very unhealthy things such as deep fried everything. He prefers that I sleep on my right side or else he kicks and throws a tantrum so mommy can't sleep or has a terrible urge to pee. He also prefers to inhabit the right side of my stomach. (However last night his head was just to the left of my belly button and his arms and feet were down the right side) He's a kicker, not a puncher. (I can tell because when he kicks, both his head and feet push on my tummy. And when he punches just one spot moves and it's generally not as strong) I feel a very strong willed child on the way. Only 11 more weeks till his due date. Luckily, May and June have gone by pretty quickly and July is filled with lots of things as well. So once July is over- then I'm sure the wait will become unbearable. Tick tock, tick tock.

Vacation here we come!

Well aside from the random people starting to touch my tummy, pregnancy is going well. For those people who I don't know or barely know... please don't touch my stomach. Just because I'm pregnant does NOT make it any less awkward than if I were to walk up to you and touch yours. Baby is moving less now, which makes mommy very happy. He still wiggles and moves around, but I can handle that. Those are usually slow movements and not quick, sharp jabs to the stomach and bladder. By the way- baby kicking bladder is also on my list of "could do without" list. :) Of course we get to pick our symptoms.


As for Joel and I- We are leaving for vacation tomorrow morning! Ya! We thought it would be a good idea to get one good vacation in before we had the baby. I've spent the past several days trying to deep clean the house so we have something nice to come home to. I always like the feeling of clean house after a vacation (and in general). Hopefully we have a safe drive there and back. Newport, OR here we come :)

Baby blog #3

This blog is going to be titled "Gas: I hate you!" Being pregnant sure gets your insides all out of wack. One of the many joys (for me) is dealing with gas pains. You know, the kind that just doesn't want to go one way or another so it just makes you hurt on the inside. Ugh! Every time I get bad gas pain I have to evaluate myself to make sure I'm not having contractions or Braxton hicks contractions (false ones for those who don't know that). I think every woman goes through these panics and conversations in their heads of "what was that?" "is everything still okay?!" And of course it has been every time. Just a little taste of what it'll be like once he gets out.

There is good news though. You always have to look at the good things. Like... because your uterus grows and shares the same space as your stomach, you throw up less because your stomach is smaller. :) Always gotta see the positive. I'll let you know more positives that I find. :) That's it for today though. Nothing exciting.

Baby blog #2

Apparently acknowledging that you have weird dreams due to pregnancy sets off this explosion of strange dreams! The past few nights I have slept terribly because of my dreams. We have a humidifier in our room and I dreamt that it wasn't working because I for some reason turned it upside down when I turned it on. I almost apologized to Joel the next morning for it not working. Last night was another strange dream. As I was tossing and turning trying to fall asleep, Bentley was also tossing and turning I guess. He was VERY active... good reason I couldn't sleep... So in my dream that night, I had a dream that he was moving around a lot and I was watching my stomach move (like always). Then I decided that I wanted to see if I could figure out where his head and feet and what not were. So I look down and my tummy was kind of see through and HEY... toes. So I grab them and was like "aww here are his toes on his little bitty feet". I feared in my dream that I would hurt him if I kept holding onto his toes since he moves around so much. I guess it's not as strange of a dream as the last one I reported but when you wake up and remember these things, thoughts like "as if I could grab his toes... honestly" and "...a see through belly??" tend to creep into your mind.The logic just isn't there when you're sleeping.
Yesterday was Bentley's active day. He wiggled SO much that I was able to record about 3 minutes of quite a bit of movement. The weirdest part is seeing your stomach jerk sideways and watch a lump move around. The video is cool to have. I have also found slight joy in being able to feel a hard lump in my stomach every so often. It must be him with his back towards my belly button or something. Only been able to feel that 2 or 3 times, but it's kind of neat. So close to holding him and yet so far.
Joel and I are doing well otherwise. We're trying something new for dinner. We are generally terrible at thinking up meals to make and often end up eating unhealthy things. So now we're trying something new. We've made a 4 week meal plan and each week has a grocery list and nutrition information. Hopefully it's something we can keep doing. It's gone well so far. Wish us luck.