something happened... [halfway done]

i've "popped." as in, my tummy suddenly became HUGE. huge. see it? i woke up one day, looked down, and thought "THAT'S not going to go away, is it?" here we go.

hello, 18 weeks, what's up? oh, i look like i'm having a baby now? that IS good news. let's go by some stinkin maternity pants.

besides only being able to wear one pair of pants to work all week, i have no complaints. this pregnancy has been very, very mild thus far. i've had almost no weird or uncomfortable symptoms and i STILL don't feel any different, except for when i do in which case i usually feel better. example: i'm not quite sleeping how i was before i was pregnant, i'm sleeping better than i ever remember sleeping, ever. the only negative symptoms i've had are outrageous headaches and i actually think we're past the worst of those. yay! oh, and i'm blaming my regular acnes woes on being pregnant now. cause i can.

man, i need to start reading some books or something. i don't plan on any child birth classes but i'm starting to get nervous and i'm losing my "pft, i got this" attitude a little bit... i should at least read past page 30 of "what to expect when expecting," right? there's got to be something in there i don't already know [everything]. i should also probably pick up a book about natural child birth and figure out how all of THAT is supposed to work. i feel like there has to be a way to pop out a baby without pain meds and still live, adam and eve sure didn't have any epidurals to puncture spinal cords with, right? i have a pretty high pain tolerance but that doesn't mean i think this is going to be loads of fun. i've felt contractions, they were excruciating. i'm sure it'll feel different in a more giving-birthy circumstance but i don't know if that means it'll feel not as painful or more painful. mostly i'm just pretending i'm super extra brave but i honestly want a pain medication free childbirth because i'm a chicken and the thought of that epidural in my spine makes me sick every single time i think about. more sick than the thought of somehow pushing the offspring of craig out of my flimsy little body, so we're going with that one. so, someone remind me to get a good natural childbirth book, i need to read about how capable i am and how it's totally possible to get this baybay out of my uterus and into my arms.

wanna hear some good news? i can feel him. all the time. on sunday night as i was dosing off i felt him tumble and roll over or something in there, and then when we got off the space needle on monday he kicked me pretty good. and he hasn't stopped since. now i've felt him repeatably throughout the day for the past two day, all the time. he's having dance parties in there or something, it goes between the feeling of soft feathers moving up against me to rather forceful thumping, usually in my lower rightish area. we're going to have to have a talk about his raucous behavior before the neighbors start complaining. i can't wait until craig can feel him! right now i pretty much just go "eek!" all the time and make crazy excited faces and no one else gets why i'm so excited. it'll happen. he's getting huge. HUGE!

i'm no where NEAR ready, but i CAN'T WAIT to have this baby out here and snuggling me all the day long. we're halfway done already!! i can't even believe it, we're halfway done with this thing and we're still alive and mostly sane! and in about another 18 weeks we're going to have a baby, and then we'll always always have a baby and we won't be young, immature newlyweds anymore, we'll be ADULTS with CHILDREN! well, we'll probably still be a little immature...and young...and maybe i'm not an adult yet... heck. we have no idea how to be parents.

but we're so excited =]

lunch + niece

we have a secret chinese all you can eat buffet in our town. we've driven past it a million times and only just the other day did we see the words "all you can eat" on the window. i'm so in.

it was one of those places where you put all the delicious things you want in a bowl and then very skilled men cook it up for you with giant flames.

the flour and egg drop soup was delicious. we all had a love affair with the sesame seed chicken.

i have a niece staying with me this weekend. she's lovely, and enjoying exploring portland while us old farts stay home and nap all day. i enjoy her face and feeding her.

you're so smoothie

i froze the last of the delicious strawberries and chocolate covered bananas from the edible bouquet craig gave me so that i could turn them into smoothies.

craig's smoothie had bananas and carmel ice cream and milk

shilah and squirt's smoothie had bananas and strawberries and milk.

once upon a time my daddy gave me this smoothie maker. he was in colorado at the time and he left behind most of the contents of his suitcase so he could pack it and bring it home to me. how precious is that? =]

first trimester

disclaimer: low quality mac-book photobooth pictures are included with reading this blog. some days they just come with the package. i won't complain if you don't. deal? deal.

here is my first trimester post, finally. i've had it written out for a few weeks now but i never got around to taking [crappy] tummy pictures for it until today. now that i'm almost 16 weeks, instead of barely 12 weeks when i actually wrote my first trimester wrap-up, i've become much older and wiser and have decided to scrap the paragraphs upon paragraphs of monotonous summary i originally planned to inflict on you. categories and bullet points? psh, who has time for that. not this guy.

but in all honesty, when i read over everything i had written i realized this pregnancy can be summed up very easily: it's going great! i'm a little afraid to say this just in case i have to eat my words later, but it's been really quite easy. i hardly feel different and when i do i feel better. i haven't suffered from any sickness or nausea and i get to eat yummy, healthy things all the time. i've only gained about four or five pounds since my super low diet weight of 123 [you know, when i was on a hard core diet and then mysteriously stopped losing weight. you owe more for that, squirt]. by about week ten i was no longer feeling super tired and sleepy all day and i've had loads of energy ever since. i can stay up a little later and wake myself up early enough to get lots of stuff done before work. it's very exciting, especially since there's so much to get done [yikes...]

the only negative pregnancy symptom i've had so far are a bunch of blasted headaches. they happen about every other day, hurt from the back of my neck all the way to my forehead and temples, last all day long and only go away when i sleep and sometimes not even then. i'm actually hoping we're past the worse of them by now, the last couple days they've been less severe. i just drink lots of water and wait it out. they can't last forever!...right?

as for this tummy of mine, i think some of that bump is finally baby as opposed to just shilah-chubbys. he's supposed to be about five inches long now, at least, and my uterus is roughly the size of a grapefruit. so yesh, i should probably have a tummy. although, unless i've just eaten a cow, which i do often, i still don't feel like i look much bigger than when i started. i'm looking forward to when i look actually pregnant instead of just chunky. cause then i'm going for the maternity pants. yessir! no more rubber bands for me soon [seriously, awesome trick, you should try it].



oh oh oh! i had a weird pregnancy craving a while back. but only for like a second and then i was like, ew that sounds gross. i wanted peanut butter real bad but i remembered we were having hamburgers for dinner. so i wondered what if i put peanut butter on my hamburger :O only for a second, mind you, and then it was gone. when i told craig about it later so we could laugh about it he promptly decided it was the best idea ever and went home and put peanut butter on his burger. best husband ever. he gave me a taste. it was pretty delicious. man, i'm smart.

some days i can barely grasp that soon i'll have a baby. some days i really don't feel like i can wait until february. some days i'm so nervous! craig isn't scared or nervous one single bit, just like when we got married and i was a bundle of nerves and he was calm and excited and pretty much inhuman. i'm so happy every time we get to see this baby and every time he's still doing so well and growing so big. so far everything about him is perfect, all of my test results came back completely negative and i've seen him developing all the things he's supposed to have later! you know, fingers, toes, a head... i am SO excited for september 19th when we can see if he's really a boy or not, and get more pictures of his cute little self. i want an ultrasound machine. how much do you think one costs? i don't need anything too fancy, i just want to watching him kick around in there all the day long.