23 weeks

Here's a picture of me taken at 23 weeks. Last week one of my students said, "Wow, you're getting really big and round! Your face is even getting rounder!" Awesome. True, but thanks. Baby boy M has started moving around more, but seems to get a little shy when I try to get Chad to feel him moving. I think Chad thinks I'm lying. :) And when I came home from work today, Chad had assembled the baby's crib, which my dad shipped to us a couple weeks ago (thanks dad!), moved the guest bed to the 2nd bedroom, and moved the trundle bed that was in THAT room to the shed. We are planning on moving quite a bit of our furniture to the cabin in May or June when the weather gets warmer, so until then, we've got lots of beds, sofa beds, etc.

Last week our UIL meet was snowed out because it was up in Canyon, near Amarillo. I was so happy because I got to sleep in on Saturday and actually have a weekend. Then we found out today that the meet is this Friday, which means I get a day off school and STILL don't have to go to UIL on Saturday! I was already taking off tomorrow because I have a dr. appointment right in the middle of the day...so that's two days off of school this week. Sweet. Can you tell I'm ready for summer?

So, things are good around here. Signed, Round Belly/Round Face

Miscellaneous stuff

The latest news...I resigned from my job today, meaning I will not renew my contract for next school year (I'm not just leaving right now). I am happy and kind of sad at the same time. I know I will not be sad when I have just had a baby and everyone else is getting ready to go back to school and I don't have to go (thanks Cecilee).

Cabin news...The cabin is now hooked up to the well, and we have to wait for it to get warm enough to turn the water on. Once the water is on, the electrician will hook up the electricity to the tankless heater...if the breaker was to be turned on with no water hooked up, it would burn out the water heater and we'd have to replace it. Sooo...that might be another process, getting the electrician out there after we are ready with the water turned on. Our builder sent us a bill for the railing on the loft, so the cabin is a little more inhabitable now, but probably won't be fit for children for a while yet.

Random observation...Has anyone out there noticed the names that some baby boomers (for lack of a better term) are giving themselves as their "grandparent" names? You know, stuff like "Hottie" and "Fox Daddy" (I'm making these up, but you get the idea). When I was growing up, all my friends' grandparents were grandma, grandpa, meemaw, peepaw, granddad, nana, etc. I've started hearing some pretty crazy names folks are choosing for their grandkids to call them (this doesn't apply to my parents or in-laws, btw). Has anyone else noticed this?

Odds & ends...mostly pregnancy related

It's spring break...which means we have officially finished yet another yearbook. I know, you faithful blog readers out there just LOVE this time of year when I'm all like "yearbook this and yearbook that." Well, you don't have to hear about it any more...until May, when they come out, and I'll talk about it again. Hopefully this year it will be nothing like this. I'm pretty sure it won't though, because I'm pretty sure I will refuse to be up at school lifting anything by myself, especially 40 boxes of yearbooks weighing in at 50 lbs. each, when I am 7 months pregnant. I am super excited about this year's book. It is definitely the best one out of the three that I have advised, and my staff this year has been a dream come true. And I'm not just saying that because some of them read my blog. Here is a picture of me at 21.5 weeks, taken yesterday. This is how I really look, compared with last week's picture that made me look larger than I actually am. I am almost to the point of growing out of most of my t-shirts...the ones that had plenty of room to spare pre-pregnancy. I was under the false impression that these would be my go-to shirts when nothing else fit. Well, they won't fit for much longer. I guess lots of pregnant people start wearing their husband's t-shirts when theirs get too small...too bad we share ours. Oh well.

At the end of last week I took on the project of researching the best baby stuff so I would know what to get that was the safest, most reliable, most durable crib/carseat/stroller/pack-n-play etc. First, I went to Babies-r-Us to see what they had and to try out the strollers and lift the carseats to see how heavy they were. Bad idea...I got totally overwhelmed and after collapsing two strollers and not being able to un-collapse them, I left quickly before anyone could see who the idiot was leaving collapsed strollers all over the place. I needed a better plan. So after spending literally hours on Consumer Reports and other review websites, I finally found (what I think are) the best things. I made a spreadsheet (don't judge me or my type-A tendencies) of what I think we need and where it will come from, and now my anxiety about the whole thing is gone. I know this is extremely interesting to you, otherwise I would not be writing about it on my blog.

I have an appointment at my new doctor today. A while back I told you that I was probably going to have to change doctors because our new insurance was dropping my current doctor. I won't actually meet the new doctor until April, but I feel at peace about it because I know of other people that have gone to him (yes, him...yikes) and they say he is great. Even Tammy Camp said he is good...and you guys know what that means.

We have gotten to a real discussion of names, since we now know that we're having a boy. It's amazing how many names I had on my original "boy names I like" list that I would never name an actual child of my own, much to Chad's delight. Chad and I have a few we can actually agree on, but are still throwing them around, and probably will for quite some time. I am constantly talking to the baby, referring to him as different names, to see which one sounds good. Then, I pretend that he is already born, and I talk to Chad about him: "You will never believe what ______ did today!" "Can you go get _____? He's crying." Chad's not actually around when I am having these fake conversations, but I think they help. Honestly, I am just relieved that we at least have a couple ideas of names that we can both agree on. Is my vagueness killing you, or am I the only one obsessed about names enough that I am literally DYING to know what other people are going to name their children? P.S. if I have discussed boy's names with you before, none of those are on our short list because Chad nixed them. Quickly.

Chad finished his internship at the hospital, which means he is a full-time, full-fledged nurse. He got assigned to the unit he wanted to be in, which is great, and will now be working 12 hour shifts 3-4 times a week.

It's a...

We had our ultrasound today and found out we are having a baby boy! We are so excited. I was surprised...I really thought it was going to be a girl for some reason. Maybe it is the fact that we are so accustomed to little baby girls...for those of you who don't know, we have 7 nieces and only one nephew. So, the first thing we did after our appointment (after eating of course) was head to the mall to buy clothes for our little boy. This is probably the only time ever that I will buy baby clothes full price, but I couldn't resist. I mean, look at this stuff we got! How could anyone resist a 6 month old in that pullover sweater with the coordinating shirt and tie? Impractical, I know...but totally adorable.
Here we are, both posing with a side profile of our son:Chad and I have decided that we are not going to make it a habit of posting pictures of our kid's "parts" on the internet for the entire world to see, and that includes pre-birth pics...so you'll just have to take our word for it.

It is the weirdest thing to go from referring to the baby as "it" to saying "him." One of the first things everyone asks us (including our sonographer) is if we have a boy name picked out. And as luck would have it, we don't. I knew I liked our sonographer when he suggested that we read the chapter in Freakonomics about names...to which I replied I already had, and I owned the book! He liked to talk...which my friend Amy warned me about. But he was a super nice guy and took some great pictures. He informed us that he doesn't guess about a baby's sex, and that the last time he was wrong was the early '90s.

Our prayers have been answered that everything looked good in the sonogram and that the baby appears to be in perfect health. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! We are so blessed! Thanks for being excited with us.

20 weeks...

Well, just as soon as I mentioned in the last post that I was going to start taking my weekly pictures when I was EXACTLY that many weeks, I didn't take a picture that next week, so here is one at 20 1/2 weeks. Tomorrow is the day we get a sonogram and find out what we are having. The suspense is killing us. For those of you who want to know, I will be posting to the blog soon after my appointment, which is at 2:00, so I'd check around 5:00 or so. I like big bags, and I cannot lie. I bought this diaper bag this weekend when I went to visit my dear friend Emily, who had a baby shower in the D-FW area. We managed to get a little shopping in and this was one of my finds. I love it. It's really bag and has lots of compartments inside.

And here is a picture of Emily and me at Em's shower on Saturday. We had so much fun hanging out the past few days! This will be Emily's second child, so I figured I better get over there to see her, since our visits will be getting even fewer and farther between.