Five Bits of Food Do Not a Meal Make

Unless you're pregnant apparently. Yes, I know, the statement defies all logic, but it is true. I haven't had a meal that I actually *ate* an adult-size portion in what seems like forever. It's actually only been a couple of weeks, but it is definitely already old...especially since we cook dinner every night and I can barely eat it. I'm not a big fan of leftovers but that's basically how I get to have dinner...as lunch the next day.

So that's one of the latest developments as far as our pregnancy goes. Otherwise, we hit 32 weeks on Monday of this week which means we're cruising in our 8th month now. Can you say wow? Time has really flown. And, despite the fact that it is still small compared to most of my pregnant friends' bellies at this stage, my belly has grown quite a bit as well. I need to get the latest picture up soon...

We've acquired more baby stuff over the past week or so including a mattress some additional cute outfits that I couldn't resist - my favorite is a little shorts set with a cute little crab and sheets and other bedding stuff. I also got a nursing video which was helpful. I'm just not sure how all that is going to work out...my "girls" are admittedly quite small still. I never even had to get a maternity bra (yes, I realize this is more info than you wanted - sorry, I'll stop). At any rate, I figure babies and breasts were pretty much made for each other so little sprout and I will figure it out.

Mark is on break this week though he still spends a lot of time at the clinic. He's going to be a very busy guy this next quarter as he's trying to get as many classes in as possible so that we can avoid daycare once I return to work after my maternity leave. It looks like I won't be leaving for that until about a week before my due date or our induction date (we're still contemplating whether to go this route or not) because I want us to not have to worry about our financial status while I'm away. I do receive some state benefits while on my leave, but they're not nearly as good as that salary I can earn when I'm at the office. At any rate, it looks like I'll probably be back at work by August 20...

Other than that, we have our next OB appointment tomorrow morning. I believe this is the beginning of the "less modest" visits that we moms-to-be enjoy. I can't say that I'm looking forward to that, but I guess it's just part of the deal...and so I'll deal. :) I don't really expect any real earth shattering news to come from this visit - it's still a bit early for anything "exciting" to be happening so there may not be an update afterwards. We shall see! What I can offer those of you who are privvy to the logon particulars for the sprout's special site is that there is a new poll up that is a little more on the light-hearted, fun side of things. The plan is that I'll be introducing a new poll each week (or two or three or whenever I get around to changing it!) to just see how well the masses can predict our little guy's movements as we get closer and closer to his joining us outside of the womb. This week's topic - what day of the week do you think he'll arrive? I can't wait to see the responses!

Spills & Thrills

Well, as is customary, I'm here for your weekly update on how we're all doing and how, most importantly, the little sprout is doing. Surprisingly, despite the fact that most of our week was spent studying and doing taxes, I do have some "excitement" to discuss. Of course, if you know me, you know that I'm guilty of proclaiming that "excitement" is frequently overrated. This week's excitement falls into that category for the most part. Now that I've teased the excitement sufficiently, I think I'll go back to my typical chronological method of filling you in...it seems to work best for not forgetting (well, too much...I usually forget something).

So, we did have our appointment with the OB this week on Monday. I'm on for every other week visits again....which, as I remember, make the time go by much more quickly than when I'm only going every month. Nevertheless, we had a good visit...everything is going well save that slight swelling I'm having in my legs (taxes and baby growing...not a good match, I guess in this respect). The doctor gave me some tips on how to keep it from getting too serious which is, of course, my goal - I really want to avoid the whole "cankles" thing as long as possible!

I got some additional advice and had a lightbulb go on about this when I visited my favorite chiropractor for our scheduled visit. Okay, the advice didn't come from Mark, but he is my favorite chiropractor. We have to give credit to one of his advisors, though, who kindly relayed that blood typically goes down deep (i.e., inside the leg) and comes back up shallow and that the socks which were not a problem "back in the day" were causing some constriction and probably inhibiting the blood flow. Soooo, I'm glad it's spring since I've pulled out the sandals. The only part I'm not crazy about - I am having to wear them without nail polish. I can't really reach to paint the ol' toe nails and the verdict isn't in on whether putting a concoction of tons of not so good for you chemical components on your toesies can have an effect on your little baby so I'm abstaining. I figure I can handle 9 (yes, only 9!!) weeks of not having beach ready toes.

We also discussed maternity leave with the doctor which led to us having a decent discussion that night about our finances, whether or not we can make it if I stay home from work, etc., etc. The doctor suggested that I take off about a month before my due date but wasn't super firm about it. Since I am the "money source" in our little household, Mark and I have decided that I'll stick it out as long as I can...up to a week before my induce date or delivery date if we decide to let the sprout come out when he wants (we're still leaning toward his coming out sooner rather than later). And, we've decided that I'm just going to have to suck it up and go back to work in probably August so that we don't have to worry about how we're going to pay our bills and such. Luckily, it will only be for three days a week (maybe more since I've seen Mark's schedule and am going to see if they would be open to my coming in all five days but for only 4 or 5 hours each day). We're hoping to arrange the schedule such that our little bundle of joy will be watched by either mommy or daddy rather than a day care provider...partially because the day care thing will practically negate the positive cash flow we estimate my going back to work would provide. These things are always so tricky!

Aside from the OB update, a friend of mine sent us a nifty little site this week: http://howmanyofme.com/ where you can see how many people in the US share your name. Now, they don't go on symantics so I'm going to say there is only one of me (thanks to that capital L) though in total there are 14 Melissa Roccos....still pretty unique. There are also 28 Mark Roccos. The most interesting statistic for those trying to figure out what we've named the sprout, though, is that he is quite unique as well as there are only 8 other people in the US with his first and last name. What could they be? You're getting closer to finding out every day! :)

Other than that, the week was pretty quiet until today. We did do a little experiment allergy-wise with baked potatoes for dinner one night. Oh, they were sooo good may I say and it seems that my water helped keep them from causing too many issues. The tricky part is that potatoes never really caused a huge reaction as I remember so I'm still kind of wondering (especially since we had some again last night in celebration of St. Patty's Day and I forgot to ever take the water). I do have to admit that I've snuck a few little bits of things that have eggs and flour in them and they've done okay after a dose of voodoo water, though, so maybe we're onto something.

So, aside from that, we have today. Mark is still in the midst of his Part III Chiropractic Board Exams. They started WAY too early this morning at 6:45. Yikes! And, here's where the excitement comes in as well. I got up a bit before we needed to leave to take him over to the school and did some email checking while he wrapped up all he needed to do with himself to be presentable (which isn't much, I assure you...he's pretty low maintenance as most guys are). Once he was ready to go, I, in my most graceful (he he!) way got up out of my chair and headed toward my keys, purse, etc. Before I made it very far, though, something happened and I sort of tipped over, stumbled and ended up on the floor surrounded by several papers from the coffee table. I'm fine...I managed to land on my right hip and elbow so that's a little sore and a I have a few achy muscles here and there, but I don't have a scratch. Nevertheless, it was a bit of a surprise and a little scary after a bit. Luckily, I know that little sprout has one of the best shock-absorbing spaces one could wish for. So, there you go...there's our excitement for the week.

I did take a quick break to go get Mark from his test before finishing up that last paragraph. He thinks he did okay on it. I guess we'll find out in a month or so...stay posted and have a great week!

Rollin' Along...

Not a lot happened this week that is really worth mentioning. We do have our next OB visit on Monday (the first of the every two week drills) so perhaps that will spice things up a little. I sure do miss the days when I knew an appointment meant I'd have some new pictures to post at least. :)

As far as what excitement has occurred, we have created a new website for our dear little sprout at a site called Totsites. We've decided that with all the weirdos lurking on the internet we'd prefer to post pictures and intimate details of our little guy's progress on a password protected medium and this site is just perfect for that. We currently have some "fun facts" up about our pregnancy and a couple of journal entries - the first commemorating only 75 days to go until he arrives - can you believe it? We even have a little poll going on to see what people think about our inducing labor so that we can have the baby before Mark's all-important last set of chiropractic exams. Isn't that just fun? If you would like to be invited to see our little sprout's spot, drop me a line via email (I think there is a link to my email in our profile).

In other baby (what else!?!) news, we received his car seat and stroller last night. Yea. I even put them together as we enjoyed Rocky IV...something, believe it or not, I had not yet seen. Mark was amazed. This is the one where he fights the Russian dude. It was a pretty good movie. At any rate, the stroller is together and we know how to lock the infant seat into it to create a nice little baby carriage. I think baby will be quite cozy in there.

In mommy news, I am having even more "fun" symptoms to deal with as time progresses. I'll try not to complain too much, but allow me a bit of a whine, won't you? Among the most troubling are the mood swings (which have been magnified this week by a number of encounters with a particularly stressful client at work and a couple other people) - I'm doing my best to cope, but I have to say I kind of miss those 2nd trimester days when I seemed to be a little less "on edge" about things. On a more physical note, I've been being very good with my excercise program - I usually get out and walk at least 5 days a week...hopefully this will be helpful once we make it to the delivery room. Unfortunately, I'm also experiencing a lot of achies (especially when it comes to my back and legs) and now, joy of joys, I've noticed that my ankles are starting to swell. *sigh* Cankles...they're coming my way. The bright side (?) of this is, I guess, that now I have an imperative to come home at night and put my feet up. This could be challenging since I always feel like I have "so much to do" and not enough time to do it. I'll manage, though!

The only other thing we've done this week is "almost" signed up for our cord blood banking for the baby. I need to make a phone call to finish up the process on Monday and then we'll be good to go.

Oh When the Saints....

It's March! Crazy wacky stuff...and the reason for the post title. I couldn't quickly think of anything else that had "march" somewhere within it phrase wise. I love that tune though, so it's workin' for me. Just like the song, I'm feeling kind of peppy (and yet still exhausted...not quite sure how that works, but I'll go with it)!

So it has been a bit since I made it over here to post...that means we have a lot of catching up to do! Shall we get started?

First up is a big shout out and congratulations to my buddy Christina who just had a bouncing baby boy of her own. Little baby Timothy is a doll folks...but then, I adore his mommy so I'm a wee bit predjudiced toward him. :) At any rate, I can tell those of you who are wondering, if you were...and as I was, that Christina's baby name is not the same as the one we picked out for the sprout. There I've narrowed it down for you - his name isn't Timothy and it isn't Aaron either (which is Master Tim's middle name just so you're not lost here).

With our congratulatory wishes out of the way, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

And, of course, we'll just go chronologically since it seems to be the easiest and most efficient way. Thus, we begin with a follow-up from my last post. I don't think I was having Braxton Hicks contractions. I'm not sure what I was having but the doctor said he wasn't worried and so I stopped worrying about them. I still have them periodically and I can't say that I'm terribly thrilled, but maybe they're helping me raise my pain threshhold so I guess we'll deal! I still plan to mention them again to the doctor cuz even though I say I'm not worried, I am a little....you knew that already, I'm sure. ;)

On the allergy front, we had some excitement this week. I had a bit of a rash for most of it. Actually, it's just finally seeming to clear today (finally!). We're not completely sure what caused it though we have our suspicions. Mark thinks it's the lotions his parents brought this Christmas for me to use because they have dyes in them and he's convinced I'm allergic to dyes. I'm not convinced of this at all but I did stop using them. I will probably try to use them again at some point to see if they were actually the cause. My theory is that it was due to the "voodoo" water.

I can't remember if I told you about the "voodoo" water or not. Basically it is distilled water that one of Mark's teachers jazzed up for me using a little Rife machine which puts electrical impulses into the water and has been known to help people conquer their allergies. Since it didn't cost anything, couldn't be harmful to baby and couldn't hurt we're giving it a try. My reasoning for why this might be the culprit is that the rash started a couple of days after I started drinking the water and I'm thinking maybe my body was going through a little bit of a detox process or something. We shall see. We haven't tried any allergy foods yet, but I'm hopeful that when I get the courage up to eat that potato that we bought last week you won't be hearing me gripe about how yet another attempt didn't work. Keep your fingers crossed. :)

Other than that, the majority of the interesting stuff I have to speak of here happened today (with the exception maybe of the Mr. Potato Head bunny that I bought the other day - too cute!). Today was eventful, I guess you could say. I didn't have to go to work....always a plus. Mark did have a seminar to go to for his extra neurology degree he's working toward (little overachiever that he is!), but I had nothing. And, so....I slept in until I couldn't any longer. I have found that about 9:30 a.m. is my absolute max regardless of how tired I am and regardless of when I went to bed because that is when my little body says "FEED ME NOW." Arguing and trying to ignore it doesn't seem to do much good so I give in. Pixie prefers this since it means she gets fed, too. :)

At any rate, after enjoying a few extra moments in the bed, I got up, made an extraordinarily gourmet breakfast of....wait for it....Cocoa Pebbles and decided to have a gander at the computer. I have finished the Baby Bargains book that Mark and I bought to help us with choosing baby gear and the like and just wanted to do a little surfing to see about diaper bags and a few other little choice items we want that the book gave some tips on. Ultimately, I decided that we're going to follow the book's advice and go with Lands End's diaper bag offerings...they have two - one's full size and one's smaller for everyday type trips out and I think we'll get one of each. Then I have to decide if I'm going to be silly and get a third one just because it has cute little jumping frogs on it. It looks like the perfect bag to go to the beach...to help me decide on my frivolous desire, I've ordered a swatch of the fabric (for free - love Lands End!) as well as swatches of the colors I'm contemplating for the "normal" diaper bags. It will be like Christmas finding such fun things in my mail box...okay, yeah, maybe this isn't exciting for you, but well, I've never been accused of being difficult to amuse/please. ;)

I also had a look at shopping cart cover options. The book basically said that it receives tons of "this thing is junk" regarding the shopping cart cover we were planning to get from Babies R Us. And, you know, I'm sooo glad that I went and looked at the other options it mentioned. There is one site which has the CUTEST (ever! really!) fabric with baby sea turtles on it. I am in love. And, the cost is only about $10 more than what we were going to spend at BRU....and it's hand made with lots of quilting and even a little pillow. Soooo cute. If you want to check it out, have a look here. I also love the turtles and starfish option on the "unisex" page. :)

My final little find was the Mother's Mate Milk storage system which the book mentioned and which you can see here. I think this is the way we're going to go if I ever need to pump milk for work or whatever. I really like the idea of just pumping into the bottles and then feeding from them....and it's so reasonable from a cost standpoint especially since it works with the two brands of pumps that I'm considering (Medela and Ameda - both highly recommended).

I think that is all of what I researched today....I looked at a ton of stuff. Oh, I guess I did look at our stroller and infant carrier choice again. Believe it or not, I think this is the last time you'll have to read this. :) We finally bought them today...because for some odd reason, I went and looked for them at Target.com and found them and that the site was offering free shipping on two or more baby gear items. Since I also had a 10% off coupon for Target and since both the stroller and the car seat are items that can be returned to the store, we decided to jump on the deal...how could we resist when with tax the total was less than the pre-tax price of these items at Babies R Us? So, yes, we've ultimately decided on Peg Perego's Primo Viaggio infant seat and Centro stroller. And, they should be arriving in a couple of weeks - yea!

Before we bought them, we decided to go to BRU and just "kick the tires" at least one more time on the stroller. We're shelling out a pretty penny for this little puppy...and we want to be sure that it is exactly what we want. After what was probably a ton of amusement for the passers-by at BRU as they watched us try to decipher how exactly one folds and then (more importantly) reopens the stroller, we finally became pros and decided that this was indeed a stroller that we would like. Part of the impetus for us going to BRU was that we had a bunch of coupons for gear and what not from there that expired today. They were, unfortunately, out of a few things that we wanted, but we still came out pretty nicely. We are now the proud owners of a Baby Bjorn carrier...midnight blue with red edging...very cute and comfy (unlike the active model which had just waaaay too many straps and felt more like a straight jacket to me - Mark of course preferred this one, but knew since I was fighting to get it on and off that it wouldn't be used by me!). I can't wait to carry baby around in it. We got a couple of other things, too, but those were the big buys of the day. And, now, we pretty much have all the expensive stuff purchased - all that is left on the hefty price tag items is a mattress, a breast pump and in the future a convertible car seat. Coolie.

So there you have it - another issue of "How the Rock Turns" or something like that. :) The only thing left to say is that I've totally found the best treat today. If you can find coconut sorbet (Sharon's is the brand I buy at Trader Joe's), drizzle a little (don't go nuts or you'll only taste chocolate) chocolate syrup on it and enjoy...if you're a fan of Mounds candy bars, you'll be in heaven. Like Almond Joy's better, add some toasted almond pieces...yum!

I hope you all have a wonderful week...