My mom would be proud

As with most people, every 6 months my dental insurance gives me permission to see the dentist. It's like a semi-annual party gone bad every time. I don't blame the dentists. Poor guys. But I find it difficult to not hate them, and today I went in for my so called "cleaning". I much prefer to call it "scraping". Ugh.

I have become accustomed to being lectured about flossing. I've never been very good at doing it, and my only lame excuse is that the floss hurts my fingers. Yep, my fingers, not my gums. However, this time I was prepared! I've been flossing ever since I found out that I'm pregnant! (enter round of applause and cheers here) I had read (in multiple places) that poor gums can lead to premature births. Don't ask me how that works, but needless to say, the pregnancy has been good motivation for me to pull out the floss.

Anyway, today, much to my surprise, I did not get a lecture! Woohoo! It's not that my gums are in *great* condition, but they're in *ok* condition and the dental hygienist was kind enough to blame that on the pregnancy. Score!

Not pregnant? Then your gums are in bad condition. You should be ashamed! Pregnant? Well then your gums really aren't all that bad. Keep up the good work! Hehehe... it makes me laugh.

On a brighter note, my dentist has given me his official permission to go out and eat ice cream and pickles.

L is for Leezard

This week's theme: dry skin.

I am amazed at how dry my skin has been in the last week. The strange thing is that it's only in patches and in strange areas. Enough said. However, taking a look at those areas, you'd think I recently had a bad sunburn or something. I feel like a scaly lizard. It's really too bad I can't use this as an excuse to go lay on a nice warm leezard rock and take a nap!

Tummy Tummy Tummy (9 weeks)

It's picture time!

For the sake of argument, let's just say that this is my tummy at time t=0. We took this picture the weekend after peeing on our magic stick.

And these two pictures were taken at 9 weeks into my pregnancy. Though it's not typical to gain wait yet, I have gained 5 pounds. I blame that on the simple fact that I'm not going out of my way to watch what I eat anymore. I'm now eating for a baby so I can't skip dinner just to lose a pound. I think most of the weight gain is in my breasts, though strangely these pictures do not show much of a difference. Maybe I was experiencing one of those "damn miracles" when the first one was taken. :P

I've already decided that this will be my favorite pregnant mommy outfit. These are the clothes my sister helped me pick out in London. See the funny front of the jeans? That's supposed to fold over as my tummy grows. But the best part of the outfit is the shirt!*

Oh my gosh! How precious is that??? In case you can't see, the shirt shows a baby on the front. The baby is actually made up of words that say "I love you" in English, German, Italian and French. My seestor bought it for me and I've already decided that this will be my picture time outfit from now on. Thanks, seestor! I love you!


* Though Michael does tell me that the jeans do make my ass look good. ;)

Counting Sheep

I don't know if it's because of the lack of sleep that Michael and I have been getting lately, but I've got a bad case of Sheepitis (commonly known as "crazy for sheep syndrome").

Take a look, but no making fun of me. I just don't know if there is any turning back now, though... We may have to go with the sheep theme. Either that or get a new mattress so that we can start sleeping better. :P

Babba
Plumpee
Cloudy
Baaabsy
Fluffles
Jesus Loves Me (minus the ribbon)
Sweet Lola

As a side note, I learned how to have my links open in a new window. Pretty cool, eh? You have to appreciate the small daily achievements.

I have issues

I have come to the conclusion that I am way too indecisive. I wish I could say that this is the first time I've come to this conclusion, but I doubt anyone would believe me. Being indecisive leads to many annoying problems, especially when you're in a group of indecisive people. However, this time I have no one to blame except me.

The biggest problem I have with being indecisive is that I end up being way too easily influenced by other people's opinions. The latest example is nursery themes.

A year ago I started looking at different nursery themes when we started talking about starting a family. I know, I know, I tend to get ahead of myself when I'm excited about something, but it's fun! At the time I was too embarrassed to ask anyone else for opinions, and came to the decision that Sweet Vanilla was by far my favorite nursery. I loved the simplicity of the colors and the feeling of preciousness it gave me.

We recently started looking at nurseries again for our two year anniversary gift (cotton) to each other. Our opinions changed daily, but I'll try to keep this short...

My favorite girl theme was Cottage Rose. Look at how pretty it is! However, Michael likes cutesy themes, and I agreed, so my favorite girl theme quickly became Flutterbye. Bugs are cute! But after sending a few links to my sister, she came back with "the others just don't compare to Cottage Rose", and I agreed, so that brought me back to the start (one of the shorter cicles I completed in this nursery search). PURTY!

It was similar with the boy themes. My sister liked Wish Upon a Star and I couldn't have agreed with her more. That is, until my mom told me she liked Mommy & Me the best. Definitely my favorite. But then Michael said "what about Froggie Tales?". Yeah! Frogs! I love frogs!

Then Michael and I went to the mall to try to see some of these in person. No such luck. However, they did have a Winnie The Pooh set that was super soft and fuzzy. It had all sorts of materials in it, and from that moment I made the executive decision that the nursery must be super soft. There was no going back.

So, our requirements? Super fuzzy and cutesy and not too pink and not too blue but is still appropriately girlie or boyish. That shouldn't be too difficult, right? Wrong. Well, ok... Partially wrong. As it turns out, our two favorite boy themes are made from all sorts of soft materials, and so is the original Sweet Vanilla. However, it is impossible to find a girlie set that is all super-soft, cutesy and not overly gawdy.

And of course, depending on who I spoke to last, my favorites flip between them all.

Current top boys are Wish Upon a Star and Mommy & Me.

Current top neutral is Sweet Vanilla.

It's really hard to beat Sweet Vanilla. Look at how precious it is! And yes, maybe the fact that I want to decorate the nursery right now (without knowing the sex of the baby for another 8-10 weeks!) might be weighing in on my opinion. But only a little itty bitty bit.

And just for fun... a few examples of instant toss-outs, or as Michael put it: the "Oh, god, please no" category:
Oooh La La - Cutesy, yes. Fuzzy, maybe. Overly gawdy, yes.
Twinkle Toes - Cutesy, yes. Pink, yes. Pink, yes. Pink, yes.
Sports USA - Just can't bring myself to say ok.
Scary Fish - Is this for real???

Look, Ma! No stuffing!

Not long ago a friend gave me a bunch of her super-cute hand-me-down clothes. I called it the "House of Jenny" shopping spree. I highly recommend shopping there. Anyway, she had a bra that she had apparently bought a while ago only to find out that it was too small. When she suggested that it may fit me, she was being quite optimistic on my behalf (she is always so nice).

Well... you'll be happy to know that I tried it on again... and WHOOO HOOO!!!! Cleavage baby, cleavage!

Baby's First Picture

Look! Look! It's my baby!

I had my first appointment yesterday and though we weren't able to hear a heartbeat yet, we were able to see the baby through an ultrasound. What? Can't see the baby? There is basically a head and a bumm so far. I'll be honest and tell you that it was significantly easier to see on the machine, when you could see the baby actually moving around. But look at the picture. The baby's head is in the bottom left of the red square and the butt is in the top right corner. We were also able to see the heart beating! It was somewhere in the middle of the red square, but on the machine it was a very obvious quick flashing. It was pretty neat.

So... what you're seeing here is at 8 weeks and 4 days. The baby is about 2cm long (about an inch) and has a heart beat of 189 bpm. They were able to determine how far into the pregnancy I am based off of the size of the fetus (from head to tail). I'm not as far into the pregnancy as I thought. The doctor had estimated I should be 10 weeks and 2 days in, so it was off by about 2 weeks.

Right now this means two things....
1. It will be another 3 months before I get to know the sex of the baby!! (happens 18-20 weeks assuming the baby is cooperative and isn't too shy... lol)
2. My due date is April 21.

Comments we’ve received so far:
I don't see it, but I believe you.
So, what sign is that?*
You mean, that kidney-bean looking thing?
Where are the arms and legs?
Your eyes must be better than mine.

* Aries if born up through April 20, and Taurus if born April 21 and after.

Do these pants make my stomach look big?

You might ask me what's the point to having a blog if I never write in it? And to you I'd respond with "uh, um... because my mommy says I'm special!" Actually, truth be known, I've been so busy at work that by the time I get home all I want to do is crash. To say that I've been stressed out at work recently would be an understatement, but I am trying to tell myself that it's not good for the baby and that there are a lot of things I just can not change, especially now given the timing of everything.

So enough of that... on to more fun things! Last week I went to England with my family to meet the man who rescued my grandpa from his plane crash during WWII. Quite the story, eh? It made for an interesting trip and it was actually quite humbling. In the end, it made me miss my granparents. It would have been nice if they had been able to meet M, or better yet, been around to see the great grandchildren.

Sorry, I forgot. We were supposed to move onto the fun things. My sister is super excited to become an aunt, and this was the first time I've seen her in quite a while. She couldn't stop complimenting me on my tummy. She insisted that I've started showing and she thought it was cute. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'm really not showing yet, but that it's just the weight I've gained since the last time I've seen her. And I tried to keep that thought out of my mind everytime she patted my tummy.

So, what is there to do in London? Apparently, shopping. My sister insisted on helping me buy my very first tummy clothes!! I'm sure it's too early to really start, but I couldn't help myself. We just came across this super-cute maternity store. I must say, though, that it was definitely the way to shop. For the first time ever, instead of sucking it in, I was pushing my stomach out to make it look as big as possible. Instead of the usual scene of me asking "do these pants make my butt look too big?" (picture me sticking my bumm way out), I kept asking "does this make my stomach look big enough?"

Let me tell you, much much less stress when you shop like that. =)