gearing up for 3rd

time is officially flying. october is almost over. my favorite month! what did i do for it?! everyone keeps saying that with the holidays coming up, my third trimester will fly by and the baby will be here before we know it. i think with or without the holidays it will fly by, if the rate it's going now is any indication.

today is our one year anniversary! i can't believe that in three months we'll have a baby. while i won't say we weren't caught off-guard by that fact, the closer it gets, the more real it becomes, and the more exciting. 

to celebrate our last anniversary without kids to worry about for a lonnnnggg time, we went away to fairhope, alabama for a couple of days. it's not something we had in our budget, but we went anyway, cherishing our time away from life. we took the back roads there and on the way we passed a yard-side flea market at which i spotted a pretty neat looking dresser (we've been looking for a dresser to use as a changing table for a while now). the dresser was ok and we ended up not getting it, but the real treasure was a crib! a jenny lind crib frame for TEN. DOLLARS. it was missing the springs/mattress platform but i thought, hey, for ten dollars, we can get one of those off of ebay and make the dang thing work. 

{for those of you unfamiliar with jenny lind, she was a popular singer/song-writer in the mid 1800s. this type of wood spindle furniture came out around that time and was named for her. originals would probably be worth a lot more than $10, but it has been inexpensively replicated for years and years and has always been regarded as very classic, especially in children's furniture.}

the stain on the one we found is coming off around the edges, and it's a medium stain (lighter than the picture). not something that particularly matches anything i have. although i'm usually an advocate of wood and saving an original finish, this crib may need paint. 

for six months i have managed to hold back any need to create an elaborate nursery. mostly because we don't have cash monies for that, and also because i think (no, i know) the baby won't really care. in 3 years when our kid is into dinosaurs and we have to create a dinosaur themed room, then i'll get into "designer mode." people have been surprised that we are not finding out the sex, not only for clothing preparations, but also they say "aren't you a designer?! how are you going to plan the nursery?!" easy. we find a crib. we find a changing table. done. that's all we need. 

that being said, now that we have a crib--now that we have a starting point--my gears are finally starting to turn. this is the bedding i have picked out (the one thing on our registry). at this point i'm not sure if i'll keep it or not, but these are at least the colors: light turquoise and tangerine.

we're not exactly sure what to do about our nursery situation. we have a 2 bedroom house. one of those bedrooms is ours (and is very large) and the other is a guest room, which is very important when all of your family is out of town. we originally planned to have the crib in our room, but we've heard from more and more people that having a baby in your room equals no sleep for mama. too much temptation to jump up at every little breathing pattern change. a crib will fit in our guest room, so i think that it will go there. which works out well because the colors in there are very similar. and it just so happens to have the prettiest bird bedding which would keep the unintentional bird theme. so either way, we have options. we will be putting casters on the crib so we can wheel that little bugger wherever we want.

so enough about that. here's a 6 month picture for you, taken in downtown fairhope. i hope that dress fits for a while! i wear it nearly every weekend. it's comfy and one of those "i'm obviously pregnant" outfits.

not much new in the way of pregnancy news. i feel more movements. i can feel when there's a head pushing to one side. typically the baby is head up and feet down. i've gotten a lot more bladder kicks. that is interesting. one of these days i won't be so lucky to control them and i'll tee-tee myself. sometimes my blood sugar acts funny in the morning. i called my doctor in a panic thinking surely i had  gestational diabetes. they told me low sugar in the morning is perfectly normal and not to panic and just drink some orange juice first thing in the morning to help level it out so it doesn't spike after i eat. 

other than that i still feel great and i am still growing outwardly (as the picture above shows). people now, very confidently, approach me as a pregnant lady and ask me questions. i have to admit i kind of like it. i definitely gave pregnant women the "aww, you look so cute" all the time, so to be on the other end of it feels kind of neat :) 

i've also been so enjoying the company of my friends who are mamas. i've gotten to spend several nights (up past my bedtime) chatting and listening to parenting stories all the way from pregnancy to toddler-hood. i think the most important thing i've taken away from everyone is that there is no one single method that works for every parent. you kind of have to just find what works for you and do it. 

i welcome any advice, so long as it's given in a nurturing way. it's funny how some people deliver their advice in a "you can never be prepared enough" scare tactic kind of method. as if i have a choice. the baby is already coming! i'm no more prepared than they were with their first, which is why i love to hear people's stories! but luckily there are very few of those, and more often than not they are acquaintances. or perfect strangers. and they don't count.

i've come a long way since knowing no one in pensacola when i moved here, to starting a family here and having such a great network of people around me for support. i may not be mentally prepared for a newborn, but i have a lot of friends who have been there and done that. and for that i am grateful! 

pregnancy brain

today i am 25 weeks and my body is officially out of vertical storage space for this baby. it happens when you're short and short-torsoed. so this baby can only grow out, which is happening quickly. and strangers are no longer afraid to refer to me as being pregnant.

another thing that is happening quickly is the deterioration of my brian, or "pregnancy brain" as i've heard it called. i noticed in the first trimester a general forgetfulness, like forgetting to bring my lunch to work or forgetting my phone. little things. now i've moved onto decision making processes that kind of make me appear to be an idiot. especially at work.

i've been called "slow" multiple times in my life. both in joking and serious manners. it's something i've come to accept. but one thing people need to understand about me (and my husband knows this well) is that i'm not a slow thinker, nor am i an idiot. i simply have a very detailed thought process. i'm a thinker, and actually quite logical. i live in my head a lot. and sometimes i am having very deep thought conversations with myself while performing simple activities, which might make me appear to be slow. i am not.

but i don't know where my mind has been recently. when people ask themselves "what was i thinking?!" i am asking myself this in a very literal sense, wondering if i was thinking about anything at all. when people give me pertinent information, it seems to disappear whenever i need it most. or whenever it would be a really good idea to recall an important fact (like in which order shampoo and conditioner are applied to your hair)...gone. i hear it gets worse, but i hope not. i feel like a legitimate idiot sometimes.

but really, all in all, i've had a near perfect pregnancy. and i did not expect that at all. so i am trying to be grateful for that. my weight, size, blood pressure, emotional state, etc. all have been stable and perfectly on track. i have developed a strangely overwhelming sweet tooth (in my non-pregnant state, sometimes i don't even like chocolate, nor can i stand the smell of cupcake icing), but i'm trying to combat it with fruit and natural sugar sources, although that doesn't always work when you live within a few blocks of krispy kreme and that daggum "hot now!" sign is ALWAYS on. stupid donuts...

with the third trimester around the corner, i'm trying to enjoy being pregnant while i can. time seems to be flying. this baby will be here before we know it!

we also finally started a registry. there is one item on it. but, in my defense, people have been SO good to us in providing most of what we need. we really only lack the non-exciting essentials, like diapers, burp cloths, and creams (lord help me if i have to use the word "ointment"). at some point we will hunker down and get serious about it. but not just yet. i want to enjoy all that we've been blessed with without thinking about more stuff we need. with our ever-growing "baby pile," we might be broke but our baby won't know it!!

this explains a lot!

so i've been (reluctantly, due to my hatred of being photographed) having the hubs take photos each month to document my progress. it's no wonder i feel so much bigger lately. look at the difference between months 4 and 5! definitely broke the barrier between questionable weight gain and "there's a baby in there."

and last night we witnessed our first exterior belly movements. the mister likes to say in a deep voice "yo, lil' baby monks--this yo daddy! go clean your room!" and we got a few kicks out of that (literally).

sidenote: it's too bad my hair didn't look as good in 4 as it does in 5 (or all the others, for that matter). i'm having a good hair day apparently! must be the drop in humidity which i'm thoroughly enjoying...