May

well - we just returned from our ultrasound. it was the most amazing thing. we could see so much. we saw the baby's little heart beating, a little full bladder, the brain, arms, feet, toes, spine, you name it, we saw it. everything is totally normal. we also saw a little pee-pee. he's a little boy! we have a great picture of his "boyness." we are working on getting one of our neighbors to scan it for us, so that i can post it on the page. we have a picture of his little right foot, just over an inch long. he weighs 14 ounces. one time we saw a shot of his little face and he opened his mouth. i admit that i was a bit choked up. it is so good to know. it's a funny story, actually. the nurse moved the wand to his legs, and i could see the penis. she asked, "do you want to know what it is?" i was like, well, i can see it even if i don't want to know! but i just said, "yes," and she told us it was a little boy. he was very cooperative! i have been praying that he would be. and the official baby poll was 53% boy, 47% girl. pretty close one!

so that was our excitement for today. we are going to church tonight - turns out the church we wanted to go to last night doesn't have wednesday night service, they have thursday night service. so we're going there tonight.

tonight keith and i are going to try yet another church. we didn’t go to church sunday, because he had two classes, one in the morning and one in the evening. i didn’t want to go by myself. so we are off tonight to continue our search. the one we are going to tonight is an assembly of God church, but it is a smaller one. so it will be different than the other 6,000-member churches that we have been attending.

i think that i am getting sick. i have the sore throat/sneezing/runny nose thing. hopefully it’s just passing through, not here to stay. i haven’t been feeling that great for the last few days. must be a cold. so far no fever though, and no flu symptoms (i.e. pukage). other than that i am feeling great. i have a pretty constant backache, but nothing i can’t handle so far.

a lady at my work told me today that i am getting “the walk,” which i took to mean “the waddle.” i can feel it coming on. each week it is more pronounced. i look like a freak going up and down our stairs at the apartment. they are concrete steps, so i am trying to be extra careful. i’m a clumsy oaf, after all. so i hold both the handrails and creep up and down like an invalid. better safe than sorry, because i have tripped up and down those stairs numerous times. besides, my doctor said that stairs aren’t good for a pregnant woman. it pulls all the blood from the uterus. and since i have to do stairs every day to get in and out of my home, i take it slow.

today i brought chop suey for lunch. chop suey is this weird conglomerate of food that my dad used to make when i was younger. my mom doesn’t really like it, so if she was gone and dad had to cook, he would oftentimes make chop suey. it’s pieces of meat, tomato sauce, and a couple of cans of veg-all, then you pour the whole thing over some rice. sounds weird, doesn’t it? but to me, it’s a little piece of home. you know those meals where you’re just taken back to your youth (oh so long ago)? this is one of those for me. keith won’t eat it, so last night i had the pot all to myself. and today for lunch – leftovers.

lastly, i am going to update the family spotlight tonight. so watch for it!

p.s. did you notice that i didn’t mention THE sonogram even once in this post? and you thought that was all i could think about.

happy groggy tuesday! after 3-day weekends, i feel like i’m in slow motion. i get out of my “work-groove” so quickly. we didn’t do anything this weekend, except grocery shopping, which actually is an event in our household. but no memorial day celebrations. keith took a 3-hour nap yesterday, and i went to the pool for a while. that’s the extent of the excitement.

we found out a bit more about our neighbor’s shooting. seems that the guy, a student at keith’s school, had a lot of nice sound equipment in his apartment. some of his “friends” came over at 3AM to rob him. the friends shot the guy in the arm, and the guy shot one of the robbers in the side. so it was a regular old shoot-out. i don’t know who died, but i think it was the robber and not the guy who lived by us. anyway, weird situation.

keith’s schedule has calmed down a lot this week. he has 1PM to 5PM every day. so he will be home at nights! good thing, because he could use some sleep. his schedule is totally thrown off. he doesn’t go to bed until 3AM or so, and he sleeps all day. we rented a movie friday night, and he was asleep before the previews were over. i’m not kidding. yesterday he slept so much. hopefully he can get back on track this week.

the big day is almost here! thursday morning is our sonogram! i keep trying not to think about it, because time creeps by so slowly! but it is coming up soon. we made the appointment 4 weeks ago, so i guess i can wait another 2 days. it’s going to be so odd to see the baby. i always wonder what it’s doing in there. sleeping, playing, thumb-sucking... i guess it stays busy enough. i read in one of my books that the baby’s first toy is the umbilical cord, and that it plays with the cord all the time. i hope we find out if the baby is a boy or a girl, because i’m tired of calling it “IT,” like the swampthing or something.

babies‘r’us called, and our crib is in. we ordered it special. i can’t wait to go get it. of course, we aren’t going to set it up, because it would have to be in the middle of the living room or kitchen or something, but it is exciting to have it. we’re doing okay on accumulating the things we need. we still need a lot, but we’re only halfway done, so we have plenty of time. this is week 20 for us, so officially halfway. we’re almost in month 6! i hope the second half goes as quickly as the first!

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interesting story... seems that last night while we slept (and this shows how hard i'm sleeping nowadays) a guy a few apartments down from us was shot. twice. ambulances, policy, medical chopper, the whole works right in our complex. and i had no idea. keith's friend brandon (i've mentioned him before) lived directly across from the guy, and knew him a bit. brandon told keith about it this morning. i can't believe we didn't wake up at all. we don't know why he was shot. my guess is a drug deal of some sort. anyway, at least my point is proven - keith doesn't need to be walking at night. ah, good ole big city living!

having a lot of pain today. i think every now and then the baby must have a growth spurt, which stretches everything out. must be what’s happening now. these are the days when i would like to be curled up in bed! but i can handle it. i am a trooper. so far.

keith dropped me off at work this morning, so that he could go get a new battery for his car (which is still dead at his school). he thinks the battery is bad. hopefully that will fix the problem. that would be a cheap one! replacing a battery, i can handle. i am ready to have two cars again. i don’t mind being dropped off at work, but if i take the car, then keith has to walk home from school at 1AM, and that can’t be safe. i will rest easier when his car is running again. we have such luck with cars. we should sell them and buy horses. but they would probably just die.

our sonogram is less than a week away. i am getting excited. i have decided that i am going to drink a lot of chocolate milk before the appointment so that the baby will be hyped up on sugar and will move a lot. i have heard a lot of speculation from people around me about how many babies are really in there. some people are under the impression that there might be two. i have spent a lot of time thinking about it, and i have been keeping track of baby’s movements. i never feel two movements at the same time, in different places. according to the pregnancy website that i read, if there are twins, the mom should feel movement on both sides of her tummy at once. none of that going on for me. so i’m guessing there’s just the one.

the biggest excitement in my life lately has been going grocery shopping. i went to a farmer’s market yesterday, and got nine bags of fruits and vegetables for $20. pretty good deal, i thought. so i cooked up some awesome squash last night for dinner, thanks to mom and her recipe. yum, fried squash takes me back to being a kid in the summertime. good stuff.

i’ve been checking out houses in nashville. no, we haven’t made any decisions about what to do after keith’s graduation, but nashville is as good an option as any. i’m not impressed by the houses there. most are old, like 1930’s old, or townhouses. hopefully if we move there, we’ll find a nice subdivision outside of the city. nashville would definitely be my first choice. keith, i’m not sure what he wants to do. that’s part of the problem. oh well, we still have another month or so to decide. kind of getting down the wire, isn’t it?

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i've spent a couple hours tonight revamping parts of the homepage. i am trying to create some uniformity. i really am quite a dummy when it comes to web design. suffice to say, i ain't got the skills. i think i get my point across, though. that's the important thing. i decided to do some refiguring of the page before i added our family spotlight section. i have created a page to spotlight a different family member every few days, with questions and answers from each individiual. i think it is going to be fun. i have already received some great replies to my little survey i sent out. the spotlight page is under construction, and as soon as i receive all of keith's answers, i will post him as the first family member to be spotlighted. it should give us a fun look at each other. right?

i am still working at catching up on missed sleep from the dreaded flight home. it is 9:25PM EDT. i should have already been in bed! sleep lacks quality this week, because just about as soon as i get into a deep sleep, keith gets home (1AM). so all the lights come on, the dogs are up, he's eating or in the bathroom getting ready for bed. so i am awake, and it takes a while to get back to sleep again. oh, for 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep! we both have next monday off for the holiday, though. i am guessing we will both be catching up on the missed z's.

i think the baby is throwing left hooks in there. all the movement i was missing out on earlier is happening now. i think it's great. i can't wait for keith to be able to feel it. today at work i could feel movement every few minutes. i spent a lot of the day staring out the window feeling the baby. so much for staying focused. i try, i really do.

well, it's now 9:29PM. you know what that means. yes, i collapse into bed. stay tuned for the family spotlight.

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i got a call back from my doctor today regarding my blood tests. when i went in for my may 9th appointment, they drew blood to test for down's syndrome and spina bifida. both tests came back negative. i wasn't really worried about it, but it is always nice to hear good news.

i am finishing up work for the day about now. it is almost 11AM EST. i am going to head home at 11, then keith and i are airport-bound. my flight leaves at 1:30PM. i am flying into dallas and then home. i will be getting into xna around 6:30PM. the xna flight is always the worst. i hate those little planes! hopefully we will have a smooth landing. i wonder if the stewardess will give me two snacks because i am pregnant?

i think now that i am "obviously" pregnant, people are nicer to me. they always stop to let me cross the street at the grocery store or at work. they want to chit-chat with me while we're waiting in various lines. i am allowed to go ahead of people to the potty. i am served first at restaurants. i like it. if only people were this kind all the time.

well - i am off to finish up a few files, so that i can go home! i am already packed up and ready to fly the friendly skies. robyn, signing off until next week!

p.s. i have been watching the baby poll. it started off as overwhelmingly a girl, and now has flip-flopped. it now looks like most think it's a boy. for the record, keith and i think it is a girl. i don't know why we think that, but i hope if it turns out to be a boy, that he's not sad because we thought he was a girl.

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tuesday tuesday! what a long day! i came in to work early this morning, and i’m staying a bit late, to make up some time for my trip home tomorrow. the anticipation makes today drag even more. i certainly am not looking forward to flying alone, though. i am the world’s most terrified passenger. i hate to fly. it was terrible at christmas, and that was with keith along. now i will be flying alone! i may need a valium or three. i mean, not really.

well betsy and alex left yesterday. what a fun time we had. i forget what it is like to have friends to hang out with. keith and i were talking last night about missing our friends, and he said, “i don’t have any friends here.” i thought that was so sad. of course, i don’t have any friends here either, but i haven’t heard keith express it in so many words. we need to move somewhere else. florida is a sad state.

we really did have a great weekend with betsy and alex. friday night we went to dinner and to the comedy club. saturday the boys went tooling around town while betsy and i did some serious shopping. we went to a baby consignment store and bought more clothes. i love doing that! saturday night betsy and i went to our 4him concert. it was great. the bass was so loud, and i kept feeling the baby move. it must have been too loud for the baby to sleep, and it was sending me a message! sunday we spent the day at cocoa beach. the water was so warm! even betsy and i rode the waves. we left as four fried taters! all of us were crispy red. but we had a blast. then we were off to the airport bright and early monday morning, 5AM! so we had a blast.

seems that everything else is moving along just fine. we are in week 18 of our pregnancy, and are getting really excited about our sonogram, coming up in about 2 weeks. i am starting to feel the baby moving more. i can’t wait until keith can feel it. this is such a neat experience for us. we are all doing just fine.

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good morning, all. i sit here at my desk at work eating trix, updating the webpage. this is my first day of work since tuesday, when i was only here for about 3 hours. i kind of enjoyed the break! if only the circumstances had been better... but all is well now. i went back to the doctor yesterday, and she gave me a clean bill of health. so here i am, back at work! she was listening to the baby's heartbeat, and she was moving her doppler all around my belly, listening. she said, "it's moving all over in there - can you feel that?!" i couldn't. she was a bit incredulous at all of it's movement. hopefully soon i will be able to feel all of it.

we picked betsy and alex up at the airport last night. their flight was delayed for an hour in charlotte, nc. we finally got them about 8PM. we went to eat after that at olive garden. they were starving, and so was i! then we came home and basically crashed. today they are going to a theme park, universal studios, i think, and tonight we are going to the comedy club.

we set up our date for the sonogram yesterday. it is may 30 at 8AM. only 3 weeks away! i can't wait for that! i think we get a video and print-outs. i hope baby is cooperative!

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*update* i spoke with my doctor again at 10:30AM EST, and she sent me to arnold palmer hospital in downtown orlando. she couldn't tell by my description of the pain if it was something serious or not. so keith and i went down to the hospital, to triage labor and delivery. they ran some tests on me, and we listened to the baby's heartbeat again. the nurse there wasn't sure if i was having contractions or ligament pain. so after a few hours of testing and waiting, she gave me some medicine, and put me on bedrest for the next couple of days. i have my regular monthly doctor's appointment on thursday, and i am on bedrest until at least then. after my appointment, if my doctor feels like it is safe for me to go back to work, then i will. otherwise, i will take a few more days off for rest. so far i am feeling about the same. i think i will take advantage of this time and sleep.

last night i started having some bad crampy pains on my left side. i thought they would let up, but they were just as bad this morning. i called the doctor when i got to work, just to check it out. i know some crampy pains are normal, but i didn’t know how bad they could be before i should worry. i spoke with my usual nurse, and she said it could be two things. #1- round ligament pain, just growth of the baby pushing on stuff, which is normal and harmless, or #2- my uterus contracting, which is not good. she is going to speak with the doctor and call me back in an hour or so. makes me a little bit nervous!

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what a weekend! we were busy all weekend! not very restful, but we had a good time. we started out friday night by spending a few hours at babies ‘r’ us, looking at cribs and furniture. baby furniture is expensive, you know, just because it says “baby” on it. it is all that fake wood, and not very attractive. i was disappointed in the selection. the cribs were all beautiful, and solid wood. but the matching dressers, changing tables, etc. were really ugly. so we thought maybe we should hit some regular furniture stores and find a good dresser. we looked a bit friday night, but didn’t buy anything.

then saturday morning we were up with the sun to hit a friend-of-a-friend’s garage sale. she lives in a ritzy neighborhood, and the whole community was having a huge garage sale. my friend told me that her friend was selling a baby furniture set. so we got there bright and early, but it wasn’t a set, it was a hodge-podge of pieces, and they were in pretty bad condition. another disappointment, but we did pick up a johnny jump-up and a floor gym for the baby, both brand new in the box. so that was a good deal. then on the way out, we stopped at a neighbor’s garage sale, and picked up 8 white onesies, some burp clothes, and a whole stack of sleepers (green and yellow and white – very gender neutral, of course). i even found a little ducky hat with ducky slippers from old navy for a quarter! that was fun.

after our morning at the garage sales, we went to baby depot (inside burlington’s) and a few more furniture stores, and really couldn’t find anything that we liked or could afford. so we were headed home, when we found a tent sale outside of bassett furniture. we pulled in, and ended up buying two pieces for the baby’s room – a 10-drawer dresser and an armoire, cherry, with pewter handles. they are so beautiful! we got an amazing deal (if not, we wouldn’t have bought them yet), and i love them! they are in our living room right now – we put our tv in the armoire. i got some furniture polish and shined them. it is such a dark cherry finish. i think it is called ebony cherry. i love them.

then saturday night we went to the disney resorts and picked up joni and jean lance. we went to downtown disney and ate a fabulous dinner at bongos, a cuban restaurant. we walked around a bit at downtown disney, then we went back to the hotel and hung out for a couple of hours. it was a lot of fun. i really enjoyed seeing joni, and jean was hilarious. we had a great time.

sunday afternoon we went grocery shopping, and we trudged back to babies ‘r’ us with one of the drawers from our new set, to find a crib with a matching finish. we found it, and ordered it. it will be here in about 10 days. so we are officially done with furniture! oh, except for the rocking chair. but that will come later. maybe not until we move, so we have less to move. i still need to buy bedding for the crib and bassinet, and a mattress for the crib, and all the little things like blankets, toys, etc. but that will wait a while. we need to replenish our baby fund after all that furniture! but it is beautiful, and furniture that will last. it is all hardwood. it is nicer than our bedroom set! i am thrilled with it.

keith started back to class today. this month he has class monday through saturday, 1PM to 5PM. he doesn’t have his lab schedule for may yet, but supposedly he will have 12-hour days this month. we will see. i know he is excited about school drawing to an end. he has may and june left, and then he is done! his graduation is july 2nd.

this thursday is my doctor’s appointment. i will have some bloodwork done, and set up my sonogram. and also on thursday, betsy and alex arrive. looks like we will be staying busy for the next couple of weeks.

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had the weirdest dream last night. i dreamed that i had the baby, and carried it around in a backpack, and when i opened the backpack, it smelled bad because i never changed its diaper. a bit frightening. every single book i read on pregnancy talks about the “weird dream” phase – i guess all the worries/fears/excitement about having a baby come out in dreams. i’ve had several dreams like this. the last dream involved leaving the baby everywhere, always forgetting it. but, the baby has been a boy in all the dreams. could that mean anything?

i am 93% certain that i felt the baby move yesterday. i have had the feeling before, but the results were inconclusive. this being my first pregnancy, i don’t really know what to expect. but it felt a little like a muscle spasm, like tap-tap-tap. i was so excited, i had to call keith.

speaking of keith, he is off this week. he had class monday and tuesday, but that’s it. so he is catching up on some reading, and cleaning up the house while he stays home. he is a nice husband. he helps so much. yesterday he called me at work and made a lunch date, so we got to eat lunch together. that was fun. i don’t see him that much really, and when i do, he is usually studying and i am sleeping! so it is good to sit down and talk and spend some “face-time” together.

last night i went to bed at 8:30. it’s getting embarrassing. but i just can’t hold my eyes open anymore. of course, part of the reason is that i have been getting up early to exercise. i have a walking tape that i do with some little weights. supposedly when you finish working out with the tape, you have walked two miles. i hate getting up early, but i feel good when i finish the work-out. it is very low-impact. basically just walking, so it is fine for the baby. and good for me.

i found a great denim bassinet set on ebay. i don’t know if i mentioned that or not. it still has four days to go, so i am keeping an eye on it. it is very gender-neutral, and brand new. i am keeping my fingers crossed! i haven’t found “the” crib set, yet, though. i think when i see it, it will jump out at me and scream, “BUY ME!” i am going to wait to find out the sex of the baby before i buy a crib set, though, so i can be a little more specific in what i want.

two weeks from today, i will be home in bentonville! acambaro, anyone??

p.s. happy 22nd boodles

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last night was so funny. i made fajitas for dinner, and my poor starving husband, who has been living on applesauce and mashed potatoes for the last couple of days, decided to try to eat some. he made a noble attempt, but he couldn’t chew it up. so we put a whole fajita, shell and all, in the blender, and made some sort of whipped fajita mush. he loved it. it looked like someone had already eaten the fajita and thrown it up to me, but he chowed it down.

i have been scouring the internet and local baby stores for bedding for our bassinet. i guess most people use cradles these days, instead of bassinets, so not much bedding is made or sold for the bassinets. i am getting really frustrated. the only set i can find at babies ‘r’ us, and on ebay, is a white lace eyelet set. first of all, no lace. and who wants a pure white set to put in a baby’s bassinet? no thank you to cleaning spit-up and poop off the white bedding every day. i am still looking, though. hopefully something good will show up on ebay.

the christian radio station here, z88.3,is so funny. they play this game on wednesday mornings called z-oke, like karaoke (guessing on the spelling here, you get the point). they play a song, and people call in, and if you are singing when they answer, they put you on the air to sing with the song and you win something. then on the chorus they put all the callers on together to sing with the song. everyone who calls is so awful, and usually they don’t know the words. this is a disgrace. i always try to win, because i know that i would be good, and i should get to sing on the radio. but so far, no luck. i am becoming addicted to the radio call-in games. i have been trying for weeks to win tickets to a third day concert, but no luck yet. speaking of concerts, when betsy and alex come to visit, betsy and i are going to a 4him concert. we always go to 4him concerts together. that will be fun. we love that group. and speaking of betsy, tomorrow is her birthday, so don’t forget. she will be 22 (old).

nothing else new. dante’ is about over his bladder infection, so he is feeling much more chipper lately. and keith is feeling better, too. our household is almost back to normal. well, as normal as we have ever been. i am feeling just fine, and i will be going back to the doctor next thursday, may 9th, to do some bloodwork, and to set up the date for our sonogram! it is coming up so soon. pray that the baby is cooperative, because i will be SO upset if results are inconclusive. come on, i have shopping to do!