Goings On...

I need to make up pseudonyms for the active participants in my blog. For now, J is my husband, C is his beautiful daughter. I'll come up with a cast of characters soon.

Last week was fabulous. Both J and I took a vacation. He took C to Florida to meet family and I stayed at home for a baby shower that Jessie, my neighbor threw for me. C and J had a wonderful time in Florida. C especially took to her cousin, Jessica. C got to swim at the pool and the beach and Grammy and Aunt Becki made sure they got their shopping time in with C. She had a fabulous time.

Meanwhile, at home, friends, family, and neighbors gathered at Jessie's for my baby shower. I went to the airport in the morning and dropped off C and J for their trip to Florida. I proceeded to baggage claim to pickup my friend from Chicago, Kim and her son Ryan. He's 23 months old. But wait, that's not all. I had two big surprises. First of all, Kim was pregnant. Way pregnant! And looking beautiful, I might add. As soon as I could get over myself, I looked to the side to find her mother, Mary standing there. What a surprise- 2 in one day! I was overwhelmed with emotion. Shut up, I'm pregnant, so let me be.

All of our friends and family were so generous. I can't thank everybody enough. We have a great start to bringing this baby into the world. I'm pretty sure we have everything we need to get started. Jessie made wonderful deserts including chocolate cherry cake and cookies. She had some fun games and nice prizes.

One of my favorite gifts was the John Lennon mobile. Is it fair to pick favorites when everything was fabulous? Well, no I guess not but I really like this mobile from Lisa and Brett. It has cute animals hanging and it doesn't play something lame like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or lullabies; it plays Imagine. You know the song (lyrics from lyrics.com):

Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,Imagine all the people
living for today...
 
Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
 
Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
 
You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
- John Lennon
 
The best thing about this song is that the dogs really love it, especially Maggie. Every time I wind the mobile up, she comes running in the room to listen to it. Who knows, maybe Westley will love the Beatles as much as his Daddy. We know C does. C really likes that song where "she's just standing there" (direct quote). She also likes Good Day Sunshine.

Baby Westley is still progressing well. He's 6 lbs and 3 oz and hasn't dropped yet. We're looking forward to meeting him but we hope he waits until his due date. Hah. You can laugh if you want, but I can still hope. We have so much to do and it would be at the end of a pay period. I'm sure Westley doesn't have convenience in mind but we'll see.

Baby Update

Baby Westley had his 34 week appointment yesterday. We have been visiting the specialist often but every week since 31 weeks and he is doing great. I'm going to stop here and write an aside of why I refer to the boy as Westley...

J and I decided that we didn't want to officially name the baby until he was born. Okay, it was more me than Josh but he graciously agreed to my neuroses nonetheless. So then we had to decide what to call it if it was a boy or a girl. J had given me the DVD of the Princess Bridefor Valentine's Day. I have always loved that movie and so does Josh. He suggested that we call it Westley if it's a boy or Buttercup if it's a girl. There you go.

Since week 14, we've known it's no longer an "it" but a "he." So our little him is affectionately called Westley.

...Aside over.

Today, Westley is 5.5 B.B. (before birth) and getting older every day. He's scored 8/8 for the last 3 specialist visits.

For those of you wondering why I see a specialist, they found antibodies in my blood, consistent with Lupus disease, during my first OB/GYN visit. (I don't have Lupus) They were worried about blood clots, growth of the baby, and my blood pressure. They prescribed me baby aspirin to be taken daily to thin my blood. The pregnancy has been perfectly normal and every visit is pretty routine except that I have to go more often than most.

Why did he score 8/8? Well, I can't account for all 8 but here's the basic gist: Westley weighed in at 5 lbs and 9 oz. today and he's right on track and considered normal, my blood pressure (120/64) was high for me but below "normal", no proteins in my urine (tmi?), the baby's movement is very active, and he's performing his own practice breathing.

Yesterday, I saw that Westley has his father's nose and my lips. He was also sucking on his hand. Have I mentioned my ultrasound technician is very good? He's been head-down for 3 weeks (hope he stays that way). Every time I see him, he has his fists in the guard position around his face. I think he'll be ready for Karate soon. He and I have been taking Karate and teaching Cardio Kickboxing until about 2 weeks ago so he's getting his practice. Since, we've taken it down a notch by taking more naps, walking, swimming, and watching the dogs chase the ball in the backyard.

J and C are taking their long awaited trip to Florida. Both J and C are excited about meeting a lot more of C's family in the Ferguson clan. She especially can't wait to meet Aunt Becki. We're not sure why, but she has a strong bond to Becki even though they haven't met yet. We could understand if she had met her already because after all, who wouldn't want to be with Aunt Becki? She also talks about Becki and Haakon's dog, Henna and Brett and Lisa's dog, Nala a lot.

While J and C are in Florida, I'll be chilling at home with my friend Kim (matron of honor from the wedding) and her son, Ryan. She's coming from Chicago for my shower on Saturday. I'm very excited. Although I'll miss J and C greatly, this will be a good time for Kim and I without the hubbies. We haven't had that since the 90's. Heh, the 90s.

The baby room is coming along nicely thanks to my generous friends and neighbors. Everybody in my neighborhood had toddler boys so we got a lot of clothes and baby stuff. Plus, my friend Becky had twins over four months ago, so she generously gave us 0-3 month clothes (2 of most!), a stroller, and an umbrella stroller. Jessie's been the biggest help of all with all of Cole's old stuff including a changing table, a crib and much more. Thanks Jessie!

Nesting

So I guess my nesting phase has taken hold. Everybody says that during the latter part of the pregnancy, you get a burst of energy, you feel great, and you feel like nesting. Well, I don't have this energy. In fact, I feel very tired most of the time but I've had the biggest urge to finish the office, get the baby's room ready, and clean, clean, clean. OH! I also feel like cooking.

After giving birth, J and I are switching roles. He always had dinner ready after a long day's work. I would occasionally cook on the weekends, when the mood would strike. I plan on doing a lot more of the cooking now and have been experimenting 1-2 times a week. I've even baked some! I've always hated baking but I find that I like making goods from scratch. We've had one really bad dinner as a result of my cooking but overall I think the experience has been good. Here's a list of things I've tried recently. I will rate them out of 5 stars, 5 being the best:

Asian-Style Pork and Vegetable Noodles I substituted a lot for ingredients I couldn't find) ****

Will try Barbecued Shrimp in Lettuce next time as an accompanient.

Southwest Turkey Burgers **** with O-Nuts ***~ Burgers were great and tasty but I made them too large. J really like the onion rings but I couldn't get the batter to stay on the onion. I will try better next time.

Ginger Lemonage *****- OMG fantastic! Ginger good!

Spinach Alfredo Lasagna ****

Chocolate Chip Cookies (part 1)****- I don't know where the exact entry is but I got it from this incredibly inspiring website.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (part 2)****- different recipe, different website substituting some flour with cocoa powder.

Ultimate Brownies- Will be making this week. This recipe is from the Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten). I doubt the recipe is still available. It posts for a limited time so we can buy her incredibly expensive cookbook. Nonetheless, she inspires me so and I love her show.

Puttanesca Sauce *- J actually loved this meal. I made the sauce with some whole-wheat spaghetti. I used Kalameto olives and I think it overpowered the sauce too much. I will try this recipe again with some tweaking. For the most part it was good.

This new cooking bug I have is great but I don't want to fall into a pattern where dinner gets too boring or worse, too expensive. I'm only inspired by shows and websites that demonstrate simplicity but still pack a punch of flavor. I'm inspired by Rachael Ray, Ina Garten, AllRecipes.com, J's family recipes, and the other blogs I linked to for some of the recipes above.