35 Weeks

Elizabeth2 Comments

I borrowed this list from a few blogs I’ve discovered and have enjoyed reading. I wish I had done this every month, but a lot of it has stayed the same, so …oh well!

How Far Along: 35 Weeks, 4 Days. 31 days till I’m due! I can’t believe it’s a month (or less) away! I am really trying hard to get the house in order and kept clean, but it’s hard. I get really tired really fast and I’m so uncomfortable most of the time it’s easier just to stay put on the couch.

How Big is the Baby: Well, according to my weekly babycenter.com email, Grayson should weigh about 5.25 pounds at this point and be about the size of a cantaloupe. I’d like to meet whoever came up with the food comparisons- week 22 was a spaghetti squash-huh? However, we’re not sure how big he is right now. At my last doctor appointment, my doctor was concerned that I’m measuring small (in her words, I’m “tiny”- ha ha, that makes me laugh since that’s the LAST word I would use to describe myself right now). So, Wednesday afternoon I am going for an ultrasound at the hospital to measure his growth. She wasn’t overly concerned and neither am I- he moves like crazy all the time and the heart looked great on her machine. He just might be a little peanut, and that’s ok. We’ll still take him.

Total Weight Gain: Not sure- I think about 20 or 25 pounds. I can’t remember. Whatever it is, I hope it comes off quickly!

Maternity Clothes: I love maternity clothes! They are so easy and comfy. I’m not going to like going back to zippers and buttons. Most of my regular t-shirts still fit, which is good because that’s my work “uniform”. Ryan will be glad when I can go back to regular pjs, since I was too cheap to buy maternity ones when his boxers work just fine!

Stretch Marks: Not yet!

Sleep: I am sleeping ok, other than having to get up about twice a night to go to the bathroom. I can’t live without my maternity body pillow and 2-3 cat naps a day though.

Movement: My FAVORITE thing about pregnancy- it’s just amazing. I love watching my belly shift and move as he dances in there. So far I haven’t experienced any real painful kicks or jabbing my ribs that everyone talks about. And he hasn’t had the hiccups either. I kind of want him to get the hiccups, just so I can see what the fuss is all about.

Food Cravings: Probably the most annoying thing about pregnancy for me (other than the 4 weeks I threw up every day). I don’t crave anything specific, I am just STARVING all the time. I feel like all I do is eat, which makes it annoying when people tell me how small I am and that I need to eat more to feed the baby. I’ve tried to eat relatively healthy, but Mexican food and pizza always taste SO good! I eat a bag of popcorn almost every morning to curb hunger,  I cheat several times a week and have a diet coke or tea- I’m human.

What I Miss: The biggest thing is definitely sleeping on my stomach. And I don’t drink much at all, but a glass of wine or margarita sounds SO good right now. I also miss feeling somewhat in shape. I’m hoping to get back to excercising regularly in a few months.

What I’m Looking Forward To: Meeting this little guy- what else?!

So I guess that’s it for now…off to find something to eat!

Fur Babies

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Ryan and I have 4 dogs, and at the risk of sounding crazy, they truly are our babies. Everyone says, “Just wait until that baby comes- those dogs will be dogs again.” That makes me sad. However, I’m not one of those people who treats their dogs like they are human- they don’t wear clothes, they eat dog food, etc. They are, however, a huge priority and caring for them takes a lot of time. Time I’m not sure I’ll have in a few weeks. So when Grayson arrives, yes, there will be some adjustment. I just hope they continue to know they are loved and are an important part of our family.

Here’s a little bit about each of them…

Sweet Gabby after a haircut
Gabby- I’ve had Gabby the longest of all of them- I adopted her in March 2006 to be a playmate for my westie Pippi, who we lost Christmas Day 2007 (she got under the fence and we never found her- devastating). Gabby’s a cute little blonde lhasa apso with a pretty quirky personality. She sometimes wants to cuddle and be petted, but usually for just a few minutes- then she’s done. Most often she just likes to be near us- not touching us. When I adopted Gabby she had chronic dry eye that progressively got worse and worse over 2 years. We had her eye removed in August 2008 and it was the best decision. No more cleaning gunk from her eye and no more 3 times a day eye drops! And personally I think her one eye just makes her that much cuter! When Grayson comes, I think Gabby will just ignore him for the most part- until he’s mobile and wants to pull on her poofy tail.
This picture pretty much says it all!
Izzy- Oh, Izzy. Izzy is the most frustrating, demanding, stubborn, incorrigable little being- but I am so completely head over heels in love with her it’s ridiculous. Every time I see her she makes me smile- first of all she is SO cute (see photo evidence), but she also has the spunkiest, sweetest little personality to balance out her not so lovable traits. Izzy demands attention- if you are not completely focused on her or letting her sleep on your feet or stomach (under the covers always)- she’s not happy and she lets you know it with her high pitched, annoying chirp. When Ryan and I got married, we decided no dogs in the bed with us. Well, guess who is the ONLY dog in our bed now? It took her a few months, but Izzy campaigned loud enough all night long every night that she now has her spot under the covers between her mommy and daddy at night. Sigh. Izzy is obviously the one I’m most worried about with Grayson-I can see her being very jealous of all the attention and time he’ll get (and she won’t). She won’t do anything to hurt him- I just think she’ll crank up her annoyingness a few notches- great.
Hank- Hank is our loud, lovable goofball. Most people who meet Hank think he’s just a cool dog- and he is. Before we got Hank, Ryan always mentioned he wanted to get a bloodhound someday and name him Hank. Well, when we lost Pippi, for weeks I spent hours online posting ads on sites hoping someone would find her and contact us. I spent a lot of time on petfinder.com and just happend to look up bloodhounds. There was his picture- and his name was Hank. It was fate. I forwarded the link to Ryan, mostly as a joke- as in, ha ha, I found your dog. Well, 2 or 3 days later we brought him home. Hank had been in an animal sanctuary for 7 months in an outdoor, uncovered kennel. He was skinny and starved for attention. We instantly fell in love with him. Hank loves people and most dogs, and he loves to run and play. Thanks to my job at Waggin’ Tails, he gets to run and play for hours most days, which is one of the biggest blessings in our lives. The fact that Hank could have been trained as a police search and rescue dog doing “serious” work just makes me laugh- like I said, he is just a goof. He spends most of his time at home inside, either sleeping or decorating our walls with his slobber. I can’t wait to see what kind of relationship Hank and Grayson will develop- I think they will be so cute together. And Hank is excited to have another dude in the house!
Chloe loves to be comfortable!
Chloe- Chloe is our little angel dog. When we lost Pippi, we got a call from a friend saying there was a little white dog wandering on their street. Knowing it was a long-shot, we went to see if it was Pippi anyway. No, but it was a sweet little Westie who immediately came to me and crawled in my lap wanting to be loved. I couldn’t NOT take her home- and she’s been with us ever since. Chloe is SO sweet and is the best behaved of the 4- she listens and obeys anything we ask her to do or stop doing. You can just look in her eyes and tell she wants to please you. I often wonder where she came from- if she had a loving family who wonders about her like I wonder about Pippi. Sometimes though I think God sent her to me to help heal the pain of losing my first little Westie. Although she is so precious and sweet, I do worry about Chloe. She doesn’t like people in her face and has snapped several times (Ryan has a scar on his lip from when he got too close- poor guy was just sweet talking her, but she didn’t like that too much!) So she’s the one I think I’ll have to keep a close eye on with Grayson, especially when he gets old enough  to get in her face.
So that’s the story of my babies- if anyone has any advice for me on how to make their (and my) transition easier for when the human baby arrives, please let me know! I know it’s going to be a challenge, but they are here to stay and we WILL make it work!

I’m Blogging!

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I’ve been wanting to start a blog for a long time now, but the whole idea of it just makes me nervous. I guess I’m just self conscious about putting my life on the internet and even more nervous about what people will think. I don’t want to look dumb, boring, or that I am sharing T.M.I. But…one of my favorite things to do is read other people’s blogs, and I really want to chronicle our lives right now, since we are about to embark on some pretty fantastic changes REALLY soon.

So…about me. I am 30 years old, married 2 years, have 4 dogs and 1 baby on the way- more specifically on the way in about 5 1/2 weeks! I was a teacher for 7 years but resigned at the end of last school year to be a stay at home mommy, which is what I’ve known my whole life is what I wanted to do. This new job makes me nervous, scared, but mostly so excited! I can’t wait to be a mom!

My husband Ryan is a high school teacher/coach who is being so supportive and wonderful about our decision for me to stay home. I know it scares him and puts tons of pressure on him financially, but he has been great and I couldn’t ask for more.

Our son’s name is Grayson Robert, and we can’t wait to meet him in person! Everyone asks us how we chose his name, is it a family name, etc. Grayson is not- Ryan and I decided on both our girl and boy names before we were even engaged (we had nursery furniture before that too- yeah, I know). I think I just suggested it and Ryan really liked it, so it stuck. Robert is after Ryan’s grandfather who passed away a few years ago. He was a father to Ryan and we really wanted to honor him- he would have loved nothing more than to get to meet and hold Grayson.

I think I’ll “introduce” the rest of the family (the dogs) in a later post- they are so much a part of our lives and I have lots of thoughts to share on how this change in our family is going to affect them too. But for now- thanks for reading…I think I’m going to enjoy the bloggin thing.