18!

That's how many weeks along I am (actually closer to 19 now, but whatever).  My tummy has officially "popped" and I no longer have to constantly debate in my head whether I look overweight or just preggers.  The bad news is that my pants are just not working for me anymore, and I hate using the Bella Band and rubber bands, although I also hate the idea of maternity pants.  So mostly I just want to hang out in soft pants (my name for sweats) but the hubs isn't always thrilled with that.  I must admit, it would be somewhat disheartening to come home every night after a long day to find your un-showered, soft-pant-wearing, dog-hair-covered wife.  Who's usually stressed about something insignificant, like how annoying our dogs are and how their barking sends me to crazy land.

In other news, we got our Xmas tree, and I love it!  I love Christmas and am too excited for next year, when we'll have our very own baby bee to celebrate with.  We decorated Friday night with a fire and everything.  Fantastic.  We also talked today about how we want to handle holidays with family once we have the bee...and reached no conclusions.  Is it awful that I don't mind spending holidays with my fam but don't want his around every year?  Whoops, didn't just say that.  How do other people handle this, especially when one family lives in town? 

Currently obsessing about nurseries and whether we can buy a home before the babe comes or not...it'll be tricky and we'll definitely be house-poor, but it would be worth it to finally have our own place that I can decorate to my heart's (or at least my wallet's) content.  We'll see...

And OMG, the biggest news yet!!  I can't believe I'm silly enough to have forgotten to write about this till now, but the baby just reminded me.  That's right, I can feel him!  Or her...it's taken me a few weeks of thinking "wait, is that it?  or is that it?  or wait what was that??" before I have finally decided I definitely feel it moving around and kicking in there.  It's much lower down in my abdomen than I thought, closer to my pubic bone (sorry) than my bellybutton for sure.  Is that normal at 18 weeks?  I thought my uterus was supposed to be nearly to my bellybutton by now, but who knows.  Anyway, even the hubs felt it last night!  It was so cool, although the downside is that when I don't feel him for awhile I get nervous that something's wrong.  I can usually feel something every day lately, but for awhile there it was only every few days so I wasn't sure what was going on. 

Off to eat some delicious Cracker Barrel biscuits...that's right, still craving carbs.  And Nutella and potato chip sandwiches!  Mmmm the best.

So it's been awhile...

And I don't even have the excuse of working!  Thanksgiving was crazy busy but I can say that it was a successful dinner for 7.  Having the 'rents and the in-laws together was stressful, not least due to some typical yet-still-frustrating communication problems on the part of the in-laws.  With their various and innumerable dietary issues, a holiday meal was a challenge, but i think it turned out OK.

Anyway, what is this blog all about...oh yeah, pregnancy!  I'm doing much better in terms of diet, though still having trouble with meat.  There's still an occasional whiff of nausea when I'm eating something, but overall it's do-able.  The heartburn's a lot better, too.  BUT, (of course!), a new annoyance has popped up, which is insomnia.  UGH I hate it!  I'm tired pretty much all the time (what's with all those people who say fatigue goes away during the 2nd tri??  Mine is worse than ever!) but as soon as I crawl into bed at night, I'm instantly awake and TWITCHY.  Oh, so horribly, annoyingly, screamingly twitchy.  I've hear that restless leg syndrome can be a problem in pregnancy, but I have restless arm syndrome!  So the first couple hours in bed are pretty miserable, and then finally I go to sleep.  Sometimes I wake up around 4 or 5 and have another bout, which is the worst.  So weird, and really not good for all the fatigue.

So, being at home...getting used to it, and also bored of it.  It's a weird combination of boredom and being tired, so that I'll have a list of stuff to do (not a huge or very hard list, mostly cleaning or laundry) and won't be able to get through it without a struggle.  I really, really should be walking the doggies everyday, but somehow it's hard to get myself to do it.  I'm doing OK getting in some prenatal yoga most days, which is good.  Overall, I could use some help with the inertia problem.

Getting bigger, finally, though I still don't know that I look pregnant.  I waffle between feeling huge and not huge enough.  We went to Dan's work Xmas party on Friday and he hadn't told many people, so I got ALOT of weird looks.  You could practically see people were thinking, "is she pregnant or just fat?"  Fun.

So, nursery update: I've found a nursery furniture set that i LOVE LOVE LOVE.  Yes, it's a million dollars, but hopefully I can convince my parents to buy it (they've agreed to furnish the nursery which is a HUGE help).  It's Oeuf, which is known for beautiful, sturdy nursery furniture and I heart it.  It's the Sparrow collection and I can't decide if I like white:

http://www.oeufnyc.com/images/products/detail/sparrow_crib_white_lg.jpg

Or grey:

http://www.oeufnyc.com/images/products/detail/sparrow_crib_grey_lg.jpg

And I've found some fabric I heart for the crib set, which I will attempt to sew myself:

http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/images/fabrics/soul_blossom/hd_joy2.gif

http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/images/fabrics/soul_blossom/hd_bliss2.gif

http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/images/fabrics/soul_blossom/hd_joy1.gif

They're all from Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms line, which is so beautiful and vibrant.  Hopefully it won't be too jarring for a nursery!  Dan likes another set of fabrics that are more vintage, but I can't turn these down.  Crossing my fingers it won't be too hard to sew all this stuff myself!