Post Christmas News

Okay gang,
I'm taking a quick break from work to update everyone, as some exciting new developments have occurred. As many of you will already have heard, Mr. Duttera made our forever official on Christmas morning, when he got down on one knee and presented me with a beautiful diamond ring.

I have, of course, already started pouring through the magazines and making notes for things. No date yet, but I'll keep you all posted.

Meanwhile, Violet had the hiccups again this morning, and rather violently I must say. She's obviously opposed to me sneaking in 5 more minutes before dragging myself out of bed. I don't like the implications of that.

I'm at 25.5 weeks now, which is technically only 5.5 months, and somehow that count doesn't sound right to me, not if my due date is April 6th. That sound like I should be due sometime later in April. Hmm. I'll have to check those numbers. Here's what the BabyCenter email had to say about baby's development this week:

How your baby's growing

Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. Her weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga, but she's beginning to exchange her long, lean look for some baby fat. As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn. She's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture.

I wonder what color that hair will eventually be. There's a fair chance she could have some red in her hair -- Shawn has a lot of it.

As exciting as all the wedding stuff is, I feel like I need to refocus to baby, since I only have a few more months to enjoy being preggo and getting ready for her arrival. Then I can transition to wedding planning to my heart's content.

Waking Up

I don't know why I'm actually up this early. I took a shower last night so I don't need the extra time or anything. But I'm not overly exhausted, and going back to sleep would just mean having to rouse myself from semi-REM sleep again in a few minutes, and my hips are hurting already anyway. I slept on the other side of the bed last night, since I was trying to watch South Park on my laptop and it was easier to do that from the other side. But that side doesn't have my comfortable rut in it, and I spent most of the night trying to readjust myself so I didn't roll away. Now I'm sitting at the computer in the front room, having actually risen with the alarm, waking up slowing to the internet and pointing the water bottle at the cat every two minutes as he tries to get into Christmas decorations that are, in fact, not toys for him.

Shawn bought us a PS3 over the weekend, as well as a wireless router, and it finally feels like we're not just faking it as adults. I know, that's lame. But I can get online in any room of my house, I can stream my Netflix to the tv, which makes it feel like we have more than 10 channels to chose from, and Shawn feels like he has something nice, which is, sadly, a rarity for him these days.

I spent the weekend baking Christmas cookies with Megan, and managed not to eat too many of them in the process. Baby enjoyed the few I did have, though.

Tonight I must finish my Christmas shopping. Shawn is probably going to shop for the kids today, if he gets up in time to take me to work so he can use the car. It's so fun to have kids to shop for this year. And next year, I will have my kid!

You know, I've been hitting the place in this pregnancy in which I keep having feelings of, what the heck am I doing? Perhaps it's all finally settling in. I'm going to have an actual child to care for, not just a baby to play with. I don't doubt my ability, but it's just a big reality starting to sink in.

In any event, I hope to also hit the gym tonight for the first time in several weeks. I signed up again last week, and I just didn't have any time to myself after Wednesday night.

Also, I dreamed about Tim McGraw last night. Explain.

A Jolly Xmas Day

I have an appointment with my new Kaiser doc on Monday, December 6th, at 10am. I got a female doctor, but after looking at her profile it looks like she's a resident and not a full fledged doc yet. Which is cool with me, her profile looks like she's a cool lady, and one of the questions I've written down for her is whether or not a doc will be shadowing her and so on.

Baby has been kicking more and more these days, a lot at night and in the morning, but lately I've also been feeling kicks after eating, which I've heard is what they do. Of course, I've also been getting heartburn on a pretty regular basis during the day. It doesn't really matter what I eat, it gives me heartburn anyway. But it's not super bad heartburn, so I just chug water and deal with it.

I got a cute new journal last night, and I'm going to use it as my pregnancy journal. I got the idea from a friend of mine who said she had used one, and kept records of questions she wanted to ask the doc, random thoughts, and so on. The one I got is super cute, it has little rainbow colored dolls all over it, like those Russian nesting dolls. Shawn and I also went to the bookstore and Walgreens tonight and got more xmas stuff -- garland for the tree, two new music cds, and some towels and pot holders for the kitchen. Walgreens had all kinds of xmas stuff for cheap, so I didn't feel bad, we didn't even spend $20 there and got a bunch of cute stuff. I got a new stocking, too, red and knitted. And I officially have one present under my tree, and another one that needs to be wrapped. Yay, Christmas!!

Finally, my stomach feels huge tonight. I took a picture of it, just to document, cause it feels more ginormous than usual.