8 Weeks and Counting
05 September '08 by Binary Blonde, under Pregnancy.
Today I hit my 32 week mark. Only 8 weeks left! That’s 224 days, so far, that I’ve been pregnant. You know, in case you’re counting. 
Some days I feel like it’s all gone so fast, and others, I just can’t wait to meet him already!
Apparently, for the next 8 weeks, Binary Boy is supposed to gain a half a pound a week. Oh. My. Gosh. I have no idea how I can get any bigger, but, I’m sure my body will find a way (scary).
Anyway, here are my bulleted lists of what’s been going on with my pregnancy since I last updated.
Good stuff:
- My hips don’t hurt anymore! My mom says it’s because they’ve probably done all the stretching they need to. I hope she’s right. That was pretty damn awful.
- I don’t (read: can’t) stuff myself anymore with food. There’s just no more room in there. It’s all him, now. I’ll have my little noshes throughout the day, but no more constant eating & snacking.
- I’m sleeping better. Oh, I still get up like 4-5 times a night to pee, but I can fall right back asleep now. Sleep = Bliss.
- Drinking coconut milk (read: electrolytes, I just love anything coconut) helps keep my feet a semi-normal size. See below.
- Binary Boy’s crib and co-sleeper are ready when he is.
- Kevin (my coach) and I started my birthing classes last Tuesday. We’re taking the Bradley Method classes, as they are more geared towards natural, unmedicated child birth than Lamaze or others. After one class, I know they are going to be helpful and I’m so glad we’re taking them together. Kevin has mentioned that he doesn’t want to see any videos. I think he’s sorta S.O.L. at this point. Poor guy.
Not so good stuff:
- Oh my aching feet. My poor, swollen, sausage-feet. They are hideously swollen by the end of the day. And totally uncomfortable to walk on. Plus, I need a pedicure. It just depress me to look at them. At least the coconut milk helps some.
- Even though Binary Boy’s crib and co-sleeper are ready, nothing else is. Not his changing table, not his room, not much of anything else. It’s really stressing me out and I can’t do it alone. We’re going to try and make some real progress within the next week or two.
And, yet again, the good outweigh the bad. I plan on keeping it that way, too.
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Reflections on Odd Punctuation
04 September '08 by Binary Blonde, under Blogging.
I’m not sure why, but it always weirds me out when someone using punctuation a space or several spaces after the end of a sentence. Especially excessive punctuation.
Example: “Congrats !!!!” or “Hello ????”
Does anyone else notice that, too, or is it just me?
3 Comments
New Friends
02 September '08 by Binary Blonde, under Friends & Family.
A few weeks after we moved into our new home, our doorbell rang just after we’d finished dinner and we opened the door to find two women, one was older and one was younger and also pregnant. The younger (and pregnant one) of the two women is our neighbor from 3 houses down and the older woman lives right next door to her.
They introduced themselves and we found out that the older woman is the mother-in-law of the pregnant woman (with a boy!), who was only a week from her due date. After we exchanged names, we chatted for a bit and found out that they all moved from the San Diego area a little over a year ago! Quite a cowinkidink, huh?
That weekend, while Kevin and I were out in our front yard, trying to figure out what the heck to do with our new sod that was being taken over by weeds already, we saw the pregnant woman’s husband playing fetch with their dog. So, we walked over and introduced ourselves. We immediately clicked and knew that we had found some good friends.
Since then, we’ve been over for dinner and they’ve been over for a tour of our place. We’ve also gone over, at their invitation, just to hang out. They also had their baby! We’ve gone over to see him several times. He’s still less than a week old, yet, and so adorable and tiny.
We all get along so well and we’re stoked that we’ve met such good friends so soon after moving. It’s amazing how much having friends makes all the difference in how you feel about moving to a new place. 
Plus, we all realized that we can babysit each others kids when the need/want arises. Instant baby sitters and only three houses away! Score!
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I Dream About Buffalo Wings
28 August '08 by Binary Blonde, under Food & Health, Pregnancy.
Since day one of my pregnancy, I’ve craved protein. First it was hard-boiled eggs for weeks and weeks, then salmon for a few weeks, then avocados… which somehow eventually lead to turkey and chicken.
Now? Well now I crave chicken, specifically buffalo wings, to the point where I dream about eating them and even getting them delivered to the house. That latter part is only weird because the last time Kevin and I had food delivered to our place of residence had to have been in early 2004, shortly after we first moved in together after we got married.
Also, craving buffalo wings might not seem like a big deal, either, but maybe it will if I tell you that I’ve been vegetarian most of my life and vegan for almost 7 years before I became pregnant. Heck, to some of my long-term readers, it might come as a complete shock (and possibly disappointment) that I am not vegan or even vegetarian anymore. I’m hoping that you, my long-term readers especially, won’t think any less of me for “falling off the wagon.”
Truly, it wasn’t an easy a choice. I wrestled with the reassessment of my own ideals, values, and ethics for weeks before really coming to terms with the change in diet. Also, in the early weeks of trying small nibbles of ground turkey and bites of Kevin’s chicken legs, I still felt personal disappointment for “giving up” on being vegan.
After a while, though, all the guilt sorta went away and food became a part of my life, not a part of controlling my life.
See, food and I, we’ve always had a.. well… shall we say… unique relationship. It’s controlled me (I had milk & cheese allergies as a child and now am allergic to milk & wheat) and I’ve controlled it (I was a raw vegan for some time).
Recently, however, our normal dysfunctional and controlling relationship has transformed into one of peace and cooperation. I can now enjoy cheese & yogurt in moderation, certain meats (chicken, turkey and fish) and eggs without the normal guilt center in my brain firing off and belittling me for eating those particular foods.
On one level I feel like that rat, Remy, in Ratatouille, as I am also enjoying the taste, smell and texture of food like I never have before. Whereas I used to view food as pure nurishment to just keep me alive, now, I actually like food and enjoy savoring all that it has to offer.
After many years of proudly wearing my vegan/vegetarianism like a badge of honor, I finally feel as if I am more than just a “label” and have accepted my new found love of poultry as normal growth and change.
If you think about it, though, I haven’t changed all that much. I still eat lots of organic fruits and veggies, which is easy considering the world’s largest Whole Foods is in town. I still enjoy my wheat-free bread and other non-wheat carbs. Actually, I’m still relatively anal-retentive about what I eat, it’s just that what I eat now happens to include a variety of dairy foods (cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, frozen yogurt), eggs, and poultry meat.
And, before any of you from the “you need meat to live” brigade start in with “Yay! We “cured” a vegan.”, you can just leave me out of your agenda. I want nothing to do with it, because, who knows? Someday, I might dismiss meat and eggs again and return to being labeled a vegan or vegetarian. Then again, I might not. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
As for now, however, I am enjoying the new (to me) foods that have awakened my palate. Now, let’s see, where did I put that take-out menu?
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How True
22 August '08 by Binary Blonde, under Geekiness.
“Moving”
That was us only a few weeks ago.
Also, if you hover over the original comic on xkcd.com, there’s usually another nugget of funny. This time, it was “We need a special holiday to honor the countless kind souls with unsecured networks called ‘linksys’.”
Agreed.
