sight isn’t always necessary

Whoa Belly!

I’m sure you were all anxiously waiting for the next belly pic… and here it is!  Hopefully it doesn’t get TOO much huger – maybe a few inches more as Elly grows for these last few weeks.  Pretty crazy, huh?  I know I keep on trying to hurry up her arrival, but then I’ll have to be doing things with a newborn… as if that’s going to be any easier!!!  I do want to be done with being pregnant, but more than that, I just want to meet her.  I was talking to Craig last night about it; I haven’t had any dreams about her, nor do I have any clue what she’ll even possibly look like.  It’s kinda freaking me out!

So, there could possibly be another picture sometime in the next few weeks, but I have a feeling that with all that’s going on, I may not have time to actually get one taken, uploaded, and a silly post written to go along with it.  The next picture I post could be of our soon-to-be-born, positively beautiful, tiny baby girl!

Here’s me at 28 weeks.  The belly is gettin’ HUGE!  I still can’t believe I gained as much as I did last time – I weighed 200 lbs at the end, and this time I’m only at 160 (so about 20 pounds total so far), and I’m “nearing” the end!  OH if only 12 weeks felt like a short time…

28 weeks pregnant exactly!

Almost 27 weeks!  THIRD TRIMESTER, Here I COME!

I don’t seem to be gaining as much this time as I did when I was pregnant with Connor – but then again, I didn’t take a ton of pictures when I was pregnant with Connor.  I regret that, but I guess I was really swollen so I probably would look back on this pictures and groan at this point.  I was a whale!

My ankles are becoming a bit more swollen lately though, which is a little concerning.  Or my left ankle at least, which is the one I sprained a few years ago so maybe it’s just some vascular issue.  Either way, it’s uncomfortable.

Even more uncomfortable is my brain lately, but actually after talking to both Ravneet and Rachel I’m feeling a little better.  And I wrote a post to one of those parenting boards, and it seems my crazy thoughts of inadequacy aren’t that uncommon.  Lots of women go through the same thing.  And lots of men pretend like it doesn’t affect them, or maybe they really are just oblivious.

Anyway, I don’t have much more to say.  I want a chocolate shake!

We got this book at the library called “Everyone has a belly button”, which describes how a baby develops in the womb from being a tiny cell through when the baby is born.  It’s longer than many of Connor’s books, so he really likes to choose it every night because it means he can stay up later with me.  I read all of the words in the book exactly how they are written, because I’m not really afraid for Connor to know correct anatomical words or for him to ask questions about how things are happening.  It doesn’t go into any detail about how sex happens, so I don’t have to travel down that road yet (he is, of course, only three years old).  However, the book does use terms like “uterus”, “placenta”, “vagina”, and “breasts”.  Once in a while, Connor giggles or says “Va-CHINA” a few times just to bug me.  Last night, however, he was tired and ready for bed, so he was even more focused on what the book was telling him.  He listened carefully and didn’t interrupt throughout almost the entire book, but then on one of the last pages where it describes the mommy’s uterus squeezing the baby out of her body, through the vagina, and into the world… he stopped me.  He looked at me with a very VERY concerned face, and asked “Mommy, does it hurt when the baby comes out of your vaCHINA?  Because I don’t want that to happen if it hurts.”

I had to reassure him that yes, it hurts a mommy a lot, but after the baby is out she is so happy to meet the baby that she doesn’t even remember it hurting.  He seemed OK after that.

Then he wanted me to tell him the story about when he was born.  After a long night of fighting and arguing, it all ended really sweetly.

WOW!

I know it’s only a day after we found out, but I think it’s going to take a long long time to sink in.  A GIRL.  I’m a girl, so what’s the big deal?  I just don’t know.  I know how I feel about things, I know how my upbringing affected me, but I don’t know exactly how to allow or prevent things from happening to Elly that happened to me.  I want to raise a strong, independent daughter, capable of anything and more than most boys could ever achieve.  I think with Connor it’s easier because I know what a good man should be (or I think I do), and I think I know how to help him discover what he’s capable of.  With a girl, I feel so conflicted – I’m not even sure what I’m capable of, I’m not even sure if I’m a good person, so I’m obviously not a very confident person (all the time, at least), and trying to instill confidence and strength into another woman is going to be so…

I’m rambling!  But I’m scared, too.  I know both of my sisters have daughters, and my mom managed to have four… but I don’t know if I’ll be good at it.

I had a long conversation with Craig last night about the way he acts toward Connor.  Craig was talking to Elly (my belly), telling her all about her big brother.  Almost every single thing he said was some negative comment about our son – he doesn’t eat enough, he’s a “punk”, he doesn’t listen well, he’s short… it’s as if there’s nothing good about Connor that Craig could come up with on the spot without slamming our 3 year old child at the same time.  Being pregnant, and emotional, I just couldn’t stand it!  I mean, it is HARD to deal with Connor sometimes.  He’s incredibly stubborn, and from what I can gather from my mom and her sisters (Mari and Christine never warned me about this), it’s apparently a stage that kids go through – the “Horrible Threes” or something?  I also admit that my methods aren’t the best; they’re probably close to the worst, and that me being forceful with Connor is definitely something I need to CHANGE (I don’t know how, so any suggestions are definitely welcome).  But I’m MADLY in love with that kid!  I think he’s absolutely perfect – besides his tendency to act like a three year old child.  I want him to respect me, and even sometimes fear me (not that I’ll beat him or something, just that I really mean what I say and he isn’t the one in control), but I also want him to feel like nothing he can or cannot do will ever change the love his parents have for him.  Y’know?  That’s what all kids want, I think.  To know that even in their failures, while often not wished for by the parents, the love between parent and child holds firm.  No matter whether he’s good at soccer, excels at the piano, is a math genius, speaks clearly, makes a lot of friends… anything – nothing can change what I feel for that kid.  But with Craig, it seems like he’s almost sure Connor’s a failure when he can’t or won’t do something that Craig thinks he should do.  Connor doesn’t pay attention sometimes, especially when he’s busy playing with something or drawing or whatever.  When that happens, Craig immediately turns to “well, maybe he has ADD”.  What!?!  Are you NUTS?  He’s THREE!  And he’s NOT short, he’s in the 75th percentile for his height, so the fact that he’s not as tall as us yet shouldn’t mean you classify him as being a short guy!  And he doesn’t need to eat more, he needs to eat whatever he does eat, because if he wasn’t eating enough, he’d be telling us he’s hungry!  He’s a pretty great person!  He has a funny little sense of humor!  He’s sweet, he calls me pretty all the time, he’s nice to old ladies, he’s charming!  So WHAT if he gives us a ton of trouble when he’s going to bed?  So WHAT if sometimes he says “I’m going to do whatever I want to do” as if he’s a 15 year old boy?  He’s a kid.  I’ll forgive him for that.

Oh well.  It just hurts a little, I feel like I’m betraying him anyway by having another (even though I really really WANT another!), and it’s even harder when I see Craig look at him with disdain all the time; he’s just so friggin perfect that it’s difficult to allow anyone to treat him otherwise.  Discipline is one thing, disgust is another.  Maybe I’m exaggerating.

Shouldn’t I be working?

This is a silly picture of me in the bathroom last night, amazed at the belly expanding in front of me. I haven’t really gained any weight in about 3 weeks, which I find strange, but maybe I gained enough in the first trimester that I could taper off for a little while. I’m not complaining – the less weight gained, the better as far as I’m concerned. As long as the baby’s healthy. Ooh – we find out the sex of the baby in exactly one week! Next Tuesday! This is all flying by REALLY fast. Hey, so if you are a reader of this silly blog here, and you talk to me in person or on the phone ever (i.e. family/friends/coworkers), I think we’re going to have a party next Saturday to celebrate both my birthday and the independence of our nation (ha!), so let me know if you’re interested in coming (email me, call me, text me, comment on this page – doesn’t matter). Dude! Back to work.

But it’s not really so random.

I hate people treating me like I’m dumber for any reason whatsoever, even if I am truly dumber than they are. And I hate office etiquette and email, they are the scourge of the devil.

I’m getting annoyed at belly comments already, and they’re just beginning. I know I have to deal with them, but I don’t want to – I want to just tell people to lay off, it’s normal, it’s a freakin’ pregnant belly. And mine, so don’t touch. Why as a pregnant woman are we expected to allow comments on our appearance and allow people to touch us randomly, all with a pleasant smile on our faces? It’s as if we can be less protective of the things we may have valued before: common courtesy, personal space. I don’t get it, and I don’t agree. Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I lost my face. And just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean my body is “HANDS ON” for whoever feels like gracing my body with their freakin’ presence.

Thank God it’s Friday. I was going to stick around and do stuff that probably I should do (study, take the quiz that’s due today, etc.) but instead I’m heading out of here, to enjoy freedom for an hour.

I woke up with a Tom Petty song in my head today.

Here’s me today, standing out on the deck after a really cool storm. I love being able to go outside and see the awesome views on the deck – it’s really pretty sweet. Anyway, there’s the belly. There’s me, with the belly. I just hope it goes back to being small and cuteish again, someday.

Instead of making this a simple picture blog (14 weeks pictures out today!), I decided to write a little about something that I saw today that actually made me whip my head around and yell “Holy Shit!”

Gas at the station near my house costs $4.09 a gallon. Never thought I’d see that. It’ll be funny when I’m old and wrinkly to think back to this day in awe of how cheap and simple things were “way back when”, and then stop reminiscing to yell at the grandkids to stop horsing around on their rocket boots.

Here’s the new pics! I feel fat and bloated today, but luckily I was able to suck in the belly enough to feel like I can still get a decent photo.