Due Date #2

Due Date #2 is upon us. I knew this would happen. The first due date comes and goes, the second due date comes and goes, and before I know it, I'm 10 days past my due date, miserable, anxious, and having to get drugged to go into labor. Ok, so maybe that's a little bit of an overreaction, but I am not a patient person to begin with. Having to be patient with this ordeal is impossible. My boyfriend on the other hand, is getting a kick out of watching me get a lesson in patience. 

Measures I've taken to try to get labor started:

• Walked a total of 5 miles over the weekend. My sister's friend who had (notice the tense) the same due date as me, walked 3.5 miles in the middle of the week, and has since had her baby. My efforts were not as fruitful.
• Ate spicy food. I am a serious doubter of this one. I got desperate though and gave in. Dousing all of my food in RedHot, which is pretty much standard procedure for me anyways, was also unsuccessful.

I have just accepted the truth that this baby is very comfortable, probably a little bit stubborn, and fashionably late. I don't like being late to things, so he definitely must get that trait from Dave. 

The good thing about all of this is that it has made me feel very popular! I have already gotten 5 texts today from friends acknowledging the fact that it is indeed my due date, and there is still no baby. I will ignore the fact that as I said in my last post, if I was in labor, or if there was a baby in existence, you people would know. That is the glory of social media. But in the sake of being optimistic and not at all irritable, I will enjoy the popularity I feel each time my phone blows up.

In another positive note- today marks the first day of my maternity leave!! Horray for waking up on a Monday morning without having to be miserable, drag myself out of bed, and immediately start counting down the hours til the weekend. I could get used to this.

So that I could post at least one picture, I documented the insane amount of blackberries we picked from the bush in our backyard! If you tried to buy this many blackberries from the store, it would cost a fortune. Free is great! Plus, I let Dave eat the first few so that if they were poisonous, and he started foaming at the mouth or something, I would be spared.

Non-poisonous, free blackberries are the best kind of blackberries

Due Date #1

I felt the need to blog today, since today is the first of my due dates. A lot of people around my office have been asking me, "So when are you due?", which gets kind of repetitive and annoying. Today is a little more fun though, because I'm able to reply, "today, actually" and watch their facial expressions get all sorts of freaked out. Like, why is this pregnant lady standing in front of me if she's due? Shouldn't she be in a hospital somewhere?

It's also very annoying that now, on a daily basis, my co-workers will come over to my cube, pop their head around the partition and act so surprised to still see me sitting at my desk. Then excitedly ask me why I'm in the office instead of in labor. People- if I had gone into labor and was not at work, I think the news would be circulating the office pretty quickly. You will KNOW when I'm no longer here because I'm busy popping this baby out.... so STOP asking. So there you have it for my pregnancy rant of the day.

In all seriousness though, I really can't believe today is the first of my due dates. The second (and more accurate) due date is July 30th, which is only 6 days away. It's crazy how real this is all feeling now that I've finally made it to the first of those highly-anticipated dates. Surprisingly, I'm a lot less panicked and scared than I thought I would be. I can't tell if this is just the calm before the storm, or if I've just spent too much energy already obsessing and freaking out about every possible scenario that can occur during labor, and I'm just ready to get it over with. In either case, my current outlook is "let's do the damn thing" and I hope it sticks until the time comes.

Thought I would leave you with a few shots from the maternity shoot we got done last week! My friend from Geneseo, who is obviously extremely talented since she did also go to Geneseo, was nice enough to take some pictures for us at a local park. Her photography is beautiful, so we were really lucky to get to use her! I've only been able to see a handful of the photos, and she is sending the rest to us this week, so stay tuned for more.

Last minute preparations

Time for my weekly post! I really wish I had the blogging endurance to post more often, but I just feel like nothing in my life is that exciting that it deserves its own entry. Or that I'm not creative enough to think of posts on a daily basis. And I get lazy/forgetful about picture taking. I will work on these. Plus, like Kara said, pretty soon I'll have plenty of cute baby pics to add to this thing.

This weekend was devoted to last minute preparations for baby! I had definitely reached all-out panic mode after realizing that my to-do list pre-baby was getting a little out of hand. It looked somewhat like this:

• Wash ALL of the new baby clothes/blankets/burp cloths/sheets/covers/bibs, etc... (while taking as many trips to and from the laundry room as possible, to really piss off our downstairs neighbor)
• Get the car seat in the car
• Pack my bag for the hospital 
• Put together items that were still in boxes (cradle n' swing, jumperoo, breast pump)
• Finish and send thank you cards for shower 



They obviously don't clash with the yellow wall...

Prior to putting the car seat in the car

This, ladies and gentleman, is called "nesting". Fortunately, with the help of my boyfriend, I got most of the items on the list done. So now, when the entire world feels the need to ask me if I'm ready to have the baby, and I really want to scream in their face, "is anyone really ready for that sh**?", I can at least say yes, or some variation of that.  More like, ready-ier.

you mean to tell me that sports bedding and a rainforest mobile don't normally go together?

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. I am trying to get as much relaxation in as possible while I still can. Friday night, I went to dinner with my girlfriends, had some delicious sushi (don't judge me for eating raw fish- I read its fine as long as it doesn't have high mercury content), and forgot to take a picture of it. Saturday, we went to Melissa's for some pool/dog-a-palooza time. She was dogsitting her sister's two dogs and has two of her own, so I was in heaven.

He has a way with the ladies

However, Saturday night was spent convincing myself that I was going into labor due to some excruciating stomach pain. In retrospect, it was probably my gull-bladder, but you can't really blame someone who was 3 days away from her first due date for thinking the pains were contractions. After waking up Sunday feeling completely normal and having no other signs that I was in labor, I took a hint.

On a positive note, found these in the store.

Pure Genius

Bitches being bitches

So let me first start out by saying that "bitches being bitches" is one of the life mantras I take very seriously. Kind of like, "It is what it is". It just fits so many situations. For example, the one I'm about to share.

Dave and I moved into our new apartment about a month ago. In the month we've lived there, we've done some pretty standard tasks one would do when moving into a new place, including putting together furniture, unpacking, having a few guests over. Nothing out of the ordinary. And mind you, the number of times we've had guests over is about three. For dinner. It's also not like we are throwing WILD parties, or blasting loud music, or raging into the night. I work a full-time job that keeps me out of the house from about 7:15am-5:45pm every day, and Dave has been studying for his CPA exam. We are a bunch of real crazies.

To our surprise, we find a nasty note in our mailbox from the tenant that lives in the apartment below us. If you can't read it from the picture (I know it's pretty dark), I can sum up the jist of it:

• We have been more disturbing to him in the one month we've lived there than the past three years of tenants combined
• We must think that we live in a condo or single family home the way we walk around with no consideration of those living around us
• We walk so heavily that it shakes his furniture, and knocks stucco off his ceiling (ha!)

He then proceeded to make a copy of our lease and highlight portions he thought we were in violation of. My personal favorite section was where he claims he is not trying to start a passive aggressive rivalry, but instead of walking up one flight of stairs and knocking on our door to talk to us in person, when we had been home ALL day, he chooses to write a letter. Not being passive aggressive huh?

Now, I'm not gonna lie- I probably have been stomping around a little more than usual lately. Can I help it that I have sharp pain in my back every time I put weight on my left side, due to the baby's head rubbing against my sciatic nerve? No. Or that I have a watermelon to carry around? Nope. So I will admit, my footsteps may be a little heavy, but this guy needs to chill.

Instead of getting [too] worked up about it, I've decided to might light of the situation by laughing to myself, and AT him, because if he thinks he's had enough now, then he's really in for it. Once this baby comes, we will be walking around in the wee hours of the morning, most likely stomping like the sleep-deprived zombies that we will be, and having a lot more guests over that come to see the baby.

I mean, I'm all for conflict resolution and handling disputes in an adult manner, but this guy went off on us. He gave us no warning or indication whatsoever that we were even being loud or disruptive, then berates us that he's had enough and we are such inconsiderate people and threatening to involve our landlord. Had he just walked up the flight of stairs, knocked on our door, gave us a heads up like "oh hey you are a being a little loud", that would have been one thing, but he is messing with the wrong pregnant lady. I'm on a short fuze, uncomfortable, hormonal, and the last thing I need to be worrying about is a psychopath neighbor who can't handle when people walk above him. Guess I'll have to learn the skill of apparating.

So that's that. Bitches being bitches.

          

What keeps me up at night

Last night, I could not sleep. I've had quite a bit of insomnia throughout my pregnancy, and now that we are getting closer and closer to D-day, it's gotten worse. I probably didn't help things by setting up the bassinet next to the bed. I think I subconsciously knew that the bassinet next to the bed = no sleep for mommy, and therefore ruined any chances of getting a good night's sleep. Gotta take that out of the room until the baby is actually here.

But seriously, lying awake at night with nothing but my own thoughts does not help to lessen my anxiety about having to birth this kid. So, I figured that I'd use this blog post as a therapy session for myself to talk things out and try to calm some of my nerves.

Fear #1: Dying. You may think this is a little extreme, but I googled it and was comforted to find out that I'm not the only pregnant woman that worries about this. Something like 11 women die a year from labor, but considering that fact that something like 133 million babies are born in a year, I'd say the odds of not dying are in my favor.

Fear #2: The baby dying. Sorry this post is turning so morbid. But I can't help it. Ever heard of a condition called SIDS? If you haven't, just refer to virtually any resource that is even remotely related to newborn care and parenting (as I'm Googling it now). It stands for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. And sounds like pretty much anything can cause it. Like putting a blanket in the crib. Or not giving the baby a pacifier.  First of all, I know plenty of parents who have said they didn't give their children pacifiers whatsoever and the child survived. I think SIDS is just another tactic of the baby industry to get parents more freaked out and buying more shit... personally.

Fear #3: Not being able to breast-feed. This one's kind of selfish on my part, but supposedly it burns up to 500 calories a day. Hello to the world's best diet plan. You're probably thinking I sound like a fatass and I should just plan on exercising to burn the calories but seeing as how I couldn't manage to really fit much exercise in throughout my pregnancy, I doubt that when I'm on 3 hours of sleep and physically and mentally exhausted due to a crying newborn, I will not be peeling myself off the couch to work out. So breast-feeding it is. Not to mention all of the ways it benefits baby too- antibodies, nutrients, a closer bond with mommy. So there you go, not entirely selfish, but it needs to happen.

Fear #4: Turning into a horrible, child-obsessed, unavailable friend. Like in the movies when the one couple has a baby, and then not too shortly after, there's a scene of the rest of the group of friends out to dinner complaining about how couple-with-baby are never around anymore, and when they do see them, all they can talk about is their baby. Then the movie fast-forwards to a scene of someone's (mostly-adult) party, the couple with baby showing up with like 3 diaper bags, holding the screaming child, looking frantic, and immediately running into the bedroom to change the kid's diaper. I do NOT want that to be me. I guess the underlying fear here is that I'm still so young, and probably now WAY ahead of all of my friends, seeing as how none of our friends that are our age are even engaged, let alone married, or on their way to having children. Therefore, I get nervous that I'll be missing out on way more than I'd like to, or become a horrible friend that can't do this and can't do that. Not that I think my friends aren't understanding, or won't love having little lemon around to play with, but nevertheless- a fear of mine.

On top of these, theres the usual fears of my water breaking in our Monday morning company-wide meeting, having to push 7+ pounds of mass out of me, becoming a deranged, sleep-deprived zombie, etc etc. To sum this all up: I am 15 days away from my due date and freaking the eff out.

Sorry this post has basically just turned into a rant with zero pictures. I pledge to take my blogging more seriously in future posts, which obviously means including pictures (and not letting a week go by inbetween posts).

Non-human Babies

I'm slightly obsessed with animals. Especially baby animals. So when my doctor told me that this weekend was the last weekend I would be able to travel before the baby comes, combined with the fact that my boyfriend's family owns a large dairy farm in the North Country and they just had baby goats- I was sold.

 I took a half-day from work on Friday so that we could leave for good ol' Watertown, NY and arrive sometime mid-afternoon. About 45 min into our 2 and a half hour drive- the car breaks down. So picture an almost full-term pregnant lady stuck on the side of the thruway, with semi's whizzing past at upwards of 70mph, and 90+ degree heat. FUN.

I had to try to convey just how wonderful it was to be roasting in a broken down car.

 The tow truck comes, tows us about 5 miles to the nearest mechanic, we wait about an hour and a half, and supposedly they fix the car and we are good to go. Start driving for another 10 minutes and we break down again. So a 2 and a half hour drive turns into a 7 hour excursion. Eventually, we made it to Porterdale Farms, and it was all worth it to see these little cuties.

Oh hello Little Friend

Dave's response, "Goin straight for the boob, atta boy".  

After I got to love on the goats, and take about a hundred pictures of them, we got to spend basically the entire weekend here:

Dave's best friend's family owns a camp on Pleasant Lake. The name doesn't lie. I basically got to relax in the sun all weekend while reminding myself that in about 3 weeks, there will be no more relaxation. For 18 years. Probably longer. 

Tonight I am having a girls night. I don't know if any of you are avid Sex and the City fans like my sister and I are, but I envision the night consisting of them helping me unpack clothes while also holding up score cards to rate my various outfits (the scene from the first movie when Carrie is packing up her apartment to move in with Big). Possibly also them drinking wine, and me salivating over it.

Baby Showers and National Holidays

I don't know that I've ever appreciated national holidays more than I do now as a member of the full-time employment club. Not only do I get a day off in the middle of the week AND get paid for it, we also got a half-day on the 3rd. Life is good. To give you an idea of what I did on the 4th, it consisted of this.. and only this...

Thank god for Instagram filters to make Lake Ontario look a lot cleaner than it is

So in other news, my baby shower was this past weekend! Thanks to the collaborative effort of my best friend, Melissa, my sister (who I'm sure you all know now since you read her blog), and my mom for throwing it! Since I clearly use this blog as a plug for my sister's blog, here's another one for Melissa's Graphic Design and Digital Illustration. She did an amazing job on the shower invites:

Special mentions to Melissa's mom for letting us use her beautiful home, and Melissa's sister, Kat, for her party decor expertise (aka flower arrangements and cupcakes, both of which are pictured below).

The feast

As if it isn't already obvious, the shower was lemon-themed. My sister flew in from Baltimore on Friday morning to help with preparations, including about 4902349 trips to Wegmans (which is basically the standard for our family anyway). Saturday was spent assembling the favors- Lemon Grapefruit Sugar Hand Scrubs. Super easy to make and feels amazing on your hands and feet. Thank you Pinterest for the recipe.

 Apparently, my sister and step-dad had to juice 16 pounds of lemons to make these:

Lemonades Three Ways: Spiked Watermelon, Original, and Strawberry.

 

 

 

I just played the I'm-pregnant-and-tired card and got out of it. So thank you Alyssa, Joy, and Vince for your grueling lemonade-squeezing efforts.

Let's just say if you ever wanted to celebrate your birthday and Christmas in the same day, having a shower is the way to go. Eating, drinking, opening gifts, all while being complimented and pampered, like really- where can you go wrong?

Gifts galore! Birthdays are so fun

Paperbag Scrapbook made for me by Aunt Karen. Sounds way less cool than it is!

Baby Geneseo tee! Told ya I'd brag more on here about my alma-matter. Thank you Geneseo for being Geneseo, and also to introducing me to my lovely little, Kelly, who knows that the way to my heart is to outfit my unborn child in Geneseo apparel.

Geneseo ladies! Again, without Geneseo I'd be lost and have no friends.

The shower-thrower extraordinaire, part one.

with my best friend/shower thrower extraordinaire part two, Melissa.

Now that the shower is over, its a race against the clock to get everything assembled, taken out of boxes, and put away in the baby's nursery. With approximately 25 days until this baby is born, 90 degree unrelenting heat without air-conditioning, AND little to no mobility due to the sciatica, that is not an easy task. Luckily, I have the world's-best baby daddy/housewife who has been doing it all for me (without me even having to ask!) He put this together simply so I could make him pose with me with it.

Baby Daddy and I with our travel system stroller, courtesy of Aunt Alyssa, and Great Aunts Leslie and Jodie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For anyone who is wondering if we will be ready in time for the baby, the answer is no. Just no.

Here goes nothing

A little story about the title of my blog...


It all started last November. Recently-graduated college party girl turned young professional that I was, my week nights no longer consisted of shots and bar hopping, but barely being able to keep my eyes open past 9:30pm. So after obeying this pathetically early bedtime, I wake up one Thursday night around midnight, with the worst spins, and no- it wasn't from drinking. I had vertigo. But little did I know, my world being spun upside down was about to take on a very literal meaning. After a few weeks of extreme dizziness and nausea (sounds fun, right?), and no diagnosis about what was causing it... I'm sure you all know where this is headed... it was time to take a pregnancy test. And so the story begins.

My boyfriend and I found out we were pregnant around the 12 week mark, when all of the cute little baby websites and phone apps tell you that the baby is the size of a lemon. And since a 12 week old fetus is still too small to determine the sex, we naturally just started referring to him or her as "Lemon"- a slightly more endearing term than "it". Since then, the phrase, "When life gives you lemon" has basically become like the theme song of our lives.

Now that you all know the story behind the title of the blog, I can tell you a little bit about my life. I love lists, so here goes...

1. My sister is basically famous in the blogging world. Her blog, Chocolate is my Life, is world-renowned and you should read it. It also gave me the idea to start my own! I aspire to one day have as many readers as she does.

2. A lot of people complain about "mommy blogs" so I pledge that this blog will NOT become one of those. A lot of people also say that this kid is going to turn me into a sap, but we'll see about that. Not that he won't be adorable, but for someone who swore she would not have kids before the age of 28 (and is currently 22), I just don't see it. So in the interest of readership, I'll do my best to discuss other topics than simply how awesome my kid is.

3. My boyfriend, Dave, and I met in Geneseo, where we both went for undergrad. Geneseo is absolutely the most magical place on earth... just ask anyone who went there. I'll probably brag more about my alma-matter in this blog than my child (haha just kidding). But seriously, if I only have one gauge of my success as a mother, it will be if my son goes to Geneseo.

4. I am currently 36 weeks pregnant. Besides the whole vertigo debacle, my pregnancy has been pretty great- can't complain about eating all day every day, endless compliments about how I'm glowing, drinking whole milk instead of 1%, and never being denied a back massage. Up until about 5 days ago, when my little boy decided he wanted to wedge his head right on my sciatic nerve and cause me an extraordinary amount of back pain. Like.. hurts to walk a few steps, god forbid I have to climb up stairs. So that's fun. Luckily, I  only have 4 weeks left, give or take a few days, because I've definitely hit that extremely-uncomfortable-portion-of-the-third-trimester-so-please-just-get-this-baby-out-of-me wall.

5. I might have to adapt a rule of one allowance of something mushy-gushy per blog post, because I just have to make it known how amazing my family and friends have been through this turbulent time. I could never have imagined being 22 years old and pregnant, but now that I am, I realize it's not so bad. Sure, Dave and I were thrown into this and would have preferred to go the traditional route of first getting married, but the endless support we have been getting from both of our families and friends is amazing, and I definitely know that this baby will be so loved. Honestly, for a second I thought this was still colonial America and I was about to become the embodiment of Hester Prynne. Thank god this is the 21st century, and the majority of people are cool about it, with the exception of your old high school friend's Christian parents who run into you and immediately put their heads down and walk in the other direction as if you had rabies.

6. On top of my nerves about labor and raising a child, I am extremely nervous about the upcoming NFL season. As an avid Colts fan, I am torn and saddened to have to watch Peyton Manning do work in a Bronco's uniform- and yet, I can't help but root for him. Colts fans out there- please tell me I am not the only one facing this inner dilemma.