As of last Tuesday, I'm 18 weeks! Items of note:
- I ridiculously forgot to mention last time that I've been feeling little kicks and punches! It started around 17 weeks or so. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm feeling a baby and not a bunch of funny abdominal muscle twitches.
- I often get a nice jolt of pain in my hip when walking on my left leg. So fun...
- I'm always wanting chocolate. I'm not sure if it's a true pregnancy craving or if I'm just taking it as a handy excuse to eat it all the time.
- Other foods that sound wonderful always: pho, spring rolls, and ice cream (and I still enjoy my almost daily potato)
- I'm going to have to break out my maternity clothes soon- fashion circa 2009. Clothes be expensive.
Monday is the anatomy screening, which means, WE FIND OUT THE GENDER! Oh the excitement! Feel free to log your guess!
This winter. This winter has been 10,000 times better than last year, when it seemed like we spent four months below zero in endless snow. Sure, we've had smattering of deep cold here and there and several snowfalls this season but it's so much more manageable. We've even been more healthy- last year we spent two sick weeks for every non-sick week. This winter, we all got the flu mildly and a couple minor colds and that's it. Ah, the freedom of having healthy children!
The lack of cold weather and of cold germs made our trip to the snow sculptures so much more pleasant than last year. We came in the beginning days of the Winter Carnival so most of the sculptures were still in progress. Fun to watch the sculptors work!
They had big snow piles for the kids to play on, which I don't even remember from before- it had been so dang cold, we spent half our short visit in the warming tent.
This year, the day was so nice, I didn't put the kids in snow pants. I didn't want them to overheat (and, like I just mentioned, I had forgotten about the play area). So, their pants got a little wet.
Doesn't look like they minded, does it?
There' was a fun snow maze, which has at the perfect height. I could see the tops of their head bobbing along as they navigated the passageways. Grey, though, preferred standing on the walls.
And we had to do the big sledding hill again!
Look at my long, luscious hair blow in the wind.
Grey gets a little nervous on big drops and kept sinking down. His belly got a nice shot of cool air.
Later that night, we went on a date in St. Paul, where we found a big event, which included a snowboarding showcase. This was achieved by the snowboarder holding on to a rope which was quickly pulled forward, like unto water-skiing. The things you do without elevation.
The other day, the whole gang went to the Bakken Museum, which is a little science museum inside a big, old house, focusing on electricity and magnetism.
Here you can see an example of electricity, created by static!
And here's Grey using magnetism to move toy cars.
Using magnets to destroy an old tube television! That was my favorite.
Have you seen this experiment? Using your brain conductivity to push/pull a ball? You compete against someone else and whoever is calmer wins. I assume because the fewer thoughts you have, the less destructive interference.
I've seen it in a few museums and never once "won." Everyone else is calmer than me.
To finish, we played glasses! At first it seemed like we were incapable but apparently it takes our fingers a couple minutes to get the right moisture consistency.
I'm 15 weeks along now but here's what I looked like last week:
Obviously, I'm showing and have been pretty much from the get-go. My body knows how to make room for baby. It was so nice when I announced the pregnancy and could stop sucking in. Seriously.
This pregnancy has gone pretty well, all things considering. Talking points of this pregnancy: Nausea: I've had the most nausea with this pregnancy. I only threw up a few times (including on a date, spending the last ten minutes of Interstellar hugging a movie theater toilet. Trying indian food for the first time while in my first trimester was not the best idea) but that's more than my other experiences. I learned that small portions was very, very key. Aversions: Pretty much everything sounded gross for a while. Then it focused on sugary things. Which, I mean, it's me, that's crazy! Just the thought of a baked good... shivers. It's not too bad now, but I can not even consider making a cookie. Eating, that might be okay, but making, no way. Go-to Foods: Things that always sound palatable: sushi, raw potatoes, frosted mini-wheats, good chocolate. So Tired: Dude, I'm just tired all the time. I always want to sleep. Sub-chorionic hemorrhage: I had a hemorrhage for a while which was scary for a little bit but ended up fine. It was no heavy lifting for me! Headaches: For the last month I've gotten headaches mostly everyday (except on my birthday!). This happened with Grey, too, and I'm trying to remember when it went away. I don't think it'll be soon. I'm trying to drink lots of water in case that's contributing.
We waited until a few days before publicly announcing to tell the kids, primarily because we didn't trust them to keep a secret! But Sean kinda wanted them to guess that I was pregnant, so he'd constantly drop hints, hoping they'd figure it out. Talking about mommy's tummy, mentioning new siblings, reading books about babies, etc. Plus, they were at an ultrasound with me where I poorly distracted them. So they weren't completely surprised when we spilled the beans. But they still got very excited and hugged and kissed my belly.
When I first found out I was expecting, I needed to tell Sean but couldn't come up with anything clever. So I just set up my phone to record at an angle I thought was right (I was wrong) and called Sean over to show him the positive pregnancy test.
He was excited (and Rusty was not excited that I was momentarily not paying attention to him. It was rectified).
