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Chit chat thread.. Dec 21-27

704 views 18 replies 11 participants last post by  MLog 
#1 ·
We're about to wrap up 2014! It's the last full week of the year! Whoa!

Of course all the milestone-ish stuff feels even more real because today I'm 20 weeks. In theory that's halfway (though based on gestational history, I probably should say 21 weeks is my halfway ;) ). Suddenly there's an increased sense of urgency. All the things that seemed a million miles away are looking me in the face saying, "The first half Just Flew By you... what the heck are you doing sitting around right now? There's so much to be done!" All those things that felt like they could be put off should probably be dealt with (where will ds sleep? where are we going to put the new baby's stuff? Will we have to move the changing table out of the way-too-crowded upstairs girls' room? What diapers should I sew up first? Do I need any clothes for the new baby? Or rather, what should I sew up new? When am I going to throw away ALL THE THINGS in this house to keep it from feeling way too cluttered and small for our soon-to-be-family-of-eight?). Yikes.

Referring back to last week's thread... @Angelorum mentioned losing weight and/or not gaining. I'm clearly not in the same boat of not having anything to lose (uh, I have plenty of reserves), but I've thus far managed to lose 12 pounds. As of about three days ago, anyway. Tonight we had dinner at MILs and she had The Best Mashed Potatoes Ever (full of cream cheese, butter, and half and half). So... I might have gained it all back tonight. But overall I've eaten so much more healthily and I think that has a lot to do with that.... and probably smaller portions (I just can't eat much. I'll get to a point where even the most delicious of foods will suddenly make my stomach turn).

All five kids stayed at MILs for a bit (which is why I'm so wordy... I never get to sit down at the big computer uninterrupted). So I figured I'd pop on here, get this started, then go get some cleaning done.... and maybe sewing if there's time! Still not done with Christmas crafting! Eek!

What holiday plans does everybody have (and what do you celebrate?)?
 
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#2 ·
We celebrated Yule yesterday, we didn't do a ritual, but lit some candles on our altar. I wasn't feeling too well yesterday, but I cooked a leg of lamb that I had marinating in the fridge for over 24 hours. I just popped it in the oven with carrots and potatoes. It was ok, to be honest I really wasn't feeling it. Oh well.

We gave my son his presents, a set of stockmar block crayons, which he loves and smell so good!
A Playmobil set that features a family camping, the family kinda looks like us.
My boyfriend bought him a solar powered dinosaur robot kit, but there has not been much sun, so right now it's just sitting on the shelf.

I also like to knit him a sweater, but I wasn't ready to order the yarn for the baby yet, and I like to get the free shipping when ordering 50 bucks worth from Knit Picks. So he can get a birthday sweater. I ordered blue super wash Marino a while ago, but I realized it's DK weight and not enough yardage for him since he grew to size ten so quickly, so I asked him nicely if I could use the blue wool for his sister as a "blueberry" sweater, and he said ok.

Sometimes I worry that he might feel like I'm taking things from him to give to baby.
 
#3 ·
We finished most of our Christmas shopping over the weekend. Woot. Hubby and I will have a massive wrapping party Tuesday night though. Wed he is going to hit a local meat shop to get something for Christmas dinner. I am SO over ham. Wed night we will go to Christmas eve service and when we get home "Santa" will have gone and we will open presents. Christmas day we will chill! Friday we have my parents and Sunday my in-laws. Then it's on to my New years day baby's 5th birthday!

I am 17 weeks plus 2 days and I seem to have switched from moody to weepy. Like everything seems to makes me cry. I also have my first mw appt. today. Wooohooo!!
 
#4 ·
I am 17 weeks plus 2 days and I seem to have switched from moody to weepy. Like everything seems to makes me cry. I also have my first mw appt. today. Wooohooo!!
I haven't had an appointment yet. How did yours go? I plan to meet a local midwife after the holidays and see what I think. There's several midwives in this area but I am new here as of last spring. I've asked around and have a list of first second third choice to go meet with anyway :)
 
#8 ·
Acordio, I've always gained 20lbs++ by 20w, except with this pregnancy.. So far I'm only up like 12lbs and my DH jokes about how skinny I still look. Ha ha.

I finished my Xmas shopping today! The busses were so packed today that we couldn't get on the last one to come home. We ended up taking a cab like 30miles, which costs a lot more, but it's safer and wayyyy more comfortable than cramming in a packed bus for an hour! This is our most minimal Xmas ever as we didn't buy much and no one could send us presents (just money). We are really enjoying having less stuff and we think our kids will be happy with what they get. Extra bonus, we hired our friend to babysit, so my DH and I went shopping kid free!

We plan on having dinner with our friends on Christmas Eve, then we do presents Christmas morning. I bought a very $$ duck today, I hope it turns our well!
 
#9 ·
Hi everyone! Sorry I've been MIA for several weeks... With DH on sabbatical, my son having regression issues at school, work demands keeping me busy, and to top it off a load of pregnancy exhaustion, things got pretty brutal around here and I just needed to hunker down and survive. I missed everyone and glad to see you're all doing well and growing bellies! We're going to my in-laws on the 25th; they live in the middle of nowhere WA, and they have dial-up internet (can you believe it?) so I won't be able to reply but I'll be following your posts along on my phone. MERRY XMAS!!
 
#10 ·
Sorry I can't respond to everyone on my phone, pregnancy brain is in full effect here and I can't remember anything for longer than a second. I am glad everyone is ready (or almost ready) for Christmas. I hope everyone has a safe and merry Christmas.
 
#11 ·
Welp, Merry Christmas to me! Yesterday night I broke our tiny super crappy refrigerator, so today I'm getting a new one of normal size, a deep freezer and a fan. My DH isn't impressed though because I broke the fridge by banging the ice out of the freezer and cracking the freon tube. He's been telling me not to bang on the freezer since we moved in here.. It's not my fault though, the freezer literally grows ice so fast that my things get frozen in place within days.. Oh well, now I will finally have a regular freezer again and I can make and store food, woot! I've never purchased so many new appliances before moving here though, I like used, but it's a hassle here and unreliableat best.

Today I got a massage and later we are eating dinner with friends. Besides the fridge issue, it should be a nice day.
 
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#13 ·
My new fridge was delivered at 5:30pm on Christmas eve, whew, I'm glad it came today! It's pretty nice and large, which is a huge improvement to the dorm sized fridge I was using.

The massage was nice, but my crotch still hurts when I stand. ;)
 
#15 ·
Hurray for a new fridge and freezer! That will be such a convenience when it's baby time!

We are at my parent's house for Christmas, it's been a fun day. I still have some headbands to attach elastic to for gift-giving with my siblings tomorrow, but most everything else got done. I still haven't finished ds2's stocking, but we had a cheap thrift-store find for him to use so we didn't have to resort to an actual sock :p

On Saturday we're heading to the middle-of-nowhere Washington to my in-laws (wonder if we'll be close, @montessorimama1?) for more Christmas fun. Hopefully the weather cooperates for the drive, looks like there may be lots of snow over the mountains to contend with.

I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays!
 
#16 ·
Merry Christmas!

We are recovering from the mayhem that is Nutcracker and Christmas back to back. Our Nutcracker performances went well, though not without the usual number of issues - each year is unique. This year I actually had a student vomit onstage during a rehearsal. Then there was ensuing panic about a stomach bug epidemic sweeping the entire cast the week of the show, but luckily we only had two dancers total get sick and both recovered in plenty of time to perform. We had record ticket sales this year! Our Sunday matinee was completely sold out three days before the show! What a great feeling! Putting everything away afterwards went fairly smoothly as my parents, sister, and 13 year old nephew were all here to help. Some years it takes me months to get everything put away properly, but with the exception of a few small things, everything is where it belongs.

We had a nice Christmas. We had Christmas breakfast with DH's family and then came back home and my sister and I prepared Christmas dinner for the first time. My mom decided to pass the "rice ladle" to us and we were pretty proud of the outcome.

Most of the relatives have gone and it's just DH, DS, and me. My parents are technically still here, but they're going off exploring for a few days so we'll have a quiet weekend. They'll be back for New Year's and then head home on the 2nd.

I am freaking out about all the clutter around with so many house guests and presents etc. I am feeling the need to purge big time, especially keeping in mind we'll soon have two kids. I'm hoping that this weekend I can get rid of a lot of junk. The last time I did that was in August when I got rid of all the baby stuff right before I got pregnant!

I was feeling baby flutters from about 15 weeks or so, but haven't been feeling anything since the week of Nutcracker. I'm hoping that is because I've been so stressed I haven't had time to notice. I have had a few more dizzy spells. Most are mild, but I had to leave mass Christmas morning to go sit in the cold air outside so I didn't pass out. It's definitely a little disconcerting though I'm pretty sure the dizzy spells are directly related to not eating/drinking enough.

18 weeks today...
 
#17 ·
Hey everyone :)

Well, the biggest update is it's a GIRL!! And she looks PERFECT. I dreamed her ultrasound, right down to seeing how she had her legs all stretched out & her feet!
I figured she had to be a girl when we didn't see a little obvious boy part sticking up anywhere right away, LOL, that has been *very* obvious on all my boy ultrasounds. And I thought to myself at the breakfast for training day at work when I was only beginning to think I was late..."the OJ just gave me heartburn...if I am PG, this one's a girl..." lol Sophia did that to me, the boys did not.

She was stubborn about showing her spine & stubborn about uncrossing her legs lol---they had me get up & go pee to get her to flip so we could see her spine, then we had to kind of poke at her to get her to move so we could see that she is in fact a girl.

Feeling great. :) Blood pressure is not wonderful, but it's not dangerous. Diabetes test next time, whereever I am.

That's the other bit of news, we are moving. That's why I have been asking about Des Moines. It's not for sure we are going there, but possible. My husband had an issue with our landlady restricting which of our vehicles we could keep in the garage we rent with the house and put in notice with nothing new found. I don't think we will immediately buy, much as I would love to, because of relocating. Dh's job is questionable too, layoffs & stuff, he's survived so far, but no guarantees there.

And his stupid work switched insurance to the hospital in town that I hate. The HB midwives here are spendy from what I hear and don't take any insurance. Depends on where I am too, I'm not super comfortable being 45 min. away from the hospital in an emergency...but I did LOVE my out of hospital experiences for the hands-off approach and my waterbirths.

This is hard.

Very happy to hear everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Given the moving situation, I am happy that our big holiday is Eid and they were done for the year back in August! They get new outfits and we participate in the prayer day & usually there is a community-sponsored Chuck E Cheese outing. During Ramadan, there's the fasting during the day (my 10 year old participated a lot this year of his own choice!), large meals in the evening, breakfast is leftovers because it's so early, and usually Saturday night gatherings at the mosque for the evening meal & prayers. I don't go super-extravagant all the time on the meals, though it's tempting!
 
#18 ·
@MLog, I am so glad the performances went so well! Hooray! I would definitely make sure to drink more water and maybe try smaller, more frequenthan meals to avoid the passing out feeling. I tend to easily get dizzy/light-headed during pregnancy too. I sit a lot through mass often (if possible) and if leading the cantoring/singing, I'll just sit on the organ bench. Once, while pregnant with dd1, I didn't pay attention to the signs and while I was leading the singing at mass, during the Lamb Of God, I totally passed out! Luckily I didn't hit anything dieing my fall. .. but now I'm pretty at when I start to feel funny and make sure to sit down!
@peaceful_mama -- hooray for girls! And his luck with figuring out when/where you'll move! And for figuring out a suitable Birthing situation!

Here on this homefront, Christmas was lovely! Lots of family time (lunch at my parents' house with cousins and their kids, aunts/uncles, and my grandparents, then dinner at MILs with BIL/SIL and their four kids, and our parish priest came over as well!). And! We had a super white Christmas with 8-12 inches of snow falling (lots of drifting with wind gusts)! And this snow looks like it will stick around for a long time because the forecast looks pretty bleak. More snow over the weekend, then dropping down into frigid temps (a predicted HIGH of -6° on Tuesday with a low of -25°) I don't think I want to leave the house that day! It might just make for a great day of sewing!

And speaking of sewing, with the Christmas frenzy completed, I can't wait to dive into sewing for this new baby! Plenty of diapering ideas in my head, plus in trying to figure out exactly what kinds of clothing to make for this May baby. I have one late September baby (ds), but the other four are March and December, so I've not planned for a summer baby! Kinds of fun though!
 
#19 ·
Pregnancy insomnia strikes again... DS sounds like he has croup. :( After having to go to the hospital in an ambulance with DS at 9 months croup terrifies me. It was only bad that one time, but still freaks me out.

Judybean - your Christmas snow sounds lovely! We've had a harsh winter predicted for this year but no signs of it so far.
 
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