Thursday, August 9, 2012

8 months...geeez!!

"This stuff is gettin' REAL!"

That's a quote from my husband :)  Last week we had a tiny scare that involved a hospital visit -it was a false alarm and everything is still going really well, but this was the quote that came out of it.  And it's true, it really kind of hit home after that.  We're really going to be parents, and REALLY pretty soon.
I mean, we're at eight months now.  8 months?!  Actually, 33 weeks tomorrow!!  We're gonna have a teeny tiny itty bitty widdle baby in our arms within the next seven-ish weeks!  ho-leeeee cow!

Luckily, we learned some important lessons during our hospital visit.
1.  We feel even more secure in our choice of hospital.  The nurses were awesome, and they were very straight up with us.  They answered our questions and weren't afraid to tell us the best and worst possible scenarios.  I appreciate that- why do they keep you guessing sometimes?

2. When I do go into labor, our drive should not be within the hours of 4 and 7 in the evening.  It took us an hour and a half to get there with rush-hour traffic!!  That's not so conducive for a crazy lady in labor.

3.  Pizza my heart is right down the street.  We know where to get grub when it's all said and done.

Now that we have those valuable jewels of knowledge under our belt, we're ready.  We got this. What else could we possibly need to know ;)
Can you believe this is my workout DRESS??  It's very much a shirt these days :)

I couldn't decide which one I looked fatter in.



What else??...Oh, stats and updates!!

  • Baby-us is the size of a honeydew melon!!!  17-19 inches (roughly) and 4.5 lbs!
  • All the books and websites say the kiddo is running out of room to move around, but I think it missed that memo, because it's still walking the rim of my left side at night.  Which leads to...
  • 3rd trimester insomnia.  I've got it super bad.  And it's SO frustrating.  If the baby is not kicking me, then it's the darn Braxton Hicks contractions keeping me up.  I try to go to sleep around 8:30 or 9, but I end up getting up and reading or something until the Sandman shows up between 11pm and 1 am.  
  • Although I haven't gained any more weight, my fingers look like they have.  I'm thankful this is the only part of me swelling (I have nightmares of cankles), but it means that I can't wear my rings anymore.  I'm trying to convince John to fly back to New Zealand to have the jeweler make me another custom ring in a bigger size...but he's not game.  Although he may change his mind if he had extra time to climb and surf while he was there...
Finally, I must admit that I have a new obsession.  Nesting.  It's like the rest of life has completely fallen to the waist side and all I can do is get ready for the future President's arrival!  I'm organizing (and reorganizing) all the babies things, I've put together every baby contraption I can ...stroller, co-sleeper, baby seat, etc.  and I've begun making a rug for the nursery.  Not that our kid even has a nursery, but it will someday.  Hopefully when we move in December it will get a room.  It's a bit ambitious, but I wanted to make an eco-friendly rug, so our baby could crawl around and not ingest fumes of formaldehyde and pesticides.  It's made from t-shirts from our closet, friends, goodwill, etc. How's that for reusing? :)
So this is it (well, the slow beginning of it):
This is about 6 shirts..and 1 1/2 weeks of work! 
Yeah, I have a long way to go.  Maybe it'll be done by the time our kiddo is 10!

Friday, August 3, 2012

$.02 on the chicken sandwich

I should preface, this post has nothing to do with our baby.

This post is my two cents about this whole Chick-fil-A craziness, and why it makes me insane and happy all at the same time :) Insane, because although I believe this to be an important issue in this country right now, it has completely taken over my news feed.  More than the Colorado massacre, more than the Olympics, more than Joseph Kony and the LRA, more than the upcoming election.  It is all about the leader of the chicken sandwich and his views?!?!?!

So I saw this picture on a friend's facebook page and I felt that it truly explained why this whole thing actually makes me pretty happy.



Finally, the American people are willing to put their money where their mouth is!!  It doesn't matter where you stand on the issue of gay marriage, people are either supporting chick-fil-a financially (with record numbers on August 1) or not supporting them at all.  WHICH IS AWESOME!  Either way, people are actually feeling passionate about a cause and working for or against it!  Proof that it can be done!  My hope, as Willy Wonka is mentioning here, is that more Americans will boycott what they think is wrong!  Why are we giving money to companies that support something we hate?! 

I've talked about this before, about how every purchase you make is a vote and people are voting on chick-fil-a and this issue.  Why aren't people voting about these issues???:

  • Discrimination against African Americans- Wonderbread (They make bread, Twinkies, etc.)
  • Discrimination against pregnant employees- Verizon (check your phone, most likely you support them)
  • Unnecessary animal testing - Proctor and Gamble (they make everything:  Clairol, Tide, Gain, Gillette, Pampers, Iams, Downey, Cascade, Bounty, Tampax.  Seriously, everything, so check your labels.)
  • Child slave labor and aggressive takeovers of family farms- Nestle (time to pick a new chocolate, folks. As well as Gerber foods, Coffeemate, Dreyer's and Haagen Dazs ice cream, certain bottled waters- they are all made by Nestle.  All contributing to child slave labor.)
  • Involvement in plastic toy sweatshops and cause for rain forest deforestation abroad- KFC (Chicken again)
  • And many, many more!

I'd also like to point out that these aren't just companies that SAY how they feel on these topics, these are companies that actually ACT on these topics.  They've all been sued for these acts and yet, the American people just keep right on supporting them with their hard-earned money.  

So please, continue to boycott companies that you feel you don't agree with!!!  But please don't stop with politics or religion.  Boycott the companies that are actually physically hurting people and the environment as well. I believe August 1 showed that when the American people put their money where their mouth is, no matter what side you support, we can make a difference!