Halfway to Baby! And The Name Game

Wow! I can't believe we're already halfway to his due date! Granted, we weren't aware of anything for the first 4-5 weeks, but that was 15-16 weeks ago! Amazing how fast it's going.

Baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now. He's also around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom and about 10 inches from head to heel — the length of a banana. He's swallowing more these days, which is good practice for his digestive system. He's also producing meconium, a black, sticky by-product of digestion. This gooey substance will accumulate in his bowels, and will be in his first soiled diaper (some babies pass meconium in the womb or during delivery).


I'm finally starting to sorta show more obviously. I've been able to notice for awhile but now it's really looking like I might be pregnant. Not that anyone's asked yet. I've gained around 5-6lbs so far, which I think is about normal. After the first trimester, I'm supposed to put on about a pound a week. Seems like a lot. Maybe when my appetite increases.

I feel him moving around daily now. A few days ago when we were lying in bed, he actually kicked or punched or shifted so hard, I screamed a little with surprise. It was pretty strong! Unfortunately Matt hasn't felt it yet. I can feel baby's movements but only internally still; I can't feel them with my hand on my stomach most of the time. They've changed from feeling like fluttery/goldfish-swimming/top-spinning feelings to what now feels like muscle twitches... or like someone inside you lightly punching you from the inside. I was really excited to feel him; it's still very cool and makes me feel more connected to him, but... I can see how this could get annoying, especially as he gets bigger and stronger. It's so unpredictible and surprising.

I meant to post updated pics of the artwork for his room that I wrote about a few weeks ago. Here it is... and it's actually kinda cute, but not what I expected. His room is very slowly coming together. We just bought a crib. We have a bassinet that he'll sleep in at first in our room, but I also wanted a crib now so I can put him down for naps there during the day, since his room is right next to my office. Plus it'll get him used to his room. We need to start baby-proofing some of the house.

Hard to believe it's the end of October! I've been trying to walk at least every other day, and last weekend was GORGEOUS! I took the Duerst dogs on a walk out on the "trail of tears."

But just a few days later, in true Central Oregon fashion, it was snowing in the morning. It melted shortly after and has warmed up a bit since, but yeh, snow before Halloween... you can count on it. Still, there's something about this area I love. Probably it's that we don't go many days without seeing the sun, even if it's cold.

So... baby names. Matt and I had already discussed names of our future children starting... oh, when we were dating. Matt had told me a name that he loved for a boy before we were even engaged. We had a hard time finding other names we agreed on, for boy or girl. But eventually, we thought we'd come up with one of each that we agreed on. Matt would sometimes call our hypothetical future children by these names. But... it turns out, as uncommon as the boy's name Matt loved is, it's also a name that someone in the family likes, we discovered when we were talking to them about names we liked. So when we found out we're having a boy, we thought it would be polite to get their feelings on the name again, since it'd been quite awhile since that conversation, and more so because it's not worth it to us to pick a name that would just cause hurt feelings. Apparently, they are in love with the name too. And because Matt is a peace-maker and wouldn't want to upset anyone, and because, in all honesty, I like the name, but I like it more so because Matt loves it than actually liking it for my son, we decided to go with a different name than we'd originally thought. I'd had a new #1 name, which was Matt's #2 or nearly #1.5, and when I say the name, it sounds right. And when I look at our ultrasound pics, it seems like the right name... But... we may wait to publicly announce it. Though I'm 99% sure we won't pick something else.

It is REALLY hard to pick a name! Obviously we've thought about it for some time, even before we were pregnant and knew it's a son. We'll hear names we like from time to time and ask the other, and we almost never both like it. I feel like I want Matt to really love his son's name. He's a man; he has a better sense of what other men would accept as a name of a fellow bro.

And even though we had these two names we were really considering, we still both went through several name lists, independently picking our favs to then cross-reference. The only same name on the list is the one we're (most likely) choosing. Mainly we had a few different baby name apps that we referenced. I also looked through the Social Security's baby names site, which is really interesting and you should look at sometime. It shows the popularity of names over time, -by year -by name -by region -popular twin names -names after cities... seriously, it's interesting.

One particular baby name app, What To Expect- Baby Names, I had thought seemed like a pretty comprehensive list. They have the top 1000 by year (1950-2009), though it's alphabetical, an alphabetical listing of names, and then filters you can use to look at names by origin. And you can add names you like to a "favorites" list. So we were using this app but came to realize, they have a lot of HORRIBLE names on the list! Honestly, where did they get these names?! Matt kept saying "where is the filter to only look at names actually used in this country in this century?" Not to be rude, but here is a list of some of the worst names I saw on the app; see if you'd consider any of these for your son:

Adolf, Abukcheech, Abooksigun
Bendigeidfran, Beowulf
Cooey, Cumhea
Dealbeorht, Divyanshu, Dubhglas
Enkoodabooaoo, Eanruig
Felamaere
Glaleanna, Gahmuret
Haestingas, Henbeddestr, Huldiberaht, Hwitcumb
Infant (seriously?!), Inerney
Jazzalyn, Joop, Jyll
Kynthelig
Lugaidh, Luxovious
MacDhuBh, Muireadhach
Nancie, Nahiossi (which means "has three fingers" in Cheyenne)
Oxnatun
Pinochos, Pwyll
Qssim
Rygecroft
Shaku, Searbhreathach, Saebeorht
Talmadge, Tahmelapachme
Uaid
Voisttitoevetz, Vortigem
Waeringawicum, Wselfwulf, Wyrttun
Xalbador, Xarles, Xzavier
Yissachar
Zayit, Zdenek

Seriously, where did they come up with this list?! Is this every name EVER?! And I didn't even see my favorite- LeMathew - on the list.

Let's end the week with some cute pets! Jack NEVER sits on my lap; maybe he finally realized he better sit while he still can. He was extra lovey today, not just with me.

It's A.....

19 weeks! And I can't even think of anything else that happened this week than our ultrasound on Thurs, Oct 18. Everything else pales in comparison.

Wednesday night, we both slept poorly. It was a little like Christmas morning; we've been waiting for our ultrasound for 15 weeks... okay, since we decided to start trying even. Finally we were going to actually "see" our baby, and find out what we could it other than "it." Finding out the sex was important because we thought we could then really think of names and feel more like we "knew" our baby or were getting to know him/her. Yes, it also means we'd start forecasting for how he/she would behave and things he/she might be interested in that are more gender-specific, but that's part of the fun too, the daydreaming about what our life will be like with the addition of this little person.

The ultrasound was an hour, and we let the technician know that we'd like to know the sex. She told us she'd be taking measurements and would get to the sex later. So she started moving the wand around. Things that surprised me: 1- baby is much lower than I expect, considering that my bulge is around my belly button and baby's head seems to be way down in my pelvis; 2- the tech is a bit aggressive with the wand; 3- although I didn't cry when I found out I was pregnant (shock and I felt like I sorta knew, but mostly shock) and I didn't cry when I first heard the heartbeat (sorta surreal) and I didn't cry when I first figured out I was feeling baby move, the ultrasound was the most moving thing we've done.

We could see baby moving arms and shifting around. I've seen ultrasound pictures and honestly didn't think much of them, except that some of the 3D pictures were creepy. But seeing it with our own baby was so sweet. Here I've been feeling some little kicks and then I see baby kick. And the picture actually looked much sharper than I expected. For the most part, I still don't know how the tech knows what she's looking at. But baby looked healthy; kidneys and stomach looked full and functioning. Seeing the little heart fluttering was cool. Heartbeat was 143, which she said was normal. The spine is kinda beautiful. And the tiny little foot was just adorable! She said it was probably about an inch in size.

The main problem was that she was trying to take measurements of the head, but baby had hands in the way each time. Grandma Susan thinks this pic looks like baby is praying. The tech was not pleased with this though; I'm not sure if it's because she needed better measurements or because she really wanted to try to get us good shots of baby's face but she really started jabbing me with the wand, yelling "move your hands, move your hands." I was about to say, I appreciate your effort but if baby doesn't want to show his/her face, I'll be okay to wait til the birth.

So she was moving the wand around to see if she could get baby to move but also to take some other shots she needed at the moment, seeing if maybe baby would move hands in a bit... And all of a sudden, she says:

OH!! It's a boy.

Both Matt and I just looked at each other, so surprised, not only at her timing (talk about no warning) but also and mostly because I was convinced it was a girl, and apparently had convinced Matt as such. She said "sorry but I've seen this 2-3 times now and he must really want you to know now because he just gave us a good shot. And we might not have as good of a shot if I wait to look later." (Sorry, son, we're showing your junk here.) So, there it is; pretty obvious. I don't think I've ever been so surprised by anything, except when Matt proposed. There ya go, those unpredictable Heberling men.

So, initially feelings: shock and surprise, a sense of awe, a little relief and a little disappointment, and gratefulness. Oh, and the tech is 99.9% sure ;)

I have always thought I'd have a daughter first, mainly I think because I assumed I'd have a girl then boy like me and Joe. Whenever I've pictured having a baby, it's always a girl in pink or yellow floral print. I got really attached to the girl name on our list, and even had a dream about a year ago about a year ago, calling her by that name, and she had a little brother. Even as we started trying, I really, really wanted a girl. Matt seemed that he'd be happy with either a boy or girl, but every time he talked about kids, he'd talk about a son and going to sporting events, and I'd remind him that we might have a girl. So I was pretty committed to having a girl. And then we kept not getting pregnant. About two months before we got pregnant, my friend Jesse did a tarot reading for me, which mainly ended up being about a situation with my brother, but my clarity card was very telling. My life card is the hierophant (meaning a teacher/priest) and the card I pulled was described as "son of the hierophant." It made me realize how much I had been hoping we'd conceive a daughter, but that actually, I just wanted to conceive and I'd be happy with either a son or daughter.

As we got closer to finding out the sex of our baby, although I kept thinking of baby as "she" in my head, Matt mentioned that he was hoping for a boy slightly more because he knows how to relate to boys but he "has no idea what to do with a girl." I started to worry a little about him feeling disappointed if we had a daughter, or never had a son, although I know he'd be an amazing dad either way and would be wrapped around a daughter's finger. I don't know how to explain it but it's as if I feel some remnant of antiquity in which men wanted and expected sons, and women were deemed less valuable if they couldn't produce sons (although we now know it is actually the sperm that determines the baby's sex since the egg is always X); just as when we were trying to conceive, I did feel a little of a pressure to be able to bear children, I now felt a little pressure and desire to want to bear a son for my husband. Wow, sounds so un-21st-century-feminist of me. And my mind doesn't think that at all; I don't know where that idea came from. Just being honest. Yet I envisioned myself being more emotionally close and having more in common with a daughter, so for myself, I was hoping more for a girl. But for Matt, I was hoping for a boy.

But the more time that passed, the more I started to feel evenly about which I was hoping our first child would be. Though I picture them in different ways, in having different relationships to me, I'm excited for either. Still, when she said "boy," I was shocked. And relieved. And a little disappointed. And like I'd need to really rearrange my visual images of this baby. Matt said he'd realized that whatever the sex, he'd be a little disappointed that it wasn't the other; guess we want the best of both sexes, but maybe eventually. For now, we'll start with a boy! (What a rollercoaster that would be to go through just after the birth! Glad we found out now!)

Then we could see him moving around. He kicked once. He was moving his arms. We could see him sucking or puckering his mouth, then he yawned and it looked a little like a smile. And he suddenly seemed like a real person to me, a person who will/has changed my life forever. And I cried. He's so beautiful already. I had no idea he'd be my first baby, but he will be. We're having a son. And I felt so proud and happy and excited.

(By the way the bubbly-looking thing is his umbilical cord)

So at 19 weeks, babycenter says: Baby's sensory development is exploding! His brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that he may be able to hear his mother's voice now. Baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the size of a large heirloom tomato. His arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of his body now. His kidneys continue to make urine and the hair on his scalp is sprouting. A waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on his skin to prevent it from pickling in the amniotic fluid.

The tech actually said given his size, she would date him as a week earlier, and asked if I was sure I knew when I conceived... uhhhhhhhhh.... maybe not? She said she'd actually put his due date as March 3 instead of 1, but that in any case, a baby can usually come within two weeks of his due date.

So because he kept blocking his face with his arms like a boxer, we only had one 3D picture. The tech said at this stage, 3D pictures are often a bit scary because the baby is so skinny. But she was able to get this close-up of his face, cuddled against the placenta (like a little pillow). Matt says he looks a little like a marshmallow man but I think he looks so sweet. I keep staring at this picture in awe and anticipation. He just looks so precious, my sweet little boy.

Jesse actually mentioned that this pic looks a lot like a baby pic of Matt I had up on Facebook. I thought he looks like Matt but when you line the pics up, he REALLY does look like his daddy. It melts my heart. But I hope he looks at least a little like me.

So now we have the challenge of actually naming him. We had a few boys' names we liked (and a few girls' names, although I think we were pretty well agreed on Hannah for a girl), but now that we know he's a boy, we'll have to really think on the name, and I might want to wait to see his face (ya know, out of the womb). Plus, there's at least a little bit of a shared interest in Matt's favorite boy name with his brother, and we're not sure how strong that shared interest is at the moment... And, sorry Dad, "Trigger" is not on our list ;) But if we ever get a male dog, I'll def keep the name in mind.

After the ultrasound, I felt distracted for days; I'm not sure why. I have this compulsion now to go buy lots of cute boy stuff, like onesies that say "Mommy's Little Hunk" or "Daddy's All-Star." But I'm holding back for now. I'd still like to try to stay somewhat gender-neutral, both for a second kid and because just because he's a boy doesn't mean I want to shove sports or cars or whatever down his throat from the beginning. I still like animal-themes, puppies, dinosaurs, cute monsters, boats... I don't think we'll have a "theme" for his room. I just can't commit.

It'll be fun having a boy also because so many of my friends have boys; I'll be able to get lots of good advice. Plus, having had a brother, plus only ever babysitting boys, plus mentoring a boy, I have a pretty good idea about boys :) I also hear boys love their mommy; I sure hope that's true because one of the main things I'm missing about not having a daughter is that I envision a daughter being sweet and loving and cuddly, while I imagine a son pushing away early and just wanting to rough and tumble. But every child is different, I know. I just hope I still get to have a close relationship with my son, for life. On Tuesday, I did get to hold my friend Katie's 4-month old son Noah and he was sooooo cute; in that moment, I was hoping for a boy :)

And now I've been having a strange feeling; it's like I miss him. I miss seeing his little face. I keep looking at the ultrasound pictures and hoping I'll feel him kick. I think I'm a little in love. I know in just 4.5 months, he'll be here for life, and I am trying to savor the time before he comes. But the last week, I've really been feeling this strong longing to hold him, to kiss him, to have him here already. Ahh good, I was starting to wonder if I'd feel this way or if he'd show up and I'd think "oh crap, I'm not ready for you yet!" No, I'm not ready for him at the moment, but soon. And for the rest of my life. It's strange to think that already, I'll never not be a mom again. I'll never not be someone's mother. When I tell Matt that he'll never again not be a dad, he gets the biggest grin.

Almost halfway made, and my juror adventure

Hard to believe we're almost halfway through our pregnancy! I've felt baby move a little almost every day. A few times I felt a little thump but most of the time, it feels like... a bubbly stomach / Matt has this gag prop that is a little manilla envelope marked "rattlesnake eggs;" inside is a washer, beads and a rubberband that are wound up so when someone opens the envelope, it unwinds, making a rattling sound (it is a little shocking the first time). Anyhow, the baby moving reminds me of that, something unwinding and ricocheting off something.

Week 18: Head to rump, baby is about 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and weighs almost 7 ounces. Baby's busy flexing his arms and legs — movements that I'll start noticing more and more in the weeks ahead. Blood vessels are visible through thin skin, and ears are now in their final position, although they're still standing out from the head a bit. A protective covering of myelin is beginning to form around the nerves, a process that will continue for a year after baby's born. If we're having a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If we're having a boy, his genitals are noticeable now, but he may hide them during an ultrasound.

Thursday, we get to see our baby for the first time, and hopefully find out if it's a he or she. So for those who haven't entered their guess yet, do it by Wednesday! I can't really see the appeal in waiting to find out. It'll be a surprise for us on Thursday, not exactly the same as it would be in the heat of the moment but still. I want to be able to start calling the baby he or she, not "it," and maybe try out the name we're considering. Plus, the gendered clothes are so much cuter than the gender-neutral clothes. Originally I was really hoping it'll be a girl but now I'm excited either way.

In the baby's room last weekend, I applied some plastic to the window to add some privacy. Unfortunately the baby's window looks right at the ugly fence and the neighbor's satellite dish, and we haven't had the time or money to do anything with the very narrow sideyard right there. This adds some color, plus I noticed when I was last over at their house, because of the height of their deck right there, they could look right into that bedroom. Looks pretty!

In other news, Girls On The Run is moving along as well. This is my fifth season coaching, though this season we have four coaches and we are all taking turns leading/delivering the lesson. I'm glad there are so many of us because we have almost 20 girls at our site. As exhausting as just 1 hr 15 mins is, I feel so happy to be involved with it because the girls are so cute and so sweet and say the darndest things. Here we are giving our "power pose" as part of that day's lesson about inner beauty and being proud of who we are.

Also this week, I was called for jury duty. Here, when you're "on" jury duty, it's on call for two weeks so every evening I had to call in to see if I needed to report the next day. I've heard from a lot of people that I just should've tried to get out of it. Honestly, it wasn't a terrible time in my work life to have jury duty; I could've asked to be deferred til like April, then I could've gotten out by breastfeeding. But I thought I'd take my chances. The only other time I was on jury duty, in Eugene, I was called, sat in a room for 4 hours, then we were all dismissed because the trial had settled last minute. My weeks were almost up when I was called to report.

Jury duty is a lot of waiting. It's boring, really. And I hate to say it but the lame orientation video we had to watch did speak to me- it is our right to have a fair and impartial jury of our peers and I do consider it a bit of an honor to be in that position. Plus, I'm an intelligent and analytical person, someone whom I'd want on MY jury should I ever be in that situation, or have a vested interest in a trial. There were probably about 40 of us, after they weeded through the people who couldn't stay for the next three days. Then it seems like they drew juror numbers at random to put 23 of us in chairs for the jury interview with the D.A. and the defense attorney. I was actually hoping to get on the jury because I thought it'd be really interesting to see a trial and to experience it in that way. Apparently they used to have jurors fill out a survey, which makes more sense to me than the random questioning they did of us. There were questions that tipped us off to what some of the case addressed- questions about feelings about law enforcement, about corporal punishment, whether anyone had teenage children... I offered up that I was pregnant and my dad was an attorney, but I still was picked.

The charges were criminal mistreatment and assault against a father charged with beating his teenage son. The D.A.'s evidence was the son's testimony, photo evidence of the injury, the testimony of a deputy, DHS worker, and medical examiner who repeated the story as told by the son, as well as the deputy and DHS worker's interview of the father on the day of the reporting, and the son's principal and teacher to comment on the son's character and on the father's involvement in the son's education. So, basically, the evidence is the kid's story and photo evidence. The defense attorney put both the stepmom who witnessed the argument and the father himself on the stand, both of whom confirm that the father and son argued but assert that the father never touched the son. The son claimed during their argument, he called his father a disrespectful name, which initiated the attack. The defense attorney suggested that the son had fabricated the story to ensure that he could go live with his mother. Essentially, it's a he-said vs he-&-she-said.

I tried to remain open-minded and fair, waiting to hear both sides before judging, but given that the son told the exact story repeatedly, and stuck to it for over a year, it would've taken some evidence that the son had, in fact, fabricated the story to change my mind. On the stand, the son cried, the stepmom was very meek and didn't answer more than a few words to each question, and the father was aggressive and seemed annoyed. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" in a criminal case is challenging, but without any of reasonable explanation of the obvious injuries the son suffered, how else could you explain it than that the father and stepmom are lying and the son is telling the truth?

So you'd think. But the main thing I learned through this experience is that people are really stupid. And the main reason to try to get out of jury duty isn't that it takes time; it's that it's really frustrating. We only had an hour to deliberate the second day and started out about seven of us saying guilty, three not guilty and two undecided. We almost reached the 10 majority we needed for a decision but had to break for the evening. I couldn't stop thinking about the case, fretting about whether or not this kid would get justice, now convinced of the father's guilt. In the middle of the night, I was preparing my arguments against the jurors for the next morning to try to help them see the truth. What does the kid have to gain at this point by still lying when he's already living with his mother? Why, if the kid was going to make up an abuse story, would he have placed the stepmom there as a witness; and why make the injuries what they were? It'd be much easier to have a friend punch you once than slap you open-handed like 12 times. And how would a kid know which of his friends was left-handed (like his father was), and where would this have taken place in the hour before school when he reported the abuse, and why wouldn't anyone have come forward, gossiping about being involved? And why did the father's testimony on the stand contradict what the deputy and DHS worker reported he said? And just because we weren't told that the father had a history of violence, doesn't mean he 1- isn't violent or 2- didn't commit an act of violence. This is why I'm glad not to be in law in any way. I didn't even have any emotions or reaction to the kid's testimony, pictures, etc, but once all the evidence had been given, I felt really emotional involved and convicted in my verdict that the father was guilty. I struggled not to dwell on thinking about the case.

The part I found the most disheartening is the seemingly automatic reaction by some of the jurors that the kid must be lying. Oh, teenagers are manipulative, I wouldn't put it past him to set his dad up to get his way. Yeh, and some parents ARE abusive. Or I just wish there was more proof. Ummm, there are photos of the kid's face all beat up, AND his testimony ID'ing his attacker. Why is it that victim testimony seems not to be valid enough evidence? I understand that you have to look at the situation critically, and not just take the victim's story as 100% truth automatically but geez, it was pretty obvious what had happened. I had in my mind a friend's comment about her abuse as a child and reading some statement online that there wasn't evidence of abuse ever taking place; she said, "I am the living proof. My story is true. It happened." But I feel like people are so quick to try to discredit the victim. Or say, well I wish they'd interviewed some of the kid's friends to see if one of them had actually done it. The kid told us who the attacker was; why would you go after someone else unless you had reason to doubt the kid?

I'd been named presiding juror, which only really means that I kept us moving toward a decision, and tried to cut short their speculative arguments that had nothing to do with the actual charge. Eventually we had 11 of us agreeing to the charge of assault, but only 9 agreeing to criminal mistreatment, which was essentially the same charge except that instead of "intentionally, knowingly or recklessly causing injury," it said "intentionally or knowingly causing injury to a dependent care." Somehow two jurors could agree that the father had "recklessly" caused injury, but the words "knowingly" and "intentionally" were just really challenging for them. Well if you're angry and in a rage, do you really KNOW what you're doing? Do you really KNOW that you're going to be hurting someone? Are you really INTENDING to? Um, yes, if you hit your kid 12 times, I'm pretty sure you know what you're doing. Intentionally injuring vs unintentionally (like you punch the wall and a picture thus falls, hitting and injuring the kid). Then one asked well what does injury really mean? I mean, is an injury something that lasts a week? The moment you touch someone is that an injury? Did he really even "injure" his son? Oh, the irrational comments went on and on. The kicker was, one juror who just could not commit himself to saying guilty ended up justifying his position by saying this: I just don't think this situation should have ever gotten to this point. Look buddy, that's not for you to judge whether the law is right or wrong, whether or not you agree with the system. Then he said: what I see is a dad who was trying really hard yet his son was being defiant, and, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I guess I just think that sometimes, kids need to be put in their place. What?!? Again, not for you to judge!! Did the father hit his son or not? If so, he's guilty, whether or not you agree with that, whether or not you would agree with whatever the punishment would be.

Oh man. It was super frustrating. Had we not reached a majority to say guilty on both counts, I would have dwelt on it for quite awhile, the injustice of it. Given the evidence we had, a not guilty verdict basically says to the kid: we didn't believe you. Your story, and the evidence of your abuse, just wasn't as compelling as your dad and stepmom lying on the stand. We think you just set it up. This didn't really happen to you. And how heartbreaking and unfair would that have been. So, thankfully, justice was served. And I heard through a different source after we had given our decision and been dismissed, that there may have been evidence that the father had beat the son a few months prior, but because it hadn't been reported, the jury wasn't allowed to hear it. I'm 100% sure that would've changed everyone's mind. So, story told, I'll move on now.

This weekend, I tried to mostly finish another art project I'd started. I'd seen a really cute artwork on Pinterest; she took a paint-by-number painting, put vinyl lettering over it, then painted and removed the letters. Cute!

I had this artwork from my grandma's house, which I loved because it reminded me of her house, but it is so dated and it just doesn't go with anything in our house. I though maybe I could pull off a version of this lyric artwork with "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts, which I resonate with as I think of becoming a parent. So I set off to try to get a lot of this song onto this artwork. Issue #1: the letters I bought were really small, kinda expensive, and hard to peel off the backing without tearing. Issue #2: it was really time consuming to 1- lay out all the wording to make sure it would fit, 2- make sure I had all the right letters, and 3- then peel and stick. And by time consuming, I mean I've spent hours on each stage of this project. But I finally got it all stuck on. Issue #3: some of the letters wouldn't stick and kept trying to rise up. Matt was right that it would've looked cool to just have the letters over the art, but because I was using black, silver and gold letters (they came in the pack), and I was mixing them because of which letters I needed, it would've looked awful to leave as is. Had I wanted to spend more time and money, I would've tried to get all black letters and be done.

So then I spray painted the entire thing white, after repeatedly trying to get the letters to stay down long enough for me to paint.

Then Issue #4: the incredibly time consuming step of removing all the lettering, which kept tearing. So here's the result, though I need to still paint the frame. In my mind, though I ignored how tiny the font really is, I envisioned that you'd get a sense of the picture behind the letters. Not so. It just looks like faded brown lettering, which in itself looks kinda cool, but being that my idea was different than this, and I've now totally lost the picture that reminded me of my grandma's house, I'm a bit disappointed. But, I guess now there's some sweet little artwork for baby.

 

The lyrics, which make me cry every time:

I hope that the days come easy and the moments pass slow,
And each road leads you where you want to go,
And if you're faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin' till you find the window,
If it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile,

...

I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,
All the ones who love you, in the place you left,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
And you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God's grace, in every mistake,
And you always give more than you take.

But more than anything, yeah, and more than anything,>
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish...

Now my true goal, to be the parent I want to be, is truly to want for my child what she wants for herself, not what I want for her. Isn't that what we should want- to want for someone what he wants for himself, assuming that thing is good for him, rather than wanting him to want what we want for him? But isn't that also a great challenged.

The Heat is ON... in the house anyway

By "the heat," I mean inside the house. It's starting to really cool down here. Today, it didn't get above 60'F, yet lovely sunshine all day.
And autumn means it's time for PUMPKIN COOKIES!! This recipe is worth sharing (yum!):
Matt's Fav Pumpkin Cookies
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
{dissolve 1 tsp baking soda in 1 tsp milk}
1 TB vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips (dark, milk, white, your choice!)

Combine pumpkin, sugar, oil and egg. Combine dry ingredients except soda/milk, then stir all together with pumpkin mix. Add vanilla and choc chips. Drop onto greased cookie sheet and bake at 350' F about 12 mins or til brown.

Last week, Mom and I canned rhubarb jam, except we added apples to this recipe. Turned out pretty well and was a good way to use all the rhubarb from our garden.

This last weekend, since I finally am starting to feel more energetic, we worked on our backyard to clean it up for winter. All our plants had grown a bit unruly because I hadn't been cutting them back or trimming. We've covered our tomatoes but I don't think most will ripen so I'm looking to try out this parmesan crusted green tomato gratin recipe.

At 17 weeks: baby's skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone, and the umbilical cord — lifeline to the placenta — is growing stronger and thicker. Baby weighs 5 ounces now (about as much as a turnip), and is around 5 inches long from head to bottom. Baby can move joints, and the sweat glands are starting to develop.

I, however, don't think I've grown at all in the last two weeks :( We started taking weekly pictures and Matt's trying to measure my belly, but last week and this week looked exactly, and measured, the same as the week before. And for two days in a row, people have said: "you don't look pregnant." I've heard people say that women suddenly "pop" so maybe that's what I'm waiting for.

Since my OB said that swimming is good to loosen tight/sore hips, I tried out a swim class this week, which was listed online as a deep water running & prenatal class. Every bit of that sounded appealing to me but when I got there, it ended up being mainly old ladies and myself. Plus, I had to wear a floatation belt that fit right over my belly and I couldn't get it tight enough to keep from slipping up. As it was, it was making me feel a bit nauseous so I let is slip up to under my armpits. I may try shallow workouts from now on. It's also really hard for me to tell how hard I'm exerting myself, particularly since I've only been walking in the past few months. But cardiovascularly, it felt great. I remembered how much I used to enjoy swim practice in high school, aside from our dick hippy coach, and the butterfly laps he always made me try to practice (umm, I'm not good at them nor do I care to be good. Really, I think the problem was 1- I don't like to put my face in the water, and 2- I hadn't figured out how to really move my hips yet, but anyhow...). Still, I'll try some other classes, or maybe just lap swim. They also had some prenatal yoga, which only appeals to me for a social reason.

In other news, I've finally finished the applique and stitching on my baby alphabet quilt that I've been working since (cough) January. Now I just need to sew it all together. It may have actually turned out as well as I'd hoped. It's handmade by a non-professional for sure but that's part of the charm. Sadly, I can't see that any future babies will have the gift of one of these. It was a bit time consuming...

Ugh, so it's the time of year when we have open enrollment for our health benefits for the next year, meaning I've had to spend bunches of time reading over options for short-term disability, flexible spending accounts, etc. It's tough to try to sort through all that, weighing options for 2013 since we're expecting, from taking the dependent care tax credit or opening a dependent care flex spending account (cafeteria plan), which it sounds like the latter is a better option, assuming that we can adequately determine how much to contribute. Basically, we can contribute a certain amount of my gross pay taxfree into an account that can pay for certain expenses not covered by insurance, including childcare. But if we don't use it all in the year, we lose it. And the expenses we cover with this account can't be claimed as part of the dependent care tax credit we could take, but it sounds like a fsa is still the route to save us more.

I also found out more about my maternity leave options at work, so that's... helpful. For the record, yes, it's 12-weeks leave in which my job is protected but, uh, it's unpaid so it's not all that exciting now is it. Fortunately I both am rarely sick or on vacation so I have saved time of both types. Unfortunately our vacation time has a cap so once I reach the cap, I can't earn any more vacation time. And I won't tell you how long I've been at my cap, because I have no idea, it's been that long. Well, I guess I took time for our honeymoon, but I'd been at the cap before that too. And unfortunately I'd have a lot more sick pay but after my 2008 leave following my car accident, in which they let me draw advance sick pay while I was out on disability leave, I went in the hole pretty deep on sick pay. Though the UO didn't make me repay it when I quit six months later (surprisingly, because they did let me cash out vacation time), when I returned six months after that, I started back at my job with negative sick pay that I've been slowly repaying. I think it took me at least two years to pay them back.

So, anyhow, now I have to decide how to use my leave; I'm considering a full-time leave for at least 6wks then a part-time leave gradually increasing back to full-time. And, if I play it right, I may be able to also collect short-term disability in the beginning. We'll see. A lot will probably need to depend on the personality of our baby, which, despite my Type A tendency to want to plan this all out ahead of time so I can stop worrying, we won't know until March. And despite what it may seem, being that I work from home (which, yes, will make a lot of things easier), I'm not going to be able to work 8hrs/day and care for a baby at the same time. Luckily my employers seem like they are really open to me working flexible hours, which could include late at night when Matt can be home watching the baby. I know babies sleep a lot, at some ages, but I also know one just never knows if the baby will be fussy and need a lot of comforting or want held often, or will have trouble nursing, or won't sleep. And I don't know how I'll feel... so much unknown. It feels really daunting and a little terrifying. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to worry about the financial aspect. And maybe if we made some different lifestyle choices, we wouldn't have to worry as much either. But at this point, I do need to work full-time for our family. I'm just glad I have a supportive and involved husband who will try to help out as much as he can.

In other exciting news, I think MAYBE, possibly, I *might* have felt the baby move yesterday... but I'm not 100% on that. A few days ago, I had just one sudden sensation of what felt like a very large goldfish darting across my stomach just under the skin. Yesterday, as I was eating breakfast, I felt a few gurgles/bubbles that felt a lot like sorta strong digestive/stomach gurgles. But when usually then I have gas, there was no gas. That's it. I thought it would be more obvious. But it's around this time I should start to notice movement; for first-time moms, the books say I'll notice around 18wks (which is Sunday) or maybe 19-20wks, though thinner women (and depending how they're carrying) can notice sooner.

Look at this hot daddy-to-be