Attempt at a one month picture

Allison turned one month on January 4! In a last minute effort to start taking monthly pictures, I put her in a plain onesie and grabbed a stuffed animal (if I had thought about it a little more I probably wouldn’t have chosen what turned out to be a somewhat creepy looking monkey).  Well baby girl was not particularly cooperative for picture time. I got about ten shots of her screaming and only one calm one during a brief pause, and what did she do for that one? Throw out her middle finger of course. Here are some of the pictures:

 "What is happening to me?"

"Why are you people torturing me?"

(Poor Corey witnessing AK's scream fest)

"Is anyone still paying attention to my drama?”

"Fine then I guess I'll be quiet now. But don't think I won't ruin your picture with my middle finger."

At her one month appointment, Allison weighed 9 lbs 8 ounces (60^th percentile) and was still 22.5 inches long (80^th percentile – they said her body has most likely grown ,but her length stayed the same as that lovely cone head at birth has rounded out).

On her one month birthday, this crazy killed rolled over from stomach to back, twice! We put her down for tummy time and she was so mad about it that she worked herself up to the point of rolling over. We thought the first time was probably just a fluke and maybe her arm had been tucked under her body or something, so we put her back on her stomach and she did it again. We weren’t sure whether to be proud or scared, since it probably means baby girl already has quite the temper. But she has done it twice since when not throwing a temper tantrum, so hopefully that’s a good sign.  This week she has also started smiling at us (when she’s in a good mood and we get right up in her face and talk to her) which is really awesome!

Given that Allison looks like a tortured, troubled child in the pictures above, maybe next I will post some of the ones I took while she was being smiley yesterday to redeem herself.

So December happened

While most people are writing blog posts recapping all of 2011, I’m going to focus on just December since I seem to have neglected my blog that whole month: Let’s see, I went into labor on December 3^rd, Allison was born on December 4^th, and as of today I have a one month old.  That pretty much sums things up!

I won’t really dwell on the details of the whole labor thing – suffice it to say it wasn’t super fun – and after waiting this long to write anything, I’m not even sure where to begin with recounting Allison’s first month of life. Here are a few highlights:

-First of all, I have to point out that after my paranoia about her being a big baby, our “little” girl weighed in at 8 pounds 9 ounces and was 22.5 inches long at birth.  While it wasn’t particularly fun to deliver that size baby, I’m convinced that being on the bigger side has helped make her a good eater and able to go relatively long stretches between feedings (which translates into more sleep for mom and dad).

-I also have to address her appearance, because we have been told on more than one occasion that this baby does not look like she belongs to us! Although the sonographer at our 36 week scan told us AK (one of her many nicknames already) was looking pretty bald, this kid popped out with a full head of dark hair.  Given my blonde hair and Tim’s relatively light brown hair, I’m assuming this is the main reason people are secretly wondering if I was actually never even pregnant and we just stole ourselves a baby last month. Before you go calling the cops, I’ll have you know I was actually born with a pretty similar head of dark hair that ended up turning blonde later. I couldn’t find a really great baby picture of me that young, but judge for yourself whether you see at least SOME family resemblance:

I’m not saying she’s the spitting image of me, but I think she at least looks like she could legitimately be my child. Oh and on the second picture of me, check out what looks like a little bit of a middle finger gesture – this has been one of Allison’s favorite things to do since we caught it on camera during our 20 week sonogram. Unfortunately I don’t have any baby pictures of Tim handy right now, but my mom thinks Allison looks like him so we’ll go with that as evidence of further family resemblance.

-So far, our little gator (another current nickname) has been what I think is a pretty easy baby. She sleeps well and she eats well, which is about all we can ask for at this age. She’s also pretty active (which isn’t surprising with all the movement she was doing inside the womb). Some of her current favorite activities include: going to the bathroom right when her diaper is taken off, projectile pooping four feet across the room while being changed (her dad was proud of that move), making funny faces pretty much all the time, and of course giving the middle finger during photo ops. 

Right now we’re just enjoying watching her change and grow, and we’re excited for all of the new things that will come over the next several months! I plan to follow this post up with a one month update ASAP, so get excited for that.  

96.1% there, but who’s counting?

For those of you who don’t actually do useless math in random cells of the excel spreadsheet you’re working on on a Monday afternoon,  96.1% there means we are 11 days away from this baby’s due date. Soon we will be within the number of days that it is grammatically correct to spell out the number (one through ten, as I’m sure you're aware) instead of use the numeral, which is when I’m assuming things start to feel “really real.”

I’m happy to report that I have not yet started to spiral into the physical and emotional mess that I was fully expecting to be by now.  I think my expectation of late pregnancy was that I would eventually get so uncomfortable in my own skin that I wouldn’t be able to stand it any longer, but so far I haven’t reached that point. Of course there’s still plenty of time for things to go downhill, so for now I’m just glad to be feeling relatively good.

 

And even though I’m feeling relatively good, I still get some aches and pains and moments where I feel pretty huge, particularly at the end of the day (when I need to get up to go to the bathroom at night, I may or may not ask Tim to literally push me out of bed if he’s still awake). However, Tim has developed a weird (and just slightly annoying) habit of complaining about his own aches and pains whenever I complain about something. It’s sort of ridiculous to the point that if you heard it, you would swear he was joking, but he’s not. Examples:

M: Ugh, I’m kind of getting a stomach ache.

T: Yeah my stomach hurts too, and I have a bad headache.  

M: Can you carry the laundry upstairs because my back is hurting?

T: My back has been bothering me all day I think I slept on it wrong, but I guess so. 

Like I said, you would think he has to be joking slash mocking me, but I promise he’s for real. Even though he somehow seems to complain even more than I do, I will give him credit for the fact that he rubs my back and feet pretty much every day. And he packs my lunch (plus like ten snacks) for me to take to work in the morning.  As long as he’s just as helpful when the baby comes, I guess he can complain all he wants. 

That pretty much sums things up at 38ish weeks pregnant. Oh I never put up a picture from our 36 week 3D sonogram, mostly because it didn’t come out very good, but since I don’t have any good pictures of the dogs to post this week I might as well throw it out there:

A little disappointing that all we got was half of a face and some pouty lips, but that’s okay because soon enough we’ll be seeing the live version!

Google Search Story

Remember the Google "search story" commercials? If you don't you probably will once you see it again. My sister (the Google employee) made Allison her very own, rather awesome, search story:



Cool huh? We'll have to show it to her once she learns to use the computer, which I'm assuming will be around 6 months or so.

Warning: Dogs in costumes

I am fully aware of the polarizing effect dressing dogs in costumes has on people.  Dog costumes are like the New York Yankees of expressing Halloween festiveness.  I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of myself as pro-costume at first, but it just sort of happened.  A few years ago my mom bought Corey a hot dog costume, which I considered a pretty good gag gift that would probably be worn for about .5 seconds. We put the thing on him, and surprisingly he did not thrash around crazily to free himself or spiral into a deep depression of pathetic-ness.  He pretty much just pranced around enjoying all the attention he was getting, and thus a tradition was born. 

Last Halloween we dressed the dogs up and then sat in our driveway with them on leashes to pass out candy (this method is much more preferable to sitting in the house and having the doorbell ring 50 times with three dogs barking and flipping out at each and every ring).  People definitely loved the dogs in their costumes more than we anticipated (I’m talking parents taking pictures of our dogs instead of their kids, and kids that are normally sprinting from house to house to accumulate candy stopping in our driveway for 5 minutes to pet the dogs and ask all of their names, etc.).  So this year we just had to dress them up again.  So brace yourselves Red Sox fans, here come the pics:

Corey in his classic hot dog costume

Pierce the (giant) pumpkin

And Graham the cow. Moo.

After we put their costumes on we realized we probably should have taken them for a walk to burn some energy before all the excitement, so we decided to just take them around the block in their costumes. Here they are walking:

There were some kids outside down the street, and when they saw us coming they ran inside and got treats for the dogs. So yes, our dogs literally went trick-or-treating this year. How spoiled are they? And not to be outdone, Allison had to dress up too. She was a reindeer:

So that was our Halloween. In other news, our baby girl is due three weeks from Friday (no big deal or anything). Speaking of Friday I am pretty excited for the first non-exhibition UNC basketball game, which will be played on an aircraft carrier off the coast of California (if “I’m on a boat” references were still novel I would insert one here).

Maybe I’ll actually write a pregnancy-related post soon, but for now suffice it to say everything is still going smoothly.

Aunt K's fave nephew

She pretends not to like him:

But really, she loves him:

Yet again I couldn't resist posting some dog-related pictures. You will likely have to suffer through a post about them in their Halloween costumes next week, so consider yourself warned.

nursery video

I was going to take pictures of what (I think) is the final, completed set-up of Allison's room, but her dad decided that a video would be more efficient. Here is his camera work:

There's a little bit of a glare from the window, but I think it gets the point across. We're pretty happy with the room especially since we made a lot of the stuff ourselves (we refinished the dresser and chest, built the toy box, and made the framed animal silhouettes and hanging initials), had Tim's mom help us make some other stuff (she covered the toy box in fabric and sewed the fabric book slings), and reused things that were sitting in my mom's attic (all of the stuffed animals, the white shelving, and the chair). I guess now we just have to hope this kid likes animals...

AKF

Since I’ve taken so long to post, everyone that actually reads this blog probably already knows we’ve decided on a name: Allison Kay. Yay. The one thing we know about Allison so far is that she likes to move. A lot.  And apparently her favorite place to hang out is right near the front of my stomach, because we can frequently see and feel various body parts jutting out and rolling around across my skin.  She really likes creeping her dad out with her alien-like movement whenever he puts his hand on her (I am liking her sense of humor already). 

Well month seven has been more or less the same as month six for me – not too much to report, which I am definitely not complaining about.  I’m still able to go on walks, swim, run (a little), and play tennis (if you consider standing at the baseline and hitting balls that come close enough to me “tennis”).  And since I don’t yet have a human baby to fawn over and take pictures of, my (poor?) canine babies have been getting a lot of attention lately.  Okay fine they have always gotten a lot of attention, but these days I find myself thinking they are even cuter and more precious than usual.  Now I will bombard you with pictures of the dogs that I think are sweet that no one else will really care about:

Tim, Corey, and Corey’s squirrel toy napping

Me and Graham napping. (Disclaimer: This was taken about 3 or 4 weeks ago. I am much bigger now. (And I realize I'm laying on my back)).

And of course Pierce napping.

Yes, Graham thinks this is normal. Yes, we let him do it. Yes, we need to brush up on our parenting skills.  Speaking of brushing up on parenting skills…

What a good dad-to-be! (And it only took a very small bribe of ordering pizza to get him to read it).

I think that’s all I have for now.  We also have Allison’s room pretty much finished, so I’ll work on posting pictures of that next.

Another month bites the dust

So it’s been a month since my last post. Oops. But that means baby girl is now about negative three months old. It’s probably clear from my lack of posting that this past month has been relatively uneventful. Our main baby-related focus has been continuing to research all the baby gear we (think we) need. I have been doing most of the work on that, but Tim offered to help so I told him he could pick out a rectal thermometer. Apparently he wasn’t aware of the fact that we would have any use for one, as he assumed that’s something that “only the doctor has to use.” Poor guy really doesn’t know what's coming.

Aside from that, I’ve been trying to stay relatively active to hopefully help prolong the onset of all of those wonderful aches and pains I’ve heard so much about. I use the term active very loosely, as it pretty much just involves some walking and a little bit of swimming. Although I haven’t been having trouble sleeping yet or a need for a body support pillow or anything like that, I do sort of miss being able to lie on my stomach. Luckily I figured out a way to recreate the feeling in the pool:

For the record, I did swim a few laps before resorting to floating around like this. And I guess dads-to-be need some relaxation time too:

Well that about sums up life for me at six months pregnant. We’ll see if anything more exciting happens in month seven.

Belly picture!

Sike. There is no belly picture. Maybe soon I will get around to taking one, and then also convincing myself I want to post it online. Maybe. 

Moving on from that disappointment, Tuesday we hit the four-months-until-the-due-date mark.  I celebrated in what I’m assuming is the customary way: spending four or so hours cleaning out the closets.  I haven’t started scrubbing the baseboards yet, but perhaps I’ll do that to commemorate the three month mark.  It’s not really that I’m starting to feel anxious about the baby coming, because it still seems like a long way off and I’m pretty realistic about the fact that it will start to drag on towards the end.  I guess I’m just thinking I should get as much done as I can while I’m still feeling good.  Which I am, knock on wood. No real issues to report. Yet.

Aside from cleaning, I’m focusing a decent amount of energy into researching baby gear (I usually call it baby crap, but in an effort to not appear insensitive I’ll use baby gear).  We’ve bought a few things already when we have found them on sale/clearance (we're cheap), with the biggest purchase so far being a jogging stroller.  Lucky for the dogs, whenever we get something new my favorite thing to do is torture them with it:

 

No, we did not have to sedate him to get him to sit still. Surprisingly. Here are two other incredibly important developments:

Everyone always talks about their baby dreams while pregnant. I had a couple of baby dreams in the weeks before we found out the sex. Two times I dreamt we went in for the sonogram and found out it was a girl.  Another time I had a dream with an actual baby in it, but the baby was a boy named Oliver. (One, the baby didn’t end up being a boy. And two, even if it was a boy I had no intentions of naming him Oliver.)  The only other pregnancy-related dream I’ve had was one where I woke up with stretch marks on my belly, but they weren’t normal stretch marks they were like bleeding cuts/sores. Oh and that dream ended with me going to a hookah bar (or are they called lounges? I have no clue) where a group of Rastafarian gangsters stole my car and shot me in the stomach.  Interpretations are welcome…

You’re probably also wondering what Tim has been up to, or more specifically what he has been saying/doing to offend me.  Well luckily for him he has been out of town for work for a little while, which significantly cuts down on his chances of messing something up.  He did, however, manage to call me a hippo a week or so ago.  The story goes something like this: we were upstairs and it was time to feed the dogs, so I headed downstairs and was of course making up a song as I went about feeding the dogs (yes, I make up songs and sing them to my dogs, pretty much on a regular basis) and at one point was singing about how they are hungry hungry hippos, and Tim shouted down from upstairs “and so is their mom!” (Yes, we refer to ourselves as mom and dad of our dogs. Don’t let this embarrassing detail distract you from the main point of the story). So yeah, my husband basically likes to sing about how his pregnant wife is a hungry hungry hippo. I’m a lucky girl I know.