Butternut Squash!

29 weeks! That's equal to the size of a butternut squash. She feels like a full-grown soccer player in there, though. I'm officially done with all my prenatal tests. My bp was 108/72 last Tuesday (my 28 week appt). At this time with Amelia, my bp was already elevated so we're totally excited that it's nice and normal this time. My glucose test came back in the middle of the normal range, and I'm not even anemic. So really, aside from the fact that I feel gigantic, everything is perfectly boringly normal! We scheduled the c-section for March 30th at 10:30am. If I go into labor before then, I'm just gonna go for it but the March 30th date is just to say that's the latest she'll be born. However she wants to be born, it's cool with me.
Amelia is concerned with how Nora will get out of my tummy. She wants to know how Nora will fit through my "belly butt" (belly button). I told her it won't hurt, the doctor will take care of everything, and I'll have to wear a band-aid afterward. When I said she'd be coming to the hospital after Nora is born, she thought I meant that she'd have to also see the doctor and have something done. The look of panic on her face made me want to give her big hugs and kisses. We talked it over though, and she understands she'd just be visiting.
She bought Nora her first teddy bear at Babies R Us. It's a little light tan bear with a heart and she named it "Nora's Bear". She also wants to buy Nora a pair of snuggly pajamas. We're going to buy those a little later so we can kind of drag out the anticipation for her.
Amelia loves swimming so much. She's getting very good at it. We went to the pool the other night and we did lap after lap. She can climb onto the side by herself, put her face in and blow bubbles, float on her back the entire length of the pool, kick and stroke her arms at the same time, go under water without hesitation. I remember when she couldn't even touch the net above the lilypads and now her head grazes that net and she uses it to walk across the pads.
She loves her dance class, too. She's learning a Motown-themed dance for her recital in May. The song is "Can't Get Next to You", and her teacher is Ms. Shannon. She calls her classmates her "students" and is very proud of the steps she's learned so far.
Last weekend, I made a Korean lettuce wrap dish with ground beef. All of a sudden, I couldn't stomach the smell of it cooking any longer. We had to scrap the whole dish and had Thai food instead. Ever since then, I haven't been able to tolerate ground beef at all. We've made spaghetti, sloppy joes since then and both dishes were not enjoyable. There's this weird aftertaste that just gets to me. I guess that means where I only ate beef and couldn't stand chicken in the first trimester, in the third I can't stand beef and only want chicken. Weird!
I also have become addicted to orange juice, oranges and citrus in general. I even drank pink grapefruit juice today. I normally can't stand citrus juices. Now I drink it more than twice a day on top of eating as many oranges as my mouth will tolerate (no cankers yet!)
My daily food addictions are also chocolate Fiber One poptarts with skim milk or oj, Yoplait yogurt, 94% fat free popcorn, peanut butter granola bars, oranges, slightly-green bananas, spicy spicy spicy food, kool-aid made with 1/2 sugar, TONS of ice water, decaf coffee.
Aches and pains are pretty common lately. My hips/pelvic bones have been shifting or something, and that's not fun. My lower back has been bothering me. My energy level dwindles down around 2pm. Being in the pool really helps a lot of that, so I'm going to try to get to the pool with Amelia as much as we can.
I stopped in at WW this past weekend and said hi to all those guys. It'll be great to get back into WW. I'm figuring I'll be at the meeting on April 3rd since we should be home from the hospital and settled by then.
I wake up about 2-3 times per night to go to the bathroom or change position. Sometimes I wake up a lot more than that, and sometimes I lay awake for hours for no reason. I guess that's the sleep issues that come with the territory.
Nora kicks non-stop it seems. I sit at my desk, or on the couch, and I can see my stomach bounce and jump. It's crazy! She seems so much bigger than I'm sure she is. And she's a strong girl already! All of us can't wait to meet her. We're all curious what she'll look like, what her personality will be like, if she'll be similar or opposite to Amelia. I can tell already she'll be so very special in her own way, just like Amelia is. Will she have red hair? Cutesy cheeks? Fair skin? Or will she have black hair like me? Brown eyes?
Rob and I keep saying how crazy it'll be to have two little girls. We'll have a family of four!
Only 69 days (at the most) to go!
I'm on two-week appts now, and my next is a week from today.

Bos grunniens infantilius

Updateorama

• So, apparently I'm driving like a baby yak nowadays. I was driving with due care and caution, but not to the amount of care that my loving wife would have liked. She made a comment on my vehicular control that included the colorful metaphor "maniac". Mia picked this up instantly, but had to put her own bit of flair on it. So she reiterated that "Daddy is driving like a baby yak." Good times.
• The new eating lifestyle is going surprisingly well. I faltered a little over the weekend, but I was down 4 pounds last week but am only down 1 pound as of today. The entire IT department has joined the mix and we're doing a biggest IT loser. Of course, I had to create an spreadsheet that tracks this and graphs our progress.
• School is going really well. It should as I'm taking the same class I dropped a few semesters ago. Either way, I'm cruising in it and I think I should get at least a 3.5 if not a 4.0... woo hoo
• Rest of stuff is going well too

Karate Chop Nora

Yesterday was rough. Nora was in a position where she kicked me in the bladder one way, then in the intestines (or something) the other way. So all day I was either groaning from abdominal cramps or trying to make it to the bathroom in time. Somebody at the salon told me, "Your first one is the performer, your second one is active." Well, Amelia kicked as much as Nora does and she's definitely a performer. I can't even imagine how Nora will top "Miss Wiggles" (one of Amelia's aliases) in activity. Amelia -never- stops moving. Even when she's eating she wiggles her feet. She can't stand still for 2 seconds. And she's NOT supposed to be the active one? We're in big trouble.
Today Nora is in a nicer position. She's still practicing Judo, but at least she's kicking benign areas of my abdominal cavity. I was talking to my boss and I saw my entire "bump" wobble to the right and back. Crazy!

Aileen's New Year's

I've caught a New Year organizing bug on top of the nesting bug I had already. So far, I've gotten a few things accomplished that have been sitting around for years (seriously) waiting for me. There's still so much to do.
My New Year's goals are as follows:

Each day, do at least one thing towards maintaining memorabilia (I'm terrible at this) such as: blogging, scanning photos, working on scrapbooks, organizing photos. I want a first-year scrapbook for each of the girls. Amelia's got up to 9-months, and I lost motivation. I need to finish hers before I can start Nora's!

Get back to WW as soon as Nora is born, and reset goals so I can get back in shape by mid-Summer (when I return to work).

Save $$$ to rejoin up with a personal trainer in the Fall (but obviously workout on my own up to that point at least 2-3x/week).

Obviously, work on getting everything cleaned and organized for Nora's arrival. That's a huge goal in itself.

One thing I learned from the WW/weight loss experience is what is/not an attainable goal. I know I can accomplish all these things, it's just a matter of making each one a priority. Thinking back on other accomplishments, these seem somewhat easy but with the year I've got coming up, achieving easy goals WILL be a huge accomplishment!

New Year's

Happy New Year, all my followers (heh.. right now.. it's just the two of us)...
I'm not gonna say i have resolutions, but more like goals..

Finish the attic project

Okay.. This really isn't a goal.. more of a requirement. We're having another kidlet in case you haven't heard and we need more storage space. So.. I'm plywooding the current attic and gonna chuck in some indoor outdoor carpet. Anyway.. It needs to be done soon soon soon

Lose some weight

This is an actual goal. When Mia was born I was a whopping 260... I wore a size 40 pants. So.. Bean joined Weight Watchers and by proxy I did to. She and I both lost a buttload (pun intended) and I got down to 190ish at my lowest .. back to a size 32. Well.. I've slacked off and I'm back up to around 215 and around a 34-36 waist. I want to get back to 190ish and maintain it.

Run some more races

I've been saying that I'll do a triathlon for a few years now. I want to do one, but I'm realistic. I'm in school, I'm on the Fire Department, I have one kid (soon to be two) at home.. I don't have time to train properly. But.. I can hit the gym a few times a week and get in shape to do a 5k or two.. maybe a triathlon sprint, but we'll see how it goes

Do well in school

I'm the perpetual student. I am a senior now, but it still feels like i have a long way to go and I'm getting a little discouraged. I've got decent grades, but I need to keep it up.

Blog

hopefully a few time a week. I'd like to be able to keep this one with my personal stuff and my other blog with professional workish stuff... Again.. we'll see how it goes.

Okay.. That's enough for now