House remodeling: The bathroom!

In the past month, we've been making a lot of changes to our house. The first of these was about 2 weeks ago when we had the handyman company we use (Go2Guys; apparently they don't have a website but they're based in Loudoun) come to our house to take care of a bunch of stuff. Our shower knob was essentially broken; it kept falling off in our hands, so that needed to be replaced. The ventilation fan in our bathroom was also broken, so we wanted to get that fixed too. Our 3 main toilets all flushed HORRIBLY (you had to hold the handle down for at least 10 seconds to get them to flush), so we wanted the internal mechanisms all fixed/replaced. Our back porch light was broken, and our front one was old and ugly, so we had both of those replaced.

The most fun part was that we had our half bath on our main floor redone! We had left it pretty bland, really doing nothing when we first moved in. Here's the before pictures we took (ignore the yellow-y lighting; Evan had my camera on the wrong setting. The walls are really white).

In this first one you can see the ugly flower border all around, and the leaf-pattern  towel rack and toilet paper holder, which in particular was really bad, as the paper just slides on and so it constantly slid off!

Here's a closer-up shot of the border.

Here's the one thing we added to the bathroom: this silver shelf we had. You can see it really wasn't used for much.

And now...the after! The biggest change is the blue. I love the color! We also put up new hardware, and moved the location. Now the towel rack is right next to the sink (makes more sense), and the toilet paper holder is at a better angle to the toilet. I'm also really proud of the rug, as I got it on clearance for $5! The hardware is from Target; everything else new is from Kohls.

I put a new basket on the sink (dark wicker), and cleaned up the sink so there's fewer things on it.

And lastly, I got this new picture to put over the toilet that pretty much ties everything together.

Getting stuff done

So, "nesting" has kicked in. Honestly, I hate admitting that, as I don't like to simply assign my behaviors to pregnancy-related reasons. But, at this point even I have to admit that it's likely the pregnancy.

I picked up an icky cough over the weekend, and have generally been feeling like crap since late Saturday. I had to go into work Monday and Tuesday, but was able to take today off to try and recuperate a little bit. With my shower this weekend, and family visiting, I want to feel much better by then. Honestly, I'm feeling better now (especially compared to Sunday), but this cough just sucks. Since I can't really take much of anything, and being 34 weeks pregnant is sapping some energy too, I'm just kind of run down. So, taking today off was a good thing.

You'd think I'd sit on my butt...but no. This is why I know that nesting has kicked in. Even with feeling crappy all week, I've helped finish reorganizing the basement, gone through some clothing and taken stuff to Salvation Army, gone through Natalie's old clothes to give some away to my friend Alison, and started organizing Natalie's "big girl room". Since waking up at 6:20 this morning, I have done two loads of laundry, straightened the house, walked the dog, and sorted through the baby's 0-3 month size clothes. Yes, I have also sat and watched some TV, and cross stitched (I'm working on one for Natalie's new room, then will do a name/birthday one for the baby). But I'm finding that the things I want to do are floating in my head so much that I really can't sit still! I just want to get things done.

So, before I head to my midwife appointment this afternoon, I'm going to stop by Home Depot to pick up some paint brushes and have some old paint mixed up to repaint a couple of spots on our walls that got messed up with moving furniture. Hopefully I can take care of that tonight after Natalie goes to bed. So, I'll add running errands, going to the doctor, taking Natalie to the gym, making dinner for us, and repainting two walls to my list of things accomplished for the day. And all on my "sick day"!

Note: It's now 8:30pm. I did not have the energy to get the painting done, partially because my cough gets much worse at night and it's tiring to cough that much. So, i'm trying to rest. I'll get the painting done by Sunday. But everything else did happen!

A new friend?

For the past couple of weeks, Natalie keeps saying "I want Gobbles! I want Gobbles!". Evan and I had NO idea what she was talking about. We thought at first that it might be a reference to one of her favorite books, in which the main character (a little girl) says "aggle flaggle klabble!", and that gobbles was just Natalie's closest approximation. But I don't think that's it. Then she said last week "Gobbles on the TV!" So I thought it through, and thought maybe she was trying to say "Gonzo" and that she wanted to watch The Muppets. But, she can clearly say Gonzo, and if she wants Muppets she always asks for Kermit, so I don't think that was it either.

Tonight she and I were playing on the couch, and she said she wanted Gobbles to help her. I asked her where Gobbles was, and she pointed to the other side of the living room (of course, nothing is there). I asked her to show me Gobbles, thinking maybe I'd finally get this figured out! She got off the couch, went over to Evan's ottoman, and grabbed something invisible, saying "here's Gobbles!" I asked her if I could hold Gobbles, and she said yes, and "put" it in my cupped hands. I asked her if Gobbles was a guinea pig (they had one at daycare); she said no. I asked if Gobbles was a hamster; she said no. I asked if Gobbles was a doggie; she said YES! And apparently Gobbles can talk and say some words. Gobbles likes to lick faces, and Gobbles is apparently a girl.

So, according to Natalie tonight she has a small invisible doggie friend named Gobbles. We'll see if I get the same answers tomorrow night when I ask her the same questions. If I do, then I'll know this is legit. If I get new answers, then I'll know that she's just answering yes or no arbitrarily, and doesn't really have an invisible friend. But it's cute to think about for now!

Nothing much...

So I wish I had something interesting to write about! The biggest thing going on is that we're getting the house ready for the new baby. This involves a chain of multiple steps. Let's see if I can spell it out:
1. Clean out the basement. For those of you who haven't been here, we have one big finished room in the basement that was primarily Evan's office before. So, we needed to go through everything and get rid of as much as possible.
2. Move furniture in the basement. The basement is now going to be Evan's office/ play area/ guest bedroom. To make room for the queen size bed from our guest room, we had to move the furniture around. We also got rid of an old futon and ottoman that were down there. We then had to put everything away in the new places!
3. Move the guest bed downstairs. This happened on Sunday. Evan's brother Scott visited for the weekend (we had a really fun time!!), and he was nice enough to help us with moving the bed. The mattress was fine; getting the boxspring down the stairs was difficult! But with only moderate wall-scratching (which should be easily fixed), it's down there.
4. Have Natalie's big-girl furniture delivered. This is happening on Friday; the delivery guys will set it up in the now almost-empty guest room. It currently has only a small bookshelf that will be Natalie's.
5. Move ALL of Natalie's stuff into her new room! This will be the most fun part for me, as I get to set up two new rooms; Natalie's, and then get the baby's stuff all put away after room has been made in her room.
6. Set up the nursery for a boy! After my baby shower this saturday I'll have a better feel for what we have, and what we need, and then I can start putting his stuff away.

So, you can see this is quite a process. Luckily, Steps 1-3 are finished. Whew! Those were the hard parts. I can't wait for her furniture to get here; I love the new bedding I've gotten for her. And reorganizing the two kids rooms is going to be fun!

I have taken before & after pictures of these rooms, so will start posting them on here soon.

A night in Baltimore

This past weekend Evan's parents came to visit. They kept Natalie overnight for us on Saturday so we could have a quick overnight trip, just the two of us!

When we first started discussing doing this, Evan decided he wanted to surprise me with what we were doing. We discussed what we'd like (someplace not too far away, not too expensive, and with the option of doing nothing if we didn't want to!), and he searched around. Turns out, we went up to Baltimore!

We stayed in the Hyatt Regency right on the Inner Harbor. The hotel was lovely, and we had a corner room (meaning LOTS of windows) looking right out onto the Harbor. Here are some pics of the room; all of those curtains going down the hallway and in the room itself cover windows!

And our view of the Inner Harbor. This was taken on Saturday when we got there, and unfortunately it was pretty overcast.

We walked around some, had yummy lunch (mmm...cream of crab soup!), and then went to a really nice movie theater where we finally got to see Avatar 3D! Thoroughly entertaining and pretty for 2.5 hours.

We then headed back to the hotel to change for dinner. Evan got us reservations at a really nice restaurant in Baltimore's "Little Italy" area named Aldo's. It was SO GOOD! Evan had filet mignon, I had lobster risotto, and of course tiramisu and chocolate cake for dessert. It was just really nice to have an excuse to dress up (I was able to wear my fancy maternity dress at least once this pregnancy!), and be able to enjoy a nice leisurely dinner.

Playtime videos II

First up: practicing gymnastics skills with Mommy!


Second: practicing throwing and catching with Daddy!

32 Weeks pregnant!

So I don't really plan on putting a weekly pregnancy update on here (I'll probably do every two weeks until a couple of weeks before I'm due, assuming everything is going normally). But, I absolutely LOVE this new maternity shirt that I bought (for $5!!!!), and since I took my 32 week pictures wearing it, I wanted to show them!

Here's the standard sideways pose, and you can see the pretty flowers going down the side.

I like these two seated ones; you can see how pronounced the belly is when I'm sitting!

All looks good on the baby front (had 32 week checkup on Friday). He's still head down, I measured 32cm, and I gained 2 pounds, so I'm up 11 pounds total for the pregnancy. I filled out a "birthing wishes" form that all of the midwives and nurses will know. We said for sure that I'd like to try to do things without anesthesia if possible, but we'll see how it goes. Evan wants to cut the cord; I want to hold him right after he's born, (as they're cleaning him off); we want a circumcision; and I want to nurse. So, they'll honor all of those wishes assuming everything with the baby is ok.

My work in the NY Times!

Last year, my dissertation advisor and I wrote a review article on how pregnancy and motherhood enhance memory, decrease anxiety, and change brain chemistry. This article discussed my dissertation research, and other rodent research that has been done with similar results (i.e. motherhood = good!). We also discussed similar research done in humans, which isn't as clear-cut as the rodent research, but does seem to indicate that pregnancy and motherhood help our memory some, depending upon what type of memory is studied.

Today, my dissertation advisor let me know about this parenting blog in the NY Times that discusses this article! It's a short blog entry, and they don't mention us by name, but about 3/4 of the way through the article, the author mentions an article in this month's issue of Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. That's us! I'm the "researcher from the National Institue of Mental Health."

Here's the link to the blog:
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/does-pregnancy-affect-memory/

I'm excited that my research is getting out there into the public!

Natalie sings!

Today when we tried to put Natalie down for a late nap, we heard her singing to herself for almost 30 minutes up in her crib. She alternated between "Twinkle twinkle little star", "No more monkeys jumping on the bed" and "Happy birthday". She seemed to favor the first one the most.

Tonight while we were changing in to pjs, she treated us to more singing! Here she is with another rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle.

Snow update

So, the big news here is that we got walloped by another giant snow storm. We've got almost 3 feet of snow (i'm not sure of the actual amount) that fell between Friday morning and Saturday evening. We spent yesterday snowed in, but actually had a fun day just the 3 of us.

Here's Evan starting to shovel for the first time on Saturday (while snow was still coming down)

And the front of our house with cars pretty much buried

Our backyard after the snow stopped on Saturday

The local government responsible for plowing us out seems to have learned from the storm in December, as roads were actually passable today. In fact, we all drove into my work today (Sunday), as I have an experiment underway that really needs me to be there everyday. Obviously, I couldn't get there yesterday, so it was really important I at least get there today. We loaded Natalie up and headed to Bethesda. Took a little while, but it wasn't really dangerous. The government is officially closed tomorrow, and I should go in, but I'll see how the roads look after they've frozen again tonight. Unfortunately, we're due for another 4-6" on Tuesday, so I did bring some work home with me today just in case I don't get in for a few days.

Here are some pics of us walking around outside today:

Pregnancy Update: 31 weeks

So I've not been very good at keeping up with pregnancy updates! That's partially because I haven't been good about taking weekly pictures showing the growing baby bump. If I had pictures, then I'd most likely post them and write about it! My resolution is to take them each week from now on, so I'll have them to look back on years later! Here I am 31 weeks pregnant:

The baby has finally decided to let himself show! Seriously, it was difficult to tell I was pregnant until recently. While that is nice, because I haven't gained much weight at all (more on that below), this may very well be my last pregnancy, so I want to enjoy it! And I'll admit it: part of enjoying it means sharing it with others. And when people can't tell, it's a little irritating! But, I'm definitely showing now. Here are the few "stats" I have on the pregnancy.

WEIGHT: I've still not even gained 10 pounds compared with my pre-pregnancy weight. I only just now weigh the amount I was when I got pregnant with Natalie. So, I'm feeling pretty good about that. Hopefully I don't swell up in these last 2 months!

SIZE: I would worry about the lack of weight gain if the midwives seemed concerned, but they don't. I think the biggest reason is that I'm dead-on for uterus growth. The uterus should measure (from the pubic bone to the very top) the same number of centimeters as weeks pregnant, and I've been measuring perfectly. At my appointment last week, I was 30cm at 30 weeks. With that and the last ultrasound measurements, it seems that the baby boy is the "right" size.

NAMES: The baby's middle name will be Evan, so we've only had to focus on first names. We do have two that we really like. One is Zachary; the other we're keeping a "secret" - only Evan and I know it. We'll probably decide once we see him, like we did with Natalie.

ENERGY: I don't have much. I feel like I never got the big second trimester push of energy that i had with Natalie, and I definitely have less now in the third trimester. I've got enough to get through work, and play with Natalie some, but I'm exhausted after that. My coworkers are nice about helping me with the more physical parts of what I do, and Evan has been great at home. I'm just looking forward to getting some energy back while on maternity leave!
  Also not helping with energy is that I have a really random infection right now. We ended up at the hospital last night to get me checked out, as suddenly I had really sharp pain around one of the lymph nodes in my neck, and the whole left side had swollen up. I only went because I was worried it could be something negative to the baby. The doc diagnosed me with an infected salivary gland, and prescribed antibiotics in case it is from a bacterial infection (could also be viral). It's oddly painful, and gives me a lovely asymmetrical look. But the amoxicillan and Tylenol do seem to be helping, so hopefully it will knock out the infection quickly. I need all the extra energy I can get!

Bath time fun!

We got Natalie a new toy last week: bath tub crayons! I highly recommend getting them for your little one; they're such a big hit! The only downside is that Natalie practically refuses to take a bath without them now, but on the plus side they're quite good at distracting her while we're trying to wash her hair (her least favorite part of the bath).



I do have another longer video ( > 1 min) of Natalie drawing with the crayons (and cleaning the tub after; she finds that almost as fun!). However, there's a LOT of baby buns in it, and I just don't quite feel comfortable putting that up on the internet. This one is a bit more demure. :)