Seventeen.

How Far Along: 17 weeks

Total Weight Gain: 9 pounds.  I gained no weight this week.  I think my body was recovering from the lack of exercising and intense amount of eating out I did while in Dallas.  I am suprised, however, that the cookie dough we made did not implant itself on my saddle bags to live forever.  I would have thought that alone would have been a 2 pound gain.  Thank you Jesus for sparing me that disaster.

Maternity Clothes: Jake and I went to Gap Outlet last week, but I struck out on pants.  I must have gone at a bad time because all they had available were bad 90's jeans and army green cargo pants.  Vom.  I did get 2 v-necks and a workout zip up jacket for $20 total.  Saturday I went to the actual Gap and saw the same jacket for $60 so I think I made out pretty well.  In addition to trying on every pair of black pants in Motherhood Maternity on Saturday before finally deciding on least horrible of all of them (a girl needs work clothes!), I also bought a pair of skinny jeans and a pair of straight leg jeans.  I'm ready to rock some flats with my straight leg jeans and some boots with my skinnies in the fall.  Woo!

Sleep: I've really never been able to sleep all the way through the night unless I am just dead tired and pass out.  I'm always up peeing or readjusting my sleep position because my back hurts.  But I think right now it's worse than it's ever been.  I don't even have a belly yet and my back is killing me.  I hate to think what it's going to feel like when I've gained 30 pounds.  I guess like every other mother in the history of the universe, I will just deal with it.

Best Moment(s) This Week: As lame as it sounds, I think my best moment was finally buying our crib.  I have been literally flipping out for the last month and a half about what I'm going to do about buying this nursery furniture.  Mine and Jake's bed cost $400 when we bought it and it was our 1-year anniversary gift to each other.  Every other piece of furniture in our house other than our couch is a hand me down.  I was having a really hard time processing spending $2,000 to outfit a baby's room when the baby isn't even going to care or remember what it looks like!  However, thanks to my aunt and uncle who apparently hang on to baby furniture for 15 years, I now have a free changing table and dresser that we can use.  The finish on both pieces scream mid 80's (it was the honey colored oak stuff my mom picked out when I was a baby), but with a little help from Pinterest and a few coats of paint, I think we can refinish them to look really cute in the nursery.  Before and after pictures will follow once my project is complete.

Gender: 3 more weeks until the big reveal date.  Jake said he's more excited to find out what Monkey is than for Monkey to actually get here.  I guess I'm glad we decided we'll find out.  Ha!

Movement: People have really started kicking up the "have you felt any movement" question lately.  Everything I've read said it can take up to 23 weeks before I'll be able to feel anything.  I remain freaked out by the prospect of it, so if Monkey wants to remain still and sleeping for the next 6 weeks, I won't argue.  My iPhone apps this week told me that Monkey is the size of a turnip, onion, sweet potato, or mango.  I am beginning to think they are just making stuff up so I can wander through the grocery store studying random produce like an idiot.  Maybe it's their cruel way of messing with pregos.

Food Cravings: I want sushi.  Thankfully most sushi served in the U.S. is actually cooked fish (so if there are any pregos reading this who are also craving sushi but think they can't eat it because every book in America tells you not to, you can still eat it if the fish is cooked.  Hello tempura shrimp!).  I need a trip to Cloud 9 or Dancing Wasabi asap...ahem Jake.

Symptoms: This has not changed.  My boobs are gigundo.  They don't even fit in my sports bras anymore.   Is this a good excuse to stop working out?  Haha - just kidding!  I do need to find a new sports bra though, maybe just one will get me through the next 5 months.  The thing that really sucks is that I bought a new bigger bra, but it was so expensive that I only bought one.  So this one bra basically needs to be clean at all times or I end up shoving these monsters into a bra that doesn't fit and walk around readjusting myself all day like a dude does with his junk.  #annoying

What I Miss: In addition to everything I listed last week (yeah, I don't really love being pregnant if you can't tell), I have one more thing to add.  I was warned about this when I got pregnant, and I know I complained about it in the first month or two, but it was nothing compared to how I feel now.  I'm talking about bloating.  Oh. My. God.  You know how sometimes you go to an Italian restaurant and you drink 3 glasses of wine, have an entire loaf of bread, a salad that could be a meal by itself, a large portion of lasagna, and then share dessert to top it all off?  And then you leave and you feel like someone should roll you out of there because you have just stuffed so much food into your stomach that you think you might explode?  Yeah, I feel like that when I eat a cup of cereal in the morning.  This baby isn't even that big and I think my stomach has shrunk by half because my expanding uterus is squishing it down.  Now you might be thinking "oh this is wonderful - you don't have to eat as much so you won't gain as much weight!"  No, it goes like this:  Damn, I'm hungry I think I'll eat.  Proceed to eat a bowl of cereal.  Feel obnoxiously, uncomfortably full for 2 hours.  Realize you are kind of hungry.  10 minutes pass by.  You start searching high and low for something to stuff in your mouth because you might pass out or die of starvation.  Eat granola bar.  Feel obnoxiously, uncomfortably full.  Repeat all day.  It BLOWS. 

So to sum up, I miss eating a normal amount of food without feeling like I've been stuffed full of an Italian feast.  I also would just really like to get hammered college style with my friends.  Is that too much to ask?  I think it is.  Oh well.

What I am Looking Forward to: We are going to the Reds game on Friday with Jake's whole fam to celebrate his grandparents' anniversary.  I also hope to start some painting this weekend (hey worrywarts chill out, I bought surgical masks so I don't breathe the fumes and I'll open the windows).

Noteworthy Items:

-Update on The Hunger Games: MS warned me the third one was hard to get into.  She wasn't lying.  I think I'm on page 95 and I'm still not digging it.  Suzanne Collins needs to pick it up stat or I'm going to give up.

-I. Freaking. Love. The. Olympics.  I could sit and watch it all day.  That being said, I'd like to give whoever made up these gymnastics rules a piece of my mind.  Jordyn Wieber crying on national television because her TEAMMATE (during the TEAM competition nonetheless) is competing in the all-around and she is not, even though she has one of the top 24 scores, absolutely broke my heart.  Is this the socialist Olympics?  Let's send 2 from each team because that's totally more fair than all of the BEST gymnasts competing for the top title.  FALSE!  Did Barry Obama come up with this rule?  Wouldn't be surprised!  Get it together Olympic Gymnastics Committee!!  This is horseshit!  (Steps off of soapbox...)

-It is almost August.  Where did summer go?  I'm sure all of my teacher friends are in freak-out mode right now.  Good luck to all of you!

-Jake and I went and looked at some houses for sale in Fort Thomas on Sunday.  No, we're not moving.  We just wanted to see what a few more dollars would buy us in Fort Thomas.  The answer is: not much.  We've pretty much decided we need to start socking money away so we can do some things we need to do to our house to make it liveable for a family of (insert TBA # here) to function for a while.  So we'll get right on that after we finish unloading our savings on baby stuff and college funds.

-I can't believe I'm saying this because I love summer SO much.  But I think I'm ready for fall.  Unless Mother Nature decides to be normal and give me some 85 degree days instead of 98 degree days.  I'm really over this heat stroke that's been going on, and being in a bathing suit while you look like you just ate 7 burritos really isn't my idea of a great time.  I need to either have normal summer weather or start transitioning into fall.  Thanks.

-How about them Redlegs?  I am LOVING THIS!!!  I could also watch them all day every day!  It is so fun to cheer for a team who is tearing it up.   Let's go win a World Series boys!!

-Happy Birthday to my beautiful little sister!! I can't believe you are 24! When did we get so old? Monkey loves you already!!