Twenty-One.

21 and I still can't drink...what the heck?

How Far Along: 21 weeks

Total Weight Gain: 12.6 pounds.  I gained .8 pounds this week.  I am more than fine with this less than a pound a week business.  Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Maternity Clothes: I am still (for now) done shopping.  I have found that when I wear maternity clothes I look kinda prego, when I wear my regular clothes, I look like I drank too much beer (which is obviously not the case).  That being said, as often as possible I am rocking my maternity stuff.

Sleep: Unfortunately I don't believe this is going to change.  I did tell my doc that my back hurts pretty bad.  He recommended getting massages.  When I turned to Jake to say "see you really should be massaging me when I ask you to" (he normally does, he's actually a pretty great husband), the doc said "no, like the real ones, the ones you pay for."  My response: EVEN BETTER!  Now I need to find a good prenatal masseuse, preferably one that looks like Christian Grey, or Channing Tatum, or Jackson Avery (does he have a real name or is he just that hot black guy from Grey's with the dreamy eyes?).

Gender: Just to reiterate my excitement from last week, I am so so so excited that we know what this little monkey is now.  Having a gender and a name has really helped me get over the I'm pregnant but no I'm not super excited because my boobs are huge and my back hurts like a mother and I can't drink alcohol or eat Subway and I don't sleep through the night and I'm growing a beard on the right side of my face mode and into the wow there is a little baby girl growing in my belly and her name is Samantha and she is going to be our little girl mode.  It does make the horrible pregnancy symptoms suck just a little bit less.

Best Moment this Week: **SAP ALERT #1** Kelly and I have been working for months on a surprise anniversary party for my parents.  On Saturday, we actually pulled it off.  From the "I smell bacon" comment as my mom was walking up the stairs (I am SO my mother's daughter), to the priceless reaction she had when she saw everyone in her kitchen, it could not have been more perfect.  I loved planning it with my wonderful sissy, and I loved that we were able to do something for my awesome, fabulous, generous, thanks-for-setting-a-great-example parents that have done so much for us.  Today is their 35th anniversary...WOWZA.  I can only hope that one day Jake and I can set an example for our kids like my parents have set for me, they truly are an example of how hard work, patience, dedication, and unconditional love make and sustain a marriage.  Happy Anniversary Love-Birds!!

Movement: The flutters I felt last week must have been gas or muscle twitches, because I am not feeling movement at all anymore.  At the ultrasound last week when she was hiding her lady parts, the ultrasound tech jiggled my stomach and we saw her head bobbing around like shaken baby syndrome, so I know she's moving in there, I just can't feel her yet.  This week she is the size of a large banana or pomegranate.  How do these even come close to being the same size?  What is people who determine these fruits are dumb for $1000.

Food Cravings: We went boating a few weeks ago with my sorority sisters and someone brought the pre-packaged Rice Krispie treats.  When everybody left on Sunday, somebody left the Rice Krispie treats too.  We discovered them a few days later.  I am not ashamed to say I ate 2 back to back one afternoon.  When we went to Sam's on Wednesday last week to buy stuff for my parents' party, we may or may not have bought a huge box of jumbo sized Rice Krispie treats and I may or may not have eaten one every day since then.  Sorry about it!

Symptoms: I don't think I have any new symptoms this week.  Just my typical larger than life jugs, sore aching back, dry flaky skin, growing at the speed of light fingernails, and growing but still kind of looks like a burrito grande belly.  The usual.  I think I mentioned my beard before too - I have some extra special, extra long, extra thick, extra blond hair growing on the right side of my face but not my left.  At least it's blond and not dark brown?

What I Miss: Is it inappropriate for me to just leave this column the same every week?  I am not going to get over any of this until Miss Thing makes her appearance, and then I'm going to have a slew of new things to complain about.  I will say that I am finally getting used to socializing without having alcohol.  I'm not saying that I don't still want a beer while everybody else is downing them, but I'm learning how to function like a human being without a beer in my hand at a party.  Seeing as this hasn't happened since basically high school, I'd say this is a pretty large accomplishment.  I think I deserve a cookie, or ten.

What I am Looking Forward to: Three day weekend!!!!!!!  JB is coming in town this weekend and I am so excited to see her I can hardly stand it.  We will also be saying goodbye to Jake's brother and his wife this weekend as they head to New York, and to JVDS and her hubby as they head to Washington DC!  I'm excited to see friends and family but sad to say goodbye.  wah.wah.

Noteworthy Items:

-**SAP ALERT #2** I spent some time this weekend (I had a lot of time to reflect on some things while I was sober at a party with 50 drunk people, okay?) thinking about how lucky I am to have such an amazing husband and how lucky Samantha is going to be to have such a great dad.  Sometimes I sit here and have to ask how I got so lucky to be blessed with such a wonderful life.  I have not found the answer, but if I do, I'll be sure to let you know.  One thing I do know is that I'm still madly in love with Jake and I can't wait to raise a family with him. 

-The dresser is finished!  Because I know people are going to ask, I'm just going to walk through the steps we took to get this old and ugly piece of furniture looking so much better than it did before:
1. Lightly sanded all of the wood with a cheap orbital sander I got at Harbor Freight tools.
2. Painted two coats of Zinsser oil-based cover stain primer.
3. Painted two coats of Valspar satin paint (for both the paint and the primer Jake rolled the big parts and I painted the small details with a brush).  I would recommend a semi-gloss paint for this step, but we had a satin paint and didn't want to spend another $25-30 on another gallon.
4. Coated the entire dresser with 3 thick coats of Rustoleum clear finishing enamel.
5. Installed the new knobs we bought at Lowe's for about $1/piece.

The texture of the dresser isn't the most wonderful thing in the world (I would highly recommend a paint spray gun but we just didn't feel like spending $75 on that), but it looks so much better and it's perfect for a baby's room!  Here are the before and after pictures:

-I crafted on Sunday for a few hours while the Reds SUCKED against the Cardinals.  I made a ribbon wreath to hang on the wall in Sam's room:

It's not done yet, I still want to hang a wood block in the center and put her name on it and it still needs a big pink bow in the upper left corner.  I'll post a final picture once it's done.  This was super easy to make and I loved that I was able to pick my own colors and sit on my couch and do it fairly mindlessly.  Warning: this was not a cheap project. I know sometimes ribbon is on sale, but cute ribbon is hardly ever on sale and I didn't feel like waiting around for it to go on sale because then I would be pregnant with #2 and still dreaming about this cute ribbon wreath I wanted to make my first baby.  I spent about $40 on ribbon and the wreath frame and like I said, I'm still not completely done.  I know that's not completely terrible, but it wasn't exactly the $25 figure I had in my head when I headed to Michael's yesterday.

-My second craft was hot gluing colored buttons onto this old nasty lamp shade and it's going to go in her room also (this project was much cheaper, I spent about $9 on the buttons).  Again, this project is not quite complete because I want to glue some white and clear buttons in the blank spaces, but here is a sneak peak:

I think it looks adorable and it definitely has much more pizzazz than it did before.  Thank you Pinterest for helping me be crafty!

-When I stand up straight and tighten my core muscles like I did before I was pregnant to hide any extra cheeseburgers I had eaten, I hardly look pregnant.  When I just let it all hang out like a lazy ass, I actually look kinda pregnant.  So I'm faced with either letting my core muscles go to crap, or walking around feeling like I'm squishing my baby all day because I'm tightening my abs.  Dilemma.

-In case anyone was curious: Yes, I am still wearing my 4 inch heels to work every day.  No, they do not hurt any worse than they did before.  I will continue to wear them until my feet don't fit in them any longer.

-We spent about 2 hours at Buy Buy Baby registering tonight.  To say we are overwhelmed would be an understatement.  We still have a lot of work to do tidying it up and making sure we have our bases covered, but I'm glad we at least got a start.  Jake's comment when we left the store - "that's not as much fun as registering for a wedding."  Thank you Captain Obvious.  You are correct, registering for baby bottles does not quite have the same appeal as registering for awesome wine glasses.  But we're on our way!

Twenty.

Oooohhhhhhhh....we're halfway theeeerrre....oooohh-oohhh we're livin on a prayer!
Yes, I'm a nerd and I love Bon Jovi, get over it.

How Far Along: 20 weeks

Total Weight Gain: 11.8 pounds.  That half a pound I lost last week got tacked on to my one pound gain for this week.  My freak out moments from gaining weight the first month or two have pretty much subsided.  I guess I'm just getting used to the steadily climbing scale.  Although, when I think about the fact that at this point I already have 23 pounds to lose to get down to my ideal weight, I feel a little overwhelmed with the thought of my diet next year while trying to care for a baby and get back to working full time.

Maternity Clothes: Most of the maternity clothes I ordered online last week have turned out to be a super success.  The stuff I ordered from asos.com was an epic fail.  I think I'm done shopping there unless I get extremely desperate.  One day when I'm not being lazy and I can convince Jake to get the camera out, maybe I will take some fashion show pictures and post them on here.  With the exception of some sweaters, maybe a few casual shirts and another pair of work pants, I think I'm done with my wardrobe.  That is unless I live out my nightmare and gain 75 pounds.  Please don't let that happen to me, please don't let that happen to me, please don't let that happen to me...

Sleep: Same old, same old.  I can't sleep because my back hurts when I lay on my side.  I can't lay on my back because I'll stop the blood flow to my heart (I still believe this is false), and I can't lay on my stomach because my belly is growing.  I guess I will just be a grouch for the next 20 weeks!

Gender: SHE's a beautiful baby girl!!  And her name is Samantha Lynn Donelan.  (Samantha because we like it and Lynn after Pegetha Lynn Evans, my momma - we don't want any more Margarets wondering around Fort Thomas, right Mom??)

Best Moment this Week: See above, um hello!  We packaged up softballs with Samantha Lynn Donelan written on them and put them in little gift baggies with blue and pink tissue paper coming out and gave one to each of our parents.  That was our "gender reveal".  I don't know how these people go to the doctor and then wait to have a gender reveal party to tell everyone.  It was hard enough for me to wait for people to get off of work!

Movement: Monkey is the size of a small cantaloupe or a banana.  I have decided the proverbial "they" have mental issues.  A banana is smaller than a sweet potato - that produce was from like two weeks ago - what the heck!  As far as movement goes, I think I may have felt some flutters this week, but I must say it's definitely hard to be sure that it's not a muscle twitch or gas bubbles in my stomach.

Food Cravings: I finally got my sushi on Saturday and it was fantastic!  I am still trying really hard to keep my binging in check, and I think I'm doing an okay job.  It would help if going to the grocery store wasn't my least favorite chore in the history of chores, then I might actually have some healthy food in my house to eat.  I need a housekeeper that will do my laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping.  These are the days where I truly believe being Kim Kardashian would not be the worst thing ever.

Symptoms: I really think my boobs have reached the point of being so big that it's not possible they could grow anymore.  I read a lady's blog that says when the baby is born and your milk comes in that your boobs will look "cartoonish".  This leads me to beg the question: what if they already do???  I am at the point where I can't stand to be without a bra because I feel like a 90 year old woman with my boobs hanging down to my knees.  I swear 11 of the 11.8 pounds that I've gained is right here in these ta-tas.  Lord help me, if they don't deflate after Monkey gets here, I will do anything in my power to save enough money to get a breast reduction.  On top of dealing with these obnoxiously huge jugs, my back is killing me (probably from the weight of my boobs) and I am getting more frequent headaches.  I am also sneezing more than I ever have in my life, I would estimate about 30-40 times a day, no joke.  One day last week I was using mouthwash and I had to sneeze before I could spit it out so I sprayed it all over my bathroom sink and counter.  Super.

What I Miss: Wearing my old bras that don't have hilarious sizes on the tags (yes, I went there).  Sitting at my desk until the end of the day without my back killing me.  Being able to have a few glasses of wine when I get home on Friday after a hellish week.  Sleeping through the night, just once in a blue moon.  Being able to go a week without filing my nails.  Not having a new zit on my face every other day.  Being able to eat a normal sized meal without feeling like a bloated fatass for 2 hours.  Is there anything else I can complain about???

What I am Looking Forward to: Getting my hair cut and colored this week.  Being able to finally start picking stuff out for this baby since we know it is a GIRL!

Noteworthy Items:

-A lot of people keep asking me "how do you feel" and "do you love being pregnant".  No, as a matter of fact I don't.  Sometimes I feel bad that all I do is whine and complain, especially because I know there are so many women out there who either a) would give anything to get pregnant or b) have spent their life savings to get pregnant.  Until today at the doctor, I have yet to find anything up to this point that I really enjoy about this experience (save for the fact that I'm going to get an adorable, screaming, pooping, spitting up, doesn't-sleep-through-the-night-for-a-really-long-time child out of the deal).  They say that there are some bodily benefits to being pregnant, but I have not run into any yet. 
The pregnancy glow?  If you count a new zit on my face every day and the pale skin I'm rocking due to lack of desire to ever wear a bathing suit while pregnant.
Fast growing fingernails?  I'm not sure when this became a plus, I hate filing my nails so frequently and if I paint them they look grown out after 3 days and I have to redo them #princessproblems
Thicker hair?  I'm pretty sure I still need 75 products every morning to make my hair not look like a 12 year old's stringy hot mess mane.
Bigger boobs?  HOW ABOUT: NO THANK YOU THEY WERE BIG ENOUGH TO BEGIN WITH.
I am convinced God spared me the morning sickness because he knew if I had to deal with it the first time I would never ever ever in my whole life sign up for this again.

-We picked up our crib on Saturday and KM came over to help Jake put it together.  I have heard horror stories about putting cribs together but this was definitely not a difficult task.  Carrying it up the stairs was by far the hardest part.  We also still have the mattress my mom used for all of us, I can't decide if this is gross since it's old or awesome since it's free.  I'll make up my mind later when I have to...

-We also painted the old dresser this weekend to match the crib.  I found several tutorials on pinterest and kind of went with a mixture of what I had read.  We lightly sanded, primed with two coats of oil based primer, painted two coats of white, and sprayed a finishing laquer on top.  It doesn't look like the most beautiful dresser you've ever seen (I don't like the look of brush strokes and roller texture - a spray gun would have been better), but it covered well, it matches the crib, and most importantly it was free!  I will add some before and after pictures after we get the dresser reassembled and put some hardware on it.

-While we were picking up our crib on Saturday we went to Buy Buy Baby in Mason since it was kinda/sorta close.  I really really wish there was one of these a little closer to our house.  This store is lightyears nicer and friendlier than Babies R Us.  I think even though it's kinda far away I'm going to end up registering there.  That's the magic of online shopping, right?  An employee spent 45 minutes with us going over all of the complicated stroller situations and I think I have decided that I want the City Select by Baby Jogger.  I still want to look at some other ones that can eventually morph into a 2-child stroller because even though I hate being pregnant, I know I want more than one baby in this life.  However, I'm the girl who married her high school sweetheart, ended up buying the first wedding dress she put on, took home the first dog she went to see at a shelter, and bought the first house we looked at on our search for a new home, so I'm pretty sure I know what I want when I want it and I'm not going to change my mind. (*ahem Jake* super expensive rocker/glider that I want from Treehouse Kids Company)

-I am so excited to start picking out cute girl stuff now.  Let the shopping and emptying of the checkbook (for the rest of Jake's life - from bows to shoes to softball gloves to makeup to college to weddings) begin!

-I actually feel like I have a little tiny human in my stomach now instead of some freaky alien thing that's just making my back hurt and my boobs grow.  I am even happier to report that as far as the ultrasound goes, she's healthy and moving around just like she should be.  In true stubborn Horner form, she has pushed her due date back to January 11th, making me cook her for 5 days longer.  A diva just like her momma...

Nineteen.

How Far Along: 19 weeks

Total Weight Gain: 10.5 pounds.  I lost a half a pound this week.  Normally if I lost a half a pound I'd probably throw myself a party and then go buy myself a pair of shoes to celebrate (or eat a Frisch's hot fudge cake, which in turn would negate the half pound loss).  But since I'm prego I'm like ummm...yay?!?

Maternity Clothes: I had a semi-nervous breakdown on Tuesday of last week after shopping at Gap and Old Navy with my sister.  Their maternity sections are both the size of my cubical at work.  On top of that, the only sizes they have in the store are L and XL.  And on top of that, my sister only gets her discount in-store.  So in order to take advantage, I have to buy XLs.  No thank you!

Being the shopaholic that I am, I started getting really depressed.  I was like how am I going to outfit this growing body for the next 5 months without looking like a frump-a-dump.  Thankfully MS helped talk me into buying some good (albeit a little more expensive) pieces that I can just wear over and over again and still look nice.  In turn, I kind of went nuts shopping online.  My bad.  Rosie Pope Maternity online had 50% off everything plus free shipping, so I went ahead and ordered 5 items that will hopefully last me until Monkey comes.  I got several long sleeve shirts and two dresses.  After the discount, they were not any more expensive than things I have seen at Target or Motherhood.  Even though we aren't talking Gap Outlet prices, I still felt pretty good about really nice shirts for less than $25.  I ordered everything in a medium in hopes that gives me room to grow.  Loft also had 40% off so I ordered items from there too.  I actually rocked one of the Loft dresses at work today and think I'll probably continue to wear it even when I'm not pregnant because it's so cute.  That is unless my big belly stretches it out beyond any capability of wearing it when I'm back to normal size again.  I also ordered a few more things from asos.com.  Maybe if I get real fancy I'll take some pictures of the stuff I bought and post them on here later.  Don't hold your breath though.  Sorry about spending a whole paycheck on clothes, Jake, but you know, this whole baby growing in my belly thing is your fault ;) 

**disclaimer:  I did not actually spend a whole paycheck on maternity clothes, it's just funny to make Jake squirm about my shopping habit.

Sleep: Blahhhhhhhhhhh.  I woke up twice to pee last night so I hardly slept.  I bought a body pillow hoping that would help me get more comfortable, but it basically feels like a third person in our bed and I do not enjoy it.  I hope Target will return it without the bag.  The next 5 months pf sleep are going to suckkkk!  And then after that, I'm never going to sleep again.  I don't really think I enjoyed sleep enough while I was able to get it.

Best Moment(s) This Week: We spent Saturday with our college friends on my parents' boat.  After our boating adventure we all came back to our house and made a feast together, then roasted s'mores outside by our fire pit.  It was a blasty!

Gender: We are on a one week countdown now people.  I can hardly stand the suspense any more.  I really don't know how people go the entire time without finding out.  I would literally have a heart attack from the anxiety.  I have had several people now put their "girl" word in, so at least I've found a few souls who believe Monkey could actually be a female.

Movement: Monkey is now the size of an "heirloom tomato" (whatever that is) or a mango.  Still no "flutters" or gassy feeling movements in this belly. 

Food Cravings: I still just have the appetite of an NFL linebacker.  Keeping it in check is quite the challenge.  If my thighs are the size of Texas come December, please don't be alarmed.  At least I warned you.

Symptoms: I have three new lovely symptoms to report.  I noticed last week that the skin on my forearms and my shins is literally FLAKING off.  It's like I'm peeling, but I haven't been sunburned there.  If you've seen me, you know I am rocking the pale princess look this summer.  WTF.  It is so disgusting.  The worst part is that I can kind of see the dead skin when I'm just looking at my arms or legs, so of course I'm tempted to take my fingernail and start picking at it.  Then eventually I end up scratching the whole area until I have huge flakes of skin falling off my arms and legs and getting all over my clothes.  It looks like I have body dandruff.  SICK SICK SICK.

The next super awesome symptom was a near fainting experience I had on Friday morning.  I was at Target in the checkout line and all of a sudden felt dizzy and lightheaded.  I started sweating like a wildebeast and was praying the entire way to my car that I wouldn't pass out cold in the parking lot.  It was horrible.  I have no idea what caused it, but I have never passed out or felt like that before, so I have to assume this is related to pregnancy.  SUPER.

The most exciting symptom of the three is my first bout of sciatica!  Wahooooooo!! SIKE.  Seriously, could there be anything enjoyable about pregnancy?  Apparently not.  Friday night I stood up from the couch and could hardly walk because I had a shooting pain from my lower back down to my mid thigh, all concentrated on my right side.  I hobbled up my stairs to my bedroom like a 97 year old lady. It hurt so bad I was in tears (I don't cry - my husband does - I don't).  I'm sincerely hoping this is going to be an every once in a while situation, because if I have to deal with this every day for the next 5 months I'm going to end up begging for bed rest so I have an excuse not to walk.  Ugh.

What I Miss: Running.  Sleeping on my stomach.  Not having to eat every 20 minutes.  Not getting winded after 2 minutes of exercise.  Drinking alcohol.  I'm going to be honest - I really thought the boozing craving would have passed by now, but it has not come close to passing.  I still salivate over other people's beers and would love nothing more than to order a JUMBO margarita from Rio Grande.  Nonetheless, my conscience (and everything I read online) tells me it would be a bad idea, so I guess I can make it 5 more months without tying one on.

What I am Looking Forward to: We are going to the Reds game on Wednesday with some of my extended family, that will be a good time.  Also: the weekend.  More on this in one hot second.

Noteworthy Items:

-My sweet doggy went to the vet on Wednesday (she wasn't so sweet when I had to have two vet techs carry her into the office because she wouldn't budge her 75 pound ass off the sidewalk, but I digress).  They think she tore a ligament in her "wrist".  She is supposed to be resting and taking anti inflammatory pills.  We have also tried to ice her a few times, but she doesn't like that too much.  I hope she stops limping within 4 weeks because the next step will be a splint and I really really don't want to try to deal with that.

-We (we = me, my mom and my dad) painted the nursery on Friday.  It looks really good.  I love the gray color we chose (see the belly pic from this week for the color) and I think it's going to be really easy to match bedding whether Monkey turns out to be a boy or a girl.

-Speaking of the nursery, our crib came in.  While I'm really excited to pick it up and get it set up in the nursery, I'm also slightly annoyed.  I ordered it two weeks ago.  They told me it would take 6-10 weeks.  Normally I wouldn't care, but I only have 10 days to pick it up, the warehouse is only open 3 days a week, and they offer discounts on other items in the store if you buy your crib there, but only until you pick up your crib.  Since I have to pick it up this Saturday, I don't even know the gender in order to pick out any bedding.  We haven't even begun to research strollers or anything else the store has, so I feel a little gipped.  I plan to ask if there's any way they can give me another week or two on the discounts, but I'm also not holding my breath.  We'll see how they handle a crazy upset pregnant lady who loves nothing more than not paying full price for anything.

-I think I am in serious "nesting" mode.  I am on a "fix everything in our house" kick, and I'm not going to stop until it's all done.

-Since I'm going to be huge and unable to toast our 5 year anniversary in October, I have made Jake promise me that we can go somewhere super awesome for our 6 year anniversary.  He agreed.  I'm noting this on my blog so I can pull this out next year when he says we don't have any money because we spent it all on diapers and he doesn't want to leave the baby.  Then I'll just say "SEE I TOLD YOU SO!"

Eighteen.

How Far Along: 18 weeks

Total Weight Gain: 11 pounds. I think the nightly ice cream binge is going to need to stop unless I want to have gained 75 pounds by the time this baby gets here.  Contrary to popular belief, being pregnant is not an excuse to eat everything I see at all times.  You are not actually eating for two, get it under control, Jessica.

Maternity Clothes: I think it's time to start stocking up on some shirts now too.  My mom made the point that just because I can still put my regular shirts on doesn't mean I should still be wearing them.  At some point in my life I will hopefully be back to my pre-prego weight and I don't want to be walking around in all of these stretched out t-shirts because I tried to squeeze these gigantic boobs and this growing belly into an XS or S.  Here's hoping my seester wants to go shopping sometime this week and buy me some shirts that can handle these jugs.

Sleep: Same as last week.  My sleep problems are two-fold.  #1 My back hurts - so if I'm on one side for too long then I have to roll over to the other.  #2 Because my back hurts and I'm unconsciously trying to make it not hurt, I end up on my back all the time when I wake up.  Well all these doctors or whoever the hell comes up with these STUPID EFFING RULES about things pregos can and can't do have successfully freaked me the hell out about laying on my back.  Supposedly by laying on my back my uterus is going to squish all of my veins and stop blood flow to my heart and other semi-important areas of my body.  (*if you can't tell I am annoyed by these rules.  I'm pretty sure cavewomen slept on their back when they were knocked up and 2000 years later we are here...if that tells you anything).  Anyway - the point of this rant is that these rules give me anxiety and add to my inability to sleep through the night!

Best Moment(s) This Week: Finishing our paint project this weekend.  More on this later.

Gender: 2 weeks.  Anybody wanna throw out a female guess before we get to the reveal date so that you can be the only person that was right when this baby turns out to be a pretty little girl??

Movement: Monkey is the size of a sweet potato or a large tomato depending on what you read. Everything I read says that the first movements or "flutters" might feel the same as how it feels when you have gas.  I'm sorry, but doesn't this seem like a really stupid thing to tell a pregnant person?  Aren't those of us "with child" supposed to be gassier than your average bear?  That might be the dumbest thing I have read yet.  I guess from now on when people ask me if I've felt any movement I'll say "well I felt gassy today so maybe?"  Come on people.

Food Cravings: I never had sushi and the sushi craving passed so maybe I will move on to something else now.  See my earlier comment about dessert, I guess if the truth be told I've probably been craving sweets more than anything else.  I'm not sure this is any different than my pre-prego self, I could pretty much eat ice cream anytime anywhere.

Symptoms: I have been feeling a little crampy lately, which is new since weeks 5-7ish.  Since I don't really have other symptoms to report, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the things I thought would be some awesome about being pregnant that haven't turned out to be quite that awesome. 
#1 - No periods.  That's great and all - but the cramps and painful/large boobs that come with pregnancy are way worse than any menstrual symptoms I've ever had.
#2 - Eating whatever you want because you're going to get fat anyway.  Again - that's great and all but let's remember that the weight needs to come off at some point so keeping the weight gain in check is probably a good idea.  Also, see my previous post about how horrible the bloating is.
#3 - Pulling the pregnancy card when you don't want to do stuff.  First of all, I have to go to work every day and I don't really think my boss would appreciate that excuse.  Secondly, this might work for people who aren't anal retentive OCD control freakshows.  For those of us who are anal retentive OCD control freakshows, having other people do stuff for you doesn't really work very well because duh, they aren't going to do it right.
#4 - Getting a lot of attention.  I'm not going to sit here and act like I don't like to be the center of attention (I'm not as bad as my husband but I don't mind the spotlight every once in a while).  However, when all of the attention is focused on your regularly expanding waistline, it's not a great deal of fun.  And I don't even have random people touching my belly yet.  God help me when that starts to happen.
#5 - Um, YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO HAVE BOOZE.  Enough said. 

What I Miss: I'm tempted to just keep this section the same every week because I still miss everything that I have been complaining about for the last 3 weeks.  I don't see any of that changing any time soon.  What I miss the most right now is probably my flat stomach.  And booze.

What I am Looking Forward to: Seeing some of my friends this weekend for a boating adventure on the *ahem* beautiful Ohio river.  And I'm off work on Friday which makes this week 100 times better than it would be otherwise.

Noteworthy Items:

-Update on The Hunger Games: Still haven't opened the book again.  Maybe I'll never find out what happens to Katniss Everdeen.

-Wahoo USA women's gymnastics!  Gold medal!  Wahoo Gabby Douglas!  Gold medal! They are all so cute I could just squeeze them!

-We spent our entire weekend painting our house.  If we ever move again I will be sure to paint before we take occupancy.  We have lived in our house for 4 years with this nasty yellow/green puke color on the walls and I'm not sure why it took us so long to make the decision to put an actual real color on the walls, but we finally did and I'm so glad we did.  The only problem is, now the kitchen needs to be painted too because it just looks blah next to the pretty "brownstone walk up" color we put in the adjoining hallway.  Needless to say I am exhausted but glad that project is over with.  Now we just have to complete the other 25 projects I have in store for us before Monkey comes.

-I'm sick of getting up and getting dressed for work in the morning.  I think I'll start playing the lottery on the outside chance that we win so I can quit my job and stay in my pajamas all day.  This sounds like a fantastic plan...

-Callie has been limping around and we can't figure out what happened or what's wrong with her.  She's headed to her favorite place, the vet, on Wednesday.  Any prayers that can be offered for our sweet doggy girl would be much appreciated!