Twenty-Three

How Far Along: 23 weeks

Total Weight Gain: I forgot to weigh myself this morning.  DARN!!  I think I'll go ahead and assume I only gained a half a pound this week.  That should be pretty accurate...

Maternity Clothes: I totally rocked a sweater dress and boots to work today.  It is almost fall and I am so excited to cover up these ginormous boobs with some big sweaters!

Sleep: I desperately need a remedy for a snoring husband.  Why is that now that I can't sleep because my back hurts and I get up to pee every five minutes, Jake has adopted a wretched snoring habit?  It's not fair.  Typically if I nudge him to roll over it stops once he's on his side, but then he gets all pissy with me like "I can't believe you are waking me up and making me roll over."  Hello Mister, I'm carrying your child over here.  I'm trying to sleep since I have to get up and go to work and still carry your child all day.  The least you could do is ROLL OVER AND STOP SNORING so I can sleep.  Thank you.

Gender: My bow making is already kind of out of control.  This weekend I made three bows, but I purchased fabric to make two more.  I also realized that since we are Reds fans and UK fans, I have the appropriate colors to make a patriotic bow too.  Score!  Here they are pre-headband and center jewels:

Now she's ready for her first Reds game and for her first UK game amongst other fun occasions.  I think they are so cute and I can't wait to slap one on her head every morning before I head out the door with her!  The tutorial was super easy to follow and the bows are super easy to make.  Here's the link to the etsy shop where I got it: http://www.etsy.com/shop/fancyschmancybyjeni?ref=top_trail.  I think I have spent $12 on fabric so far and I have enough to make about 6 or 7 headbands so it was well worth the $5 tutorial purchase.

Best Moment this Week: I'm about to admit something that I think is really disgusting, but it might not actually be that disgusting because I'm pretty sure there are other people out there who are equally as disgusting but maybe don't think it's that disgusting.  Follow me?  We moved into our house 4 years ago.  We have never cleaned the blinds or the windows.  Yep, that's right.  Until yesterday.  I've been wanting to do it forever and it was gorgeous outside and we didn't have any plans, so we decided to go for it.  We took the blinds off the windows and laid them on the driveway.  I hosed them off, scrubbed them down, and hosed them again.  The amount of dirt running down the length of the blinds with the water was sickening.  The black on the paper towels from cleaning the windows was disturbing.  But hey, it's all clean now.  I think from now on we'll make this an annual or bi-annual event.  The thought of living in that filth, especially with a toddler running around, is pretty disgusting.  Is it sad that my best moment from this week was cleaning my blinds?  Mmmkay moving on...

Movement: I'm really starting to get annoyed with the fruit of the week.  This week she is a size of corn on the cob.  Really?  How is that bigger than a spaghetti squash?  Or she pulling a magical shrinking trick in my belly?  I highly doubt that's true, seeing as this bump finally kinda looks like a bump and not a beer gut, but seriously.  The fruit thing is out of control.  I'm still feeling her move, but not a lot and it's not very strong.  It seems to be pretty low on my abdomen and in the same general area.  I don't feel like she's doing somersalts yet, maybe she's just practicing her kickboxing skills?

Food Cravings: It's official that I crave ice cream.  I think I probably only went 3 nights last week without it.  I am going to be cruisin for a bruisin (or cruisin for a big fat ass) in December if I don't watch it.  I also would like to eat a large serving of pancakes, cinnamon rolls, or other sweets every morning for breakfast, but I'm going to try to stick to cereal as much as possible so I can continue my ice cream binge at night. 

Symptoms: The sciatica is back, but it typically comes and goes pretty quickly.  I've been really tense throughout my whole back and neck too, and Jake has been great about trying to work out some of the knots.  Unfortunately it seems they just come right back the next day.  I think having to hold up these 50 pound baby-feeders on my chest is about 90% of the issue.  Since they aren't shrinking anytime soon I guess I'm stuck with back issues for the next 6 months or so.

What I Miss: This week I think the thing I'm beginning to miss the most is being able to sleep through the night.  I woke up three times to pee last night, and I roll over about every hour so I can re-situate my back.  I've given up on the trying not to lay on my back.  In the middle of the night when I can't sleep and it's the only thing that feels comfortable, I'm going for it.  If the weight of my uterus crushes a vein that's supposed to be pumping blood to my heart, then so be it.  At least I will die comfortably and free of back pain.

What I am Looking Forward to: We're going to Chicago on Saturday to see a game at Wrigley field, which should be fun.  I'm also hoping we can make a stop at Garrett's popcorn while we're up there.  A large bag of that caramel stuff is a pregnant lady's dream!

Exercise: I'm adding a new category to keep myself accountable.  And since I am reporting it online for any random stranger to read, hopefully I'll feel more inclined to do at least something when I'm sitting on my lazy ass not wanting to take a walk, ride my bike, or do my workout video.  Jake and I walked for an hour on Saturday, and I think I did 50 pushups one night last week.  I probably need to pick up the dedication a little bit if I have any hope of returning to pre-pregnancy form.  I ordered a video on Amazon and I did it today and I actually kinda sorta liked it.  I absolutely HATE yoga and pilates, and this video seems to be more my kind of workout.  It's called The Perfect Pregnancy Workout Volume 1.  I have also ganked my parents' exercise bike from their house and it's sitting in our basement right now ready for me to use.  I guess since Jake and my dad carried that obnoxiously heavy piece of equipment downstairs, I should probably use it :)

Noteworthy Items:

-The changing table is done.  I think it looks so much better and is actually kind of cute!  I don't have an assembled "before" picture, but you can see the ugly color it was before we got a few coats of white paint on it.  This time all we did was use spray primer and white satin spray paint.  We used contact paper to cover the shelves since they were some sort of weird melamine material with 25 year old stains on them.  The paint covered pretty well:

I think I might add a few bows to the changing table to jazz it up a little bit, but I'll wait until I get a changing pad and some storage bins on there first.

-I finally finished the ribbon wreath.  I'm not 100% satisfied with the way her name looks on the wood block, but I gave up.  Paint pens are my worst enemy and I just couldn't handle the stress of trying to make it look perfect anymore.  I'm sure Sam won't care (terrible picture taking skills gheesh).

-When we first went looking for our crib I fell in love with this diaper bag at Treehouse Kids.  It was orange and white so I knew Jake wouldn't really care to carry it.  Then I checked the pricetag - $120.  My mom told me I was crazy but I figured I'd just keep my eyes out, maybe register for it and see if someone decided to buy it for me.  The bigger version of the bag was $150 so I had pretty much figured if I was getting it at all I was getting the smaller one.  Lo and behold I checked amazon.com last week to look at the bag again, and it was on sale for $46.99.  That is literally over $100 off so I bought the damn thing!  I'm obsessed and Jake doesn't hate it either.  Yay for sales!

-Callie has a purple splint on her foot.  I know she's just a dog, but now I understand why moms cry when their babies get shots or are laying on the football field unable to move their leg after a bad tackle.  When we first got her home last week, I could barely watch her walk because I just wanted to pick her 75-pound-rear-end up and carry her everywhere.  She is getting better at everything, but Saturday morning she sat at the top of the stairs and stared at the bottom like "Mom I really want to go down, but I'm scared."  I cannot physically pick her up, so she had to wait until Jake got out of bed to carry her down.  When she lays down or jumps up on stuff, her leg kind of gets caught and one of us has to help her maneuver her big straight splinted leg.  I'm so glad we are going through this with her now instead of after little Miss Thing gets here, because that's going to rock Callie's world enough as it is.  I hope this splint works and we don't have to move on to surgery...poor baby. (more stellar photography skills showcased here)

-Trying to figure out maternity leave has been an absolute nightmare.  I think I'll start playing the lottery so I can potentially stay home after she gets here.

-On that note: I have decided I want one of those pills that Bradley Cooper takes in that movie Limitless.  My productivity has been at about 5% of capacity the last few weeks and I need something to step it up since my staycation isn't happening for another month.  My other thought is for my employer to start offering "personal health days" for those days where you wake up and you just don't want to do anything.  When I take PTO I feel the need to be productive.  If I just had even 2 days a year where it was excusable to lay on my couch and watch the Kardashians, or Jersey Shore, or insert trashy reality TV show of your choice here re-runs for 8 hours straight, I think I'd be a happier person in general.  Can the next president please enact a law to make that happen?  Thank youuuu!!