Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Week 19: The Name Game
What goes best with a family of names like Carlysle, Callie and Mushy? That’s a tough one. Thanks to family traditions, my job with this one was pretty easy. Our baby boy will be named after his Father and Grandfather, Robert Carlysle Gulledge III. And because I love my friends Christine and Lauren, we’ll call him Rob for short after their husbands. (Not really, but we’re definitely not calling him Bert or Lysle so Rob it is!) I am really excited to have a little Carlysle Jr. Hopefully, he’ll grow up to be just like his daddy : ) I went to the Doctor this week and they did another ultrasound … pics coming soon, the scanner is fussy today … and she said everything looks great, he’s growing and moving around A LOT. During the ultrasound, he was in the breech position and doing frog kicks, it was the funniest thing. The ultrasound technician informed me that the organ right next to the uterus that he was jubilantly froggy-kicking was my bladder—that explains a lot!!! With several showers quickly approaching, I’ve been trying to get registered before invitations go out. It is MUCH harder to register for baby stuff than it is for wedding stuff but it’s also a lot more fun to oooh and awww over the precious baby stuff. I just didn’t know where to start!! With a little guidance from friends and family, I’ve managed to register at Babies-R-Us, Doodles and Bering’s YAY!!!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Weeks 17 and 18: Mr. Sandman, Please Stop the Madness!
Between the all night trips to the bathroom and Carlysle and Mushy’s snoring contests (don’t let Mushy’s demure demeanor deceive you, he is a rather formidable foe when it comes to these contests), I actually do sleep a little bit. Lately, that sleep is filled with wild and crazy dreams and I have no idea where they’re coming from. I’ve never had dreams before – well, let me rephrase that, apparently everyone has dreams; you just don’t remember them sometimes. Now, my dreams are as vivid as Lady GaGa’s wardrobe. I won’t go into detail (because you would think I was wacko) but I will share with you parts of one of my recent favorites. So … from what I remember it goes something like this: Heidi Klum and I were on a yacht cruising around the Mediterranean (I was in A Pea in the Pod earlier that day looking at stuff from her new maternity line, I think that’s the connection.) and we were total BFFs. That is, until I walked in on her laughing hysterically while going through my suitcase and stuffing my wardrobe into a big black Hefty trashbag while she was telling me how pitiful it was! She was definitely not as nice as she usually is on Project Runway. It reminded me of a time in college when my roommate Megan and I decided to have a garage sale and called our friend Lauren Stover to come help us. She helped a little but mostly just laughed at all of our stuff we were selling; and she especially had a good time with Megan’s cat shirts, wigs and rollerblades : ) But yes, my dreams have been WILD to say the least. Not necessarily bad, just crazy and very memorable.
This weekend my family and I went to San Antonio to celebrate my Grandparent’s 55th wedding anniversary. 55 YEARS!!! Fifty-five is the emerald anniversary so we decorated my Aunt’s house with green tissue paper flowers, garland and gifts with green wrapping paper. We also enjoyed green beverages such as fresh limeade and margaritas (virgin for me!). It was so much fun, the whole family was there and we bar-b-q’d a big brisket, made potato salad, beans, creamed corn, you name it. And of course, my little belly got lots of rubs and love from all of my Aunts. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful and loving family!
Carlysle has been hard at work in the nursery retexturing the walls. Our house was built in the 70’s so it has this super awesome wall texture that I fondly refer to as wall acne : ) It’s also known as popcorn texture and it is AWFUL! So we’ve decided to slowly retexture the entire house starting in the baby’s room. It’s almost finished and it looks AWESOME. It has kind of an antique Italian rough finish to it, I just love it but it is very time consuming and when Carlysle starts the sanding part I can’t help because billions of tiny white little dust particles fly everywhere and I doubt that’s good for a baby’s developing lungs. I have so many ideas for how I want to paint the nursery, I can’t wait to see the finished product!
Hmmm let’s see, what else went on these past two weeks? Oh, yes, Obamacare passed! I cannot tell you how excited I am that we’ll get to pay for other people’s health insurance! Maybe we should pay for their mortgages too … oh wait, we’re already doing that. Our nation is 12.6 TRILLION dollars in debt, the economy is in the tank, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt so let’s throw in another government subsidized program! What a great idea! Hopefully this is just the beginning of the fight, 38 out of the 50 states (or 52 states if you ask Obama) are considering legal action against the bill. I just can’t wait to see what doctor’s office’s waiting rooms are going to look like in 2014…. My guess is they’ll be similar to the way emergency waiting rooms look like now. Maybe we’ll try and have all of our babies before then so I don’t have to stand in line for a bed when I’m 9 centimeters dilated.
Weekly Womb Workings:
Baby’s adding fat stores that will keep him warm and cozy after he's born; his weight will increase approximately six times over the next four weeks. Good to know I’m not the only one tipping the scale. He’s also hard at work honing his sucking and swallowing reflexes—all the better for eating that 2 AM (and 5 AM, and 8 AM ...) meal in a few months! The finger- and toenails are beginning to grow from their nail beds, which would explain why he'll need them trimmed almost as soon as he's born!
Baby weighs nearly 5 ounces and is a little over 5 inches long—about the size of a baked potato (load on the butter and sour cream, please). This week is also the beginning of ossification. And while that sounds like some long and involved paperwork we’ll have to fill out, it's really a fancy medical term for the hardening of the baby's miniature bones. And that's a good thing. The baby's nerves are making more and more complex connections. His sense of smell, taste, sight and hearing are all developing. A substance called myelin, which makes nerve connections travel faster, is now coating your baby's nerves.
This weekend my family and I went to San Antonio to celebrate my Grandparent’s 55th wedding anniversary. 55 YEARS!!! Fifty-five is the emerald anniversary so we decorated my Aunt’s house with green tissue paper flowers, garland and gifts with green wrapping paper. We also enjoyed green beverages such as fresh limeade and margaritas (virgin for me!). It was so much fun, the whole family was there and we bar-b-q’d a big brisket, made potato salad, beans, creamed corn, you name it. And of course, my little belly got lots of rubs and love from all of my Aunts. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful and loving family!
Carlysle has been hard at work in the nursery retexturing the walls. Our house was built in the 70’s so it has this super awesome wall texture that I fondly refer to as wall acne : ) It’s also known as popcorn texture and it is AWFUL! So we’ve decided to slowly retexture the entire house starting in the baby’s room. It’s almost finished and it looks AWESOME. It has kind of an antique Italian rough finish to it, I just love it but it is very time consuming and when Carlysle starts the sanding part I can’t help because billions of tiny white little dust particles fly everywhere and I doubt that’s good for a baby’s developing lungs. I have so many ideas for how I want to paint the nursery, I can’t wait to see the finished product!
Hmmm let’s see, what else went on these past two weeks? Oh, yes, Obamacare passed! I cannot tell you how excited I am that we’ll get to pay for other people’s health insurance! Maybe we should pay for their mortgages too … oh wait, we’re already doing that. Our nation is 12.6 TRILLION dollars in debt, the economy is in the tank, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt so let’s throw in another government subsidized program! What a great idea! Hopefully this is just the beginning of the fight, 38 out of the 50 states (or 52 states if you ask Obama) are considering legal action against the bill. I just can’t wait to see what doctor’s office’s waiting rooms are going to look like in 2014…. My guess is they’ll be similar to the way emergency waiting rooms look like now. Maybe we’ll try and have all of our babies before then so I don’t have to stand in line for a bed when I’m 9 centimeters dilated.
Weekly Womb Workings:
Baby’s adding fat stores that will keep him warm and cozy after he's born; his weight will increase approximately six times over the next four weeks. Good to know I’m not the only one tipping the scale. He’s also hard at work honing his sucking and swallowing reflexes—all the better for eating that 2 AM (and 5 AM, and 8 AM ...) meal in a few months! The finger- and toenails are beginning to grow from their nail beds, which would explain why he'll need them trimmed almost as soon as he's born!
Baby weighs nearly 5 ounces and is a little over 5 inches long—about the size of a baked potato (load on the butter and sour cream, please). This week is also the beginning of ossification. And while that sounds like some long and involved paperwork we’ll have to fill out, it's really a fancy medical term for the hardening of the baby's miniature bones. And that's a good thing. The baby's nerves are making more and more complex connections. His sense of smell, taste, sight and hearing are all developing. A substance called myelin, which makes nerve connections travel faster, is now coating your baby's nerves.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Week 16: Registry Ruckus
This week was pretty crazy. I had so much going on all week and it ended perfectly with a celebration of my Mom’s birthday on Saturday night. During the week, I took a pre-trial registry test trip to Babies-R-Us out of curiosity. I’ve been there before several times to pick up gifts for friend’s showers but I was usually in a hurry and frustrated with the ultra slow printing pace of the dinosaur registry printer so I cheated and bought gift cards. Well, without ever having thoroughly explored the baby super mega mall that is Babies-R-Us, I was completely overwhelmed. They should offer tour guides for first time moms! I’m serious, there are like five different types of Diaper Genies (I just want to know what the difference is and which one works best). There are fifty different types of bottles to choose from, high chairs, pack-n-plays, strollers, you name it. I was about to have a panic attack trying to figure out if and when I had to buy an infant car seat and a toddler car seat, when to switch them out, rear or forward facing AHHHHH?!? I could just picture a hospital staff nurse escorting Carlysle, baby and me to our car to go home from the hospital, taking one look at the wrong car seat I bought and screaming: “Oh no, you’re not taking the baby home in that!!! In fact, your car seat is SO bad we’re keeping the baby until you come back with the right one!! (In case you can’t tell, sometimes my mind wonders to the worst possible and most ridiculous scenarios!) But it seems like kids have to be in a car seat until it’s time for them to get their driver’s license so obviously we’re going to need a couple different sizes right? (Can you picture driving your sixteen year old to the DMV in a booster seat haha!)
And then, when you think about it, we invite our loved ones and dearest friends to our showers … so why on Earth do we make them spend one of their precious Saturdays at crowded Babies-R-Us standing in line to print out 25 pages of products with 18 digit SKU numbers waiting to play hide-and-seek with their latest victim in a store the size of Wal-Mart? I mean really, that’s just cruel.
Weekly Womb Workings
This week, Baby G is about five inches long and weighs about 3.5 ounces (OUNCES?! So why am I putting on POUNDS?!). Baby’s body fat is beginning to form and will accumulate throughout the pregnancy…hopefully he will have lots of juicy fat rolls for me to love : ) He is listening to all kinds of noises now. Apparently he’ll know Mushy’s bark before we even bring him home from the hospital and should sleep right through any outbursts (that’s good news for Mushy). Although the eyelids are still sealed, Baby can perceive some variances of light. Most survival reflexes that he will have at birth are being developed in utero right now.
And then, when you think about it, we invite our loved ones and dearest friends to our showers … so why on Earth do we make them spend one of their precious Saturdays at crowded Babies-R-Us standing in line to print out 25 pages of products with 18 digit SKU numbers waiting to play hide-and-seek with their latest victim in a store the size of Wal-Mart? I mean really, that’s just cruel.
Weekly Womb Workings
This week, Baby G is about five inches long and weighs about 3.5 ounces (OUNCES?! So why am I putting on POUNDS?!). Baby’s body fat is beginning to form and will accumulate throughout the pregnancy…hopefully he will have lots of juicy fat rolls for me to love : ) He is listening to all kinds of noises now. Apparently he’ll know Mushy’s bark before we even bring him home from the hospital and should sleep right through any outbursts (that’s good news for Mushy). Although the eyelids are still sealed, Baby can perceive some variances of light. Most survival reflexes that he will have at birth are being developed in utero right now.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Week 15: Nursery Mania
I am a very decisive person: my wedding dress was the third dress I tried on. It took me 15 minutes to pick out our granite countertops. I know what I like and I don’t look back. With that being said, I found the perfect baby bedding and crib in a matter of days. There is SO much to choose from, it can be really overwhelming so I tried to narrow it down by theme. I also loooove the internet for stuff like this; you can bargain shop without running ragged all over trafficky Houston. The only problem with internet shopping is you don’t get to feel the textures of your possible textiles in person.
I’ve heard that all Moms cherish the moments when their baby sleeps peacefully either throughout the night or in reasonably long increments. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t sleep very well if my sheets felt like sandpaper. And I’m not kidding when I say that some of the cheaper bedding really does feel similar to an emery board. However, I was not about to go to the other end of the spectrum and spend more on my infant’s bedding than my own. Recently, I was in Baby’s First Furniture and happened upon the most gorgeous, moderately priced and very soft patchwork bedding set. The only problem with it was that it was pink and they didn’t carry the boy version so I turned to my best friend, the internet. I found the boy version online (it was even cheaper than the girl’s!) and ordered it that day. It doesn’t have a theme per se, but one of my fashion-forward girlfriends described it as “shabby chic.” It’s a patchwork combination of blue and cream toile print, cream dupioni silk squares, tan and cream houndstooth check, gold satin and blue velvet. The same week, I also happened to stumble upon a beautiful antique style old world crib with gold hand painted detail. Since it was on sale, I called the store and they said there were only three left so I went ahead and ordered that too. The nursery is well on its way to being completed and we still have five months to go!! However, we are undertaking another remodel project (poor Carlysle has been so bored since the kitchen and patio have been done for a few months now) and we’re re-texturing the walls starting in the nursery so that will take a while to finish and then we’ll paint. No more 80’s popcorn walls (AKA Wall Acne texture)!!! My friend Lauren is coming from Dallas sometime in April to custom paint the nursery and I will definitely post pics when it’s done!
Weekly Womb Workings:
Baby's head is now resting on his well-formed neck instead of directly on his shoulders like Igor. He's beginning to grow eyebrows and eyelashes this week. (All the better to give me that "Mom, you're crazy" look when he's a teenager.) Although his eyes are sealed shut, he's now able to sense light. His eyes and ears finally look like real baby features now. As he practices sucking and swallowing actions, he may actually hiccup, it’s a tell tale sign that he's had one too many shots of amniotic fluid. Over the next month, he will grow faster than ever, and I’ll actually start to develop a “baby bump” instead of just looking chubby (YAY!). He now measures nearly 4 inches, about the size of a piece of a Kit Kat (regular-size, not the Big one you get at the movies), and weighs almost 2 ounces. Little biscuit :)
I’ve heard that all Moms cherish the moments when their baby sleeps peacefully either throughout the night or in reasonably long increments. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t sleep very well if my sheets felt like sandpaper. And I’m not kidding when I say that some of the cheaper bedding really does feel similar to an emery board. However, I was not about to go to the other end of the spectrum and spend more on my infant’s bedding than my own. Recently, I was in Baby’s First Furniture and happened upon the most gorgeous, moderately priced and very soft patchwork bedding set. The only problem with it was that it was pink and they didn’t carry the boy version so I turned to my best friend, the internet. I found the boy version online (it was even cheaper than the girl’s!) and ordered it that day. It doesn’t have a theme per se, but one of my fashion-forward girlfriends described it as “shabby chic.” It’s a patchwork combination of blue and cream toile print, cream dupioni silk squares, tan and cream houndstooth check, gold satin and blue velvet. The same week, I also happened to stumble upon a beautiful antique style old world crib with gold hand painted detail. Since it was on sale, I called the store and they said there were only three left so I went ahead and ordered that too. The nursery is well on its way to being completed and we still have five months to go!! However, we are undertaking another remodel project (poor Carlysle has been so bored since the kitchen and patio have been done for a few months now) and we’re re-texturing the walls starting in the nursery so that will take a while to finish and then we’ll paint. No more 80’s popcorn walls (AKA Wall Acne texture)!!! My friend Lauren is coming from Dallas sometime in April to custom paint the nursery and I will definitely post pics when it’s done!
Weekly Womb Workings:
Baby's head is now resting on his well-formed neck instead of directly on his shoulders like Igor. He's beginning to grow eyebrows and eyelashes this week. (All the better to give me that "Mom, you're crazy" look when he's a teenager.) Although his eyes are sealed shut, he's now able to sense light. His eyes and ears finally look like real baby features now. As he practices sucking and swallowing actions, he may actually hiccup, it’s a tell tale sign that he's had one too many shots of amniotic fluid. Over the next month, he will grow faster than ever, and I’ll actually start to develop a “baby bump” instead of just looking chubby (YAY!). He now measures nearly 4 inches, about the size of a piece of a Kit Kat (regular-size, not the Big one you get at the movies), and weighs almost 2 ounces. Little biscuit :)
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