Week 13 -- Wedding, Mardi Gras, Valentine's

This week was quite eventful! We left for New Orleans on Thursday morning to attend a wedding of an LSU swim teammate of Carlysle’s. The wedding was Thursday evening and it was beautiful—it was in a lovely southern belle plantation home and the food was wonderful. We had everything from crawfish pasta to crab pies to sushi and the wedding cake was the most delicious Italian crème cake I’ve ever had! After the cake was cut, the waiters passed little cups of hot chocolate with whipped cream. We stayed with Carlysle’s good friend Jared and his girlfriend Jenn. Friday started out very interesting; I decided the first daily event required its own story below.

Scarlett O’ComeBackHare
Jared and Jenn have a very cool one-year-old reddish-brown Husky dog named Scarlett. She looks like a sled dog slash wolf with beautiful blue eyes. Well, Friday morning I woke up refreshed and ready to go and everyone else was moving a bit slower so I decided to take Scarlett for a little walk around the block … apparently once around the block wasn’t good enough. As soon as we got back home and I took her leash off, a gust of wind blew the front door wide open and she dashed out right before my eyes! I could feel the panic rise up in my throat so I quickly ran to the fridge, grabbed some lunch meat intended to be used as bait, and gave chase. So here I am, 13 weeks pregnant running down the street in my Uggs (which are not sprinter friendly by the way), skinny jeans and a giant pea coat while screaming for Scarlett and waving cold cuts in the air. I’m sure I looked like a total lunatic. I finally catch up to her as she races across La Barre (a busy street surrounded by shopping centers on both sides) and into the crowded parking lot of Panchos Super Mexican Buffet. I spot several freshly ill Panchos patrons suffering from tamale comas and I decide to try desperately to convince them to grab her (let me remind you I am screaming, waving the ham and Scarlett is darting wildly in between parked cars). They could only muster a look that screamed “lady your dog looks like a crazy wolf, I’m not touching her!” Finally, a nice dog-friendly lady grabbed her and quickly handed her over to me and Scarlett in turn awarded herself the four slices of ham. As frustrated as I was, all I could do was laugh the whole way home thinking about how crazy I must have looked during the whole ordeal. I’m really glad Mushy has never ventured more than a few feet from me without a leash!

Mardi Gras
Later that evening we met up with our friend Megan on St. Charles Street to watch Mardi Gras parades. I have been to New Orleans several times before but each time I am absolutely captivated by the architecture on St. Charles and throughout other historic sections of the city. The uniqueness and attention to detail is just phenomenal. If we are lucky enough to build our own house one day, I hope we decide to build a miniature St. Charles house :) Megan eagerly met me in a giant white bunny suit, this was one of those times I was truly sad to have left my camera at home. A few moments earlier, someone had spilled a glass of red wine on her shoulder/chest region so she looked like a bunny that had been peppered with buckshot. This may sound crazy, but if you know Megan it is completely par for the course. She’s a top-of-the class law student at Loyola who wears a bunny costume to Mardi Gras.
If you’ve been pregnant before you know how sensitive you are to smells of any kind, particularly the bad ones. If you haven’t ever had the pleasure baby building, let me explain the smell thing to you…You know the effect a magnifying glass has on your eyes? Well that’s what pregnancy does to your sense of smell. In the French Quarter, especially near Jackson Square, there are artists every few feet. One of my all-time favorites is the guy on Decatur Street near Café Du Monde who spray paints his paintings while beatin’ the beats to house music. Well, on Saturday, the spray paint smell was not settling with me … not to mention the fact that I could smell the CFC’s from two blocks away. And Bourbon Street, OH Bourbon Street! Need I say more? The smell on a non-Mardi Gras weekend is enough to make a Trash Man go running to his Mama!

We had a wonderful weekend and headed home on Saturday to an Olympics watching party at my parent’s house. Valentine’s Day was perfect, Carlysle got me what I call the “Baby Mama Ring” from James Avery—it’s a heart shaped ring with one side of the heart bigger than the other to represent Mama and Baby. So cute. We had our traditional anniversary/Valentine’s dinner at the Palm on Sunday evening and came home to watch the Olympics (Carlysle is obsessed and I’m not far behind him).

Weekly Womb Workings:
Baby's eyelids are fused shut to protect his eyes as they develop. His bones and skull are solidifying and soon itsy-bitsy ribs may appear. (Baby ribs! How cute is that?!) Baby's intestines are finally right where you want them—in the belly instead of poking out into the umbilical cord. Baby's tooth sockets are all loaded and ready to pop out baby teeth six or seven months after baby is born (causing baby a lot of pain and Mama a lot of lost sleep). The vocal cords and larynx are completed now. Baby weighs 20 grams and is nearly three inches long.