Snow Days and Birthdays...

I am really slacking off with this blog, and I can't even say that I have a good excuse. This past week I only went to work on Tuesday. Thanks to my two day a week teaching schedule, and a snow day on Thursday, I will have had almost a whole week off by the time I go back on Tuesday. I can't believe we got so much more snow this week - we are getting way more than our fair share this year, it seems. I was really hoping that a snow day wouldn't come on one of my teaching days, since I have so much material smushed into a shorter time frame, just in case Mr. Bean comes early. But then I was also kind of relieved when classes were canceled for Thursday. And fortunately it wasn't a super-hard day in either of my classes (I teach 2 sections of the same class in the morning, and then a different class in the afternoon, so it is really just 2 preparations - I've got it pretty easy this semester!). So I know we will get caught up pretty easily on Tuesday. I just hope we don't get another snow day!

So I was at home pretty much most of the week. It was so cold on Monday and snowy on Wednesday, so I didn't go out to yoga until Friday. I'm glad I finally went though - it is a really good class. I plan to go again tomorrow morning.

But mostly I've been dealing with the small construction project in what will be Mr. Bean's room. I think I mentioned it before, but we are having a small wall built in there which will effectively create a "walk-though" closet before you enter the room proper. It will give us lots of shelving in the entry-way closet for household stuff, but more importantly it allows us to keep the cat boxes in this closet (or really, one existing closet on the left and a new shelving area on the right - we have one cat box at the bottom of each space, since we have 3 cats and need 2 boxes...). With the new interior door into the bedroom, we can leave the exterior door open for the cats to come and go, and close the interior door for quiet and privacy in Mr. Bean's room. I know it sounds very confusing, but it actually is quite clever and I'm very proud of myself for thinking it up. And then, on the inside of the room we are going to put up some shelving and hanging bars, as a sort of open closet space for the little guy's clothes and other stuff. Because we can't really fit a wardrobe in the room. The room is only a little more than 9 feet by a little more than 7 feet, so pretty darn small. But believe it or not, a better space than the other room that J. uses for his "man cave" - that room is about the same length, but even narrower. Such is real estate in NYC. We consider ourselves lucky to have this much space even. Anyway, the new wall is up, but due to the snow storm, they weren't able to come out to paint and put up all the shelving on Thursday or Friday, so now the project stretches out into this coming week, and all the contents of the room (at this point, mostly our extra household junk that needs to be contained in the new closet, plus a desk and chair that need to go on Craig.slist, as well as the dresser we will use for Mr. Bean which is already stuffed with all his loot...) are in the middle of our living room. Nice. I can't wait to get it all organized, so we can start decorating and furnishing the room. It is very fun.

In other news, as the title of this post suggests, it was my birthday this weekend. We didn't do a lot to celebrate since we had gone out last weekend. But I did get some nice presents and a yummy cupcake, plus a scrumptious box of chocolates. Overall it was a much better birthday than last year, when I turned the big 4-0 and was very depressed about being childless and not pregnant. Last year my sister had wanted to fly out and help J. throw a big party for my birthday, but fortunately she ran it by me first and I nixed that idea. I told her I would love for her to fly out for a visit, but I had no interest in a party at all. It was a very subdued birthday. This year I feel much better about everything and very excited and hopeful for everything that the year has to bring.

A fun weekend

J and I had a nice little outing on Saturday night. We went to see Lyle Lov.ett and John Hi.att in an acoustic show at the Beac.on Theater on the Upper West Side (not far from where we live). Although I am not at all a country music fan, I am a huge Lyle fan. His music is much more varied than country anyway, and he is just so funny. I was first "introduced" to him when I lived in Austin, and have probably seen him in concert 7 or 8 times in the past 13 years, 4 times alone since moving to NYC. All the other times I've seen him with his Large Band, which is fantastic. But this acoustic show, with just him and John Hi.att, and their guitars, was really wonderful. They had a fun little banter going between them, and as I said to J, I would pay money just to listen to Lyle tell stories. He has such a dry sense of humor and his way of talking is riveting. But the music was really wonderful. So we really enjoyed it. And although as you'll recall from earlier posts, Mr. Bean has been to a number of concerts so far, but this would have been the first one he could hear, so I'm happy about that since this one was my choice. (Not that I didn't enjoy the other ones as well...) It was also my birthday celebration, although a little early since my birthday is this coming weekend.

To add to the celebration, we went out for dinner beforehand. I chose a cute little Italian place in the neighborhood that I had passed by several times and thought looked fun. It was very tiny and cramped, typical of New York restaurants. I had to squeeze behind a tight little table, and as I was trying to get in, I looked at my belly, looked at J and asked him to please pull the table out a little further for me. The woman at the table right next to us caught my eye and smiled, laughing a little. I laughed too, and it was really fun. Later, she asked me when I was due, and we chatted a bit with the couple, and their 24 year old daughter. It was the first time that someone had identified me as a pregnant woman and engaged with me about it. I was pretty thrilled, although it still seems kind of surreal.

Today I had planned to go to my yoga class this morning, but it is currently 6 degrees here in NYC, so I'm not going anywhere! I'll try not to feel too guilty about it. I'm very ready for spring to be here, in more ways than one!

Back to school

First week of school is done already! I'm on a two day a week teaching schedule, but have to teach all my classes on those two day (three classes). I think it's actually going to work pretty well. I'm getting used to getting up earlier than usual, and out the door by 7:30. I take my shower the night before and set all my clothes out for the next day. I'm sure many of you are not so impressed by this, but for me, this kind of advanced preparation is a novelty. I have a long day and don't get home until 6:30, but I only have to do it twice a week, so that is nice, since my commute is almost 2 hours each way, by public transportation.

On the other days, I have my prenatal yoga classes - I could conceivably go MWF, but this week only made it on Wednesday. Today we have snow again here in the northeast, plus I am waiting for a FedEx delivery (the third and final attempt), so I did not go. But I am really liking the class, despite the fact that it is still a bit surreal to actually be in a prenatal class with all those pregnant women. I'm hoping I'll make a friend or two. And they also have post-natal classes, as well as Mommy and Me classes, so this could be a good networking opportunity for making new friends.

Mr. Bean has become super-active! I can't believe how much he kicks around and how well I can feel him. I also can see my belly moving now when he pokes. The other night I told J to keep an eye on my belly and sure enough he saw a little poke. He thought it was a little creepy actually. But this morning he got to feel him again, I think just for the second time, when we were lying in bed. J was awake but not quite ready to get up, so he put his hand on my belly just in case. I gave my belly a couple of pokes to wake up the little guy (I know, not nice!), and sure enough he poked back pretty soon after. So that was fun.

Oh, so I wore my new black maternity pants from Mothe.rhood to work yesterday and I really hate them! The material is so thin and cheap, and the pant legs ride up so I look like I'm wearing waders. I don't know how much I'll wear them, and I'm glad I didn't get a second pair. Maybe I'll just wear jeans to work more often, plus the couple of dresses that I have.

We are going to be working more on the nursery in the coming weeks. I have someone coming in to build a closet in there, actually as a little entry way into the room where we can store stuff and also have the cat litter boxes, but still have a door into the nursery that closes. Right now the room is just full of junk that we don't have room for, so we will be building shelving in this closet where we can store all that stuff to have it out of the way. We will also have the room painted a nice light mossy green. And then we'll start thinking about more decorating. I can't believe we are actually doing this!

Frustrated - UPDATED

I finally made the trek over to Des.tination Mat.ernity in mid-town Manhattan yesterday. That place is huge and a bit overwhelming. The sales associate who was helping me was super nice and patient, especially considering I tried on over 20 pairs of pants and only bought one, plus two camis. I have a very hard time finding pants to fit in general, so I suspected that this would be difficult. But since the maternity jeans I bought (Oh Baby by Moth.erhood at Ko.hl's) fit me so great, I was optimistic. Anyway, I usually buy petite pants, but I'm curvy so I have a hard time finding ones that fit my curves. Almost all of my dressy pants are from Ann Tay.lor or ATLo.ft. I even asked for a gift card from Lo.ft for Christmas from my mom, so I could buy pants from their maternity section. But right now they have their basic dress pants only in a size 16. Whatever. So it was off to maternity mecca for me. I'm particularly picky about the size and placement of back pockets, to minimize my large butt, and all the pants I tried had these small, high pockets which are the kiss of death. But I finally realized that every maternity top I have is going to cover my butt almost completely, so it really doesn't matter. The one pair I ended up liking the best were only $29, so that really isn't that big of a deal. They only had black (I would have liked gray as well...), so I have a feeling I'll be wearing my nice dark jeans to work quite a bit this semester. It is totally fine, and I only have to teach twice a week (three classes all on Tues/Thurs) so I don't need too many outfits. So I should be pretty much set.

Pretty exciting stuff, huh? In other news, I go next week for my glucose tolerance test, to see if I have gestational diabetes. I'm not looking forward to getting blood drawn three times in three hours (once fasting, then one hour after drinking a super-sugary drink, then two hours after...) but do want to know if this is a problem. I know I have been eating way more sugar than I should, and strangely, I hardly gained any weight since a month ago, which is especially concerning considering the holidays were in there, when I ate a lot and didn't walk much. Weight loss while eating a lot is a symptom of diabetes. Otherwise I feel fine though. And I have gained about 11 pounds total since the beginning of my pregnancy. So we'll see.

Oh yeah, I forgot something important. Today we are at exactly 24 weeks, which is a big milestone. That is supposedly the important week to get to for viability; if Mr. Bean were born now (heaven forbid), he would most likely be ok. Of course I'm hoping he'll stay in there as long as possible, but this is certainly a big relief.

Finally!

Last night J was finally able to feel Mr. Bean move - I'm so happy! He had been reluctant to leave his hand on my belly very long and was just a little frustrated because Mr. Bean's movements were so sporadic. But last night I was snuggled up next to J trying to fall asleep as he was reading, and the critter was just going crazy. It was the most active I had ever felt him, and in two different places (I think he was stretched out across my whole uterus.) At one point there was a sustained tickle and a poke that actually made me squirm and laugh out loud as I was about to fall asleep. So I told J that this would be a good time to try to feel it. He put his hand there and sure enough, after a minute, we both felt a little nudge. J smiled and said, was that him? Of course it was. So he left his hand there and felt two more little nudges after that. Nothing as big as the one that made me laugh, but still undeniable. J seemed much more calm and happy after that, and even said "Maybe this is really happening then?" He just needs more tangible proof, besides the fact that my belly is getting bigger every day. I'm so happy I could finally share a little bit of this experience with him.