First things first- about the baby. This week the baby was the size of a pineapple. He is getting much bigger and my awkwardness level is skyrocketing. I think I can feel hiccups, I think they are hiccups. If not they are small kicks in exactly the same spot spaced like 10 seconds apart for like a minute or so. I'm gonna go with hiccups. It sounds cuter that way anyway. The other morning I was big spoon and Hov said he could feel the baby kicking his back, that was a big jump. Before, he could only feel the baby kick with his hands, I guess baby is getting a lot stronger. The belly is starting to poke out more, it's more pointy than before. People ask me about the belly everywhere I go, it's usually harmless stuff like "do you know what you're having" or "have you picked out a name" things like that. Answers which are still no and no.
The big thing that had been stressing me out was passing my prospectus. This is basically the proposal for your thesis and the last thing I needed before I could start writing the stupid thesis to get out of my program. I passed it which is kind of a big deal and kind of not. I mean you should obviously pass it but they also didn't make me revise any of the work in it which was fantastic. They just wanted me to change the margins on the paper. Literally the margins, like make them 1/2 inch margins. Weirdos.
Since the midwife last time told me to cool it with the face-stuffing (I gained 7 lbs in 3 weeks= no bueno) I've tried to be better. Of course that is difficult to do while traveling, and when you just want food NOW!! NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!! One thing that Hov and I are doing now that is hopefully going to help with this is we switched to an all-cash system. NO more credit cards (or debit cards if we can). We took out the allotted food, gas and miscellaneous money for the month and are ONLY using that. It's amazing how you think twice about things when handing over cash rather than just swiping away. We are hoping this gets our budget steady before baby comes but also it helps with the eating out part which was a problem. Last week we went to firehouse 3-4 times. Now, we'd rather wait the five minutes and eat at the house... Well we wouldn't RATHER do it, we just can say OK we have 15 bucks in food budget for the rest of the week, you suuuuuure you want Chinese food/pizza/whatever. It certainly helps that we came up from Miami with a cooler-full of pre-made meals that are in the freezer. It's almost impossible to leave my grandparents house without at least a weeks worth of food. I think we need to start doing this ourselves- pre-cooking stuff and that way we can just defrost or microwave it and have semi-instant satisfaction which is what usually causes us to go out.
So Christmas was fantastic. We drove down to Miami with Archie in tow and stayed at Hov's dad's place. Unfortunately we didn't get to see him since he left a few days earlier to California for the holidays. We did get the whole house to ourselves though which was nice. We drove down Christmas eve, it took us about 8 hours which we figured since we were stopping every 2 so I could pee. As soon as we got there we dropped the stuff off at his dads, took a quick shower and headed to my grandparents house for dinner. Dinner was great, we had fritanga (if you don't know what that is, tell me and I will take you). This is the second year in a row we did that and I think it's now a tradition. We all out-voted my grandmother who was NOT happy to have such food for Christmas dinner. Tres leches, a rum cake heather (little brother's girlfriend) brought and macarons we brought finished off the dinner and everyone was wishing they had maternity pants like me.
Christmas day there was another lunch at my grandparents house which was in honor of Hovik's birthday. He was a little confused since it was 10 days post birthday but my mom quickly reminded him that she had to wait 3 months for her birthday meal. It was all delicious and he was cracking up at everyone singing him happy birthday with an upside down chocolate bundt cake adorned with ten candles in front of him. The randomness didn't even phase me but I forget that normal people think my family is crazy. This day ended early too, we promised to come back Friday and went back to the house and relaxed for the rest of the day.Normally, we don't do day-after shopping things but it just so happened that Hov needed dress shirts for work and sawgrass mall isn't too far away so we went early-ish (around 10) and braved the parking disaster to see what they had to offer. They didn't disappoint- 50% off plus 20% off. Long story short, he has new shirts for work and he doesn't get to do any more shopping for dress clothes for the rest of the year. We just relaxed for the rest of this day too, it seems like it doesn't take much time on my feet before I need to be laying down.
Friday came and we were back at my grandparent's house for lunch, it was all delicious and low key. They had also been hoarding samples they got at the office (my grandfather is a pediatrician) for the baby so they gave me a back with approximately 8,000,000 Desitin samples and another with Aveno baby eczema cream. Also in this weekend, my mom had collected some baby things from a friend who no longer needed them (mostly crib bedding) and heather who used to work for Carter's gifted us the most adorable baby clothes. We were coming back with significantly more things than we came down with which I guess is not an uncommon thing.
Saturday we came back. 7.5 hours this time, I guess we got more efficient with our stops. As soon as we got home we just laid down. So tired. We had started the nursery closet before we left but it needed a few modifications and also the guest room closet needed some work. On Sunday (after our weekly grocery shop and unpacking and settling in) we got to work on the guest room closet. We couldn't do much after removing the horrible wire shelves and patching the holes. We let it dry over night before really getting into it on Monday. We had bought the paint color we wanted and had that ready so by the time we woke up on Monday we jumped right in with painting. It was painted by 10am. Hov and I have gotten very very efficient with closet things, after these two are done I think the last project will be the laundry room. Hov keeps telling me we need to stop dumping money into this house and it's not that I disagree but if we are stuck here another four years, I want to be as comfortable as possible.
Home depot must love us. We show up covered in paint (at least I was I think), my drawings and measurements in hand. I know exactly how much of each board and where to cut and bla bla bla. In and out. All the shelves are now in. The only thing missing (which will get done TODAY) is putting in the curtain rods in both closets. This is the biggest pain in the entire process because the pole we buy is a metal one that is 72 inches long and from that we have to use a hacksaw to cut it which takes forever and then your hands are all cramped and it's too wide in diameter to use any other tool. Anyway, once those are in, the clothes go back into the closets and all is restored in the house. Well almost, Hovik decided that he wanted a monstrosity of a TV in the bedroom and brought one up from Miami and it has been sitting in the living room ever since. I think he figured out the mount situation but bottom line is the house is an absolute wreck. This needs to all be done and solved before we go to work, I can only handle disaster for so long.Today is also New Years Eve. We had decided we were staying in and just celebrating in PJs but yesterday we learned that a friend is having a casual thing at his house so we'll probably go for a bit and then come home and sleep. There is a 2% chance I make it to midnight and that's pretty generous. It's more likely that we come home around 10:30 and celebrate in our dreams. That's if we even make it out, yesterday Hov woke up with the infamous "itchy throat" by the evening it was hurting and this morning he sounds like a frog. Fingers cross that this just passes.
Until next time, I will try to not eat so much crap, shove Hov full of tea and soup and continue my new found obsession with jello. Yes, jello. Hope everyone has a great (and safe) New Years.
 |
| This is me sitting on my kitchen floor with a pyrex bowl that once was filled with jello. Take that all in. |
No comments:
Post a Comment