16 week belly shot: sweat pants edition

*I look insanely tired in this photo since I took it after packing for our trip south for Xmas - although the terrible lighting in our kitchen is not doing me any favors.

Ahhh sweat pants. You will be my uniform this winter. Now that the temperatures are dropping at alarming rates, I find that my clothes choices are becoming increasingly limited. Gone are the days of breezy jersey dresses with ballet flats which would be lovely on my growing belly right now. Instead I find myself trying to wear those same summer dresses with tights that cut off my circulation or attempting to squeeze into a pair of old work pants with a extra long top to hide either the bella band or my brazenly unbuttoned waist. Thank god my friend Tina gave me a pair of her maternity jeans early. While I can still wear a couple pairs of my old fat jeans and most of my more stylish ones with the Bella, the maternity jeans are the most comfortable by far (and since they are Sevens, much nicer than my usual Old Navy uniform). I'm going to North Carolina this week for Xmas and expect to spend a fair amount of time maternity clothes shopping with Mom so I should come back with some more socially acceptable choices in work and weekend wear since I assume this is only the tip of a long, fat iceberg.

Belly Size: Still not terribly noticeable in clothes, but as I told my friend Candace, when I'm naked, you can definitely tell. And as I also told her, I will not be subjecting anyone to that.
Weight Gain:+5 according to the Dolphin Gym scale (not a reliable source - my gym is terrible). I recently bought a couple of maternity workout dvds. I fully expect Summer Sanders to lead me through a prenatal workout that will keep my weight gain minimal. If not, I might sue.
Cravings:I've been eating entirely too much sugar but really, that was par for the course before getting pregnant. Hot Cherry Peppers have also been frequenting the fridge and I'm still trying to curb my pizza cravings which have haunted me since college.

Do I need this? The Belly Bandit

Today I'm starting a new installment on the blog: Do I need this? I've had some down time at work the past few days so I've had a chance to research some of the things I've put on my "Baby Hoss To Do" Excel file. While I was checking on my OB's website for info on birthing classes (a definite need) I was surprised to find a link under the "postpartum care" section for this:



Though it looks like a cross between a Victorian era girdle and a medieval torture device, apparently this contraption is The Belly Bandit and I may need one. According to the website, The Belly Bandit will suck in my overextended stomach muscles, push out any water retention, and make me look like celebrity spokesperson Kourtney Kardashian in no time after spending 9 months growing a baby and eating an insane amount of chocolate. I've seen this thing before and thought it was silly (proof being the Kardashian connection), but if it is so silly then why does my OB seem to be recommending it. Now I'm just confused and slightly frightened about having to wear a weightlifter's belt immediately after childbirth and then continuously, even while sleeping, for 6-8 weeks postpartum (as recommended by The Belly Banditeers).

And if I get this, I will certainly not be getting the Kardashian designed black lace sexy version. I have my standards.

Current Obsession: Flensted Mobiles

Since I'm in full nursery "corner" mode lately and there is really not much that I can do with a corner, I've been obsessing about the littlest things that can make it cute and fun for Hoss. Which leads me to a subject that I've been spending way too much time researching - mobiles. I figure that we will want something hanging over the crib to catch the little guy's eye and also to bring in as much decoration as possible. I'm not too impressed with the offerings on Babies R' Us (which is where I plan to get most of my baby gear). Everything leans towards pink or blue with a bunch of bells and whistles. I tend to like things that are a bit more simple. So I turned to Etsy again and found a whole collection of simple, artistic, and modern mobiles by a company out of Denmark named Flensted. Now I just have to figure out which one to get.

Hoss's Nursery "Corner" is on its way!

As I mentioned in my last post, Baby Hoss doesn't get a room in our apartment because, well, there isn't one to give him. With the help of my friend Jessica, I've figured out the perfect corner of our bedroom that will fit a minicrib exactly. For those of you without much of a concept in tiny furniture that will fit small spaces, a minicrib is about 15' smaller in length than a regular sized crib. However it does apparently convert into a toddler bed though I assume a very small one.

As easy as it was to find a minicrib that was affordable, made well and not completely heinous looking, finding bedding for these minicribs has been a ridiculous task. None of the major baby stores give much in the way of options outside of pastels, blatent boy/girl themes, or nauseating Disney characters. Since we will have Hoss in our bedroom, I wanted to at least try to find something that was close to the color palette of our room - black and white (oh so baby-friendly). Thank god for Etsy. When I searched on Etsy, I was able to find a bunch of custom design baby bedding stores that have a wealth of color palettes that where cute, stylish, and generally gender neutral. I placed the order today on the following palatte at Custom House Baby:

We'll be getting a quilt and crib skirt made out fabric 2 and some sheets to go along with it. I decided to forgo a crib bumper - partly due to cost, partly due to the recommendations against them. Since I'm buying each part separately, I figure it's an easy thing to leave off. To top it all off, my friend Candace went to Africa on safari this summer and got some amazing shots of elephants, giraffes and rhinos so I'll be blowing some of those up and framing them above the crib. So even without a full room, Hoss will have a little corner all his own.

Dear Baby Hoss...

I've been thinking a lot lately about things Ross and I get to teach our little one, how we will shape him/her as a person and what Baby Hoss will think of his/her crazy parents. We've been together a long time (10 years in a couple of months time) and there are definitely things that we enjoy doing, accomplishments we are proud of, and quirks that we are known for that Hoss will get to discover through the years. Some of them we may not even want the little guy to know about until he/she is MUCH older. Anyway, here are some of the random things that I've been thinking about and that Hoss will eventually come to learn about the parents -

-Your parents met when they were very young (19 and 20 respectively) and pretty much have spent every single day together ever since except for a year-long forcibly imposed hiatus due to your dad annoyingly being one year older than your mom and having to graduate college and all. That year sucked and you probably won't ever hear much about it because it's a year we would rather forget.

-We enjoy picnics, either outside or inside, and we have them often to celebrate little events, enjoy the weather, or just because. Most of these picnics involve wine and/or cheese. We can't wait to have you join (except you will be served milk).

-Your dad formed a punk band with his cousin a couple years after moving to NYC with the sole purpose of producing an album and playing at CBGB's. He and I are extremely proud that he accomplished both those goals - and then promptly disbanded. There is a mock documentary about it though. However, due to the inappropriateness of the band name, you probably won't hear about any of this until high school.

-We have loved living in NYC, especially in the area of the city we live in. We plan to show you as much of it as we possibly can while we are still living here. I daydream often about all of the walks we'll take in Central Park, looking at the tree in Rockefeller Center around Christmas time, and sitting in Washington Square to watch all the crazy people go by. Though we know we are moving away before you get old enough to enjoy the city, we promise we'll bring you back to visit.

-On that same note, though we have loved living in NYC, we apologize that you won't have your own room right away. Actually it kind of breaks my heart a little that I am planning your nursery "corner" instead of a real nursery. I promise your dad and I are excellent roommates though and I can provide references.

-Your dad is pretty much fluent in Spanish and already has plans of making you bilingual. He also believes that I have the ability to teach you French and make you trilingual. I assure you that I do not have that ability (Je suis en coca-cola, anyone?).

-Even though both your mom and dad, Grammy Walters and Grandaddy Inman, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Fiona, Uncle Mike and Cousin Greg all went to Wake Forest University, you will not be expected to go there. However, you have a pretty sweet family alumni history to put on your application if you do.

-You are probably going to be indoctrinated as a Dallas Cowboys fan from an early age. Actually, I shouldn't say probably - I already have socks and a "littlest Cowboys fan" bib for you. You may hear some crap about this from your mom's friends in Pennsylvania.

-Speaking of Pennsylvania, your mom is from the sweetest place on Earth, Hershey, and is exceedingly proud of this. We will be going there on family trips often and you may have to indulge me in visiting the same spots over and over again. You will be rewarded in copious amounts of chocolate.

-Finally, we are so excited to meet you though it still seems like so far off. We talk alot about what you will look like (blond hair and brown eyes, brown hair and blue?), if your personality will be more like mom or dad, how we know you will be exceedingly smart and thoughtful and full of joy and laughter. However you turn out, you are already extremely loved.

Love, Mom.

Baby Hoss at 13 weeks

This past Tuesday it was time for another ultrasound, this time for Down Syndrome detection. I'm not sure if the amount of ultrasounds we have had in the first trimester is normal or not but it seems like we've had a lot. Not that I'm complaining. Any chance to see the gummi bear is ok with me. So as for the testing, we found out that everything is pretty much perfect. Apparently I am in the genetic percentile of 20 year olds as far as Down Syndrome and Trisomy 13. I will take any comparison of me to a 20 year old. The ultrasound tech took a long time which meant we got to see tons of shots of Baby Hoss. Hoss was moving around a lot and at one point, we are pretty sure Hoss waved to us. Also, at one point I thought I could tell the sex, but apparently that was just the umbilical cord. We did ask the tech if she could figure out what the sex was, even though it is still really early. She said that if she had to take bets, she would say that Baby Hoss is a boy but that we shouldn't take that as fact. So we will leave any real announcements of gender or names until we have confirmation at 20 weeks on January 19th.

Now I thought that I would have a 3D pic to post up here and at one point, the tech did switch over to 3D. I will not be subjecting any of you to it. Hoss looked like a cross between a monkey and an alien and something was protruding out of its chest which I have since come to learn is apparently the intestines moving from the umbilical cord to the fetus. It was disturbing enough that even the tech said "maybe I shouldn't have switched over." Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have Lady. Anyway, I have some cute pics of Hoss below, looking human and waving to everyone.

Happy Thanxmas!

I'm a little late with posting this but it has been a long week. We traveled down to Houston to visit with Ross's family for the Thanksgiving, or in Ross's family Thanxmas, holiday. We call it Thanxmas since we don't visit at Xmas time and all of Ross's mom's side of the family is together. We start out on Wednesday night with a big Xmas meal of manicotti, sausage and peppers, and this year, some italian cream cake to honor Ross's grandfather Papa Nick who was full blooded Italian. Then on Thursday, we go to Aunt Melinda's house for a southern Thanksgiving meal. It is a week filled with A LOT of food and it is a great time that we look forward to every year. Happy Thanxmas!

11 week belly shot - the pant tightening

Thank God I went and bought a Bella Band a couple of weeks ago because I definitely have started to use it. The pants are definitely tightening by the day however the according to the scale at the OB's office, weight gain has been minimal - so that's a little confusing. Pretty much all of the nausea has now lifted though I'm still battling some hardcore fatigue but I'm counting on that lifting in the next couple of weeks.

Belly size: Definitely a bit rounder - enough to make me reach for the Bella Band with a couple of my favorite skinny pants
Weight gain: +1 - surprisingly minimal considering my weekend of dip and dessert eating.
Cravings: This weekend I had the famous "dip" that my friends and I used to eat constantly in middle and high school. I now want it constantly.

Spoiled already

This weekend Ross and I went to visit the Johnson's in State College, PA and on the way we had a chance to stop in Hershey for dinner at the Foust's. We got to see all of the Hershey family and Baby Hoss was spoiled with lots of presents from Mr. and Mrs. Foust, Mrs. Stover, and Aunt Raine. So many cute outfits and toys for the baby already. Then we got to Amanda's and she had even more for Baby Hoss including adorable homemade burp cloths and bottle shaped cookies. Thanks to everyone for spoiling our baby already!

11 week Baby Hoss photo - we have a human and an official due date!

Ross and I had our first appointment with our OB, Dr. Jacqueline Worth, this past Friday when Baby Hoss was close to 11 weeks old. First of all, I think we definitely made the right choice with the obstetrics practice. Dr. Worth was wonderful and spent a lot of time with us, explaining how the process would work, what appointments we would have when, and much to our surprise, gave us another chance to see Baby Hoss. As you can see above, what was a little tiny gummi bear blob before is much more human looking now much to our relief. We also got an official due date of June 10th so I guess my original calculations were a bit off. We also met Dr. Maselli, the other doctor in the practice who will be giving us our anatomy scan around week 20 (where we will get to know Hoss's gender and finally use the real name). Check them out at www.villageobstetrics.com. They have a great website that explains their philosophy and shows exactly why we picked them.

We have an appointment for Down Syndrome testing in a couple of weeks (completely standard) and then our next appointment with Dr. Worth is January 5th at 17 weeks. It was supposed to be at 16 weeks but the holidays are getting in the way so we'll be a bit late but after that we should make each appointment at the week we are supposed to go.

Baby Hoss will not be naked

We couldn't resist buying a couple of things early for Baby Hoss (well, more like I couldn't resist). The t-shirt was part of Ross's anniversary gift -it's a Minor Threat shirt, one of Ross's favorite punk bands. We found the onesie at a Christmas market near Ross's work. We're a bit obsessed with calling Baby Hoss our bear cub so we found it appropriate.

I think I'll probably wait until we find out the gender to buy any more clothes and hopefully I won't continue to stray in the hipster baby wear direction. I don't want Baby Hoss to become some sort of bad cliche being strolled down the streets of the East Village. Also, I should probably get some pants for the kid....

Halloween 2009 or the year we began preemptively embarrassing our child

Ross and I tend to be in town every other year for Halloween. Last year we were in Argentina, and in 2006 down in Mexico, so we always have difficulty coming up with costumes since we kind of forget about it on the years we are here. It's generally a last minute decision involving whatever we can find in our closets and buy on our street. This year, however, we spent a little more time on it since we figured it may be our last year to go all out for a long time.

A bunch of our friends were dressing up as characters from a show on HBO called "Eastbound and Down" so Ross went as Ashley Scheaffer, the Will Ferrell character, and enjoyed shouting quotes all night. For myself, after mulling over a possible Zombie Farrah Fawcett costume, I decided to go as Lady Gaga. I'm always up for crazy hair and makeup and the possibility of going pantsless sealed the deal. We figure we can show Baby Hoss these photos when he/she hits the teen years and ask Hoss if his parents looked cool and possibly threaten to bring the costumes out of retirement.

One interesting note on Halloween in the City - kids do trick or treat here but it's very different. They go to bodegas and storefronts to get their candy. There are no knocks on the door in our apartment building (but considering the fact that I have only seen one child in the past 5 years of living there and I'm pretty sure they speak some sort of weird Scandinavian language, it's not surprising) and kids walk all over the streets screaming "trick or treat" at the people behind the counter where you buy your lottery tickets. While the stores are accommadating, they aren't completely enthused. I was getting a manicure around 5pm on Halloween evening and a bunch of little kids came in yelling trick or treat. All of the people getting their nails done oohed and aahed. The woman doing my nails however said "Trick or treat. Go get yourself" and pointed towards a meager looking bowl of penny candy near the nail dryers. It was a little sad. We don't plan on being in the area by the time Baby Hoss actually can understand and enjoy trick or treating so I won't have to deal with surly storeowners pushing dried out gumballs on my child and for that I'm a little grateful.

Happy 5 Year Anniversary!

It's hard to believe that it was 5 years ago today that Ross and I walked down the aisle and got married. It was a great day that we remember often, with lots of family and friends by our side. We usually celebrate with a "Wine and Cheese Day" which is pretty self-explanatory and also not in the cards this year so instead we'll be celebrating tomorrow night at the restaurant we were engaged in, Danal. We both feel that we've been blessed to receive the best gift we could have hoped for this year and next year he or she can celebrate with us as well. Here's to 5 wonderful years together with the plan of many, many more to come.

7 weeks, 1 day Belly Shot

I figured I probably needed to start with the belly shots soon so that I started with one that was pretty true to my normal body since my cheese consumption has started to surge. I've been feeling pretty good except for extreme fatigue throughout the whole day and bouts of nausea that usually occur when my body needs food (which is quite often) and then about 30 minutes after I've eaten. I've been eating pretty well, despite the mass cheese consumption, and am still working out every other day as well as continuing with weekly modern dance class for as long as I can. I have class tonight and since last week was a little rough - I found myself almost falling asleep on the floor while stretching and then looking a little green after doing a phrase with a lot of direction changes - I think I may have to break the news to my teacher tonight.

Belly Size: Still abs of steel but developing a slight gelatinous layer, possibly due to cheese consumption.

Weight Gain: Still in denial that this will happen.

Cravings: Anything that won't make me nauseous 30 minutes after eating it. Cheese.

Baby Hoss's first photo

This past Thursday we went to my doctor for our first chance to see Baby Hoss up on the big screen. I was a little past six weeks so it was just at the point where we could hope to see a heartbeat and see a heartbeat we did! Baby Hoss's heart was flickering like crazy much to our relief and the baby measured about 5mm. Our next appointment is November 13th when I will be a little past 10 weeks. That appointment will be with our actual OB, Dr. Jacqueline Worth, and hopefully we will get another chance to see the little gummi bear.

You're Welcome, World....

After five years of marriage and close to 10 years together as a couple, Ross and I are happy to announce that we have procreated. We figure that this will be the most beautiful, talented, and intelligent child to ever be born, but we may already be a bit biased. We decided we were ready to have a baby this past winter and after a summer of "living it up" we were lucky enough to get pregnant pretty much right away. Though some couples don't always reveal their pregnancy status until after the first trimester, we're having a hard time keeping our excitement in and have begun telling family and friends. We also figure that once our friends see me out at various events without a glass of wine in my hand, the jig will be up. Our due date is early June (probably the 6th but the doctor has yet to confirm) and we look forward to the day when we welcome our little boy or girl (affectionately known as Baby Hoss) into the family.

So we know what everyone's next question is: When are you moving from your tiny, one-bedroom apartment in the middle of one of the busiest neighborhoods in Manhattan? Well...we're not. Not yet anyway. We plan to stay in the apartment we've been living in for the last five years through most of baby Hoss's first year. We do realize most people will think this is crazy, but we figure this is NYC and there are a lot of other people a whole lot crazier than us so we can't be that bad. We don't think it will be easy, but we have ideas on how to make it work that I'll be chronicling here so keep reading!