29 weeks! (+1 day)

Yep - I'm smuggling squash under my shirt now!

How far along? 29 weeks, 1 day. We were at a party with the family I work for last night, so blogging did not happen. But there was a lot of food - so it was worth it.

Total weight gain/loss: +23 lbs

Maternity clothes? The first pair of maternity jeans I bought did not have a stretchy part - just an elastic waistband where a normal waistband would go. My belly has dropped down enough that I can barely get them on. Luckily, it is warm enough now to wear all my non-jean maternity clothes too!

Stretch marks? I found a new one! Right underneath my belly. It looks lonely out there by itself.

Sleep:  I sleep great as long as I can get comfortable. Some nights my pillow nest is more effective than others. After we rearranged our bedroom last week, our headboard was too tall to fit under the eaves of the attic, so we built a new one! It was nearly a disaster, and involved some last-minute leg-sawing inside the house, but now that the sawdust has cleared and been swept away, I really like it! We covered it with some fabric I love - the scraps are going to go on the edge of a white duvet cover to match. 

Never mind the clashing curtains and sheet set at the moment...

Best moment this week: It's definitely a tie between our construction projects and finally purging the attic of all the unnecessary things we have been keeping. Today's task is to purge the nursery closet so we have space for some of Henry's things - other than the floor. 

In non-baby-related moments, it was my birthday this week! My sisters surprised me by driving up for lunch - and Kendra made some AWESOME cupcakes. Mmm. Ben took me out to dinner at June - for what was certainly the best meal I have ever had in my entire life. (And the most expensive). We did a tasting, so the cook chose what to make us - for SEVEN courses. It was amazing. The kitchen is in full view of the table too, so it was a lot of fun to watch him cook.

Movement: Last night, I thought he was going to break a rib. No matter which way I moved, he just wanted to go to town on that one spot.

Food cravings:  Nothing in particular. Just hungry all the time!

Nursery: I'm so excited for our cubby project to be finished! I know we could have purchased something very similar from Target or Ikea, but it was fun to design, build, and paint this ourselves. It only took one piece of plywood, some nails and paint, and I found the baskets at the Dollar Tree, so this was a very inexpensive project. One more coat of paint, and it'll be ready!

Labor Signs: Nothing yet. Let's hold out on that for at least another 10 weeks or so...

Belly Button in or out?  According to Ben, it's so flat now "you couldn't even stick a nose in there!"  I have no idea what this means.

What do we want to teach Henry about?  We want Henry to know how to make things with his own hands. Our favorite part about running our own house is crafting and building projects. We hope he loves it too!

What I miss: Am I allowed to say not being pregnant? Things are starting to get very uncomfortable most of the time now. Come June, I am going to be R E A D Y.

What I am looking forward to: On Saturday, a friend of ours is coming to take maternity photos. Eee! I don't really like having my picture taken, but maternity pictures can be so adorable :)

Weekly Wisdom: It's much better to just laugh about waddling around or getting stuck in a chair. Humor makes the days go by much easier.

Milestones: I passed my glucose screening! Henry and I are still nice and healthy- no diabetes for us. :)

Daddy's Thoughts:   What a great week so far!  I was on call on Easter (this makes the 3rd holiday I had to work this year, something tells me no one was keeping track like they should have been...), but after that started vacation!!  Nicki and I have been knocking things off our "honeydew" list left and right every day now and I'm loving it.  She mentioned the headboard we made on Monday, which looks sharp and really works.  Seriously, I can't read in bed unless my back is up against something.  We even upholstered it complements of a Homer Rathert staple gun.  It was much easier than I thought it would be.  Her side of the bed is under the eaves of our attic bedroom and now she has to get out of the end of the bed.  She tells me this is actually easier than getting out like she used to, so good on her!

We read "Go Dog Go" last night.  I have to say I was genuinely riveted by the chain of events that came up.  Nicki said she hopes I keep reading to Henry like that when he's here.  I can't imagine I won't, it's more fun to be excited, anyway.  Storytime is actually really fun, so long as I don't have to sing along with music that comes in the book.  I make my own songs thank you very much.

I'm hoping that Henry is an easy baby on the two of us.  Last night, Nicki's boss and my attending was telling us about how she would make her husband take his turn to feed their babies every other time and that he would try to weasel out of it if he could.  I can't see that I'm going to try and pull any crap like that on Nicki, because, honestly, if he starts to space his feedings out to every 3 hours or so, we could potentially get 6 hours a sleep at a go.  That's not really that bad!  Of course, none of this is relevant until after the first month or so and she starts pumping.  That first several weeks she'll be doing the feedings, and I suspect I'm going to be up with her for a few of those every night.  Plus all the dirty diapers are mine to change then anyway.

I'm also hoping that we can teach Henrimonster a reasonable amount of respect for other people.  I assume this comes by giving him room to grow and try new things and generally respecting his ideas and such as he grows.  This obviously would start when he's actually old enough to comprehend such things, but I don't know.  I just don't want him to actually believe his life is unfair or anything, I would like best if he could appreciate how well he has it, without  constantly nagging him and reminding him about it.  Can't we just start with a mild-mannered 18 year old who's about ready to move out of the house and go to college?  I feel like I'm ready to be that kind of dad.

We went to a friend's baby shower on Saturday in Bloomington that was a lot of fun.  It's always good to see people you don't normally get to hang out with anymore.  This is making us think about our baby showers coming up here.  I'm not really sure what they entail beyond the one (1) I've been to in my life.  Hope we get some nice things we'll need.

So we're about halfway done with vacation week, and I'm still feeling good about the days ahead.  I can't wait until photo shoot day on Saturday with Mr. Kanne.  Hope it doesn't rain on us!

That's enough of my ramblings for one week, signing off,

Daddy