The advantages of having a husband

R to the rescue!

Look at how my belly dwarfs that doorknob. I'm huge!

I need to clean my bathroom mirror...

What follows is a slide show of my failing to take a good picture of my belly in the bathroom mirror.

I suck.

Second ultrasound photos

It's only been, what, two and a half weeks since the ultrasound? I'm calling these semi-timely.

Here we've got the head (over there on the bottom left, for those of you who aren't good at interpreting ultrasound images). I think she might be grabbing her chin and, if so, she totally got that from me.

A lovely spine. These pictures didn't scan quite as clearly as I would have liked (or maybe it is just that the print-outs suck). Her spine really came out well in the ultrasound. Like a string of pearls.

And, yes, there is indeed a human being in there. We've got a couple more photos, but I'm not going to show them to you. One was supposedly a face picture, but really is a cross-section of her scull and looks like a creepy death's head. The other picture is what I might delicately call an upskirt shot, and although some people feel comfortable posting such things on the internet, I am apparently not one of them. We're saving that picture for blackmail purposes.

half asleep = crazy hallucinations

So, in the middle of the night I woke up and saw something on R's bedside table. I told him to look over there, at which point in time he told me to stay in bed and that he would take care of it. He left the room, only to return slightly confused, as he had been heading to the office to check whether it was 1:30 am or 1:30 pm. I suppose it was probably the best reaction I could have hoped for, as I had been pointing out the crab-spider hybrid that had been crouching menacingly next to our alarm clock.

Not patient enough for baking

Well, it might not be the end all and be all of pizza crust recipes (or maybe it is just that I didn't let the dough rise completely), but I definitely made a nice little pizza for dinner last night (and ate it in a timely fashion). Considering the fact that R put in a request for pizza the last time I was up at my mother's house (umm... several years ago), it was high time, and I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner.

Go make some pizza.

I could also jump really high, for some reason

I think I've been spending too much time lurking on Facebook lately, as last night I dreamed I was back in my high school band. All of my old classmates were there.

So long, Betty Crocker

It was the carrot cake that did it.

"What the? This thing doesn't have actual carrots in it. It's got got carrot flavored pieces."
"Really? What are they?"
"Umm... flour, sugar, carrot powder, coloring... other stuff."
"Maybe we should start making our own cakes."
"I doubt it's too hard. We should probably finish the stuff in boxes first, though."
"Of course. We just won't buy any more."

So, there you have it. No more cakes in boxes for me. Tubs of frosting, however, are necessary for the periodic graham cracker and frosting sandwich, so they'll probably stick around.

The fine art of knowing one's audience

I made mustard for Mother's Day. An odd gift, one might think, but it was happily received by my grandmother and step-mom. They like condiments.

After my spices came in the mail (three cheers for cheap bulk spices online), I realized I had enough of each ingredients to double the recipe. As the grainy deli-style mustard recipe was supposed to make a cup and a half, and I was giving gifts of it to two people, I thought that would be a good way to ensure that I had some left over for myself. I'm not entirely sure what happened, as I followed the recipe precisely, but I wound up getting triple the amount of mustard by doubling the recipe. Delicious, yes, but now I've got a ridiculous amount in the fridge. It's a good thing condiments last forever.

Still no pictures

I promise there will be photos in the near future, but apparently I forgot that all the post-ultrasound phone calls I needed to make would take up the entire evening. As for last night... well, REI was having a sale and we needed hammocks. Last time we went camping our friend brought along a couple and they were awesome. They making lounging around the campsite so much more desirable.

Anyway, the ultrasound. We're having a girl! A healthy, very wiggly little girl. Seriously, it looked like she was swimming throughout the scan. After one particularly hearty kick, the sonographer asked if I felt it, at which point in time I finally realized what it feels like when the baby is kicking. Everyone else, my doctor included, seems to think it feels like butterflies, but no. It feels like nothing so much as a tiny foot kicking your innards. All those pangs I thought were muscle twitches? They were actually the baby wailing away at my innards. Now that I know what I'm looking for, it turns out that she kicks a lot. So, as I said, I'm having a very wiggly baby.

Slow and lazy

I could lie, and say the reason I haven't posted is because nothing is going on, but that simply isn't true. I've been thinking about what to post, but I've been very slothful of late and never got any further than that.

The boss lady at my office bought me slippers. Apparently all the other office ladies have them, and she didn't want me to feel excluded. They're really comfortable, and I still can't believe I get to wear them around the office.

My pregnancy definitely seems to be the major source of entertainment for several ladies around the office. They inquire about my health frequently, pregnancy stories are common, and everyone coos over my growing belly. One of the ladies even gave me some parenting books she had lying around the house, which was really nice of her.

R's little sister got engaged. We're all thrilled, since the guy is very nice and we like him. As R was the one on the phone with her, I didn't get to ask what the ring looked like, but I'm totally planning on asking the next time we talk. Other people's relationships can be so exciting.

Belly pictures are on the way, as requested. I go in for an ultrasound on Tuesday, so I will probably post them then, along with any other exciting news that comes out of that appointment. Like, say, the gender of the baby.