Becoming proactive

I finally got my butt in gear the last few days and took care of some stuff that has been sitting around the house for way too long. I mailed Captain Husband a little care package of sorts, and sent a gift to my mom. I also mailed off the box of dvds that's been sitting in the garage since August of 2009. Kind of let that one slip by for a bit there-whoops.

Last night, I hit the interwebs and started my search for a doula and emailed a few in the region to see if they might be willing to take me on as a client. So far, no positive responses, but at least I'm starting the process early enough that I'll hopefully have time to find someone. I also emailed an auction house in Pennsylvania to see if they would be interested in the quilt that I found during our trip to Tucson this past September, and heard back today that yes, they are interested, can I please send it to them ASAP? The estimate they gave me is right around where I was hoping it would be, so I think the quilt will do well. Any profits I make off of the sale will be going towards a new digital camera, so keep your fingers crossed.

I then continued my proactive streak this evening by finding a lamaze class in the area being held a Saturday in May and signed myself and my mom up for it. I might also look into taking some prenatal yoga classes at a yoga studio that I happened to walk past today in Alexandria. I guess this plays into the whole "high energy" reputation the second trimester often gets, so I should probably use it before I lose it in the third trimester, which is just around the corner. When the heck did that happen?

Déjà vu all over again

This is the sight that I woke up to this morning:


By the time that I went downstairs to feed the cats, the visibility had dropped to near white-out conditions and I could feel the house shudder with the wind gusts. This is the view from the patio:

Um, yeah. I'm going back to bed.

The new scanner

While Captain Husband is enjoying his snow days here in Northern Virginia (he was supposed to fly out yesterday...yeah, there was no way that was happening), we decided to go out and buy ourselves a new printer/scanner combo deal. Basically just so I could post this:


DISCLAIMER: I did not draw the arrow pointing out my kid's junk. The helpful technician did that all on her own.

Things I learned today

It turns out that the sore throat I've been sporting since Sunday is indeed strep; the doctor called to confirm the test results and gave me a prescription for penicillin. Well, apparently I am now allergic to penicillin. Surprise! I took one pill and wound up with a painful rash on my hands and forearms within two hours. So when Captain Husband and I went to the hospital today for our ultrasound appointment, we found ourselves making an unscheduled visit the emergency room. Fun! I'm on some new drugs now and feeling much better.

Oh, we also learned that we're having a bouncing baby boy! He was sleepy and very uncooperative at first, but the technician managed to get him to move a bit, and pow, frank and beans all up in our faces. So far all signs point to a healthy baby, but I'll have to go in for another ultrasound in three weeks due to the baby's relative lack of cooperation in the scanning procedure to make sure are of his fingers and toes are in the right places and so on.

All right, time to hunker down and enjoy the snowmageddon. Stay safe everyone!

Place your bets

The Poker Game by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (Courtesy, Sotheby's)

All right everyone, it's time to play guess the sex of the fetus game! Keep your fingers crossed and hope that our kid is an exhibitionist and shows us the goods on Friday when I have my ultrasound. For those of you who take a more scientific approach to these sorts of things, here are a few of the notable symptoms that I've experienced so far:

1. Awesome, incredibly fast-growing hair. I'm like a Chia Pet.
2. I never once threw up during the whole nauseous phase, but I did have substantial food aversions.
3. Super-human sense of smell, even though that has all but disappeared due to congestion and a nose that runs like a faucet.
4. The past month or so my forehead has resembled a topographical map of the Rocky Mountains. Seriously, I never had acne this bad, not even when I was a greasy teenager.
5. Huge, I'm talking painfully huge, boobs.
6. Food cravings that center mostly around wanting sweet things, like frosted poptarts, twinkies and frozen Snickers ice cream bars. Though there was the whole weird thing with Arby's at the beginning where I could not function until I had some roast beef sandwiches, dammit.

So there you have it. For those of you less scientific, feel free to flip a coin or ask your local cashier, whatever works for you. Just be sure to leave your prognostication in the comments. The winner gets, um, hmmm. Well, the winner gets the satisfaction of knowing the contents of my uterus better than myself, because I seriously have no clue. So get to it!