Where do you fit in?

Awesome Venn diagram courtesy the Great White Snark. I think I might have to change my profile description from History Dork to History Nerd as it appears to be the most accurate.

Pimp my ride

After poking around the interwebs and making note of the various strollers that I saw out and about in Old Town and taking in some reviews from actual moms, I decided on a stroller that will hopefully be the answer to all of my infant-transportation needs requiring wheels. This is the Phil and Teds Sport Stroller, which is pretty cool in that it converts from a single infant/toddler stroller to a inline double stroller with the simple addition of a seat to either the front or the back. Since Captain Husband and I plan on adding to our brood some time in the future, this doubles feature seemed to make a lot of sense. So I started cruising Ebay and Craigslist in the hopes of finding a good deal (because dude, these things are way expensive new), and lucked out on Sunday; a gently used 2008 sport model was available with the doubles kit included! I made an appointment to go see it and was convinced by the family's assertions that this stroller is, in fact, the only one I'll need, since it's compatible with the infant car seat I plan to use, easily transportable, and can be used a jogging stroller. I was sold (or rather my mom was as this is her "grandmother" gift to us) and am now the proud owner of the model shown above (I think CH will get a kick out of the camo).

I had some Amazon gift certificates burning a hole in my pocket, so I thought I would check out some of the accessories available for the stroller; I wound up getting a water bottle holder attachment, a stroller bag thingy (so hopefully I won't need a diaper bag), and a little something called the Lazy Ted (cute baby not included):

While it may not look like much, this frame converts the extra seat into an infant bouncer & toddler seat. Which means if I'm actually using the extra seat as a bouncer, the chances of me misplacing it before I have a second kid and need it decrease by at least tenfold. Making use of stuff I already have lying around=awesome!

How sweet it is

I took Monday off from work this week so that I could spend the entire day at Belvoir making various appointments and such. First on my list of things to do was the dreaded one-hour glucose tolerance test, which would determine if I needed additional screening for gestational diabetes. I showed up at the lab, book in hand, and prepared to chug down the small bottle of orange liquid the tech handed to me. At first, I didn't really think much of the taste and actually said to myself, "I don't see what's so terrible about this stuff, really." But by the time I reached the bottom of the bottle, my tune had changed. It was like drinking Tang on crack, or how I imagine humming bird syrup would taste if someone dumped in a packet of orange kool-aid and some Gatorade to boot. Blech. Thankfully I was allowed to drink all of the water that I wanted while I waited for the hour to pass. The baby, on the other hand, appeared to love the stuff if his hyperactive calisthenics about my rib cage can be taken as an affirmative response. After I got my blood drawn, I was off to the human resources building to get my new active duty military ID; I somehow managed to lose my old one during a previous visit to the hospital and had been getting by with my old guard ID.

After only getting slightly lost on the post, I managed to find the place and lucked into the last remaining parking spot...only when I tried to exit the car did I realize why the spot was vacant in the first place--I was parked in about 6 inches of standing water. I leaned over to the passenger side and noticed that there was only about an inch and a half on that side. I then managed to contort my rather unwieldy self into a series of positions that enabled me to go from the driver's seat to the passenger's seat and out into the lesser of the two puddles; thank goodness no one was watching my impromptu pregnant lady yoga session. Amazingly enough there was absolutely no wait at all at the ID place and I went right in for my new photo. Let me say just this: the ID people at Belvoir make the photographers at the DMV look like professionals moonlighting from Olan Mills. Fortunately for me, my new ID picture turned out to be slightly less horrifying than the one that I had lost, so it could have been worse.

Because I was in and out of the ID place in record time, I had about an hour to kill before my afternoon appointment with my doctor, so I headed over to the string of stores on the South Post and decided to get a pedicure at Royspa. I had never been there before, but I left feeling very relaxed and pampered and have every intention of returning. Girls' day out, anyone?

Before the polish on my toes had time to dry, I had to dash over to the hospital for my appointment with Dr. Brown, who was waiting to give me the results of my glucose tolerance test. I had passed without any problem! I was really, really happy about the test results; of all of the things one could worry about while pregnant, developing gestational diabetes was pretty much the only one that had concerned me. With that out of the way, Dr. Brown and I went over my tentative birth plan, discussed the pros and cons of circumcision (now there's a conversation one doesn't have every day), and had a generally all-around good time (this was probably due to me being super hyped up off of the glucose mix from earlier that day).

For those of you keeping track of these things, today I officially enter the third trimester. Seems like it was only yesterday that I was giving Captain Husband the news and alternating between being really happy and freaking out.

The Big Easy

This past weekend found me in lovely New Orleans for my friend's daughter's wedding. Apparently I got out of Northern Virginia just in time to avoid the nasty wet weather, and fortunately it didn't appear to follow me as the weather in New Orleans was about as close to spring perfection as it could get; clear, sunny skies and highs in the 70s. I booked a room in the Melrose Mansion, an 1850s townhouse that had recently been converted into a bed and breakfast right on the edge of the French Quarter; here's a glimpse of my room, which was way too big for just one person (too bad Captain Husband couldn't slip away from his school work for the weekend):

Not shown is the bedroom portion, which also had a fireplace and a huge, iron tester bedstead that was so high off of the ground that my pregnant self had significant difficulties getting in and out of the darn thing--I was this close to asking for a step-stool of some kind.

Friday evening was the rehearsal dinner, and all of the out-of-town guests were invited to attend; the bride and groom are big-time foodies, and their traditional crawfish bake did not disappoint. Ann taught me how to shuck the crawfish, but I abstained from sucking the heads as the locals supposedly do. The wedding was held Saturday evening at the Peristyle in City Park, a gorgeous neoclassical style dancing pavilion built in 1907. The reception that followed was held in a tent across the way that had been decorated to represent the wilds of Louisiana after a rain fall; in short, absolutely breathtaking. I admit that I was remiss in my photography duties, but I have a good excuse: all of the fabulous food at the reception proved to be too rich for the baby's liking, and I wound up being shuttled home at a very unfashionably early hour so that I could spend the rest of the night sick in the comfort of my hotel room. This kid's got no class, I tell ya.

By Sunday afternoon I had recovered enough to attend one last wedding-related event over at the father of the bride's stunning antebellum home on St. Charles Avenue and then it was off to prepare for the very early flight the next morning back to dreary, overcast Virginia, where all sorts of chores and errands awaited me, like getting gifts for Julianne's baby shower this weekend and picking up a new vacuum cleaner after I had killed the old one with an ill-advised cleaning whirlwind that involved vacuuming all three flights of stairs in the house. I know this is going to sound super lame, but my new vacuum cleaner ROCKS. This is what my life has come to now; getting way too excited over household cleaning products.

Baby booty

In my continued efforts to be somewhat proactive about this whole baby business, I've been doing a lot of shopping lately. It also helps that I have no desire to go home to an empty house most days, and that there are a few discount stores that I pass on my way home, so let's just consider it killing two birds with one stone and leave it at that. I don't think I've gone too crazy, considering I've purchased 50% of the stuff from local thrift stores, and the other half has come from Marshalls or T. J. Maxx. My mom has been getting in on the action, too, as a devoted thrift store shopper, so it's always fun to see what finds she turns up; my favorite so far is the Steelers onesie that I totally plan on making the baby wear on our trip home from the hospital. Western Pennsylvania, represent!

One thing that has really made itself quite clear is just how gender-divided everything baby-related is from the moment your kid exits your uterus. I get that some people have certain expectations of what a little boy versus a little girl should look like in terms of dress, but how hard would it be to mix things up a bit? About 90% of every boy's outfit that I've picked up has some variation of the following emblazoned upon it; A. Trucks/cars of some sort, B. Dogs/puppies, or C. Some pithy little phrase about being "Daddy's little blank (i.e. helper, slugger, sports star)." And the girls' stuff is no better; it's like the only career aspirations they are expected to have, at least in terms of what their clothing proclaims, is pretty, pretty princess. Ugh. Seriously? So far, I've been favoring things with dinosaurs and bugs on them (which are things I loved when I was a little girl), but I'm beginning to run out of options.

In other news, I have half-heartedly started a baby registry at amazon.com. The whole asking people for gifts thing makes me a bit uncomfortable, but I know that it's hard to resist wanting to buy cute baby stuff. I mean, just look at the pile of stuff on the bed.