A day (or two or three) in the life of...

 = Dinner = Dessert After prenatal yoga last night, I was starving and all I wanted was fruit. So I cut up a pineapple and ate it. All of it. In one sitting. It was deelish. Dessert was a bowl of strawberries. I wanted fruit badly and was terribly satisfied with my gluttony of sweet fruit. Yum. Only thing is, after eating a whole pineapple, the acid in that bad boy leaves your mouth feeling like someone scraped the insides with sand paper. So no indulgence is completely safe? Bah! On a different note, we've been stressing a bit this week on a financial front but we kept trying to comfort one another by just saying that everything will get taken care of.  We've been pretty freaking blessed in the past few years (even with the job situation being a poop bomb at times) and we've never been completely left out to dry so we knew it'd be ok.  We got news today that things would in fact be ok. After I got this news, I hopped in my car to head out to work and...

Someone is clearly taking a jackhammer to my lady bits while I sleep (before you even suggest it, no, that's not why...) because I wake up feeling like, well, like someone took a jackhammer down there. Thank you increased blood flow! I'm ready to find out if this lil Joonbug is a boy or a girl. I went shopping around this past weekend with my Mom and as we were walking by the lil baby girl section, the cuteness completely slapped me around. The lil girly clothes are so freaking cute! I feel like I need to focus my energy on something else so that I don't focus on the huge question and I need to stop looking down at my belly, asking Joonbug if she's a girl or a boy. If I were to take a wild guess though, I would say girl. Cowboy's intuition tells him Joonbug's a boy though. So... We should just start a poll. I'll come up with a site to start an informal one, or at least start tracking on here a constant list of who's voting on the gender. Maybe it can ...

  "Dear Claudia, Thank you for registering for the 36th Marine Corps Marathon held on October 30, 2011." It is done. I am officially registered to run the Marine Corps Marathon on October 30th... of this year. I'm excited, scared, motivated and curious about how this will go. Cowboy has told me he thinks I'm a lil nutty for going so gung ho on this right after having Joonbug fly out o' me uterus but he's also supportive and knows that I can do it. I'd try to convince him to run it with me but 1)he'd laugh and 2)he's going to need to watch sweet Joonbug while I crush my goals. We're talking a solid 5 hour run here (hopefully less but my goal is just to finish, then I'll work on lowering my time for future races) and I don't think Joonbug will want to just sit in a stroller in the middle of that large crowd waiting for both her 'rents to come through the finish line. Though it would help encourage independence... Here's a p...

My pulse feels like a Bose system booming in my body. I totally feel like I'm standing next to this uber powerful bass speaker that's rocking my world. If I sit still, I hear and feel the 'boom boom' caused by my womb womb. It's not all the time but most of the time. My pulse is like this powerful booming system. Am I rambling? I think so. I'll stop. boom. Today, Joonbug and I enter the 3rd trimester! Huzzah! A lot of the magic has already happened and now she's just building up some chub under her skin, developing her brain even further (because she's clearly going to be wicked smaht) and keeping on growing till she's ready to join us in this world and likely laugh louder than even her Mom. (that's me, see, I'm her Mom. I'm a Mom to a real person, aside from just my furry babies! Holy reality check!) Yesterday, our bucking bronco (aka, Joonbug) was moving around like mad! Cowboy had his hand on my belly and he felt her buck hard and ...

So, I had a big 'woe is me and mah belly' moment this weekend. It appears that too much joking about my having a big 'ol belly got to me finally and I suddenly thought I saw myself through everyone else's eyes (as fat) and all my old body issues came flooding back. It was a combination of snide remarks (from Cowboy's bff who's a good guy, just um, blunt) over a span of a few days, seeing myself on video (we got a new pocket video recorder! more deets below) and conversation at dinner w/friends as well as Cowboy's bff being shocked that I gained so much so far (still at 20 lbs) because according to his wife, the average weight gain total was between 15-25 lbs (mind you, this is the average recommended weight gain for those who started off overweight) so I understood it (or rather, my sensitivities took it as) as he was calling me a big fatty. So, I cried to Cowboy and mostly was upset because this is the one time in my life where I don't want to have body...

So I got the call back from the Dr's office that everything looked normal in my Glucose Tolerance Test (which checks to see if you are in risk of having Gestational Diabetes). Sweet! I totally was paranoid that I'd at least have to get called in for the 3-hour advanced GTT, which would make me feel like I'm breaking my baby, but at least I'd have that sweet flat orange fanta drink to drown my sorrows in.  Only thing is I'm a lil low on my hemoglobin and hematocrit which signals that I'm mildly anemic. No biggie. I'll just take some supplements to make me stronger. ((flex)) After I had that flat orange soda drink, Dr. went to take JB's heartrate and all we heard was his heart beat going strong and him smashing into any surface he could find in my uterus. Apparently he thought his womb was a mosh pit?  Only thing that I did not love about my Dr.'s visit is that I put on 6 whole lbs in a month. BAH! Joonbug, is that all you? I'm thinking Joonb...

Today is my 27 week check up.  I wasn't too concerned about this check up until last night and how did I deal w/the anxiety? eating cookies. lots and lots of cookies. Ok, 5 of them but they were rich and sugary and I woke up at 2AM with HORRIBLE acid reflux. I wanted to cry from the dicomfort. blech. I did not cry though... I am a tough girl. I only cry when my feelings are slightly injured (all the time). I'm surprised by my tolerance of most discomfort so far actually, especially for as wimpy as I *thought* I was with pain. That still doesn't mean that I'm going to even fathom how to deliver this baby w/out some good drugs. So, today is my Glucose Tolerance Test which is to screen me for Gestational Diabetes. I have this sinking feeling that I'm going to fail, even though I don't really meet the usual criteria for those who would fail. I just eat lots of sweets so my brain says "bad girl, too many sweets, you fail test, you go on diet now". Plus, ...

So, I'll start off by saying, Cowboy is awesome and he really pulled a fast one on me.  I love him long time. Saturday was the planned Girly Day w/me ladies (Buggie, Mish and Harms). The plan was to get together at Harms' for chatting and then playing on her Xbox Kinect system. Well, that was supposed to happen around 2ish. So, Saturday morning, I'm on my way to prenatal yoga and Harms calls to see if I can get together earlier. Eh, sure, why not? After pre-natal yoga, I'm sitting on my laptop at home and Cowboy starts urging me "Aren't you going to shower and head out?". Odd, because usually, he's more of a sucka for me staying w/him longer and spending time together. It goes w/out saying that I had a great time w/my girlies. Many laughs which led me running to the bathroom repeatedly, talking for hours and love festing. Though, when I kept trying to leave to go back home, I was given a hard time so I kept staying just a bit longer. Finally I brea...

I was telling Cowboy that I don't like a lot of the maternity clothes that are out there because it just feels like it looks like tents to disguise the growing belly. I'd much rather wear a fitted shirt and show this belly off. I went through a LOT to get this belly so I'm really not trying to hide it. (I'm also not exactly soliciting cold stares at it either but I suppose if it's out there, it's free game, huh?) So in talking about this, I was using this button up work blouse that I have as an example and was telling him that it just went out and made me look bigger than I really am. He disagreed and said it looked great and that it didn't really make me look bigger. He was right. It made me look as big as I am at 26 weeks.  Perception is an interesting thing. Joonbug is now 26 weeks along cooking in my oven! Grow baby, grow! How your baby's growing: The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. H...

So, Cowboy and I have been talking about what we want to do more with our free time, before Joonbug gets here, so that we can get into habits of following through w/our own hobbies and self growth (that sounds like a weird phrase to me, must look it up to be sure it's a real one... ) and keep what we can in place when we're active parents. Basically, the hope is to not completely lose ourselves. I've seen people lose their identity when they become new parents and I can see how/why it happens and know it takes more effort to consciously TRY to not do that. I'm sure many new parents will roll their eyes hard at my idealism but take it for what it's worth. Cowboy wants to play the guitar more (he hasn't really picked it back up in a couple of months) and work on learning more Spanish as well. I'd like him to pick up the guitar more. Heck, I *love* listening to him strumming and while I'm at it, I'd like to make a request. If it's not too much to ...

People stare at my belly... lots. You know when you walk past people in stores or whatever and usually you catch eye contact? Yeah, they go straight for my belly. Some are adorable and smile at me w/that dreamy 'aww baby' look in their eyes, others just stare and look cold. I was in a meeting w/a govt customer and the man who was the PM on their end was talking to my belly lots, instead of my eyes. Just... odd. (image that represents belly staring was just too good not to share. kitty a$$hole on his belly button... Klassy) So, on a fun note, MIKEY'S  HERE! Weeeee! When Grasshopper (ex) and I split up the first time, back in 2000, I got to keep Mikey out of our split. I let Grasshopper take some furniture and he let me keep his friend. He's been one of my dearest friends for about 11/12 years now. He's one of the few people that I've been able to room with and be totally comfortable (because we both have antisocial tendencies to need our severe space and when...

I'm updating our registry and trying to find reasonably priced crib bedding sets but the prices just seem ridiculous to me! I mean, I won't even pay over $100 for our king sized bed's comforter sets so why expect someone to buy us something off our registry that I can't see myself paying for? I need to just search around online for some reasonably priced bedding so that none of my friends'/family's or our money goes to the big box stores' (buy buy baby/ babies r us) pockets. Times like these, I wish I sewed. I could make something myself and not succumb to this BS pricing scam. I felt guilty about having a pop tart today so I went up and down 3 flights of stairs at my office a few times, till I was panting and my face was glowing a nice shade of magenta.  I just want to crave healthy foods again, damnit! I dream of sugar, all the time... At least the rest of my meals/snacks have been healthy today *and* I went to the gym tonight and hopped on the elliptica...