Sunny Saturday

On weekends when Devin and I don't leave the state I usually end up working at least one day during the weekend, and this weekend that day was Sunday, which meant Saturday was wide open for excursions and adventures!

I started the day by watching the newest episode of Pioneer Woman, who I am deeply and unabashedly in love with. I'm not sure if it's her red hair, her sweet demeanor, or all the amazing food she cooks but I am hooked on Ree Drummond. While we watched her whip up a fabulous dessert panini Devin kept saying "That's SO much butter!" Yes sir. Yes it is. She is not afraid of butter and does not apologize for decadent things like a dessert panini filled with marshmallow fluff, strawberries, and nutella - more reasons to love her pioneer ways!

I then did one of my workout tapes which made me feel only slightly better about our first stop of the day: A Mexican lunch buffet! Devin and I both LOVE Mexican food and when we saw that a restaurant a few towns over has a lunch buffet on the weekends we knew we had to try it out. It was definitely tasty and we both concluded we would go back again. It actually reminded me a lot of our wedding meal (which if you weren't aware was a fajita bar because that is how much we love Mexican food) - they had beef and chicken to make fajitas, rice and beans, shredded chicken, guacamole, queso dip,  AND chicken nuggets...presumably for children but one might have made its way onto my plate.

Then it was off to Babies R Us. I had a few strollers I wanted to look at and thought it would be fun to peruse the baby gear to start narrowing down what we want to get for our little nugget. Nothing will make you feel more like a first time parent than walking into Babies R Us. We are champions of shopping for onesies, and my doctors appointments have been smooth sailing (Yup baby is still located in your uterus and still getting bigger). But the baby store is a whole new ballgame. Devin and I fumbled over latches, buckles, buttons, levers, snaps, and belts trying to figure out how all this stuff is supposed to work. Luckily, I had watched a few videos on the specific strollers we wanted to try out so looking at those went a little smoother...but seriously just a little. I definitely got the car seat jammed into the stroller with no hope of getting it out leaving my husband to struggle with the contraption for a few minutes before he could finally yank it free.

Yeah. We need a little practice.

Next up was highchairs which was the biggest debacle of the day. There were like a million buttons and as we pressed each one it never seemed to do what we expected. The seat was sliding up and down (it goes so low, why does it need to go so low? Are you feeding your baby while sitting cross legged on the floor??) and we couldn't figure out how to fold it up while also folding up the tray. So yeah. If you want to know what pre-parenthood looks like you can imagine 2 grown (fairly well educated) adults investigating a high chair like it was dropped from the sky from another planet. Is this even a button? No that's just a screw. High chairs: 1 Cosmes: 0.

The other problem is there are a million options for any item you want to purchase. And if you ask for advice one person will tell you that this swing is all their baby used and it was a complete life saver, while the next mommy will inform you that that same swing was a complete waste of money and never got used by baby once (the same thing happens if you venture into the review sections on any internet site selling baby items). This reminds me a lot of when I did speech and in the same round one judge would say your introduction was beautiful and moving and perfection and another judge sitting one foot away from them would say they did not understand the point of your introduction at all and would suggest a full rewrite. Aye gee. So the point is we have no idea what baby will like because baby is the size of an apple who just got the ability to hear muffled sounds this week. (Hellllloooooo baby! Can you hear my growling tummy??) Thus I am taking a deep breath and taking a guess, looking for deals, and accepting the fact that we are going to figure these things out in due time. And we will figure them out quickly, because babies come with a pretty fast learning curve. If our stroller is complete crap, we will learn, and next time around we will laugh about that shitty stroller we bought for our baby number 1 and tell baby number 2 how grateful they should be that we have (some) things figured out.

Laughing. As we try to navigate this new strange world with bottles and nipples (there are so many different nipples), and strollers, and bouncers, and swings, and swaddlers, and humidifiers, and pumps, we are going to try and laugh as much we can and remember that with a little laughter and a lot of love our baby will probably forgive us for not having their preferred swing immediately upon entering this world.

After a trip through baby gear land we needed a little pick me up and stopped for Froyo which is the perfect thing for any Saturday afternoon. Also, they had jelly beans in honor of Easter and I am a jelly bean-aholic so it was a great surprise! We spent some time just relaxing at home before deciding we needed dinner of some kind. We initially planned to do a nice pasta dinner, but on our way to the check out Devin spotted tater tots...so we abandoned everything in our arms for a bag of frozen potatoes and chicken tenders (don't worry antibiotic free!). Hey we don't need to set a good example yet. Then we came home and warmed up our frozen feast, brought the mattress out into the living room, and had a splendid evening lying on the living room floor watching Mockingjay (which was not as good as I expected - bummer).

I have to admit having a wonderful Saturday always makes coming into work on Sunday a little easier. A little.

Meet Our Fetus....aka the most expensive honeymoon souvenir of all time

Oh my goodness, I can’t believe our little secret is finally out in the open! If you know me, you are aware that I am the worst secret keeper of all time so the fact that I have been keeping this secret for 10 weeks now is insanity. I know I have been light on blog content lately but to be honest the most pressing thing on my mind is this growing little person that we can’t wait to meet, thus I have been patiently waiting to tell the world and let you in on all the details. In my limited experience so far, I have found the first thing that happens when you tell someone you are growing a human is a string of totally understandable and reasonable questions. So here are some answers to the top 10 questions we have been asked. (Also I've peppered pictures of our little nugget throughout this post because we are already over the moon with them. They have a head! And arms! AND FINGERS! All great news in our book.)

Are you excited?

So Excited! And so terrified. And somewhere in-between thinking the next 6 months can’t pass fast enough and hoping these 6 months drag on forever so we have enough time to prepare for the little life we are about to be in charge of.

When are you due?

September 14. Though I am perpetually late, so if the baby takes after me we shouldn’t see it until October. Devin is religiously on time though, so really all of September is up for grabs.

(Here is baby just chilling in the womb. The ultrasound tech needed to take a specific measurement so she kept shaking my tummy to get baby to turn over so I got to see him/her doing all kinds of flips and turns. Impressive for someone the size of a peach.)

Are you going to find out if it is a girl or a boy?

100% for sure because even though I like surprises we need some time to narrow down names and figure out what section of the consignment store to start shopping from. You can only find so many gender neutral onsies on sale for 99 cents, and I don’t think a little girl wants to wear a shirt that says “Mommy’s little guy”.

Are you going to share the name before they are born?

We plan to keep this a secret until they actually show up because we have to have something to surprise y’all with.

Was this baby a surprise?

Aren’t all babies kind of a surprise? No matter how much you plan you never know how long you will be in “trying” phase. We did in fact plan for this baby and had known for about a year we would start trying in December (post wedding but not pre-honeymoon because I wanted to have ALL the drinks on our West Coast adventure) but we had no idea  baby would be so eager to join us! I suppose our little nugget just couldn’t wait to join our family.

(See I told you it has a head and a little nose. As Devin said "Dang, that's a good looking baby.")

How did you find out?

I had read so many things where women said they “just knew”, so when I had inkling I wasn’t sure if I was being crazy or if there was in fact some serious cell division occurring in my uterus. I googled pregnancy symptoms over and over again wondering if it was possible for them to show up only 3 weeks in (it is) and kept checking my boobs to see if they were more sore than normal, less sore, the same amount of sore…should boobs ever be sore? So because I am impatient, I took a string of tests at points when there wasn’t even a chance I could get a positive because it was WAY too soon. Then the day after New Year’s when Devin left for work I took a test thinking there was a chance it could be positive but assuming it was still probably too soon (I was still 3 days away from my monthly nemesis arriving) and then there it was! A faint but distinct pink line. So I cried and stared at it, and took a picture so I could stare at it during the day and remind myself this was really happening. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a false positive before I let Devin know, so during lunchtime I went to CVS and bought two more tests and took one in the store bathroom. Another positive. I then decided to plan a fun way to let the Daddy-to-be know we were in business. However, at around 2:30 he called me to say he was on his way home. Since he normally wouldn’t have been home till 6:00 I found this odd, and he quickly told me he had been laid off. Yeepers. I revised my plan and decided I would start with cupcakes. Once we got home I handed him a bag and said “Here I got you something since you had such a bad day.” He took out the cupcakes much to his delight and then noticed there was another box in the bag. When he opened it there was a note on the lid of the box that said This is good for one pizza of your choosing, but save some for Cate…she’s eating for 2! And hidden beneath a napkin in the box were the two positive pregnancy tests I had taken that day. Needless to say he was pretty excited and then we ordered a pizza because how else do you celebrate such exciting news?

Are you planning to have a natural birth?

We are planning to avoid all medical interventions and have hired a doula to help us achieve that goal, but we are also realistic in our expectations and understand that a birth plan is just a plan and we may need to deviate from our exact expectations on game day.

(Here is a tiny arm that just kills me with how cute it is. Ahh I can't wait to cover that chubby little arms with kisses.)

Have you been terribly sick?

No vomit here! I did have some pretty intense nausea and tummy trouble but no tossing of cookies and now that I’m sliding into the second trimester things are going wonderfully. Baby and I are certainly off to a great start.

Have you already started buying adorable baby clothes?

I finally broke down this weekend, and purchased a few onesies at a local thrift shop because they were SO cheap and I figure if we pick up things little by little we won’t have to stress about it too much later. Also I say “broke down” not because it is something I don’t want to do but because once I open Pandora’s box of baby clothes I’m afraid there is no going back, if I’m not careful I will be drowning in sweet tiny sweat pants, adorable hats for tiny noggins, and itty bitty Toms for a human who doesn’t even walk.

More than clothes though, we have started buying books a plenty because I want baby’s library to be stacked! One of the things I am most looking forward to is story time with baby, so hopefully they find my selections acceptable and enjoyable.

How did you tell your parents?

We definitely had the most fun telling them – partly because it is their first time becoming grandparents and they were also the very first people we got to tell. Since my dad’s birthday and parents’ anniversary was right around the corner we told them we got them some presents. My mom’s was a little onesie that said “Grandma keeps me looking cute” and it had a note that said “I hear you love shopping! I can’t wait to see what you pick out for me to wear when I arrive in September.” My dad’s was a book called I already know I love you and it had a note that said “I hear you love reading. Would you read this to me when I arrive in September?” My mom figured it out first because she is inspector gadget but my Dad wasn’t far behind and then there were hugs and tears (from everyone involved) and SO MUCH excitement followed by a delicious dinner with no alcohol for Cate. 

(Baby gave me a little high 5 with their tiny hand. Back at you baby.)