23 weeks - 161 days

Mango Mansion - enough said

I don't know why but I have had blogger's block this week.  Posting pictures of the nursery is easy since I don't have to say much, but this weekly blog has been plaguing me.  What do I update you with?  What's been going on with me?  With baby?  I guess it's getting harder because nothing weird has been happening to my body like it was in the beginning.  Also, there isn't much new information to put out there other than the fact that she's still in there growing.  Well, time is not going to stand still for me so I may as well just get down to it.

Time Left: 17 weeks (15.5 if I manage to 'eek out a 11/11/11 birthday)

Baby's Name: She's still nameless.  I am happy to say that we've narrowed our name list down from 8 to 4.

Size of Baby: I swear I have posted the mango before but apparently she is the size of a large mango.  More than 11 inches long and weighing in at over a pound.  Do mangoes weigh over a pound?  Hmmm... I love mangoes.  I went there once in college with a fake ID.  That was the one and only time I was brave enough to use one.  I'm such a goodie-goodie.  Our apartment in college was also named the Mango Mansion. Week 23 must have good things in store for me!

Total Weight Gain: I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow.  Unfortunately, I'm going to guess that I've gained around 16-18lbs.  I'll post tomorrow with the actual number.  Good news is that it's all in my boob/belly region as far as I can tell.  If I'm gaining weight anywhere else no one is telling me. 
7/27/11:  I was right about the weight gain.  I am up 18lbs.  Starting weight 140, current weight 158.  At first I was a little worried, but then I did the math.  If I were to gain a pound a week until week 40 that would put me at a 35lb. weight gain, which is what they told me to expect.  Since I'm working out and have been doing a better job at watching the junk intake, I think it'll be fine.  I did find out that my scale at home reads about 2 lbs. heavier than the doctor's scale.  I'll use their numbers :)

Movement:  I have been able to feel her a lot more since about Friday.  Before then I'd really only notice her at nighttime.  Now, it can be at any point of the day.  It just depends.  What's weird is that I'm now able to feel her in more than one place at the same time, which means she must be stretching out.  I still swear that I can feel her from the outside, but every time I try to get Bryan to feel her he either can't or she stops moving.  Last night while I was in bed watching TV I saw my belly  jump when she moved.  Pretty cool.  At first her movements would throw me off guard.  I must be getting used to them now because it doesn't surprise me much.  She must have been equally excited to go road tripping with the girls this weekend because she was moving around a lot.

Sleeping:  Still getting up to pee at least twice every night.  This week I have noticed that it's been hard getting to sleep or staying asleep because my legs are restless.  I feel like I have to move around or stretch them.  It's really irritating because I feel like I'm bouncing and flailing around in bed as I try to go to sleep.  Oddly enough I only notice that I have trouble breathing when I'm sitting in a reclined position.  When I'm laying down it's not a big deal.  What does suck is that I have to sleep on my side.  If I lay on one side too long it completely falls asleep.  Fun.  So to recap: getting up to pee, can't fall asleep because of my jittery legs, and have to flip sides.

Favorite Foods:

• Watermelon (duh)
• Chips and Queso (thanks RH -- grrr)
• Bread (bagels and toast)
• Ice cream

Sounds really healthy huh?  Ugh.  Kills me but tastes so good.  The only "good" thing on my list is the watermelon.  To set your mind at ease, I only have one of the other things a day.  Today I've already had my chips and queso.  No more badness for me until tomorrow.

On the healthy side, I've managed to force myself back into some sort of normal workout routine.  Yesterday was day one.  I pretty much forced myself to go to the gym to do the cross-trainer for 35 minutes.  Doing the actual exercising isn't the problem, it's getting my butt down there.  Today was SUPPOSED to be my 5am kettlebell class (fave!).  Too bad my stupid self set the alarm for 5:50am instead of 4:50am.  Slept through it.  I'm trying not to mentally sabotage myself here.  I'm going to go later to lift weights I swear!  I hate lifting weights by the way.  So boring!!  Hopefully there's some group class I can check out.  I just looked.  I can choose from: body pump, spin, or body jam.  I have been wanting to try body jam, which I have heard resembled hip-hop dancing, but every time I've tried a dancing class (cough, cough Zumba) I have completely sucked it up.  Whatever.  I'll either jump into one of those classes or just hit the weight circuit.

11 weeks (for perspective)

My favorite part of this week has been watching Bryan watch me.  Sounds weird, huh?  Let me try to explain.  He is basically fascinated by what is happening with my body.  Yes, the boob growth but also my belly is becoming more noticeable in my everyday clothes.  Sometimes I'll just catch him looking at it.  He's also been putting his hand on my belly more often.  It doesn't irritate me at all.  I think it's really cute because he'll just come out of no where with it.  He also says cute stuff like, "The baby's in there."  Hehe.  Love it.  That is all I will share about our cutsey interactions.  Not everything needs to be blogged about :)

23 weeks

Lastly, I have to talk about my furbabies.  Specifically I want to talk about Kale (aka Fatticus Maximus).  He has been spending a whole lot more time in the baby's room lately, which is a room that he use to completely stay out of.  I don't know if he's in there because the room's now virtually empty or if he knows about the baby.  Dogs know things, you know.  Of course now that I've written down that he's always in there he saunters into the back bedroom to flop his fatness onto the guest bed.  Stop trying to contradict me dog!

Oh Lord.  I thought I was finished with this week's blog and that the only thing I needed to add was my weekly photo once Bryan got home, but I was wrong.  I went online to check out the daily posts and came across a silly one that I have to shit about.   What I came across was a thread posted by someone else who is due the same day as me and therefore is entering their 23rd week.  The question was, "Am I still in my 5th month or my 6th?"  As far as I'm concerned I am 5 3/4 months pregnant right now.  I am using 4 weeks to equal one month.  It's easy to calculate and just makes the best sense.  She, and many others online, are now saying that they are in their 6th month.  How?  You're telling me that month 5 only had three weeks in it?  I seriously doubt it.  I wonder if these are ladies who plan on inducing at 37-38 weeks and think that since they'll give birth before 40 weeks that they are further along.  I don't see how this has turned into such a debate online, which it has.  I just stay quiet online because all of the silly, sensitive women get offended too easily.  They probably would not like my blog since this is where I get to vent out about some of the stupidity that I read.  That 5th or 6th month question was not the doozy of the week.  Typing about it made me remember something ridiculous that I read earlier though.  A lady came on and posted that she ate a handful of jellybeans, feels her baby moving around shortly after, and is now afraid that she "hurt" the baby by eating some jelly beans.  WHAT!?  Are you serious?  These are people that should be required to get a license or at least read a book before getting pregnant.  If a few jelly beans hurt the baby then mine is going to come out a 7-8 lb. gummy bear {sigh}.  Educate yourselves people!  Either that or ask your doctor stupid questions like that.  Don't get mad when the general public slams your idiotic posts.

And just like that I'm back!  Blogger's block is gone!  Sorry for the first part being a little on the vanilla side.  Hopefully the stupid people rambling made up for it.

Ok. Last thing I swear.  I have also decided that I need to start putting myself into cleaning routines.  This Sunday clean-a-thon isn't going to cut it once there's a baby around.  First "chore" I chose to tackle was the dishes.  They pile up but they only take about 5 minutes to do in the first place.  My strategy: keep the sink clear at all times by putting dishes directly in the dishwasher after they've been used.  Once the dishwasher is full I run it at night and then empty in the morning before work.  So far I've been successful for a full week!  It's all about breaking bad habits.

 I wasn't super stoked about posting these, but I wanted to take them so here they are.  Bare belly.