New York New York

Amanda beat me to blogging our trip, and did such a great job summarizing that I'm afraid I can't add much to it!  So here are some of my favorite photos with brief explanations.  See Amanda's blog and the flickr accounts for me, Ben, and Jenn for more travel bits. 

Beautiful produce and crafts at the Union Square Farmer's Market.  I got some art prints for the nursery from this artist. 

Second breakfast was at Le Pain Quotidien.  Loved their bread and spreads. 

Third breakfast was hot cocoa from Chocolate by the Bald Man.  Next time I'm in NY I'll have to stop here for dessert.  The waffles and fondue looked really good. 

The Tim Burton exhibit at MOMA was fun, but I think I enjoyed seeing the other classics even more.  And the benches.  I was a big fan of the benches. 

I'm glad we made it to a deli.  I had a rueben in the hospital cafeteria yesterday because I can't get this sandwich out of my head.  I love pastrami and cole slaw!  Ben attacked a true NY cheesecake and declared it delicious.

Bebe Neurwirth made this show for me.  No one can do isolations like that girl.

Ben and I skipped the second museum in favor of extra sleep the next day.  We leisurely got up and walked to Rockefeller Plaza.  They had Easter lilies and gorgeous azalea trees.

Mavi and Jeff met us at Jing Fong in Chinatown for dim sum lunch.  By the way, I have no idea why I look so grumpy in most of my pictures.  Maybe because my mouth was always full?  I seriously had a great time during the whole trip.  I apologize to my family if I looked like a grumpy toad the whole time. 

After dim sum we shopped around SoHo and got our second round of Pinkberry.  I picked up some beautiful yarn to add to my basket of beautiful yarns with no purpose yet.  Then we had a fancy-pants dinner at BLT Fish.  This restaurant tried their hardest to make me dislike them, but I wouldn't let them.  First, many of you know I hate seafood.  Yes, all seafood.  Yes, I have tried "this is the best though, it doesn't even taste fishy" many times as my fellow diners entice me to try again.  I still hate it.  So I ordered the only non-fish item on the menu, filet mignon.  Normally this is no biggie-except for the whole rare meats are bad when you're pregnant thing.  I had them cook it as much as possible without ruining it and they did a perfect job.  It was still delicious.  Everyone else seemed enchanted with their fish entrees.  Ben got to make up for all the fish-less meals he endures at home. 

After Lend Me a Tenor (which was really good and funny) we found dessert and snacks at Junior's across from the theater.  I realized that I had ordered pickles and ice cream, how cliche is that?

Here's mah swag, lots of fun things to take home, aside from my fun memories.  I love traveling with my family!  I hope it doesn't slow down once we have a kid.  (I foresee a fantastic trip to Disneyland in 5 years or so). 

It's a wonderful town!

Just got back from New York City!  My family took a weekend vacation and we had a fabulous time.  Shopping, shows, and lots and lots of food.  I love to visit NY and each trip is different because there is so much to do there.  Tomorrow I hope to do a proper recap of my trip with photos.  Coming home I'm always struck by the wonders of home comforts.  Here are some things that I appreciate about being home:

• Clean mountain air
• Soft 2 ply toilet paper
• Shopping without the crowds
• Mexican food
• My animals

But New York has plenty of awesomeness to make giving these up for a weekend completely worthwhile:

• Pizza.  Seriously, the pizza. 
• H&Ms and giant-sized Anthropologies
• Good live theater every night of the year
• Pinkberrys
• And a new edition to my food-love list - Le Pain Quotidien

I could do a whole list that's just food.  Looking at my photos, about half of them are what I ate :-)  Here's me and Ben in Rockefeller Plaza.  More to come soon.

What do I do about this??

I didn't think she could jump in there!

Afternoon dialysis

Just thought I should write about a not-so-bad day at work, so people don't think I'm a slave to a horrible job.  There weren't any patients planned at our two smaller hospitals yesterday, so I got to be on call all day instead of starting after my shift.  I slept in until 9, then showered and donned my flannel pants, a t-shirt, and my pager.  I set to work on the craft space and got it completely organized.  I vacuumed the basement and did dishes.  I had a nice lunch at home and did some paper crafts. 

Just as I was wondering what to do with my afternoon the pager went off.  Apparently the doctors forgot to tell us about one patient who needed dialysis, and the nurse was wondering when he would be dialyzed.  I switched to scrubs and got to the hospital by 2 pm.  The patient was fairly stable and the doctors and nurses nice to work with.  I had some machine trouble shooting that delayed my start time, but I was able to leave the hospital at 9 pm.  Not bad at all!  I was able to get a decent shift in, with call-back pay, and now I was anxiety free for a good night's sleep, knowing that the call 2 nurse would have to get the next page, if there was one (there wasn't). 

Unfortunately, there were some signs that I'm not as tough as I used to be.  I can't leave a patient who is on treatment, so I couldn't go to the bathroom while I was there.  My stomach was cramping up badly and I was trying not to drink so I wouldn't make it harder for my bladder.  Halfway through the patient's treatment his blood started clotting the tubing.  I had been giving him saline flushes every 15 minutes but I could see a total blockage was coming anyway.  I rinsed back his blood, clamped him off the machine, and paused treatment to start a new tube set-up.  Normally I hate clotted systems for delaying the treatment but this was a blessing from on high!  I dashed to the bathroom for some much needed relief before re-connecting him. 

But what's really weird is that around 7 pm I started having cramps again.  After an hour I figured out that these were probably Braxton Hicks contractions and they. hurt. bad.  Remembering that dehydration can lead to cramps I started chugging my water.  Not much relief.  It actually hurt to stand up and walk around with them.  As soon as the patient was transported back to his room I dug out the granola bar I had brought, and gave myself another bathroom trip before finishing cleaning up the room.  They came about every 10 minutes and felt like really bad menstrual cramps, but just on the my right side and back and down my right leg.  I hobbled out to my car at 9 and per Ben's advice grabbed dinner at McDonald's on the way home.  I felt much much better as I started eating real (ha!) food and by 10 pm the cramps were totally gone.  I haven't had any pre-labor contractions yet so that was really weird.  I think I pushed myself a bit too hard at work and shouldn't have gone so long without eating.  My coworkers have been encouraging me to get a doctor's note so that I don't have to do call anymore.  I thought it was too soon but after last night I'm rethinking it.  Today I'm still cramp-free, but I'm having a harder time leaning over and climbing stairs.  I get winded really easily.  It looks like the third trimester is finally catching up to me. 

Baby Shower Photos

Miranda posted pictures from the shower on her flickr site.  Here are some of my favorites!

The beautiful table and snack table. I love the Jones soda display!

Macarons!  They made macarons!  These are the hot new item among internet foodies (cupcakes are soooo 2009) and they can NOT be found in Denver.  I have never had one and had been whining about that fact for months.  They are also notoriously tricky to make.  These were as dreamy as I had imagined.  

The amazing party hosts

They had a craft project for making customized onesies.  I love every one of them!  It was perfectly fitting to have a craft project at the party rather than silly games. 

There are many photos of opening gifts.  This one is a set of amigurumi animal toys my mom crocheted.  They elicited much cooing, as you can imagine.  I'm going to try really really hard to keep these away from Jem.

Friends came from far and near.  Here are we three buddies from high school, two of us slightly bulgy compared to then.  I had friends from college the first and second time around, and from work and church.  I need to call up all these girls more often!

Love this picture of me, my sister, and my mom.  So glad she could brave the winter weather to drive out just for the party!  So glad Amanda lives in Denver where I can see her all the time!

A Springtime Baby Shower

Saturday I had the loveliest of parties hosted by Miranda and Sarah.  They provided delicious and beautiful snacks and desserts, tangerine and turquoise decorations, and invited a variety of friends from all different points of my life.  It was wonderful to see all these special women from school and work over the years, and I'm so grateful to have their influence in my life.  My mom also drove all the way from Grand Junction to attend!  I trust that Miranda will soon post pictures on her site, or email some to me so I can post them.

I feel much better about welcoming a baby into our house.  We got a lot of cute and practical clothes, footie pajamas, and I might venture to say that we have enough onesies. Gasp! I also got a nice start to his library and toy collection. 

My parents helped immensely by shopping for a crib and changing table!  The baby now has a safe place sleep and I feel less anxiety about my lack of nesting so far.  We have a place to sleep, clothes to wear, and a good carseat courtesy of Ben's parents.  Throw in a pack of diapers and we could be set if needed.  Of course there are many many small things that make life easier.  I have a wishlist on amazon to keep track of all the little things we can pick up between now and the birth.  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at how much I need to do still.  Here's a list of things accomplished to make me feel better:

• Nursery room emptied
• Carpets cleaned
• New craft space established
• New couch in the basement
• Finished a handmade flannel blanket
• Toys
• Books
• Queen bed for me and Ben
• DVR and netflix queue for late nights and being stuck at home
• Saved up money to cover the hospital bill
• Got a portable AC to survive the hot summer 
• Registered and toured at the hospital

Things to do still:

• Arrange and fill-in the nursery with supplies
• Find a dresser (maybe?)
• Fix the bathroom sink and fan, and anything else that breaks between now and May
• Paperwork to HR for maternity leave (cannot complete for another month)
• Take a birthing class
• Finish the sweater vest I'm knitting
• Give the bathrooms a deep cleaning
• Pick a pediatrician

So that's not too bad, right?

It's curtains for you! Lacy, gently wafting curtains!

I started this post earlier and just got time to finish it now.  Not work-related and not cranky.  

I'm 30 weeks pregnant now.  Big enough that patients ask whether it's es nina or es nino.

I got the carpets cleaned Monday so I feel like I can really get the nursery started.  Good thing, because my dear friends are throwing me a baby shower this weekend.  My latest obsession is curtains.  See, I want these:

But those are curtains from Anthropologie.  Dearie me, I just can't rationalize paying $200 for curtains. Target and other stores were dead ends.  I'll just have to make my own.  After an hour staring at the fabric racks in Fancy Tiger I came up with these two:

The consensus so far is for the bird print.  I love the colors and the birds.  But when I hang the two in the room I feel like the teal damask does better over a large space.  It's also heavier fabric so it would function better than the bird print for drapes.  I'm still mulling it over.  Feel free to drop me your opinion.  My other other decoration for the room is this wall art from blik:

Work makes me cranky

At the end of a hard day my impulse is to blog about it.  But I try to hold off, wondering the rant will really make me feel better.  I already released a lot to Ben, so what's the point of putting it here?  Feels like garnering pity.  Still, this is my journal.  I won't go into detail, but it was yet another crazy busy day of
trying to treat too many patients in too short of a time
constant push push push to get people in our chairs
many catheters and fistulas busting
working with a doctor who is difficult
getting lost in the hospital system while trying to give meds or get patients beds or lunches
starting the day off short-staffed
being assigned to charge nurse when I really shouldn't be charge yet
being on the phone 95% of the day
endless questions from the techs about when so and so will be picked up
wrestling with machine malfunctions

I come home from days like this feeling incredibly unappreciated and ready to quit.  We are still short-staffed with no end of in sight.  Too many hours with too many demands and too many promises broken.  Oh Rachel, we probably pushed you into the charge role too fast, let's back off and have you gain more experience [then they assign me charge every time I'm at our big hospital]. Oh Rachel, you shouldn't take care of isolation patients while you are pregnant [then I have to do a hepatitis B+ patient, among many others]. Oh Rachel, take it easy while you're pregnant, be sure to eat well and drink a lot [then I'm the only RN, meaning I CAN'T leave the room to take a break for the whole shift].  Maternity leave is looking more and more like a glorious summer vacation.

Sweet Action in the snow

Biscuits+jam ice cream is wonderful!

Spinning Yarn Mad Libs

Ben makes fun of the many terms and steps involved in making yarn.   Here's how you do it:

Take your washed wool and brush it into roving or a bat using paddles.
Take your roving and draft it into a bobbin of yarn using a spindle.
Take your bobbin and wind it into a hank using a niddy noddy.
Take your hank and wind it into a ball using a swift and ball winder.
Take your ball and knit it into a hat using needles.

Quick thoughts

• Last night I had to do an emergency.  Not bad, I got home by 12:45.  It meant I could sleep well knowing the call 2 person had to take the next emergency.  Free and clear.  I had a rude doctor and a mean patient.  Luckily I sucked up to both of them well enough.  The ICU nurse is the one who took it hard from them.  
• Ah, a glorious long weekend off.  No work until Tuesday!
• Monday I'm going to the dentist after at least 2 years off.  Hurrah for dental insurance!
• I bought some lilies and my house smells amazing!
• Ben bought me the chocolate chip bagels I've been craving for two weeks.  Don't get excited, it wasn't, like, a "pregnancy" craving.  I just really really wanted some.  That's a good way to start Saturday.
• I finished choreographing the opening dance number for Amanda's musical.  I hope the kids pick it up fast on Monday!
• Amanda and I have a fun day planned - Alice in Wonderland, then dinner out, then craft and watch Every Little Step at home.  
• Kick-puncher is still kicking and punching.  He has weird sleep cycles.  
• I want to buy a portable air conditioner/swamp cooler for this summer.  Our room is always unbearably hot.  I have a free trial of Amazon Prime that would give me free shipping.  Is it crazy to buy an AC in March?  How would I even know if it works well enough?
• Yesterday as I was cleaning up the clinic before going home I chatted with Ben on my cell.  I was scrubbing human blood off the floor while merrily talking to my husband, and was struck by how NOT morbid it felt.  
• I have a lot of spending money and don't know what to do with it.  I hoard it and then forget it, never taking the splurge.  Any ideas?

Pressed for time

Crap, yo. I bought some decoration for the nursery and it has
arrived. I guess i need to seriously start working on that room. I'm
7 month pregnant today. Time is running out! But today is my one day
off over two weeks and it's booked full with an OB visit, grocery
shopping, choreography rehearsal, and putting my aching feet up for an
hour tonight. I worked four 12 hour shifts in a row (3/4 going into
OT), then 6 hours call back right after on Sunday. Today i'm off but
I have four more in a row starting tomorrow. Looks like saturday will
be nursery work day!

I married a stud

Get a load of my sweet lovin'.

Birthday in photos

 

Breakfast in bed.  A rare indulgence to get McDonalds.

 

Opened birthday presents.  Love the crafting supplies, cards, and sweater. Do you see those sheets?  That's part of my big present from Ben.  We went shopping for a QUEEN SIZED bed!  I've been wanting one ever since we left our tiny apartment in Boulder.  Finally now with two employed adults and a growing belly, we're making the upgrade from our cramped full sized bed.  It's really the best present I could imagine getting this year!

We had lunch at Panera Bread.  Sure, not very fancy.  But there aren't any locations in our neighborhood, so it's special to go there.  Plus my favorite sandwich, the Bacon Turkey Bravo, is a double no-no for pregnancy.  I do my best to avoid bacon (nitrates) and cold deli meats (listeria). But hey, it's my birthday!  One little sandwich can't do much harm.  Totally worth it. 

 

Picked out cupcakes for later.  After my cupcake tour of Denver I knew the best place - Lovely Confections!

 

Bought some darling fabric at my favorite craft store.  I squeezed a lot of yarn wistfully.  Ben wisely reminded me of all the beautiful skeins in my basket at home.  But it's hard to resist beautiful yarn when you have spending money in your pocket!  Some other time . . .

Afternoon snack at Sweet Action!  They even had my all time favorite ice cream flavor, Mint Chocolate Chip.  Ben is having Banana Reese's Pieces.  

Then home for a while to start a knitting project (because 2 knit works-in-progress isn't enough) and baby blanket with the flannel I bought.  Amanda came over and we talked choreography until my other friends arrived.  

 

We ordered cheesesteaks, french fries with cheese whiz dipping sauce, chips and soda, and of course the cupcakes!  It was a delicious feast, and a nice change from our usual pizza party.

Miranda surprised me with this gorgeous beret that I had seen her working on.  It's perfect for me and so finely knit! (BTW, if you haven't seen the play kitchen that she made her daughter, click that link straightway and look in amazement!)

Amanda found some great stamps and paper for my crafting supply.  We laughed that we bought each other stamps for our recent birthdays.  As an early nursery gift she found a beautiful pop-up book of The Little Prince. We were talking about using the color palette from that book for the nursery, and maybe some stars and moon imagery.  We already have the book in two English editions and a French.  Now we have this glorious illustrated version too!  Our kid will not be allowed to touch it until 2nd grade.  It's too nice of a book!

Thank you to all my friends and family who called and visited and pitched in to make my day really really great.  I love you all!

28

Thank you for all the birthday well wishes!  I had a wonderful day.  My dear sweet husband took me to all my favorite things and I had a great time visiting with friends tonight.  I took a few pictures to post later showing what we did to celebrate. 

Dreamsicle Pie

I improvised a pie based on a key lime pie recipe.  My friends helped us eat it and they demanded that I write down the recipe to remember.  Sadly I don't have a picture because it was devoured too fast!

Dreamsicle Pie
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup clementine juice
juice of 1 lemon
juice of 2 limes
zest from all the clementines that you squeezed

Combine all the above ingredients in a bowl.  I think it would have stirred smoother if I had blended the sour cream and condensed milk before adding the juice.  Pour the filling into a pre-made graham cracker crust.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until you see tiny pinhole bubbles burst on the surface.  (Don't brown it!)  Remove and cool completely.  Let chill in the fridge, preferably overnight.  Slice and serve with whipped cream.

Move your body

My dear sister has optimistically invited me to choreograph some parts of the spring musical.  Optimistic because:
A. work is scheduling me for 4 shifts per week, and because we are short-staffed we often work overtime (like yesterday) and
B. my dancing skills have waned a bit since becoming pregnant.  Or should I say, all skills that involve movement have waned.  Including standing up from couches.  My co-worker saw me struggling to get comfortable in my chair during the 7th hour of Monday's hospital orientation.  "When are you due?" he whispered.  "End of May," I replied.  He ticked the months off his fingers, "Wow, you have a long way to go!"  Yes.  Yes I do.  Thank you for pointing that out for me. Now help me cross my legs.

So with her dear students in mind I summoned all my energy to get to the gym this morning.  Yes, after a 16 hour day with only a 30 minute lunch break, a fitful night's sleep while on call, and waking up with a scratchy throat I exercised.  Because I only blog when I can brag about my awesomeness. (For example, I haven't been sick since January 2009.  I hope this throat scratch blows over).

I like going to the gym because I can spend longer exercising and stretching than I do when I stay home.  The elliptical is also the only form of aerobics I can do without severe leg pain.  I still have bad aches in my gracilis every time I take a step.  But for some reason running on an elliptical is completely painless.  When I got home I stretched a little more.  Molly joined in.

While stretching my quads I looked down at what used to be a flat plane from hip to hip and saw this:

Oh.

Oh my.

I'm in ur living room, eclipsing your sun!

Now if you will excuse me, I think it's almost time for elevenses.

Jem and her buddy

Jem has a couple beagle pals at daycare.  They recently posted a video of her getting good and tired. 

February

I'm so glad it's February.  Good stuff happens:
Superbowl parties (I hate football but love the food and friends)
Oscar parties
My birthday
Valentine's Day
And it's a short month, so it's over before you know it!

I'm now six months pregnant.  Egads.  I feel pretty good except the fitful sleeping, the constant belly poking by the kid, and tearing of my abdominal muscles.  Otherwise no health problems.  I continue to outgrow my clothes and struggle finding comfortable things to wear to work and church. 

I'm knitting like a fiend lately.  I have two projects going for myself, I finished Ben's hat, and I have my eyes on a sweater vest pattern for our little boy.  That's on top of my spinning that I'm still working on.  I'm resisting going to the yarn store as long as possible.

I was on call all weekend and it sucked.  I get so anxious.  I was sure that I would be called in twice, once for a patient in the ICU that the docs told me on Saturday they would want to dialyze on Sunday, and once for one of our regulars who hadn't been in for over a week and a half.  That was on top of our normal flow of emergencies, who often come in Sunday evenings.  It seemed like a sure thing so I was a bundle of nerves all weekend, watching my pager nervously.  Never called me.  Weird.  Instead of being glad that I didn't have to work I'm exhausted from worrying about it.  I really need to get this call mind-set in better control. 

Today was my day off.  Laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, and knitting.  Exciting stuff.  I guess I don't have much else to say.  Just checking in to say hi, I suppose.

Spinning success

I finished my first skein of handspun yarn using my wheel.  It's so much fun to spin!  I just used the book that came with my wheel to teach me how to spin and ply the yarn together.  I started to work on that beautiful blue roving in the background, you can see my first bobbin is already almost full.  I can't decide if I want to to ply the blue yarn, making it lofty and strong, or leave it single ply so I have more length to knit. 
(How awesome is it that my new craft space gets natural sunlight in through the little egress window?)

Burning up

I'm so happy Burn Notice is back on the air.  It's like a fantastic, juicy cheeseburger and fries.  Utter junk yet so delicious.

I'm finally making some good progress on Ben's Norwegian hat. I'm moving my craft space into the basement.  My former room will be the new nursery.  We threw out the 1977 couches and got a new sectional.  I love it so much!  I set up my craft table behind it and it's become my favorite place.  I have my laptop, my knitting, a snack, and a good show playing on our franken-dvr.  

It's been a rough week at work.  We're ramping up to start two new hospital contracts.  Extra training sessions everywhere, staff shortages, and on top of that a lot of acute patients at our regular hospital.  I'm the only one from our morning shift who is home yet.  The others who started at 6 had to take over evening shift as well.  I only got to go home because I'm on call, so in the event that I get called back I won't be completely exhausted from working 17 hours.  I don't think things will calm down until at least mid-February.

Hike + BBQ = awesome

I'll leave the hike pictures to Ben.

Expanding

Here's a requisite pooch shot.  Thanks for the Bellaband tip, Ant.  I found a BeBand at Target by the same makers and I'm in my old jeans again.  This will help hold my scrubs up too!

First Trimester Musings: Recovery

November 18, 2009 - I vacuumed a floor.

First Trimester Musings: Ultrasound

(Written at 12 weeks, early November 2009)

I am so so relieved to have had the ultrasound.  It's scary how I really have no perception that there is a little human inside of me, with bones and tissue and an APPENDIX, for crying out loud.  How alien.  I swore this was a molar or ectopic pregnancy.  How could it be so easy?  How can I feel so normal? 

(9 week pregnant self feel free to stab future self for saying this.  Does she REMEMBER sitting at home, not being able to do anything but nap under a quilt, not even browse the internet?  And how she threw up a single saltine, and on another morning just water???) 

But really.  From all the stories and "common symptoms" I read, I've had it fairly easy.  Way to go, genepool.  I knew these hips meant I would be a baby-making rockstar.

First Trimester Musings: Acceptance

(Written mid October 2009)

I've had a strange disconnect between having a baby and being pregnant.  I just feel pregnant, like it's a temporary disease that's giving me weird symptoms and will eventually go away.  I'm adament about not looking at baby products or baby advice or baby names.  After two weeks of excitement, I turned all my books and pamphlets from the OB facedown.  For some reason I don't want to see the work "pregnant" around the house.

I was watching some old Muppet videos on Youtube.  The thought came to me, that I frequently have thought, that I should be sure that when we eventually have kids, they watch some Muppets because Muppets are awesome.  Then I had an epiipheny - this wasn't some far off prediction.  There was a kid in my belly RIGHT NOW.  She/He will be the one that I encourage to watch Muppets.  Right there with me now in this room.  I kind of freaked out in a major way.

First Trimester Musings: Food

(Written October 2009)

If I get up before 8 am, I have to puke at least once.  Good luck trying to eat anything before 9 am.

The first thing I cooked in three weeks was bacon.  Nitrate and nitrite free bacon, courtesy of my dear dad.

My food aversion has manifest as "anything that you cooked."  If Ben makes it or I buy it ready made, I seem to do better.

Surprisingly, peanuts are my go-to snack for keeping fueled during the day.  And suddenly orange juice is delicious.  And pickles.  I had a Jimmy John's pickle and wanted to marry it.

What's happening in my belly?

Because I hear you are all dying to know :-)  I'm in that weird poochy stage.  My clothes don't fit and my husband says I've looked pregnant for months.  But when I tell people the news and that I'm 21 weeks, they look down at my stomach and tell me I don't look pregnant at all.

I feel him moving all the time now.  Especially during a meal (blood sugar spike?) and when I change positions - sitting to standing and such.

My belly button is disappearing way too fast!  It's kind of freaking me out.

The most annoying pregnancy change?  My absurdly strong pulse.  I hear it when I'm trying to sleep at night.  I feel it in odd places like my scalp, my shoulders, and pretty much my entire abdomen.  I feel my heart pounding with extra stroke volume when I climb stairs.  I swear I can even feel my inferior vena cava flowing.  My hand veins are so engorged with extra blood that they are raised and fat.  L&D nurses must have the easiest patients for placing IVs. 

I'm going to post a couple things I wrote during the first trimester, just to catch up my journalling.

It's a boy!

Everything in its place and he's right on schedule. 

Comforts

Snow falling quietly, kneading yeasty dough, sipping French hot
chocolate, and knitting green curls. I like today.

A new decade

I told Ben that I couldn't believe another decade has passed.  "Really?" he asked, "I can.  We had a lot happen in the last ten years."  We thought of all the momentous things that happened to us in the aughts. 

• Most of our courtship and our marriage
• All of my undergrad education
• My first real job as a research assistant
  
• Completing a second degree
• My second real job as a nurse
  
• Most of Ben's college years
• Numerous jobs for Ben
• Moving five times in three cities
  
• Buying our first house
• Buying my first car
• Buying my first new car
• Travel too numerous to count
• Thousands of knit stitches
• Thousands of video games
• A movie-making phase
• A ballet revival phase
  
• Getting a cat
• Getting a dog
• Three computers for me, who knows how many for Ben?

Ok, proven wrong.  I guess it seems right that ten years have passed, given all the growth we've had. 

We're excited to start a new adventure this year.  For those who haven't heard yet, we're having a baby in May.  That's right, I'm 21 weeks pregnant.  Want to know why I was so quiet in the blogosphere in October and November?  That's called the first trimester and it BLOWS!  But those times are past, I feel pretty great these days.  The little kid has finally made itself known to me.  Just in the past week I started feeling movement.  Now I swear it's doing somersaults in there.  Tomorrow we have the big ultrasound to find out if our first will be a little boy or little girl.  I don't care which, I just want to know!  I'll be sure to let you all know too, and perhaps I'll fill in some details on how the pregnancy has been so far. 

Happy New Year and here's to ten more!