Happy 13 weeks Baby Cute!

So I guess an apology is in order for all of you that I got fired up last week with the news of Baby Cute.... I sort of abandoned the blog! Here's my excuse--I feel better. I feel, well, normal. Like myself. My appetite is back, I only gag lightly in the morning and my pants fit fine.

Here are a few fun updates anyway... I promise to be better about keeping ya'll informed.

* We got our first baby gift! MomCarolyn's cousin Susie sent an ear thermometer and an adorable elephant toy along with her son Ron who visited last week for the boys state finals. It is so, so, so cute! Yes, Mom, I sent a thank you note.

* I got to meet baby Tayden! Carolyn was kind enough to invite me for lunch in Big Rapids last Saturday with Grandma W, Aunt Dianne, cousin Michelle, Aunt Helen and the new baby! He is so very little and SO cute! He has Michelle's nose, which I happen to think is one of her cutest features. He is only drinking about 2 ounces every 2 hours, but I was lucky enough to feed him while we had lunch at Applebee's. It was also a beautiful, sunshiny day so I really enjoyed the drive. I was a little greasy from my AMAZING massage, but I don't think anyone cared. :)

* I was cajoled into starting my baby registry. I worked at the registry desk all day on Sunday and after setting up registries for SEVERAL people due in late October and even November, I was convinced that putting my information in the computer wouldn't hurt anyone. So, it's there, with random items that just happen to be my favorites. We won't add the bulk of things until we know if Baby Cute is a boy or a girl. But yes, I gave into baby store peer pressure.

* There seems to be a trend lately of people having boys! Many of the August mommies are finding out what they are having on my fave message board at the Nest, and I would say a good 75% are having boys. Random, but it also seemed for a while there that everyone was having girls. I guess like everyone says, you can guess, and you always have a 50/50 chance of being right.

* I get my braces on tomorrow. Ugh.

* I finally filled out all of my FMLA paperwork. It took some poking and prodding by our department secretary, but she was really hell-bent on getting it done. It cost me $10 for the OB office to fill it out (stoooopid!), but the secretary is off my back and I can officially be gone for 12 weeks from now on. Hooray.

* Easter is coming up! Carolyn and Dave are coming to my parents for dinner, so it will be fun to have our whole family (minus Melanie and Rob who will be in Florida) in one place.

* My sister Melanie is turning 30! We are celebrating in Chicago with Mediterranean cuisine and belly dancing on Friday, April 13. While not totally related, we are also moving Meredith and Jerry into their first condo. I keep meaning to check and see how much weight I can safely lift...

* I bought two new preggo books--Your Pregnancy Week by Week and 100,000 Baby Names. The week by week book is a nice supplement to What to Expect When You're Expecting (WTEWYE). In the future, I will highly recommend the week by week book. It is very calming and informative while the WTE series is all about what could go wrong. "I'm coughing--perhaps you have whooping cough. I'm thirsty--you're probably diabetic." I am embracing my pink-shoed Doc's advice and just relaxing.

It is also interesting to note that my Amazon.com purchases were subsidized by the Charles Schwab company. You see, I do online surveys once in a while (for example, I have to test a very well-known brand of pasta sauce that is sitting on my kitchen counter... too bad I can't stand the thought of spaghetti...). It's $5 here and $2 there, it's fun and I like it. So anyway, I did a qualifying survey (and actually qualified) and was invited to join a long-term Schwab focus group that is basically a bunch of young people answering questions about finances and retirement and financial planning and such. It's interesting stuff, and I get $10/month in Amazon gift certificates for being an active member. It's cool, and helps my shopping bug while not hurting our budget.

* I also think we've decided on flooring for the nursery. Dave (Carolyn's, not mine) suggested we look into bamboo flooring. It's good quality, low cost and environmentally friendly. Bamboo grows extraordinarily quickly and when processed is very comparable to hardwood. Dave (mine, not Carolyn's) and I went to Lowe's to check things out and it's good stuff. It's solid, pretty and relatively inexpensive--less than Pergo-brand laminate floors, which great considering that bamboo is actually solid wood and Pergo is plastic floor with wood grain. I'm not sure when we can cajole Dave into installing the floors in Baby Cute's room, but it is looking more and more affordable for us.

* Work is going well for me. This weekend is the Animal Welfare Judging Competition that I will attend on Saturday. I know what you're thinking--Baroo? Well, we have this animal welfare group at MSU. They are pretty kick-ass. Basically, my initiative helps fund them while they travel to different farms and take photos and make assessments of different kinds of agricultural practices as it relates to animal welfare. So, these sheep are housed in this kind of barn and these are housed outside. These calves are weaned from their mother immediately and these calves stay with their mothers for 4 weeks. It's put into an interactive Macromedia Breeze presentation. So this weekend students from 5 different universities are coming to campus to participate in a competition. They will go through various scenarios and then have to defend their decisions to a panel of judges who just HAPPEN to be animal welfare experts. Very, very interesting stuff. It will make for an interesting story.

* After the welfare judging competition, Dave and I are headed to Alma to watch the Final Four with our friends Matt, Leigh, Mike and Mel. It will be really fun to see them, and word on the street is that Matt and Leigh are done having kids and their baby stuff is open game. Hooray!

* And finally, I got a haircut. About an inch and a half, just enough to I can't pull it back and that my side bang is in my eye all day. It's cute, and I really like my stylist, LaVeda, more than I dislike how much she charges me. So I'm hooked.

I'll post my 13 week update tomorrow when I arrives in my inbox!