Hello, Third Trimester!

It's been an exciting month since the last post! We flew to Minnesota for Christmas, then I flew to California to see Polina and her family, particularly new baby girl, Lexi. I thought traveling may be a bit tough at this stage in pregnancy, but it was no problem! It was a short trip to CA, but I was able to get together with quite a few people. I saw Maria and Jim, as well as my aunt and one of my cousins. I also got to visit with my college roommate, Ami, her husband and two kids, which was great. She too recently had a baby girl, so it was neat to meet little Maya and Ami's son, who I had not met before. We also got a ton of baby clothes hand-me-downs from both Ami and Polina. This kid will have a better wardrobe that I do! It was fun seeing everyone, but sad to think that it was the last of our travels for a while!

For Christmas we got a Lullabelly from Erich's parents that makes it easy to play music for baby. It plays so quietly we can't hear it unless we put an ear right up to the speaker, so we're not worried about blasting the poor little fish. Boy, did she get active when we played some classical music for her! She started kicking like crazy! I don't know if it was a sign that she liked it or didn't, but we'll definitely do it again soon.

On New Year's Day, Erich clearly started to feel the baby kick for the first time (before it was slight vibrations only), and indeed, she has been more and more active and is punting me right now. I think she'd like me to get up and move around for her!

She also got her first baby board books and we started reading them to her at night. We hope to start doing it more regularly soon, as I've read that when they're born they can actually recognize books and songs they heard in utero and be calmed by the familiar cadence and rhythms... The books are cute. I chose Night-Night, Little Pookie and Good Night, Moon. The latter is a classic, but I really like the Pookie one much better. It's very cute! (Interestingly, when I first looked it up on Amazon, it was only coming up at $60 & $500! Maybe I should go buy up all the other copies from Target??)

Interestingly, the further along we get, the stronger my nesting instinct is kicking in! We reached the 3rd trimester this last week!! Hard to believe it's going by so fast. I am eternally grateful that my symptoms have been so mild, and the pregnancy has been smooth sailing. My first priority (Erich would say obsession, and I can't disagree) in decorating the baby room has been deciding on bedding. We don't care for any of the premade options, but we're very fortunate that Erich's mom is willing to sew bedding for us. Yesterday a fabric sample I had ordered arrived, and we love it! I've been having such a hard time deciding on one, and many that I thought were cute, Erich was just ho-hum about, so I'm very excited that this one will work! You can check it out below:

I wanted to decorate the nursery so that it would have a calming atmosphere and not be too cutsie or pink and ruffley, which is not easy to accomplish! The way I see it, the first few years the room decor will be more for us than for the kid anyway. Soon enough she will have her own opinions on how she wants her room, and then we'll potentially have to put up with all types of gaudiness. So for now, we're keeping it mellow!

Now that we have a color scheme to work with, I'm getting together with my mom tomorrow to go shopping for decorations! Suffice it to say, Erich is just fine with us going without him. :) However, he and I will go this weekend to pick out a fabric for our nursery glider so we can finally order it! We'll be getting the Dutailier Cadenza Glider/Recliner.

In other news, Melinda and Tanya are organizing the baby shower for me, and it's looking like it will be on March 9th. I'm looking forward to it, but creating the baby registry has been hard work!! So many things to think about getting for baby and so many different options. It's overwhelming! Thankfully, Polina went with me to Babies R Us while I was in CA and helped me figure out what I really needed and which ones I could skip. There are still a few more items to add to the registry, but I'm almost done. Between Babies R Us and Amazon, there are quite a few things on both registries! Who knew such tiny creatures needed so much stuff!!

Of course, the belly has continued to grow, so much so that I'm finding Pilates more and more difficult! I've decided to cut back to just once a week and stick with the night I have class with 2 friends. It's much easier for the instructor to modify the lesson when we all know each other vs. when it's me and 3 random, non-pregnant people! This last session I found I couldn't do at least 6 or 7 of the exercises and was having difficulty with several others. Not too good for a 1 hour class!!

And although I do struggle a bit with the loss of control over the shape of my body, there is something refreshing about not worrying about whether your belly is sticking out, since you know there's a good reason for it! (Though why I've lost my cheekbones is harder to explain away.... lol)