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Highlights from this past week
- Checking out Taste of Joy, the Southern bistro, with friends A&B.
- Watching UP!
- Taxiball getting featured as New & Noteworthy.
- Civic getting fixed for a much more minor issue than I feared.
- Meeting some awesome local bloggers at Vic’s Chaat!
People are awesome
In addition to getting cool stuff from a coworker, friends S&V are sending us their cloth diaper stash! Woo hoo! It is already in the mail, apparently.
We aren’t 100% committed to doing cloth diapers; in fact, we haven’t really discussed it, but we think it’s something we can try out. If it doesn’t work, disposables it is!
One of the bloggers I met this week also offered to lend us her son’s hanbok (Korean traditional outfit) for when we have our baby’s dol (first birthday). Rad!
Changes everywhere
We got our drywall done. And no, we would not recommend our contractor. We’ve been priming and painting, with Seppo picking up the heroic portion of the load, what with my general tiredness, back aches, and legs & feet that swell if I stand too long. We’ve also picked the most bold choices we’ve ever chosen in our lives for the walls, which basically means that we just stole the colors from our friends with better taste. When you see the colors, you’ll know who you are.
We hired on a company to do repairs to the floor and refinish the surface. They will start next Wednesday. I think more than the walls no longer falling down, the changes to the floor will make the biggest difference in how we perceive the house.
We also now employ someone who will come to maintain the yard on a regular basis, rather than on a call-by-call basis. Better to automate all this now, before the Big Life Change.
The other potential thing that might happen is the upstairs bathroom renovation. Our friends who live up in Walnut Creek (whom I just found out are also having a baby, due only two weeks after us!) are getting their kitchen renovated this month, and it’s supposed to take one week. One week! If they like their contractor, and if they stay within the time & budget limits, I think we’d think about hiring them for our bathroom.
Work is hard but rewarding. I’m getting happier and happier with our product every time I hit a milestone. I am tired though, because I feel like I’m trying really hard not to let my fatigue show at work, and not let anyone think I am falling short or not pulling my weight due to being pregnant. I’ve been doing really well so far, but the thought stresses me out. And I end up so tired that I don’t pull my ever-increasing weight at home, which pulls me further into a stress-guilt cycle. Bleh.
Other than the tiredness and aches, everything is going well.
Small stresses
Just when I thought the worst physical symptoms were over, new ones began! 🙁 Physically, I’m great when I’m sitting down — almost no pain or stress. When I lie down, my back, thighs, and neck hurt like crazy. You can imagine how this affects my sleep. I wake up every morning more tired than the morning before. When I stand, my back strains and my legs & feet swell up. The swelling has been much, much better since I’ve been able to drink water at will, so it’s not a big issue, but does kind of freak me out occasionally. I’ve woken up a couple of times at night with freakishly painful cramping in my calves, which my friend U had warned me might happen.
In some ways, these things are MUCH better than the constant nausea, vomiting, and heartburn of the first trimester. But having had a reprieve of a few easy weeks really spoiled me!
In addition to the major things, it’s been really, really depressing the number of very minor things that are harder for me to do. Putting on my shoes, bending down to pick up a book, reaching a shelf for something I need, picking up my backpack, walking up stairs, getting out of the car, walking Mobi & controlling him when he’s seen something he wants to chase, bending to pull out the drain plug from the bathtub, etc. Literally everything is harder, most of which I hadn’t expected. The biggest thing is that because so many of these things are so lame, I feel horrible about even mentioning it out loud or asking for help. And when I just keep it to myself, I get into sort of a lonely, sad state of mind. So here I am, talking about it. 😐
Mentally, I have been fretting. Am I doing enough at work? Am I doing enough at home? Am I getting enough rest? Am I eating the right foods? Should I have had that cup of tea? Why didn’t I feel the baby kick today? Did I do something to hurt the baby? Are the paint fumes bad, even though we ventilate the house very well and I only paint for short periods of time? Should I have lifted that heavy bag? Why did I eat that? Am I complaining too much? How will we find daycare? Which pediatrician should we choose? When should we start taking classes? Do I want my mom to come to visit just before giving birth or after Seppo goes back to work? How will Mobi feel when we have a baby? Will Mobi hate the baby? What will happen to the project I’m working on when I’m at home? Do we have enough money to take more time off? Should we be buying baby stuff now? How will I learn to be neater so our baby doesn’t grow up in my mess? What should we name the baby?
My brain feel so full, and I can’t get any relief from the thoughts.
Random advice from my sister
This was an interesting piece of advice I got. I had been contemplating cutting my hair really short before the baby is due, with the idea that I won’t have a lot of time to take care of it, and I won’t want it to fall into the baby’s face or anything later.
My sister’s take on this was that she had the same impulse, but it’s better to grow it long enough to be able to tie every strand back from the face, because when it’s short, it’ll need to constantly be trimmed or it’ll fall in my eyes and drive me nuts when I don’t have a hand to spare.
Good one! I will take her advice and keep growing out my hair. I can get almost all of it back into a ponytail right now, so it’ll just need a little more.
Zee Sexola
It’s a boy! Husband & I had individually guessed girl, and the grandmothers-to-be guessed boy. I guess the elder generation takes this round!
In other news, my long-time friend (I’ve known him since the third grade) and his wife (who is totally awesome) just revealed to me that they are expecting their own baby, just about two weeks after ours. I am so very excited for them. We are making plans to meet up for lunch or dinner soon. It has been entirely too long. We don’t live super-far from them, but our work schedules have been such that we’ve had a lot of trouble meeting up more than twice a year. I know, totally shameful.
But now I can look forward to playdates for parents and kids, not just with them but with other friends who have young kids and who are expecting. How wonderful to be able to go through this process at the same time as good friends… 🙂 I am truly lucky.
I only wish family (on both sides) were closer by so that they would be able to grow up with family near. We are still lucky to have our close friends live in the Bay Area, so I can’t complain.