Some final thoughts for the month of March

Not that any of these thoughts actually have anything to do with this month in particular, they just happened to enter my head on this, the last day of the month.

1. I'm sick of having terrible dreams at night that are both totally realistic and related to my child. Last night was especially awful. As soon as I delivered, I was demanding to be released ... went to the hospital nursery to get Savannah only to see that no one was keeping an eye on her and she fell off a table. Cory acted like it was no big deal ... responding with "it's ok, kids bounce." I was fit to be tied! Needless to say I was in a horrible mood when I woke up this morning.

2. On a more fun note, I'm very excited about my husband's new motorcycle, but also very sad that I can't go for a ride on it yet. We have already made plans for our first post-baby ride, though. We're going to make a run to the closest Bahama Bucks (which is nowhere near Mansfield) to get snowcones. Hopping on his motorcycle and getting an icy treat in the summertime was one of our favorite things to do when we lived in Wichita Falls. I can't wait!

3. I love Twix bars. I just happened to be eating one when I got to this point or else I might not have thought of it.

4. My mommy is having foot surgery tomorrow. I think the surgery itself is pretty straight forward, and it's only supposed to take 20-30 minutes. But, she'll have to be off work for 6 weeks! WOW! Hopefully it will take care of all the trouble she's had for the past several years though.

5. I thoroughly enjoy reading my friends' Facebook updates. I enjoy even more posting comments back and forth. It makes me feel connected to people that I would otherwise never ever get to talk to. You might be thinking to yourself, "Self, doesn't she know that's kinda the whole point of social networking sites like Facebook?" Yes, I do know that. I'm just pointing out that it's awesome.

6. My brain just stopped functioning, so I guess this concludes my final thoughts for the month of March. Talk to ya in April!

And the people shall call her ...

It was a painstaking task, but I finally finished painting the letters that spell out our daughter's name that we'll hang up in the nursery. So without further ado (for those of you who haven't seen it on Facebook yet) ... we shall call her ...

Savannah Leigh to be more precise. Here is a close up of the design:

I toiled over how to decorate them ... changing my mind no less than 10 times I'm sure. First I was going to paint the sides of each letter a different color that coordinated with the nursery fabric, but decided it wouldn't look good hanging against the pale yellow wall. Then the plan morphed into painting the sides brown, but settling on a design for the front was the major challenge. I'm a huge perfectionist as it is, and I just wanted this project to turn out like I envisioned it. I had high hopes, but as things I tested didn't go as expected, I started to seriously doubt my creative prowess. But alas, one Saturday afternoon phone call to my oh-so-gifted-in-the-creativity-department mom helped steer me toward the design that ultimately turned out just the way I wanted! All of the letters have a clear coat sprayed on them and are waiting to be put up on the wall. Ah, sweet progress!

So that's a lot of detail about some silly wooden letters, but you're probably all wondering exactly how we settled on the name Savannah. Well, shortly after we found out it was a girl ... which was really early ... 16 weeks along to be exact ... I started pushing Cory to think about names. Not that I was in a hurry to really decide on one, I just enjoyed talking about it. We would randomly text each other during the day or one of us would chime in during a commercial break when we watched TV together in the evenings with a "what do you think about __________?" Sometimes the response would be an absolute no and sometimes merely an "eh, it's ok I guess."

Going into the process we decided we weren't going to have a laundry list of names we liked. We were going to keep it narrowed down to a top three at all times. This is what we did when we bought our house, too, and it worked out really well. If we thought of a new name that was better than option 2, but not as good as option 1, we would move it into place and knock off the one at the bottom of the list. One day at work I texted the name Savannah to Cory and he replied that he liked it. That evening we discussed middle names and added it to the list, but admittedly not to the top at first. Nope, it moved up when we found reasons to no longer like the names in the first and second positions.

At first, I wasn't sold on the middle name Leigh (or Lee or Lea, which were the spellings first suggested by Cory). I liked Savannah Grace. In fact, the only thing stopping us from committing was the middle name. There really wasn't a lot of discussion about Savannah. We both like it. It sounded good with our last name. The persona it carried fit with what we picture our little girl being like. I was perfect. But the more I mulled over Cory's middle name choice, the more I liked the sound of it. Once it dawned on me to spell it L-e-i-g-h instead of L-e-e or L-e-a, I was willing to concede. :o) Then we suddenly found ourselves torn over whether to spell Savannah with an H on the end or not since her middle name would end in an H, but it didn't take long to get through that debate. Two names that end in H is no big deal, so Savannah Leigh Baker she shall be.

Baby Baker's baby face

Say that 10 times fast. :o)

Well, it's now been 7 hours since I chugged a chilled bottle of orange flavored liquid sugar, and I'm FINALLY starting to feel normal again. My heart has been fluttering, and I just feel jittery. But, it's one of the many joys of pregnancy ... being screened for gestational diabetes.

One of the GREATER joys of pregnancy is having an ultrasound, and today's was fantastic. Around 28 weeks, which is exactly where I am today, Dr. Daum likes to take a good look at baby—checking everything from the inside out. We saw her bladder and kidneys (which he could somehow tell were functioning normally), her stomach, lungs, heart, brain ... pretty much everything on the inside that's super important. He said everything looked just perfect.

We also got to look at her hands and feet, count her little fingers and toes, and although it took a great deal of work to get her to wiggle into just the right position, we got this peek at her beautiful little face. Does it look like she's smiling to you?

I can't stop looking at her and wishing she was here already!!

She's breech right now, but she's constantly turning cartwheels anyway, so at this point I'm not concerned about it. In fact, she's not just breech, she's actually folded up like a taco shell which is why it was so hard to get a good look at her face ... her hands and feet were in the way. At one point we could see her holding on to one foot with her hand. Don't ask me why it was so cute, but it was. Anyway, I guess if she decides to stay curled up like that, my visions of childbirth will take a different direction, but there are still quite a few weeks for her to "assume the position." And until those weeks pass, I'll keep looking at this picture of my baby girl's precious face and patiently await her arrival.

Brick wall

I feel like I hit one yesterday. And today it feels like it fell over on top of me. I am SO tired. I didn't think the "lack of energy" that accompanies the third trimester would quite literally start on the first day of my third trimester, but that seems to be the case. I'm holding on to hope that maybe I'm just worn out because we've had a lot going on the past week or so. First was the news that Cory had been selected for a job at Lockheed, which doesn't seem all that tiresome except that I expended a lot of brain power thinking about all of the new possibilities. And in light of his pending new daytime schedule, we decided it was a good time to tackle all the little undone household projects on our to-do list.

Each project had (or will have) an impact on the next, and I'm proud to say Cory has been working super hard to get it all done before the end of the month. So far he's built a shed in the backyard and started painting his "man room." The shed will soon house the lawn mower, weed eater, leaf blower, and all the other lawn tools that currently live in the garage, and his man room (once it's painted) will become the home for a set of lockers he bought on Craigslist (also hanging out in the garage at this time). The lockers will store everything from sports equipment to hunting gear that currently takes up most of Honeybun's closet, and the garage will finally get to do its proper job of protecting our vehicles from the elements. After Honeybun's closet is emptied, I'll get to hang up even more adorable hand-me-downs we've acquired from dear friends. Thanks, Jen!

I think that pretty much covers the home projects. If there are others I've forgotten about then I'll just guess that my brain has reached capacity and is simply blocking them out. The only one I'm really involved in anyway is Honeybun's closet which I think I can handle with ease. I tried to help Cory with the shed and got a nasty sheet metal cut, so I was banned from assisting with other construction/manual labor projects ... not that I'm capable of much manual labor at almost 7 months pregnant anyway, right?

In other news, last night I turned in what might possibly be the last research paper I'll ever have to write ... EVER! I only have one class left after this semester before graduating with my Master of Education degree, and I'm fairly confident it doesn't involve a research paper. Fingers crossed because I like that idea.

And finally, Tuesday is my next regularly scheduled appointment to check up on Honeybun. I'll have my glucose test and a long, relaxing ultrasound. YAY! This will be the ultrasound where they look at all the anatomy, organs, everything, to make sure she's a healthy girl. I can't wait to see her again! Maybe this time she'll be a little more modest and let me get a good look at her sweet little face instead of just her cute little botttom. Remember her 12 week portrait?

But now it's official ... after writing this blog, I've used my alotted energy for the day. Oh what I would give for a nap right about now.

Sunshine

Yesterday was a great day.

First, I was reminded by my awesome pregnancy app that I was under the 100-days-to-go-before-Honeybun-is-due-to-arrive mark. That is a great feeling!

Second, Cory had a job interview that we have been looking forward to for a few weeks.

As most of you know, he was laid off last April. It was completely unexpected. He was told one day that it might happen, and the very next, it did happen. We experienced countless emotions, but knew we would manage. We were fortunate to have other income besides his so we were in no real danger of being kicked to the curb or anything drastic like that. We had no idea how long he would be unemployed, but if you had told me it would be close to a year, I would've laughed in your face. Even in this economy, I never in my wildest dreams (and believe me, I've had some wild pregnancy dreams) thought it would take this long for the door to finally be opened. But I am happy to say, it has been! After an early morning interview, he received the call with the job offer not long after lunch!

Admittedly, some days were harder than others as we faced this situation. With each passing day, we both felt the added pressure ... the clock was ticking. It was time for something to work out. I can say, though, that in the midst of it all we were both confident that these circumstances, which were out of our control, were being handled by Someone far more capable than either of us.

As I drove to work this morning, I couldn't help but see some symbolism in the world around me. The sky was completely clear ... I mean there was not a cloud to be seen anywhere in the sky ... and the sun seemed brighter than usual. There was just the right amount of moisture left over from yesterday's storm to make everything sparkle. Prior to today, however, the world seemed to just have a dull appearance. Not that every day was gloomy and rainy, but even when the sun was out, everything was just a little lackluster. That's kinda been our life the past few months. There have been some gray days when we've been a little down, but there have also been sunny days ... the type that don't really stick out in your memory, but also don't carry with them any tremendous woes or sorrow. Just regular ol' days. I feel like the world around me today is saying, "See, you stuck it out and now you've turned a corner, and best of all, you kept faith throughout it all."

Cory and I are very excited about the things to come with this new opportunity, but I'll save that for a later blog post. For now, we are just going to celebrate the facts that he has rejoined the workforce and the sun is beaming down on us!

Words of love

Do you ever have those times when you just can't adequately express in words what you feel on the inside? That's what I experienced all weekend as Cory and I celebrated our anniversary. We decided early on that we weren't going to buy gifts for each other, but rather we were just going to go out for a nice dinner and maybe catch a show (something live, not a movie). Cory asked me if I would be ok with just letting him plan it so I would be surprised about where we were going, and I was happy to oblige! Go for it, honey! And with that, the wheels were turning.

My Saturday ... a.k.a. our date day (since Sunday was actually our anniversary) ... was particularly busy. Before our date, I had a baby shower to attend in Irving. This should've been completely routine - drive 45 minutes, eat some yummy food and drink some yummy punch, oooh and aww over precious little baby things, drive back, and done! But ... I'm sad to say it was not that easy. I had no idea that the highway I was planning to take most of the way was closed all weekend for construction so in the blink of an eye I went from free-and-clear traffic conditions to completely jammed up. Hello detour. I managed to work my way over, albeit slowly, to another northbound route to get me to Irving and called the mommy-to-be (who lives in Fort Worth) in the mean time to make sure she wasn't planning to take that route too. I would've hated for her to be late to her own shower! And, alas, I made it there ... almost on time even!

I only got to stay long enough to eat and chit chat a little, but had to leave before any of the aforementioned ooohing and awwing over gifts began. And it's a good thing I left when I did because I had traffic troubles on the way back too. Ever heard of a little place called Traders Village? Uh, let's just say getting caught in the Saturday afternoon traffic around that place is grand. NOT! Knowing it was going to be a busy day, though, I planned to wear to the shower what I wanted to wear out later that evening, so luckily all I had to do was get home in time to leave and make it to our dinner reservations in downtown Fort Worth (which I did with about 10 minutes to spare). WHEW!

Anyway, I say all of that just to get to how awesome my husband is. When I walked in the door after coping with all the road delays, I was worn out and not in the happiest of states. But the night was just as important to me as I knew it was to him, and I assured him I'd perk up in no time. "No time" as it turns out is exactly how long it took too. Even though we said we weren't going to get each other anything, Cory broke the rule and had a small gift bag on the counter for me that I had somehow missed when I came in ... probably a result of that whole "worn out and unhappy" biz.

He had researched online that the first anniversary is commemorated with a gift of paper so he got me a small assortment of things (like scrapbook photo mats), but the best of all was a fairly lengthy letter that I took with me to read in the car since we were pressed for time. It said all the things that I always feel, but never seem to have the words to describe. It completely calmed the anxiety I had been feeling about the addition to our family by reminding me that no matter what, we aren't alone when it comes to parenting our kids. We are a team and we'll always have the other one there to do life with. I started to think back over all the things we've been through this past year and it reminded me of the vows we took ... "for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health..." It's been an eventful year for us, to say the least, and we've already dealt with a lot of things we never expected, but we've managed to get through it all ... side-by-side ... and I wouldn't want it any other way.

I love you with all my heart, Cory Baker, and I'm so thankful you picked me to be your wife!  Something tells me that this next year is going to be as full of memories as the last ... and then some! 

In my dreams

Did you hear (or see)? Jim and Pam had their baby!

Confused? I'm talking about The Office. Now, I know it's just a situational comedy, but reality started to really sink in as I watched what Jim and Pam went through on last night's episode. There were people constantly hovering over them who needed to back off. When it was time to go to the hospital, Pam began to freak out about her ability to give birth, be a mother, and who knows what else and refused to go until finally her contractions were 2 minutes apart and not going wasn't an option anymore. Breastfeeding was a struggle. They were scared to leave the hospital, and then to top it off, they finally got home and Dwight was in the process of "remodeling" their kitchen. Just what brand new parents want to deal with upon arriving home with their precious new life. Of course, that scenario is a little extreme compared to real life.

But the reality is that having a baby comes with a long list of unique challenges and nothing in the world can completely prepare you to deal with all of them. After the show was over and I was in bed, my mind just wouldn't slow down. I felt my nerves taking over. I found myself wishing I had more time ... more than the 3 months I've got left ... to read books and articles, talk to seasoned moms, and do anything else possible to get us prepared for this life-changing experience.

Cory could instantly tell something was bothering me when I started getting ready for bed so I explained my anxiety. He reminded me of all the things we've both done so far to prepare and about the fact that she's not going to be here tomorrow ... there is still time to learn even more. He also made the great point that there is no one right way to raise a child, so we will just have to wait until she's here and figure out what works best for us. Good advice.

I dreamed all night about being in labor and going through all the same things Pam went through. This isn't the first time I've dreamed about being in labor, but I'm not surprised that my dreams mirrored what I had just watched on TV. I was so tired when I woke up this morning. I mean seriously, who wants to live through labor countless times in their sleep?! Not this momma! But my nerves have calmed down and some of my confidence about being a mother is coming back. Now I've just got to take advantage of the time I've got left to get ready and patiently wait for our angel to arrive.

A little randomness

My body has developed a really terrible habit of waking up at 4 a.m. every single day ... no matter what. Is this yet another oddity I must attribute to pregnancy? What's more, I have been staying up later than normal too for no apparent reason. Our routine is the same. Cory usually stays awake watching TV for a little while after I've fallen asleep, but for the past few weeks, I've been staying awake right along with him. So, in a nutshell, I'm staying up later, waking up earlier, and yet I'm still basically able to make it through the day without feeling utterly exhausted. Maybe I'm already trying to adjust to the rigors of motherhood. That sounds feasible.

In other news, the first of many, many friends' baby showers is coming up on Saturday, and I'm so excited about it. I haven't traditionally been the type to enjoy wedding and baby showers, but the fact that I'm expecting my own little bundle of joy has certainly changed my outlook. I plan to take copious notes about what veteran moms love, hate, couldn't live without, etc. so that Cory and I can be armed with good information when we go register in the near future. And for all of you moms out there reading this, I'll gladly accept any and all advice you have about favorite and not-so-favorite products.

And I just want to close by sending a little message to the month of June. Please hurry up and get here. I'm ready to meet my baby girl!!

There's nothing cuter...

...than an adorable little cloth diaper like this...

I know we scored a big bundle of cloth diapers already, but this one was too cute to resist!  New designs don't hit the Goodmama website very often, so when I saw this one I didn't even think twice about ordering it.  Just like the others, it'll fit our little girl from birth until she's potty trained. 

I had to show it off for everyone out there who doesn't know how far cloth diapering has come since the days of giant diaper pins and plastic covers.  It's economical, environmentally friendly, and trendy!