The Top 3 Things I Thought Would be Cool About Pregnancy

Ok, so when I was imagining being pregnant, before I was pregnant of course, I always imagined it as this awesome experience, and I was super excited about a few things. I suppose everything is much different in imagination land (or at least things are ALWAYS different in my imagination…) so not everything was exactly as I dreamed it would be. Here is what I was pumped about:

1.       The Clothes: I thought maternity clothes would be awesome. They always make the mannequins in the Thyme store look so cozy, fashionable and gosh-darned cute! When I saw them, I always said “I can’t wait until I am pregnant so I can shop there!”.  Also, it helps that the mannequins are perfectly proportioned with large, ample bosoms and a small, cute baby bump. No cellulite, of course. Just perky bums all around. I am still a little happy about mat clothes, but it’s not exactly for the reasons I envisioned before I got knocked up. First off, the cute little outfits in Thyme? Yeah, they cost a heck of a lot of money. And those are mid-range mat clothes. Also, the quality is not that stupendous for many mat clothes unless you are willing to pay a lot for them. Which I am not, as I will only be wearing them for a few months anyway. Also, all of the maternity pants for work seem to be made out of a stretchy, shiny fabric which means you can see EVERYTHING. Even if I wore a g-string with these pants, it would be clear as day. What the heck?! Why on earth would someone think a pregnant woman would want pants that accentuate the thigh/bum area? Even if you are a skinny super model, this material would make you seem nasty. However, there are some good things about maternity clothes. First is that there are tons of sales, and nothing makes me feel superior to the world than getting a steal of a deal on some overpriced clothing. Second is that they have these stretchy panels on the pants, and no flys or buttons or anything. So it is basically like wearing sweat pants all. the. time. It’s awesome. Also, it is kind of awesome when you start showing to have little outfits that show off your belly. As long as the shirts are long enough to hide the tight and shiny going on in the bum area…

2.       Excuse to do Anything: So, with all the stories that come with pregnancy, I thought I was going to get a free ticket to misbehave and be a demanding diva for 9 months. Not so. I haven’t really had any cravings or aversions at all, so I can’t send Hubby out to get Jamaican Me Crazy Ice cream, Cheese Doodles and Doughnuts.  And I can’t yell “PLEASE, take that chicken away or I will THROW UP!” all dramatic-like. I can throw up a lot though, just not because of certain food. It’s for no reason at all. Also, I have not had very many crazy mood swings, so I can’t be all diva like there either. Pretty much I am just a fatter, pukier version of myself. No drama or antics at all.

3.   Having people notice that you are preggers: I thought that this would be the best part. People would see you and smile and be so happy for you. They would go out of their way to make things easy for you and little birds would follow you around singing and helping you with chores. This is soooo not the truth. First off, in the 1st trimester I felt the worst. So incredibly exhausted and pukey and bloated and pretty much the worst ever. However, no one can tell you are pregnant, so you just look nasty and act nasty and you get no sympathy unless you have told people you are expecting. No one gives you their seat on the crowded train, no one smiles and there are definitely no birds. It’s more like people try and avoid you, but that’s because it looks like you just had a 3 day weekend with Jack Daniels and you are trying not to throw up all over them. Now that people know I am preggers, and I am starting to show, I find that attention from people is not really all that wanted. Most of the time people are happy, but they all ask the same questions, so you have to be happy and excited all the time, even if you still feel like puking any minute while answering for the 20th time that day if it is a boy or a girl and when you are due. These people are generally sweet and nice, and it is what I envisioned before I was pregnant, I just didn’t anticipate the fact that I don’t want to talk about being pregnant 24/7. Also, there are these people that exist out there who are waiting to give you unsolicited advice. They think you can’t actually function without their input. How you got this far without them, I don’t know. But they are your saviors. They do things like tell you about what’s good for the baby, and how you shouldn’t be drinking that, or eating that, or that you are doing everything wrong. If you breath, the baby will be disturbed and he will come out with 8 heads. It’s true. I heard about it on Dr. Oz. If you reply like you want to reply, then you are a bitchy preggo who needs to control her hormones. If you smile and take it, you want to explode and eat off her head, and I know THAT can’t be good for the baby. I have yet to have had to bring out the snide remarks, but I will. I have been looking for some good ones, so that I have standard responses to stupid comments. I know people are well meaning, but still. People need boundaries.

Those were the 3 major expectations I had for pregnancy. Obviously, the reality has been a little bit different. It has been a wonderful and exciting time, but it’s not exactly how I pictured it. Of course, I do have a problem with matching reality to my expectations in most areas of my life, so why would pregnancy be any different?

This week means we are about halfway through this whole journey, and that is so exciting, and a little bit scary at the same time. To think back on when I saw that plus sign seems like it was a million years ago. At the same time, thinking ahead to actually having the baby seems incredibly intimidating, and I wouldn’t mind if the next 20 weeks feel like forever as well…although I might be singing a different tune when I am as huge as a whale and my ankles are the size of tree trunks…guess we will have to wait and see!

General Happenings on the Long Weekend...

Life after finding out the gender has been interesting. It was a fun experience, and I am glad we did it. But it is a little strange. Before there were 2 possibilities, and we planned for both. We thought of what would happen with a little girl, and what would happen with a little boy. Now we only have the one option. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just an adjustment. I actually think this would have been much worse if we went through the whole pregnancy, especially if we started really leaning towards a girl, and then found out it was a boy. So I am glad we have the time to prepare now.

Also, it makes things like names much easier. We had already narrowed boy's names down to a few choices, whereas the girl's names we hadn't even began to narrow anything down. So that's sort of a relief. Also, we can start to plan the nursery, which will be fun.

In other news, Kitty's claw covers are starting to come off now. So she has like 2 razor sharp claws on each paw, and she is trying desperately to destroy the couch with them every chance she gets. It is driving me CRAZY! She totally does it on purpose too. She looks us right in the eye and then starts to scratch. Like she is daring us to do something about it. Just yelling at her isn't enough of a deterrent now. It's like she knows we won't actually do anything but make loud noises. So, today I had had enough, and after she tried for the 4th time in 2 minutes to scratch the chair, I tried to a) throw something at her and b) get up and chase her.

Hubby was sitting on the couch playing Nazi Zombies on Xbox live with certain friends and he felt it necessary to have a running commentary which sounded like this: "The wife is getting mad at the cat. The wife if throwing things at the cat. She missed and hit the Xbox. The wife is now trying to chase the cat, but the cat is much much faster than the wife. *insert comment from Hubby's friend here* Yeah...she's not as quick as she used to be". Nice. Yes, I am getting rather chubby and awkward, but I am growing a tiny human!! AND, I am trying to discipline our unruly cat. What is HE doing? Sitting around and trying to kill Nazi Zombies with his buddies...if there were actually Nazi Zombies running around, and his actions helped to reduce the population of said zombies, then I would understand. But this is obviously not the case...

The things we pregnant fatsos put up with...sigh.

Drumroll please!

Well, the results are in! We had a great ultrasound, and we know the gender now!

First off, the ultrasound went great. We had a great tech, and she agreed right away to write the gender down instead of telling us right there. Peanut was squirming around like crazy in there, especially when that "What is Love?" song came on the radio. I guess Peanut loves 90s dance tunes. It truly is our baby...

We also found out that the placenta is in the front of my tummy, which explains why I haven't really been feeling any kicks or movements from the baby yet. I had suspected, but it's nice to have the peace of mind to know that there is a reason. Also, with the amount of dance moves going on in there, maybe I am lucky I don't feel anything yet and I can catch up on some sleep while I can...

So, we held back and put the paper in an envelope and headed out to the Greek restaurant where we had our rehearsal dinner for our wedding with my Mom and Dad. Dinner was DELICIOUS...as usual! We opened up the envelope and...

SURPRISE!!! Peanut is a BOY!

So looks like I will officially be outnumbered in our house now. 2 Oilers fan to 1 Flames fan. Although we haven't figured out Kitty's hockey allegiance yet. Maybe we need some sort of loyalty test for her, and then maybe the odds will be even.

Boy or Girl?!

So, we are about 5 days away from our anatomy ultrasound on Friday. At this ultrasound, we will hopefully have the chance to find out the gender of our little Peanut! It's really exciting, but at the same time a little strange...it will really make this whole pregnancy thing seem super real. It's not just a little Peanut anymore, it's a little boy, or a little girl.


Firstly, I suppose I should say, yes, we are going to find out. I know people are really divided on this issue. A lot of people would rather keep it a surprise. Our take on it is this: It is still going to be a big freakin surprise on Friday. We have no idea what it is, so when we find out, how exciting! Plus, we would like to be able to prepare for the baby's arrival and it seems a bit more personal when you already know if it's a boy or girl, or at least it does to us. Also, our whole house is painted lemon yellow and mint green, and I hate it, so gender neutral colours are not high on my list of things I like. And lastly, Hubby and I are having a heck of a time trying to find names. At least this can narrow the field by 50% and increase our odds of finding something that will work.


We are unsure as to what we think Peanut is. At first we both strongly felt baby was a girl. But in the last couple of weeks, I think I have swung my thinking and starting assuming boy. Maybe this is some subconscious way of trying to even out the expectations so we are just overjoyed at the news, and not disappointed. Not that we would be disappointed, far from it. We are just hoping for a healthy baby, whether it's a boy or girl is sort of the icing on the cake, you know? But still, I can see if we assume the baby is a girl, and it turns out to be a boy, that we will have that first instinct of "we were wrong" instead of "oh awesome!". Anyway, stream of consciousness rant there...sorry.


We were at Sobey's yesterday and we saw this little girl dressed up as a princess shopping with her parents. Hubby and I both thought it was really cute. I said to him "if our little girl wants to dress up as a princess to go shopping, then we are totally going to let her". He agreed. At the same time we both said "or if our son wants to dress as a princess". It's so nice to know we are on the same page, and really, when it comes down to it, either way it's going to be a hell of a fun ride!


So, Hubby and I would like to know: do you think we are having a boy or a girl?

Is Peanut a Boy or a Girl?

Hubby's Creativity

Ok. So I was mentioning to Hubby that I was thinking of changing up the blog template to be a bit less generic, and a bit more reflective of what this blog is about. It’s obviously not about grass. Or dandelions. It could arguably be about figurative blue skies, but still. By changing it up, I meant using a different template offered by Blogger that is a bit more fitting. Hubby thought this meant that we needed to make something up from scratch. He also thought (for some reason) that the grass was an integral part of the new template. He set to work to create a new template from scratch that would be perfect for the blog.

I don’t really know THAT much about technology. I get by, and would probably describe myself as “eventually tech savvy”; at first I have no clue, but give me some time to play around, and I figure it out. Maybe it won’t be the most efficient way of doing it, but it will usually work. Hubby is similar. He learns by doing. However, he works in the industry of technical support, and so most people assume that he is a tech whiz. And he generally is. He learns the same way I do, but just a lot faster, and he probably comes up with the most efficient way. So, when he told me he would come up with something, you can understand that my expectations were pretty high.

Hubby has really been the model Daddy-to-be so far. He is super excited about the pregnancy, and is really involved. He throws out baby names and reads along in his Daddy book about the development of Peanut each week. He helps out a ton around the house, and takes pictures of my belly each week. He is super sweet, and has all the makings of the perfect Dad.

So far these paragraphs all seem to be unrelated, but they are necessary in their own way for what I am about to show you. The ingredients for a new blog template from Hubby were: tech savvy man + super sweet Daddy-to-be. What resulted was perhaps the opposite of my high expectations.

What resulted was this:

Yes. That is our baby (which looks sort of cow-like) in a diaper with a rocket launcher strapped to its back fighting a demonic T-Rex. On grass. With blue skies. Obviously the rocket launcher needed some sort of apparatus to convert it to a backpack, as Baby only has stick legs to crawl with.

This was Hubby’s idea for my blog template. And while I do admit it is a pretty awesome picture, I am not sure if it accurately reflects the theme of this blog. So I am still looking.