Come on, baby, come on!

Robobebe has a robowardrobe, if only she'd come out into the world. Entering the 39th week, we are desperate for robobebe to make her debut. We are fully aware that she might not come out for another 3 weeks, but CP is ready to get her body back and we are both so excited to meet her already.

Notice a pattern here? Other than how awesome our friends are?

38 Weeks!

We are at 38 weeks, and the baby is TO TERM! Everything from here on out is a waiting game. One of the little known facts about pregnancy is that a due date is only an average - it is perfectly healthy for a baby to come out anywhere from 37-42 weeks. The idea of being pregnant for another MONTH is unbearable - not only am I so excited to meet the baby, but I am also so excited to not be pregnant anymore! Everyone tells me I will miss being pregnant, and I can see why - there is something lovely and special about knowing there is a little human being growing inside of me. But I am ready to trade that for the lovely and special feeling of kissing little toes and being able touch my own toes. I really really am. So if you think of us and the little robobebe, please take a moment to stop and visualize the baby coming out, say, tomorrow!

We went on another shopping rampage yesterday - this child has more clothes than we do! Unfortunately, I can't post any pictures because the living room feels awfully far away and every time I move I think the baby and my cervix are going to fall out together!

Nursery Done

Well, for better or for worse, all elements of the nursery have been delivered and put together. Everything turned out to be bigger than expected. Or we misestimated how big the room is. We're still thinking about moving the changing table out of the room, but here is where we've landed for now.






On Tuesday, we will be at 36 weeks. Eagerly counting down the days until she arrives. Hopefully, sooner rather than later. I'm a little scared of a past due CP.

33 Weeks!

Twenty-eight days until full term! That's a little scary. According to one website, the fetus is the heft of a pineapple and according to another, she's the size of a honeydew melon. I remember when she was the size of a poppy seed. Oh, how quickly they grow.

Here's a picture of CP, taken a few weeks ago, at 31 weeks.


This weekend, we had our little baby party at the Red Line Tap. MJ provided some delicious food. Annie baked 70 (!) cupcakes and as promised, she went out and bought Popeye's. All in all a cool event, alot of our favorite people (the ones in Chicago and Milwaukee anyway) in one room.

So now we're in nursery mode. A few weeks ago, we painted. Here's a picture of the painting in progress. With the help of our friend N, we settled on a light orange. It looked yellow at first, which was fine by CP since yellow is her favorite color. It grew on me and now that it's been a couple of weeks, it's getting more orange. And when the sun is shining, the color is amazing.


Last night, we finally got around to putting up the wall decal. It was not the most fun thing in the world. But worth it in the end. I hope it doesn't give her nightmares.



On Friday, our mattress arrives, as well as the changing table (thanks to Irma and Rachel). So look for more nursery post in the next week or so.

32 weeks!

I know I promised to post pictures of the nursery, a while back, after I painted it, but I was hoping to have some other elements (art, mattress, rug)in place before I did. But none of that looks like it's going to happen any time soon. So I will post some "in progress" photos. Except I have no time, ever.

This weekend is our Kegger for Pregger baby party. I'm excited to have all of our friends together in one place, except for the friends who don't live in Chicago.

Last weekend, we went looking for a rug and bedding. This is what we bought instead.

From Old Navy, of all places:

This was made for Robobebe, minus the shirt.


One of the very few pink things she owns, but I think we're okay with pink as long as it's not pastel or too saccharine. And by "we", I mean "me".


This is just cute. Love the use of orange.


And for when the baby goes to visit Sue and Gwen, her first pair of overalls.

Whoops!

I meant to post pictures of CP!

This was taken a little over a month ago, when she was at 25 weeks:
And this was taken today, a few days shy of 30 weeks:

30 Weeks!

Well, we're approaching the 30th week of being pregnant and so far, so good. Only 8-12 weeks to go! Two weekends ago, we went out to IKEA and bought the nursery furniture and last week, finally accepted defeat and hired one of CP's students to build the wardrobe. It worked out wonderfully. One of a handful of times there were no tears during assembly.

All of a sudden, the sight of this makes it feel so real:


The clothes (this is just half of it) have been washed, folded, and hung up in the wardrobe:


Our friend Nako came over last night for a color consult and to edit what we have, as we are the type of people who cannot make a decision to save our lives. She brought a present that she and our friend Sue bought for us while Nako was visiting Sue in Northampton. Our new favorite piece of clothing:


We're going to go buy paint this week and hopefully by next weekend, the room will be painted. Here are some "before" pictures.

The crib is IKEA. The Eames rocker is a Craigslist find. The guy selling it described it as "kitchsy" and was selling it for a steal. Five minutes after he said it was still available, I was at his door, cash in hand. The mini chair I bought for 50 cents at a garage sale in Milwaukee about 10 years ago. It's been waiting all this time for Robobebe.


I never thought I would have so much green and orange in my house. I never thought I would love the color combination of green, orange and blue.


Here's a view from the outside. The room is not that big. The artwork is by one of our favorite artists, Tara McPherson. The rocker was a splurge, even though it was on deep discount. But so worth it.

We were trying to decide which prints to put in the nursery, the others will go in our bedroom and my office.

When I emailed the company to ask what color the "brick red" was, more salmon or more burgandy, I was told, "Brick red is the color of red brick." Thanks. Luckily, it turned out to be a lovely shade of red brick.


Check back next week to see which color we went with.

Shoes!

These shoes are so cute, I want to throw up.



I've been thinking (again) about learning how to sew. Maybe I should learn how to make baby shoes.

We had our first Natural Birthing class yesterday. It's an 8 week class about childbirth and what to expect and strategies to get through it and all that. It was interesting enough, an introduction, things we already know. It took place at this pro-La Leche, pro-cloth diapering "progressive" place and I was surprised (and a little shocked, although I shouldn't be) that even there, how sexism rears its ugly head. They are pretty good about having clothes in a variety of colors, not just pink and blue. But we were looking at the toys and they had these wooden "dress up" puzzle toys and the boy costumes included fireman, policeman, and some other -man type occupation. The girl costumes included a flowered shirt in pink, a flowered shirt in purple, and some Blossom hats. It was sick.

Anyway, class was fine. We were the only same sex couple there, but no one seemed to care. In fact, we were the life of the party. We are going to make america love the gays, one person at a time. Love us enough to help fight for our rights.

The best thing about having the one of the first kids in your immediate friends circle? Having friends splurge on cute things for your baby that you love but would never buy. Our friend Heather was in town this weekend and a few months ago she asked me if we'd rather have her buy us something practical, like diapers or something extravagant, like shoes. I think my answer was diapers. And I think I meant it at the time. But thank god she doesn't listen to me.

After a conversation with CP about how we want a little girl in a dress and combat boots, Heather bought us these:




They are my favorite things ever. And she was very thoughtful in getting them for us. They were taken away from us for a day when Heather's rental car was stolen and then taken for a joy ride, used in many robberies, and then crashed into someone's garage. Luckily, the guy was stupid enough to get out of the car to fight the people whose garage he hit, they called the cops and the guy was apprehended. Miraculously, the shoes were still in the car, wrapped in brown paper with a purple bow. So we drove out to some suburb in the middle of the night to reclaim them. So worth it, don't you think?

Also, we hit a milestone today! As far as the Countdown to Robobebe goes, we are now in the double digits. 99 days and counting...

Plans to be not-quite-so-obsessed with buying baby clothes have been completely undone by this onesie:



NX saw it this morning on the Shop-a-holic list from NY Magazine, along with 134 other cute and affordable baby outfits. This is the standout for me, not counting a $54 owl print onesie that would be a ridiculous extravagance even for us. I have been collecting black baby clothes whenever I can, which is easier said than done because black is not a popular colour for baby outfits, unless they say things like "I'm the [beep]" or "I'm [Beeping] Awesome." I'm not ready to start our kid on cussing, especially before they can even talk. But I do think black is a fabulous neutral, the go-to colour in both my closet and NX's. So later today I'm off to Target to acquire the above, and then later next month I'll be stocking up on all the Halloween leftovers, if by "all" you mean "only those that don't have pumpkins and ghosts on them." In the meantime, if you see any black baby clothes - scoop 'em up!

We have a problem.
We are obsessed with buying baby clothes.
Like... really obsessed.

NX called me the other day to tell me: "I think I have a disease." Turns out, despite our repeated vows to stop buying clothes for a baby who hasn't even been born yet, she'd dropped $30 on a baby outfit while trying to buy a present for someone else. In fairness... it is a really cute outfit! They all are. Which is why we've already had to move our stash of baby clothes from a shelf in our hall closet to its own little storage box.

When that happened, we promised to take it easy. We recited the cost of diapers. College. Buying a crib. No more baby clothes! No matter how cute and tiny and sweet they are. And we were great until yesterday, really, a whole 4 days! But then NX e-mailed me about a sale at minisocial.com. She says she was hoping I would tell her not to buy any more clothes. Yeah right - has she seen MY closet lately? No one ever accused me of holding back when it comes to shopping! And they were so cute! And tiny! And sweet! And ON SALE! Oh well... you know the end of this story... It involves a plum and navy tunic onesie and a shawl collared baby jacket.

Here are a few - just a few - of our favourite things:




We're going to have to take this obsession to the thrift store!

Week 23

How does time move so slowly and so quickly at the same time? CP is entering her 24th week of pregnancy next week and it feels like months until the 3rd trimester (only 4 weeks) and years until we meet the baby. But when we think about all that we have to do to prepare, it feels like we're going to run out of time. First is the birthing classes, which last 8 weeks, so we need to get on that. Second is getting the nursery ready if we can ever decide on a color palette.

One thing that has been fun is stroller shopping, which is not different than buying a car. In fact, we met a enthusiastic salesman who turned us onto a variation of a jogging stroller (although neither CP nor I plan on doing much jogging, ever). He told me it was so sturdy even I could get in it and then told me to. I thought he was joking, but he insisted I sit in the stroller to see how strong it was and how smooth a ride it gave. I got in reluctantly, but he was right. I may end up buying one for myself. Perhaps a twin stroller so CP and push us both around.

It's a....

The Chinese Calendar said: Boy!
Old Wives Tales about Fruit said: Boy!
Curandera said: Boy!
Position Coya is Carrying in said : Boy!
All of the dreams about our baby said: Boy!

Today's ultrasound said: GIRL!!!!!!!!

We're in shock but looking forward to all kinds of stylish hand me downs from her beautiful cousins Penelope and Olympia.

Here she is (a picture of a picture until we can get it scanned):


And some video of the ultrasound, unedited for clarity or to excise the evidence of our constant worrying about the baby: