Random Life Happenings...

I don't think I will be able to get my mind to slow down long enough to create much of a post, so this may be a bit random. I have been so super duper overwhelmed and busy at work the past couple of weeks that I haven't had a second to think. I wake up, head to work around 7, work until 6 or 7, come home, eat, and then work until bed most days. For some reason every single department that I work on (I work on the website for Michaels Stores) is going through an insanely busy season right now. So my mind is consumed with nothing but work.

In the midst of all of that craziness, a few fun things have happened. I'm officially at 26 weeks as of Wednesday, so little man is growing up a storm and will be here before we know it. I hope I always remember what it feels like to have him moving around in there. He's pretty active throughout the day now, and sometimes when I'm sitting at work he will kick me so hard that I gasp. It still catches me off guard from time to time when I realize there is a human growing inside of me, and those little reminders can be funny. He also has decided that around 10:30 pm or so when I decide it's time for sleep is his very most favorite time to have dance parties. The past few nights he has been bumping up against me over and over and over, nonstop, for 10 minutes or so before he settles down. One night I fell asleep while he was still going. A got to experience it one night, and he couldn't believe how powerful those little kicks can be! It's just such an amazing, crazy, fun thing to experience. Love love love.

Another completely random but yet very cool thing that happened is that A and I were in the Wall Street Journal. I was contacted through my blog email by a reporter who had stumbled upon my stories of our weddings. (For anyone who might be somewhat new here, A and I had two weddings, an American one as well as an Armenian one. You can read all about those here, here and here.) She was doing a story over people who had previously had two weddings, and wanted to know if she could interview me. Of course I said sure, so we went through that process and ended up being in the story. Our families thought it was just about the coolest thing to ever happen, so at least we made them all happy. It was definitely a fun thing to be a part of. You can check out the story here.

So basically, we're famous. I was pretty sure someone would be calling about a reality show after seeing the story, but alas, I received no calls. Ah well.

Other than that, not too much excitement going on. I'm very much looking forward to this weekend so I can think about something other than my job for awhile. You know it's bad when you're dreaming about it....I can't escape it! We have plans to hopefully find a chair for the nursery, hang the curtains, and I'm hoping I can work on some little DIY things I'd like to do for decorations.

Also, I mentioned last time that I have carpel tunnel now, and it's causing my joints to swell. At least, I'm assuming that's what is causing it. Regardless, my knuckles are now massive compared to what they normally are (maybe "massive" is a stretch) but this morning I couldn't even come close to getting my wedding ring on. My hands don't look swollen at all, just kind of weird and knobby....sexy, right? So anyway, I'm hoping that I can convince A that I need a replacement ring for the remainder of my pregnancy. Nothing fancy, even just a simple little band. I just don't like not having one now that I'm so used to it. I told him people are going to think I'm his pregnant mistress since he's still wearing his, but that didn't seem to phase him. I'll have to take another approach. I'll keep you posted on my success (or lack thereof).

So hopefully I'll return in the next couple of days with my 26 week update. I'm not making any promises, but it is a goal. Now everyone go out and enjoy your weekend....and do something fun in honor of the preggo lady who can't :)

24 Weeks

Man, time is just flying! I can't believe I'm already 24 weeks along....actually, I'll be 25 weeks tomorrow. I'm a bit slow on posting. In just a couple of weeks I'll be in my third trimester. Ahh! I'm still loving the whole process, although some days are definitely harder than others. The second trimester really has been as lovely as people make it out to be. Just this weekend I was telling my mom that for the most part I don't really feel all that pregnant...that is until I feel him kick or look down and see my big belly. I hope I'm just having a blissfully easy pregnancy and I'm not about to walk into some third trimester misery. Fingers crossed!

Due Date

May 1, 2013

This Week Baby A...

Is  just growing and growing...he weighs almost 1 1/2 pounds! His sense of hearing is getting stronger, and his cute little face is filling out. He's also got eyelashes, eyebrows and hair by this point. Like a real little human.

Symptoms

Hmm, let's see what fun stuff we have going on. I have carpel tunnel now, which is apparently pretty common in pregnant women. My wrists, fingers, and especially my thumb joints are super sore, tingly and painful, mainly at night. And my joints are swollen, so getting my ring on is a challenge, which I hate. Also having a tough time getting comfortable to sleep. The past week or so the bottoms of my feet have been super sore if I walk for more than a few minutes at a time. But other than that, feeling pretty good ;)

Weight Gain

  About 13 pounds total. I gained quite a bit all of the sudden from around 20-23 weeks, so I'm pretty happy that it's slowed back down. If I can keep it around a 25-30 pound gain for the entire pregnancy I will be one happy lady. We shall see what happens...

Gender

Baby Boy :)

Food Cravings/Aversions

The only thing I'm really craving are sweet, cold drinks. I've always loved Thai tea with bubbles, but I now get an intense urge for it on the regular. Sweet tea, coke, chocolate shakes....I'm always thirsty it seems, and that's what I want. I'm trying to drink tons of water to make up for the bad stuff, but I only allow myself one bad drink a day usually, so I tell myself it's not too bad.

Movements

He's pretty active in there! It's still not super consistent, but at least now I know it's nothing to worry about. I have an anterior facing placenta (can't recall if I've mentioned that) so apparently that means I won't be able to feel the kicks as easily as most women because he's kicking through the placenta and my stomach lining before I feel anything. But I still feel him in there several times a day.

Sleep

Not great. My hips are just so painful that getting comfortable is nearly impossible. I have to flip from side to side about every thirty minutes to relieve the pressure, so definitely feeling sleepy most days.

Daddy's Thoughts

He's so impatient for little guy to get here! Almost every day he says something about how he wishes he were here already. It's gonna be a long 3 1/2 months for him!

Fun Moments

Finishing up our Babies R Us registry....well, fun/stressful I will say. There is SO much stuff and it is so overwhelming to figure out exactly what you need. We also got most of his little clothes washed and organized. We got a TON of stuff from his sister, so combined with what I've bought and people have been giving us, the little guy already has a pretty large wardrobe. All the little things are just so adorable and tiny...I had so much fun going through it all!

Looking Forward To... 

Pretty much everything at this point. It's fun to see my belly growing, knowing he's getting bigger and stronger in there. It's fun to feel him kicking more and more. In the next few months we have baby showers, maternity photos, parenting classes....so many fun things to look forward to! And he will be here before we know it. So crazy!

Overwhelmed

I'm not one to write sappy posts about my hubs...it's just not my style. I adore him more than anything on the face of the earth, but I figure people don't really care to read about my undying love for him. Sometimes when I read blogs where girls are going on and on about their wonderful husband I want to be like, okay, we get it. He's great, blah blah. It almost seems like if you have to constantly mention how amazing someone is it makes it less special...or perhaps means that you are overcompensating for a void in your "real life" relationship.

BUT, sometimes I feel the need to give Arsen a little cyber-love. I gush about Addie and the little guy in my belly, but I don't really gush over Arsen. And sometimes I should.

 Just look at that pretty face he has!

I've been feeling super duper appreciative of him the past couple of days. When I got home from his sister's house on Sunday I walked into an amazingly clean house. Like, the entire downstairs was clean, and all of the laundry was done. When I thanked him he just said "I didn't want you to have to worry about it.". Simple as that, not looking for any recognition. He's also been wonderfully affectionate and sweet lately, and has been doing a whole lot of belly talking, which is just the cutest thing ever. Every night at some point he has a chat with "little man". So cute.

He also has scored major points lately by telling me how good I look with a belly. I think when I first starting showing it may have freaked him out just a teensy bit, but now he has totally embraced it. This morning when I was getting ready for work, hair all crazy, no make up, looking exhausted after a night of very little sleep, and wearing a too-small-for-pregnant-belly t-shirt, he gave me a big kiss and told me how beautiful I looked. Huh? I can see in that mirror in front of me, and that is not a pretty sight. But he genuinly seemed to mean it.

So simply for the fact that he is a man who knows how to make a pregnant girl feel good about herself, he deserves some love. And also, because one day not too long ago he had me look up this song you'll find right below here and said it captures exactly how he feels about me. He and I have never had a song, have never been the type to pick out mushy songs and say it's how we feel. I think that makes it all the more special to me, because I know there is something about this song that really means something to him.

So babe, if you stumble on over to the blog and happen to read this, keep up the good work. Being married to a silly, emotional girl who is growing rapidly before your eyes can't be easy, and you are handling it beautifully. I adore you, and I don't say it enough.

Shortest Weekend/Longest Post Ever

Where oh where do the weekends go? Seriously, I feel like I just got off work Friday, and now it's already time to head to bed and start it all over again. But even though it was a quick weekend, it was a good one. 

I started things off by taking a nice little walk with Addie on Friday after work. I've really been trying to do more physical activity every day...so far it's not going to great, but at least I'm trying (kind of). I went to the doctor Friday morning for a little baby update, and it's official: I gained more in the last month than I did the entire first 20 weeks. Thankfully I'm still on track for the most part, but I definitely need to start putting in some kind of effort to not become huge. So since the weather was nice I decided a quick walk around the neighborhood would do us both some good.

Friday night Arsen and I went out for a date night. I'm hoping we can do quite a bit of that in the next few months, because I know once our little guy arrives date nights may be few and far between. We had a yummy little Mexican dinner at a new place right by our house, and then we went to the movies, which we haven't done in forever. We thought about seeing Django Unchained, but once we realized it was nearly three hours long we opted for something shorter. We decided on This Is 40, and it was actually quite hilarious. Knocked Up is one of my favorite movies ever so it was fun to see the same characters. If you like that type of flick, I definitely recommend it. 

Saturday I woke up all inspired to be super productive. I think the nesting thing is kicking in already, because I have been on an organizing kick lately. I went through all of my kitchen cabinets and re-organized them earlier this week, and Saturday I decided to tackle the pantry. We don't have a ton of pantry space, so fitting all of our food in is always a challenge. This is what I was working with. 

 After pulling every single thing out of the pantry, organizing them into groups on our kitchen counters, and then putting it all back in, this is how it looks. 

Still packed to the brim, but at least it's done in an organized fashion. I made groups for canned food, jar food, snacks, breakfast, sides, baking, teas/other drinks, and vitamins/meal replacements.  In my head it's what makes sense. Every time I've opened the pantry door since I got it all done it has given me a happy little feeling...and this is yet another way that I know I'm old. And slighly pathetic.

While I woke up inspired to organize, Arsen woke up inspired to have a real Armenian breakfast. He was craving blinchiki, which is a crepe type thing that his mom makes often. We googled a recipe and decided to give it a try. And I must say, I was impressed with the outcome. We even decided to set the table and have a little family breakfast. Hot tea, boiled eggs, blinchiki with sour cream or honey...Arsen is determined to turn me into an Armenian wife if it kills him! My mom got a picture of us in action. We look positively miserable, but it really wasn't that bad.

Saturday afternoon I went and got my first prenatal massage...umm, best thing a pregnant girl could do. After that I was so relaxed that I didn't get much else done. We rented a couple of movies and grabbed some fast food for dinner, and that was that.

Today my mom and I spent the day at Arsen's sisters house for a ladies luncheon that she hosted. January 6th is actually Armenian Christmas, so she decided to have her friends over to celebrate. Everything was put together so beautifully, and of course all of the food was delicious. My mom and I were the only ones there who didn't speak Russian or Armenian, which is always interesting, but several ladies were sweet enough to translate all of the toasts and everything for us.

I spent a lot of the day chatting with a sweet girl named Svetlana (no idea if I spelled that right). She's only been in the US for around a year, and her English is seriously incredible for that amount of time. Her husband has lived here in Texas since he was young but met her when he was visiting Armenia, so she moved here to be with him. She is pregnant and due just two days before me, so it was a lot of fun to spend some time talking with someone who is going through exactly the same thing as me.

(Side note: are those pictures of Arsen's nephew not the cutest thing you've ever seen? I'm hoping the baby resembles him in some way...)

Overall it was a really fun day. It's so funny to be sitting in a room surrounded by all of these sweet women who I would never have known if it wasn't for Arsen. It really is pretty incredible to be a part of something so different than what I'm used to. Although after more than four years I'm starting to feel pretty much at home.

So I would say this weekend was a big success. And just summing it all up has exhausted me. So now, I'm gonna sit here and watch a bit of Everybody Loves Raymond and then head to bed in about 30 minutes like the old preggo lady that I am.

How I know I'm Old

At this very moment I am sitting in my bed seething with anger. It is just after 10 pm on a Thursday night and I would love to be sleeping. Instead, I'm awake and furious because the obnoxious children next door are outside shooting off some kind of cap guns and screaming and laughing. No joke,they're having a full on war right now.

It's been going on for a full 30 minutes, and I am absolutely amazed that no one has called the cops. We live in a super quiet neighborhood in the suburbs full of young families and retired people. I know the majority of people here work a 8-5 because I see them leave every morning. How is no one else as furious as me?

I finally hopped out of bed about five minutes ago determined to go let the little brats have a piece of my crazy hormonal pregnant rage, but luckily Arsen intervened. He flipped on the lights, walked next door and said , Dude, it's late. That's loud. I guess that's all it took because the noise finally stopped. I told Arsen if they start it up again I'm calling the cops. Don't test me right now kids, don't do it.

So that's all. Just needed express my anger at some 10 year old boys (And their parents. Where the F are they?)

Goodnight friends. Please don't judge me for my anger. It's the baby's fault. Yes, my new favorite thing to do is blame every bad or mean thing I do on my poor defenseless unborn child. Please don't judge me for that either. I'm not proud of it.

I Don't Know Why I'm Crying...

Pregnancy really does make you question your sanity from time to time. I feel like overall I've been pretty chill throughout this whole ordeal, and after the first trimester my emotions seemed to level out back to somewhat normal. However, the past few days have proved that I might not be quite as balanced as I think.

On Sunday when Arsen was putting the baby's new dresser together, I was in the room "assisting". Basically sitting on the floor scrolling through Instagram photos and occasionally tightening a screw for him. After he was about halfway through the process, it was time to put the top of the dresser on. We stood up, and I "helped" him lift it onto the base. The minute it was sitting where it was supposed to be, I saw it: a massive scratch. Not just a scratch, but a chip in the wood.

When I say massive, I mean maybe half an inch wide. But in my eyes, the entire dresser was ruined. It was front and center and I knew it would be the first part of the dresser to be seen. Of course I immediately start panicking just a little, because ohmygodwhatdowedo??? I knew there was no way Arsen was going to undo all of the work he had already done to take it apart and return it to IKEA, and I knew there was no way I could live with that scratch.

He kept trying to convince me that it was fine. No, it was NOT fine. He said we could paint over it, it would be fine. NO, that won't work, it will never look right. Everyone will be able to tell. He said, quite calmly, we are not taking this apart just to return it and do it all over again. We will figure something out. It's not a big deal.

At this point I lost it. Seriously, lost it. My eyes starting welling up and I felt those crazy pregnancy hormones surge through me. I started crying.

Arsen looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and amusement. He said something along the lines of, "Wait, are you crying? Are you really crying?". My response, through my sobbing, was "YES! It's ruined, and I can't deal with this! I cannot live with a messed up dresser! Every time I see it it's going to piss me off and make me cry and I won't be able to deal with it! I want this room to be perfect and this dresser is ruining EVERYTHING!!!"

At this point Arsen lost it, too. He started laughing so hard that he couldn't stop. Which made me cry harder, but it also made me laugh, because I knew just how insane I sounded. So I'm bawling my eyes out while I'm laughing saying "Shut up, it's not funny! I'm serious!". After a few seconds of trying to gather myself, I walked out of the room, wiped my eyes and took a few deep breathes. Then I came back in and calmly explained that we had to figure something else out so I wouldn't lose my mind every time I saw the scratch. He definitely agreed.

I decided to call IKEA to see what they could do, and they said all we needed to do was bring the top part in and they would switch it out for a new one. Huh. Who knew it could be so simple?

A little bit later Arsen started laughing again and said "Why were you laughing with me? Did you know you were being insane and you just couldn't control it?". The answer is yes. And that pretty much sums up the emotional roller coaster of pregnancy. You know what you're watching, reading, thinking, etc. shouldn't really make you burst into tears, you know this logically, but yet...you're helpless to control it. It's really something to experience.