Christmas 2012

We had a nice Christmas. Our last with just the two of us. I didn't really want to go down to Rotorua and spend it with the family that we usually do. I wanted to stay close to home just in case and have a calm holiday. And that we did.

Sunday night after church, we went with friends to see a city Christmas 'tree'. It's lights in the shape of a tree. They're all LED and they get the colours going in cool patterns. Then we walked up the only street in Auckland where most people decorate the outside of their house. It was a good night. A kind young lady even let myself and another pregnant woman use the toilet before her, which was nice as I was dancing around by that point. :-)

Monday morning, Jer went to the beach with friends. He had a great time. That night, we went over to a friend's house with a couple of other families for a taco night and to watch Polar Express. The kids really got into having a ticket to punch and hot chocolate to drink at the same time as the movie. I'm not sure how they drank the hot chocolate, it was rather hot in there!

Christmas day, we were invited to another friend's house (the same he went to the beach with) for lunch.  That was a nice relaxing day. The only hurry part was getting ready to go as the family had called before lunch. I can't say we've ever talked to all our family in the space of so little time, let alone on Christmas Day. Oh the pleasures of technology.

The next day, we had dinner with some other friends. That was fun and more traditional for us. We enjoyed talking to the kids about their new toys. Jer got to play with a few of them. We weren't so keen to get on the new trampoline as it kept raining and when it wasn't, they came in all wet from the trampoline itself. :-)  Jer did play legos awhile, but not with the kids, with one of the sets of parents!

Over all, we had a nice relaxing time. Having this week off work has given me time to organize and clean in a slow manner, which is nice. I needed regular breaks between everything anyhow. This kid is exhausting. I know, I know, just wait until he comes. :-)

5:15am

So, it's 5:15am. Rocket has finally turned over and is constantly kicking my stomach now. I've eaten a bowl of cereal, as I can't sleep due to the constant kicking and realized how hungry I am.

Let me just say that the ice pack trick really worked for me to get him to turn over. I tried on his head twice. That got his top half moving around. He refused to want to move his feet though, so I tried other things. That didn't do so much, so I had the bright idea to ice his feet. That's what I did this morning. At first he just kept trying to kick away the ice pack. lol  Then at some point in the day, he managed to turn him self over. He's been kicking my stomach ever since.

I'm relieved that he has turned. After talking to my midwife, I wasn't optimistic about having a breech child. She said the skills of the OBs don't generally include delivering breech anymore, as they've not done them regularly in about 20 years. I think I could have tried delivering breech, but it would have been a fight b/c they would have strongly encouraged me to have a c-section. Now I pray, Rocket stays the right direction, so that I don't have to make such a decision.

My Boy

I'm having a boy!

Funny how everyone wants to know the sex of the baby...some even more so than the parents. When you tell them they're all exited and say how wonderful that is. Half the people who talked to me yesterday after I told them thought this was funny to them to. "How Wonderful" or "Yea!" is an appropriate answer to whatever you're told. What did you expect them to say? "Really?" "Oh, darn." No, they're not going to do that. Everyone's just happy to know and to be happy with you.

The Scan

As I lay on the table, the radiologist asked whether we wanted to know the sex of the baby, and of course we said yes. Anyone who knows me well knows I can't have a present in front of me long before I have to know what's inside. :-) She asks again after a while of doing the scan. After we said yes, she pointed out a little penis. Then said, "We can never be completely sure." Maybe not, but she was seemed pretty confident, especially since one hand was over the baby's face and the other was elsewhere. Speaking of covering his face. We have to go back in a couple of weeks. Baby refused to either uncover his face or stop turning in. Apparently, they like to get a good shot to make sure baby's developing properly. All else was perfect though. Heart and veins were good. Kidneys and stomach were there. Brain and other bits were the right size. We saw knees, fingers, spine, ribs. All very cool. Jer's happy we got a video of it all. If you want to see it, I can email it to you.

Telling Work Friends

After we took the photo above, I was fixing my hair so I could go to work. Jer decided it'd be fun to tie the ribbon under my bust line (bow in back), where my shirt had a seam. So that's how I told those who work in my office. They thought it was cute.

Hiccups

So I get the hiccups when it's time to eat. I don't actually continue to hiccup, just do it once or twice. I guess I don't have to worry about forgetting to eat, which is good as I'm supposed to be eating every 2 hours. Frequently, I hiccup when I've had enough as well. "Way to go, baby" on portion control? What interesting is when I wake in the night to turn over or empty my bladder, I hiccup. I suppose that's fair, but I am not going to go find food in the middle of the night. :-)

While we're on the topic of eating. I'm tired of it. Seriously every two hours, I have to eat or I just feel ill. I know you're thinking that sounds fantastic! It's not. I carry around so much food in my work bag that my work stuff doesn't fit in it.

I did recently buy a really cool tupperware-like container that has many different compartments in it. I got it to help me eat more veg. It's hard eating veg at work. I have plenty of fruit a day. It's the veg that gets me. My new container now holds: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, celery, olives, peanut butter, a peanut butter and jam sandwich, and a cheese stick. I thought I'd eat all that in one day. And if it were just about the portion, I would. I just can't bring myself to eat all those in one day. Luckily, I don't have to. I just mix it up depending on what I'm feeling. My fruit intake in a day will generally also include a banana, pear, kiwis, and grapes. I've been shying away from apples for the most part. One day in early pregnancy they made my stomach cramp up. I had them cooked the other day with pork and mushrooms. That seemed alright. Maybe it was just that they were raw...or maybe it was just that I was still in early pregnancy. Either way, just don't want to chance it.

*Hiccup* time to eat again.

Baby Brain

This is for you, Grandma.

"What is baby brain?" you may ask. Well, let me tell you. You know how you walk into a room and forget why you're there? Well, it's like that, but worse. I've found myself staring at a blank wall. If anyone interrupts what I'm saying or thinking, including myself, I won't remember what I was going to say.  I have tried saving something on my computer and opened the same wrong folder 3 times in a row. About every 10 mins I find myself asking myself what I'm supposed to be doing. What was I saying? Oh, I hate it.

What's up

Ok. Not much exciting has been happening to report on. Just working and stuff. Here's the dress I made recently. I did it with cheap fabric as a practice. It's still nice fabric though. Thick...it does wrinkle easy though. It is cotton. I learned a lot making it. The light color on the shoulder is the facing. My store didn't have any in that color. If I'd known that I could make my own I would have. Since I didn't want only one place with an off color, I trimmed the bottom with it. I was going to do the tie with it too, but I only had enough to do one side of it.

These are the beautiful flowers Jer got me for no reason. They're just fantastic and gorgeous.

Poor Millie

So, today our poor software has decided to not work. Her name is Millinnium. Ok it is not really her fault. I'm told it was a server problem. Millie died towards the end of the backup overnight and the previous night failed as well, thus we have no realible back up of all our catalogue and customers. Now, you might not think that's so bad, but remember my library system is 55 public libraries plus a few corporate ones. We're not small. So, now at 1:55 pm I still have no work b/c my job is to sit in a room where there are no customers and do my job...which is 95% Millie based. The little work not on Millie I planned to get started today did not export this morning b/c of said dying. It estimated that Millie will be backed-up and ready to use by 2:30 earliest. So, this is how I'm spending a little time. You may ask, why I'm not then out with the public trying to do something. I tried. I'm currently in the Central Auckland library, which is quite big. I was rejected by reference and circulation for help. They were already scrounging for things for their staff. I have now gone for coffee for my co-workers and bought them doughnut holes--which were a big hit! Thank you dunkin' donuts.

On a brighter note, I love my job! It's challenging but great. I'm getting into the swing of things now. They might even be sending me to Sydney in two weeks for training, which is also exciting. Jer will be going with me as a tourist. He has taken the days off of work. He needs it.

We're buying a "new" car from our friends who moved to Australia. It's a 2004 4-door hatchback red Honda Civic. It's quite spacious. I have plenty of room for our 6-foot boys from church that ride with us occationally. They were quite impressed with the leg room...esp after having sat in our prelude where even I have to fold myself to get into.

That's pretty much it for us. We don't have much else going on. I have decided (foreseeing this to happen as well) that I am a much happier person in my new job. I don't spend my day talking to 2,000 people, so I'm not so bushed by the end of the day. However, I'm still getting used to sitting all day rather than standing all day.

Update: Millie backed-up and was ready to be in use at 3:50. The back-up failed a few more times. At least that should be fixed now!