Columns

Recent Posts

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Changing table essentials

Since I'm going to be a new mama in a few months, I can't find enough material to read about how to do things or what to buy.

I got this email the other day from What to Expect.com and thought it was worthy of sharing, if not only for my own purposes to look on it when I'm setting up my own changing table. It's a slide show of the essentials for changing tables


I'm just going to get a changing pad and do an open closet layout dealio to make more space in his tiny baby room. Now I just have to get hubby to build me some shelves!

Week 23


How far along: 22 weeks 6 days

Total weight gain: 14+- pounds

Maternity clothes: Sweats, maternity jeans and leggings and long tank tops with open sweaters. Belly's getting large. 

Sleep: This week has been h.o.r.r.i.b.l.e. I got maybe one good nights sleep, but that included waking up to pee and not falling asleep for a long time after. I've just been so darn uncomfortable and I'm barely over half done! Hoping it settles down a bit so I can get a few good nights in a week.

Best moment this week: Scott and I are using his name more and more (which will remain a secret, for the most part, until he comes!). It's fun and makes things more real and definite. 

What I miss: Sleeping on my back and stomach. Having a pain-free back, which includes everything from putting on my jeans without pain to getting out of our overstuffed chair with ease. 

Movement: Yes - he's getting pretty predictable on his little schedule.

Food cravings: Been doing good on the cravings this week. Just been stuffing my face with the readily-available Christmas cookies my mother-in-law brought. 

Making me queazy: Nothing.

Starting to show: Yes.

Gender: Baby boy 

Happy or moody: Happy :)

Things I've been experiencing this week: Back pain. Up the wazoo. And just general aches and pains that I never had before this growing belly. Also the other day when we were changing the outlets in Baby K's room, I got this overall pain in my abdomen/pelvis area -- I've had that happen twice before, but usually at night. I'm pretty sure it's Braxton Hicks contractions. TheBump.com says that they should be relatively painless, but mine were definitely noticeable!
  • Scott's parents have been here this week so we got Baby K's room painted!! We also put new outlets in. Thanks for the help, guys!
What I'm looking forward to: Getting the crib! Ordered it this week, finally. And my bff Tiffany is coming to stay for a few days, my sister too later on, so I plan on putting them to work helping me decorate baby's room! Also, we are getting carpet put in all the three bedrooms upstairs and the downstairs living room - that'll be nice to be able to put rooms back together and situated. 

Size of baby: The size of a papaya.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Week 22


How far along: 21 weeks 6 days

Total weight gain: 11+- pounds

Maternity clothes: Just for pants. The belly isn't big enough for some maternity shirts. Oh, and I found a great pair of mat skinny jeans! (I've been wearing boot cut lately, I'm so happy to be in my normal pants again so I can wear normal shoes :)

Sleep: The same as usual. I've started putting a pillow on each side of me (only on the one side when hubby is home) so when I roll over I can snuggle with the pillows, or if I want to "lay" on my back, I can - if I lay on my right side, I put the pillow under my left side back and can comfortably put weight on my back that way without it getting painful. 

Best moment this week: Lately in the morning when I'm awake but haven't gotten out of bed, Baby Boy is usually swimming around. I've started saying, "Good morning, baby boy." It's a small thing, I know, but I just lay there thinking of when I can say that directly to him and he'll be here and can snuggle in bed with me. It starts my mornings on the right foot.

What I miss: Sleeping on my back and stomach. Not being worried about my caffeine intake. Not feeling like a fat whale when I eat and don't get full until the third helping. 
  • The other day my back was hurting something fierce so I decided to lay on the floor (you know the feeling, when it seems like everything just stretches back out after a long day.) Well I was just thinking about my back hurting that when I went to lay on the floor I went on my stomach. It was the funniest feeling of the pressure of my soccer ball belly pushing up against me. Whoops! 
Movement: Yess ma'am.

Food cravings: Still strawberries with that cream cheese fruit dip. 

Making me queazy: Nothing.

Starting to show: Yes.

Gender: BOY!

Happy or moody: Happy :)

Things I've been experiencing this week: Back pain lately. My tailbone. I've had trouble with it before I was pregnant but now it's back and it sucks that now, not only is my belly restricting me from bending over, but the movement I do have is restricted again with this back stuff.... Hopefully getting back into some prenatal yoga will help with that. Oh, and round ligament pain all the time.
AND, I took my sewing machine in to get fixed (it's been on the fritz for about a month) and it turned out to be something minor! So it's working again and I can finish our family Christmas stockings from the ugly sweaters before Christmas! And I can work on the upcycled t-shirt bibs for baby boy :)
AND, my belly button is getting funny. It's so tiny right now!  It's a lot shallower than it used to be. I'm definitely thinking it'll be getting flat within the next few months (weeks?). I'm not sure how innies turn into outies, so I don't think it'll be an outie, but it'll for sure be getting stretched out to being flat! It's really a weird thing!

What I'm looking forward to: Getting the nursery rolling! Hubs is getting in my way because he thinks it's too early and I'm just "nesting." But he said we can start after our holiday company - his parents - leave. So, soon!

Size of baby: The size of a papaya.

It's almost Christmastime!! Hope you have a great time with
friends and family :)
Love, Erica

Sunday, December 11, 2011

An Anderson Lady Christmas


I had the pleasure of hosting our little family Christmas at our house this year. My sister, Lindsay (who is the family photographer, taking my pregnancy pictures, just started a new photography blog that will rock your socks at [a little pause]), and mom came for a few days. 

We opened presents, cooked and ate too much food and watched movies and were lazy together - the best kinds of weekend.

I thought I'd share a few photos of our Anderson Lady Christmas. 

My beautiful mom lounging around with Lindsay's cat, Wilson. 
Sister, mama sita and me. I just look plain chubby here. 
My sister is quite beautiful, too, as you can see :)
One of my Christmas trees. I found the cutest little decorative stockings
in the dollar bins at Target - one for Scott, Baby and me :)
I thought Baby Boy K and I would start our Christmas
 photos together this year.
Linds likes my belly.
So I had these great thrift-store-found sweaters, originally to make stockings out of before the sewing machine quit on us. So we had to have some ugly sweater pictures :) We laughed sooooo hard while taking these. Only a few turned out because Lindsay and I kept laughing at the last second before the camera went off. But my bunny, Sampson, and the cat made the cut as well. 


If you knew my sister, you'd know this isn't anything out of the ordinary :)
She wanted a Christmas card photo taken of her and Wilson, both in sweaters. 



Saturday, December 10, 2011

Week 21

Photos by L.J. Photography

How far along: 21 weeks 1 day (writing a little late this time)

Total weight gain: 10+- pounds

Maternity clothes: Yes - just for bottoms though, really. I wear a lot of tank tops layered with my normal shirts. And I've been living in sweats lately.

Sleep: Gotten better lately, partially because I've just learned to sleep through the night on my sides. Sleeping on my back mainly just hurts, it feels like baby is just pushing on every other part of my insides. Plus it makes it feel like I have to pee more, and I try to keep my nightly trips to the bathroom to a minimum - that's the most annoying part of being pregnant. 

Best moment this week: Some big kicks this week! I was sitting watching Cowboys & Aliens and our baby boy was kicking something fierce! I had my arms crossed on the top of my stomach and there were some big kicks and swooshes. I just sat there and giggled. 
  • And this: My husband always puts his hand on my belly - he's getting pretty excited now that I'm getting chubbier. Sometimes we are driving and he'll keep his hand on my belly the whole time. The ultrasound made this all so much more real to us, it's so much fun :)
What I miss: I still worry about consuming too much coffee. And as I was eating the yummy cheese ball my mom brought this weekend for Christmas, I remembered I wasn't supposed to eat soft cheese like that. :( Bummer, it was soooo good. 

Movement: Yes - it's getting to be more and more. LOVE it. 

Food cravings: This week it's been strawberries with that cream cheese fruit dip. It defeats the purpose of eating fruit, but it is sooo darn good and satisfied my sweet tooth. 

Making me queazy: Nothing.

Starting to show: Yes.

Gender: Baby is a BOY!

Happy or moody: Happy :) It's been soooo fun to get into little boy mode. 

Things I've been experiencing this week: Just noticing the belly a lot lately. Shirts don't fit quite right anymore. I had some fierce back pain today... that was not fun. And I'm a bottomless pit, I don't ever really feel full, or if I do I get over it within 20 minutes and I could go for another meal again. And my bely button is getting smaller and smaller. Oh, and I gave into some good Old Navy sales and bought a few teensy tiny little boy clothes :)

What I'm looking forward to: Rearranging my thoughts of the nursery to "boy" and getting it all started. We bought the chair for the room the other day and I love it in there - it's so comfy, can't wait to rock my baby in it. 

Size of baby: The size of a banana.






BLOOPER!!
As we were taking pictures, our dog, Tag, got in the picture
while taking a bathroom brake in the yard. Haha! We laughed
pretty hard when going through and editing the photos.

Friday, December 9, 2011

'Tis the Season!


I LOVE Christmas time. I've had the house decorated since before Thanksgiving and I'm not even close to being sick of it! My sister came yesterday and my mom will be joining us today for our Anderson Lady Christmas weekend and I'm pretty excited :) Mom's and sisters not only give the best presents, but are the funnest to buy for and are the best company. I thought I'd share some of my holiday cheer with you all. Have a Merry Christmas season!



Our ornaments this year :) Last year we got the engagement one. 





I've been waiting a long time to wear this festive shirt :)
Luckily my belly still fits over it!



Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails

Well, we finaly found out on Monday that Baby K is a BOY!!!

Scott was able to come with to this doctor's appointment (I'd warned him early on that he MUST take the days off!) and it was so fun to be in that dim room with him. We were both pretty giddy.

The whole time I had had "girl" in my head. I won't lie, deep down I wanted a girl because I have so many girly, fun ideas and I love manicures and getting my hair done and sparkly things. But Scott had told me on the way in that it was a boy, it just was and he already knew it, he said.

We are at the age where a lot of our friends are engaged or married, or have been together for a longgg time, and are now onto babies. And almost all of them are having or had girls. So as time drew closer to our ultrasound, I had an inkling that baby would be boy.

The ultrasound lady was obviously a pro, pointing out heart valves and kidneys and checking out the brain. The little monkey was moving all around, she said she had to be on her toes for this one. While she was looking at the head and face, she kept saying how the baby was very smiley - you could actually see the nose and lips formed into this perfect little smile. It could have melted your heart.

She paused the screen at one point and, as we looked at an upward view of very visible little baby butt cheeks and spread-wide-open legs, she said, "Do you see those there? Those are boy parts." Scott just looked at me with his devious little grin and said "I told you. I knew it."

I didn't realize how impactful finding out the gender of our child would be. I thought that finding out would be just... finding out, and maybe that would have been the case if we had been having a girl, since I had that image in my mind already. But it didn't hit me until a few days later that I was going to be a mom to a little boy, that I was going to have to learn what little boys were made of and how to raise them. My whole family is girls - I was around my two girl cousins a lot when they were little and I learned about babies from them. I've, really, never been around baby boys. My sister is very excited to be having a nephew, but also had thought she would get a niece. My nervousness can be summed up with this statement Lindsay made: "They have penises!"

But now I've known for about two days and I am getting myself in baby boy mode - changing nursery plans and thinking of boy names. Scott asked already if the baby needs a BB gun and said now we can get mini snowmobiles and four-wheelers and such. Our baby boy will be a man's man, just like his daddy. (Check this out: mans-man.com. If that doesn't describe my husband, I don't know what does.)

But knowing that the little thing inside me is a boy, makes me realize that the little kicks and jabs are the first antics of a playful, rambunctious boy. And I hope he has his daddy's dimples when he arrives, and baby calf eyelashes and puppy dog blue eyes like the hansome man I married. And I hope he loves playing in the dirt and making mama's house a muddy mess and gets his good jeans all dirty like his dad does.


I stopped into a local bookstore and saw this book "The Dangerous Book for Boys" at the end of an aisle. It's this comprehensive little "boy encyclipedia" of everything boys should know: The 7 Wonders of the World, coin tricks, instructions to make the best paper airplane. Definitely putting this on my "to get list."

I'm excited to learn about frogs and snails and puppy dog tails and what being a mama to a little boy means.

We already think you're pretty great, baby boy.

XOXO,
-Mama