Archive for August, 2009

At least weekly I learn something new and odd about pregnancy. This week I’ve been having moments where I lay down and my belly is clearly leaning to one side. I guess when our little bug shifts over she’s now big enough to move my whole belly with her. It’s weird, but nice to know she’s got enough mass to actually relocate my belly skin. Supposedly come Wednesday she’ll be almost a pound. Yay!

tomorrow is my first day at my new job. I’m excited and a little nervous. Today I’ve been running errands and cleaning. Did one last work-day lunch time dog park visit. Hopefully once I figure out my schedule Adam and I can spend time playing with them in the evenings. There is a really nice park by our new house with a huge grass area, so we’re hoping to take them there to play fetch.

Today our little bun is just past half baked. She’s making herself known with many rounds of kicking and punching each day. I still think it’s really cute, maybe when she actually gets big enough to hurt me I won’t think it’s funny anymore.

The dogs and I have been enjoying my last few days of unemployment, lots of quality time at the dog park and with my mom’s new puppy.

“How your baby’s growing:

Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long — the length of a carrot. You may soon feel like she’s practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby’s eyebrows and lids are present now, and if you’re having a girl, her vagina has begun to form as well.”

I got a job, wahoo! Starting Tuesday Sept. 1st I will be the Client Transition Coordinator at the Looking Glass Center Point School. It’s a little more hourly than I was making at pathways, and same benefits. Luckily I can do cobra for this month and September, then come Oct. 1st I’ll be back on looking glass benefits and only have to pay like $30 a month. Its great because even doing cobra my benefits never changed, so I don’t have to re-do my co-pays for the OB or anything. Too bad I lost the vacation days I’d accrued.

I’m currently puppy sitting at my parents, and Dash and Chloe are “helping”. I think they are all going to be nice and worn out by the end of the day which is great, and I’m sure that putting up with a puppy nibbling on them is good practice for the baby and all the nibbling and poking I’m sure she will do.

I’m off to enjoy my last week of “vacation”. =)

Just kidding, no new puppy for us. My mom did get a 7 week old female labradoodle though, and she’s super cute. Pretty cool to get to play with a puppy all day and then leave at night when the crying begins. =)

Adam and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary this Friday. We went to dinner with my family which was fun. We’re not doing anything special, since we’re saving money for house updates. Though Adam did give me a special present tonight by killing the giant black spider that was above our bed, and then even getting the flashlight and searching till he found it’s little dead body in the sheets so I didn’t have to sleep with it. Such a good husband!

Things are moving along with the house. We had a frustrating hiccup when the seller wouldn’t agree to any of the fixes we requested, but it’s less than $1000 worth of work, and none of it has to be done before we could live there. Our realtor and mortgage broker are even pitching in with housewarming gifts in the form of furnace maintenance and chimney re-mortaring, nice of them. So the appraisal will happen early next week, and hopefully the house will appraise for more than we offered. If not things will get rough again, since I don’t see the seller suddenly getting cooperative and easy to work with. Luckily once we close on the house we won’t have to deal with her again.

Adam and I have been hanging out with my brother Ben, his wife Vicki, and their daughters Madelyn (3) and Alayna (5 weeks) who are up visiting from California this week. We went to the children’s science museum with my parents and Ben and Madelyn today. Then tonight after dinner Adam got inside the giant cardboard box Madelyn has been using as a playhouse and chased Madelyn around the yard pac-man style. My parents laughed so hard they cried, and Madelyn now has a new favorite family member. The puppy joined the chase for a few minutes which was even cuter. Adam also changed his first diaper, and did great, Alayna didn’t cry and Adam didn’t gag, so overall a huge success. =)

We also went to Jerry’s (the Eugene local version of home depot) and got prices for paint, carpet and wood laminate. We also brought home samples so we could try and get a little closer to deciding what we want to do. Adam is trying to prioritize all the possible renovations we could do and figure out what’s reasonable and doable for him, and in the time between when we get the house keys and when we want to move in. The things we need to do are rip up the carpet and padding in the entire house, seal the particleboard with some sort of thick primer (shellac or oil based) and put down carpet in the bedrooms (Jerry’s will install this for only $99 so we’re going to let them do the work) and then put down wood laminate in the rest of the house. Any paint the walls, everything but the bathrooms.  The other things he’s thinking about is scraping off the popcorn ceilings (which probably aren’t asbestos, but it’s a risk) and that would be much easier when the carpet is up an we’re about to reseal everything anyway. There is also a wall that comes out about 8 feet to separate the kitchen and dining room that we’d like to remove, but that takes crawling under the house to see if it’s a supporting wall, removing it, changing the insulation in the wall and dry-walling the hole. So there is plenty to be done, and all will add value to the house, Adam just has to figure out how much energy he wants to use and what we can do later.

Our little bug is kicking me several times daily, mostly when I eat some form of sugar. It delights me that sugar delights her, maybe she’ll love chocolate just as much as me. =)

So wednesday I’ll be 5 month pregnant, and I have an interview. The people interviewing me don’t know. I have some looser tops I can wear, but there is a noticeable bump, so they’ll either assume I have a belly, or am pregnant. It’s illegal for them to ask though.

So do I just not say anything, use my rights an hope that they don’t just think I’m being sly. Or do I mention it, so I look upfront, and clarify that I intend to keep working until the baby comes and then would like to work part-time after that?

What would you do?

I have an interview with another branch of the agency I used to work for, this one is a school for youth with mental illnesses that keep them from doing well in public school.  don’t have much experience working directly with differently-abled youth, but I’m always happy to learn.

Chloe has recovered quickly and is back to normal. We have switched from free-feeding the dogs to giving them food twice a day. It’s hard because they keep trying to switch bowls and eat each others food, which would be fine because it’s the same food, but Dash is supposed to eat more, not Chloe, our resident chub.

I’ve been trying to keep busy, going to curves to workout, taking the dogs to the park everyday, and keeping the house clean. I’m hoping that I can actually get good at cleaning, since I figure the baby shouldn’t live in filth, so I need to get in the habit of cleaning. Plus I see some clients for volunteer counseling at the church, which is good experience and nice to actually use my skills.

Adam got to feel our little bug kick last night for the first time. It was fun, he didn’t believe it at first and asked me to flex, then he confirmed that wasn’t what he felt. He’d get all excited and then I’d laugh, making my belly flex, then she’d kick again, and the whole cycle would start again. It was the most kicking she’s ever done in a row, which I figure probably is demonstrating her early affinity for Adam. I’m looking forward to when we can actually see her move from the outside.

Chloe decided my life was too boring on Friday, so she smacked her face into the truck tailgate getting into the truck. She ended up needing to get a short acting anesthetic so they could stitch her back up. She was a little woozy when she came back from the vet a few hours later, but she’s back to normal now. We’ll go back in a couple weeks to get the stitches out. The best part is that we were able to get her into the vet that Tucker my childhood dog went to, he isn’t taking new clients, cause he’s so cheap and good. It wasn’t even $100 for her little surgery, and getting all her shots and her nails dremmeled. I’m pretty happy she got good care and we didn’t have to pay a billion dollars for it.

Other than that drama things have been low key at the Becker house. We went garage saling and to the scandanavian festival yesterday. We got a whole bag of  baby socks for $2 and some 25 cent onsies. Still nothing to match my find of a high chair for $2.50 on Friday, I’m really starting to enjoy bargain hunting. Adam and I went to a special “brand name” baby sale that was supposed to have tons of cheap stuff, but it wasn’t cheap at all, I mean, maybe it was cheap for the fact that it was gap, but seriously, what baby is disgruntled because it’s having to wear off brand onsies? I can picture the kid in therapy years later, “well it all started when my parents dressed me in hand-me downs instead of buying me new baby clothes,” haha. Adam pointed out that if he knew there was a 50% chance he’d vomit on his shirt, he’d be less likely to spend very much on it. I clarified that it was more like a 90% chance of vomit. delightful.

Today we’re going to see the local minor league baseball team with my parents and Max and Annette. I keep telling Adam how excited I am, but then I had to fess up that I was mainly excited for all the food. =)

Wednesday will be the halfway point for the pregnancy, which is pretty exciting. Tuesday is the house inspection, and if that goes well we’ll have an appraisal and if the house appraises for what we offered, we’ll actually be set to buy the house. Exciting week.