Parker's Room!

So it's been a while since the last post but that is only because I have been nesting in the most insane way possible. I have been spring cleaning my house, car, and life in general and after a few very intense weeks, I appreciate my husband more than ever, the loft has a humungo pile of ginormous empty boxes, the pack 'n play is ready, the hospital bag is packed, all of Parker's laundry is clean and put away, the bassinet is in our bedroom ready to go, all "assembly required" has been assembled, batteries are where they should be, the dog sitter is informed and on call, my house is very clean and Parker's room is finished! Now I can concentrate on things like distinguishing between the valve and the membrane on my breast pump. Two nights ago, I unpacked it and attempted to figure it out. I ended up just sitting on the futon with parts spread out everywhere and staring in confusion. After about fifteen or twenty minutes of that, I decided to just bring it to the hospital and ask the lactation consultant after I have Parker. Thank God for her. My brain is too full to figure things out like that right now.

So today is March 30 which means I have nine more days until the actual due date...and I do have intentions to take more belly pictures since the requests keep pouring in. But I did manage to get pictures of Parker's room so here we go...

This is what Parker's current room looks like...really I just thought it would be fun to take a pic of my view of the giant belly. So no, that's not the moon or a planet...that is my abdomen that is currently housing a 6.5-7 lb. child. No big deal.

The entrance to Parker's actual room....for those of you that have been up to our house, this is the middle bedroom upstairs. His bathroom is the open door to the left, the man room is to the left of that and the guest room is to the right. Hunter's mom sent those letters to us. Aren't they cute?

This is what it looks like walking into his room. We don't have anything on the walls since we are moving this summer and trying to minimize patching the place up.

Turning to the right once you walk through the door....and Majin is on the window sill and Kimba is just hanging out. The cats love this room because the door is usually closed.

His awesome crib that my Grandma and Grandpa Simmons bought for him...it will convert into a day bed and toddler bed later. The jungle theme is so awesome. My aunt Carla bought the sweet safari mobile for him.

His closet which is so full! Parker is our overflowing abundance. :o)

The view from the closet...the dresser on the left is also the changing table which holds diapers and that sort of thing and his sheets and blankets. The dresser on the right holds all of the clothes not in his closet. The rocker in the middle is being borrowed from Hunter's mom...she bought it in Costa Rica when she went with Hunter and Austin. It's soooo comfortable. Then you have the diaper pail on the left (always exciting), a diaper stacker hanging on the right of the changing table and the hamper to the right of the rocker. The foot stool is pretty awesome...the top opens so you can store stuff in it. Right now it's completely empty but I'm pretty excited about it anyway. :o)

Majin chillin' on Parker's window sill.

His closet door with the adorable decorations used on the cake at his last baby shower.

Parker's clothes dresser with cute jungle baby animals to decorate with, a candle in the shape of a banana, a picture frame just itchin' to hold a newborn picture of him, his CD player and a few Cd's, the sweet lamp we got from World Market (that store totally rocks), a journal and his baby calendar.

I keep picking up the calendar and looking at it as if it's going to either tell me something or I would have something to write in it before he's born. Ha ha.

The awesome Boppy Bouncer from Brenda (Hunter's Dad's wife) and Kay (Brenda's daughter)...one of the many assembled and battery stocked items. And, of course, Kimba all up in my business.

Parker's closet from a very Parker level view...I can't wait to start using everything!

A Kimba intermission...this is where she was while I was taking pictures on the floor. Also, I would like to point out that I'm wearing Hunter's pajama pants. Just thought I would share.

The sweet toy cube in his closet complete with books, shoes, a baseball cap and sunglasses, pillows and lots and lots of toys. My Boppy pillows live on top of the toy cube for right now. When I got the covers clean and put on, I was all excited and tried to try one out...funny thing about that though...when you have a ginormous belly, you can't get it around yourself. Duh. That was a smart moment. Hunter appreciated it.

The toy stash...

The humidifier...we could have gotten the nice Red Cross one...but this one is so cute! So hopefully it works well, ha ha. And the monkey rug that I totally had to buy and has no purpose. It was moved around the room a lot until we decided it doesn't really go anywhere. You can also see a bit of the humungo box pile in the loft. It used to be taller than me until Hunter consolidated it. Now it just comes up to my waist. Eventually I will remember to call the trash people so they will pick it up.

The toy bag...it hangs on the closet door to the left of the crib. We are going to use one of the monkeys to measure him in size with pictures every week. One of our friends told us that her sister did that. How great of an idea is that or what?

Parker's clothes...organized by size. His three little robes are on the right and the sizes start at 0-3 months from there over to the left which ends somewhere after a 12 months.

This is Hunter's favorite robe of Parker's....

We also have a matching towel and washcloths that say 'soapasaurus'....

...and the awesome dinosaur hood...

The diaper and wipe stash....

The top drawer of his changing table complete with newborn diapers that are ridiculously small...

The diaper stacker on the side of the changing table...also filled with newborn diapers.

Night light behind the rocker...

Awesome hamper that Brenda and Kay bought for Parker...

The window valance that matches his bedding...

The travel swing folded up in the closet that the wife of my old pediatrician, and best doctor on the planet, gave us. It's so cute.

Parker's crib...complete with bedding, bumper, mobile, infant positioner....

...pillows, and crib mirror toy...

This is the quilt that my Grandma Smith made for Parker. How awesome is that? And, of course, the theme is jungle baby animals.

...a close up of the amazing quilt...it has a red satin border and a cloud printed backing.

This is the bassinet that our awesome friends Frank and Michelle let us borrow. It lives in our room but our room is a disaster area right now so I took pictures of it in the nursery. Isn't it so cute? I just can't wait to lay him down in it!

...it's all ready to go with a blue sheet and everything....

The mobile is really cute...it plays several songs and makes a lot of different nature noises.

And that concludes the tour of Parker's room. The only thing we have left to do is get the car seat in the car! We are anxiously awaiting his arrival and will be sure to post hospital pictures not long after we bring him home. There are only a few days left to vote on the poll if you want to do so. And now I'm off to do what I currently do best...eat.

Crack is to Bobby Brown as baby clothes are to new parents

So far we've done a fantastic job of not buying Parker anything until after the baby showers. It's a good thing it's baby shower season now because we have officially broken down and given into the extreme cuteness of little baby boy things....well, maybe more me than Hunter but he's doing his fair share. I mean, have you seen the baby boy clothes lately? Little plaid shirts and other intensely cute things line the aisles of every maternity store (which is the gateway drug into buying all of the totally precious things that your child will never need...like newborn shoes). Then, after shopping for your own morphing body for several months, the cute little things are forever imprinted in your brain and you find yourself "browsing" the baby section because it's conveniently close to the maternity section anyway. I'm telling you, they've got this thing figured out!


So anyway, we have each bought him one thing. I started it by walking through Target one day trying to buy some time before I had to be somewhere else. And then I saw it: the most adorable pair of shoes you will ever see in your whole life...with orange which is Hunter's favorite color...and on clearance so it would have been silly not to buy it, right? I got Parker infant shoes. I totally did. He won't ever walk in them because he won't be able to walk when his feet are that small. The bottoms of those shoes will never even touch the ground but oh man are they adorable!

And, of course, the cat is all up in my business. It's her job...I'm pretty sure. I can put anything new down in the house and she will literally appear out of nowhere to investigate. She's like a ninja.

And then the other day Hunter and I went to Old Navy to get me some more clothes because it stopped being cute to wear shirts that ride up my belly when I moved out of backwoods country Indiana. Also, Old Navy is one of the stores that puts the maternity section inside of the baby section but we did really good while I was shopping. It was when we came out of the dressing room and saw the huge wall of baby clearance that did us in.

Now I have to pause from the story to give you very important information: Hunter has this thing for clothes that couldn't possibly match any other article of clothing on the planet. I don't know what it is but it's his absolute favorite thing. His wardrobe and closet are full of plaid shorts, plaid shirts, shirts with odd colors, and his all time favorite- the bright blue and orange Hawaiian print shirt- aka the party shirt. This is real, people. This is the world's busiest, brightest shirt ever created. And Hunter usually tries to wear it with plaid shorts.

So back to the wall of clearance...I was immediately sucked in by some tractor beam and started browsing. Hunter was being strong and tried to pull me away when I found it: the Parker party shirt. It's not as bold as the original party shirt but they would most definitely 'match' according to Hunter's vocabulary. Plus it was adorable and again, on clearance. So Hunter told me to get it pretending he was doing me a favor but I know the truth. He is jacked about Parker growing in to this one.

I am so glad the first shower is in two days because I don't know how much longer I would be able to hold out on buying more of the necessities...like infant shoes and party shirts.

Parker's Room

This is the month of baby showers! I'm excited because number one, I've never been to a baby shower and now my belly is the reason for the season and number two, we get to start putting Parker's room together! Before we could start putting up all of the awesome boy things we are going to be blessed with, we had to do a little renovating courtesy of the cats.

A few months ago we were out of town a LOT. I'm talking almost every weekend for a couple of months or so. The cats didn't seem to like this too much so, naturally, they let us know by not peeing in the litter boxes, but right outside of them. Nice, huh? This resulted in a lot of ruined, very potent smelling things. We rented the ever so awesome Rug Doctor which took out an unbelievable amount of pee...more than I wanted to admit was in the carpet...but, alas, we couldn't get it all up. So we took out the carpet and the ruined part of the padding...and other things that I didn't know existed like floor tacking (which looks like a torture device but I'm told it's to hold the carpet in place). And the base boards around the anger area need to be sanded down and repainted.

Fortunately though, we don't have actual wood floors under the carpet (thanks to the ever cheapening of building materials) just particle board with a massive amount of glue in it so the pee didn't soak into anything else.

Anyway, this is what Parker's room currently looks like...and 9 weeks from his due date, haha. But seriously though, we are getting a move on it now....

So we've got some work ahead of us. And the cats are in the closet because they rushed in there the second I opened the door to the off limits room.

Isn't the particle board just lovely? The poor baseboards need some TLC before we get the new carpet in there.

And here is the sweet carpet that we got for $3 something a sq. ft. when it was originally $10 something a sq. ft. Totally awesome. It's a nice upgrade from the carpet in the rest of the upstairs. The new, urine free padding is resting on top, all ready for installation. You know, you don't really appreciate the concept of 'urine free' until you don't have it anymore. It's a beautiful thing. Now my son will be able to breathe in his new room and not get extremely sick. That's always a nice thing.

That's all for Parker's room. I'll post more updates as things get finished. We have a shower in Tampa this weekend and one in Charlotte in two weekends then one in March sometime. Those should all get nice, healthy urine free updates.

Pictures of Parker!

On Monday, Hunter and I got to do a 4D Ultrasound for Parker. I have no clue why it's called 4D when really it's 3D. You have your standard 2D, black and white ultrasound which is what I have posted before. Then we apparently jump right from the land of two dimensional to the land of time...the fourth dimension. Why we forgot about the land of three dimensional objects is beyond me. But that is what it really is...a 3 dimensional image of Parker...which is insane.

The ultrasound tech was telling us that she has compared her 4D Ultrasound pics to what her now 3 month old actually looks like and said it's really the same thing. They actually look like what the 4D image shows us. Crazy, huh? So now we know what Parker looks like and he is totally handsome and adorable all at the same time.

She took about 30 pics but I have posted the best four because most of them are hard to tell what everything is. Also, before the ultrasound started, she asked what the sex was and we told her a boy. Her response was, "Ok, we will just make sure today." My mind started to panic. The night before we had just spent six hours trying to finish a baby registry for a BOY. Not a girl...but a boy. And we still had about two hours to go...and that doesn't include the two hours or so we spent starting the registry. This thing was INTENSE. Do you have any idea how much stuff a baby needs? I didn't. Not at all. And it's all expensive. Unless, of course you don't mind your baby crashing down in a cheap swing, crib, changing table, or whatever- in which case it's not so much expensive but moderately priced...most of the time anyway. There are still some totally cheap baby things that are expensive. So needless to say, my brain started to repeat something like, "I just spend six hours on his registry and it's not even finished! SIX hours! You can't make me change it!" But long story short, she ended up showing us his glorious boy parts and let me tell you, he is definitely a boy. And on with the pictures...



This is the side of Parker's face. His cheeks are so chubby and adorable and he has his daddy's nose. So precious! You can also see part of his little body with an arm in the lower left corner and a knee in the lower right corner.
This is his hand. He kept putting it right in front of our vision so we kept trying to move him around. His face his hiding behind it and there is a knee in the lower middle.

This is another of his face. His eyebrows are furrowed a bit and his mouth is frowning because we kept poking my stomach to get him to move. He didn't like that too much. Haha.

Another of his face. It's so crazy that we can see all of the details! You can see part of an arm but it looks like it's cut off because the image didn't pick up that far. But let me assure you, he has all of his body parts. Haha.

And that concludes the tour of my very large uterus. Let's see...I am in the first part of the 7th month which is in the third trimester and Parker right now weighs almost 3 pounds and is almost 16 inches long. He can blink, cough, swallow, and even dream now. And also make me have to pee about every 15 minutes because he has started to position himself into the head down position. It's really fun when his head is pushing into my bladder and his feet are pushing into my lungs or stomach. The boy is getting long and capable of amazing things. Ha.

I am in love with slip on shoes and days that don't require socks as my protruding belly has now officially stopped me from touching my feet. I also love the fact that I can pay someone to groom and paint my toes for me and it's totally normal. AKA the nail salon. It totally rocks that it's cold outside because I am incredibly hot a lot and can just step outside into a giant refrigerator and instantly feel better. So awesome. And although I've started to get gradually more uncomfortable, it's all minor stuff. Overall, I feel great as long as I can regularly eat things that don't go together and sit down when I need to. I can't believe that he is supposed to arrive into the world about 12 weeks from now. It's hard to imagine not being so close to him all the time but at least I will get to sleep on my stomach again. :o)

Super Awesome Baby Shower Invites

My mom is throwing me a shower in Florida and we designed the invites the other day. And they totally rock so I wanted to show them off. Also, we named him. :o) The End.

It's been a while and my eyes got fat

Ok, so it's been a while...about a month and a half since I last posted. Due mostly to messages left on my facebook, it's time to cough up the details. And oh do I have so much to tell you. I'll start with the ultrasound visit where we found out, as my grandpa puts it, if we get to buy a train set or a doll. He has been waiting about 30 years so far to buy a train set, poor guy.

So this ultrasound was at the Concord office instead of my usual Harrisburg office because my ultrasound tech is on maternity leave...which is kind of funny. Hunter, of course, came with me and we sat in the waiting room for probably about two minutes but it felt like an hour because at this point I'm still telling him how pink I am going to decorate the room and he keeps telling me that everything is going to be about footballs or something. So FINALLY they call us back and as we are walking to the ultrasound room with this person I have never seen before in my life, I ask her if I can go to the bathroom first because all of a sudden I have to pee like right now. And this is how that went...

"No."
"Wait. What? I really can't go?"
"No."
Then I pause because seriously, what am I supposed to say here?
"We can see the baby a lot better if your bladder is full."

Two things: number one, that is just cruel to a pregnant woman. Let's lay you on your back with a full bladder for about 30 minutes or so and push on your belly, mostly the part over your full, unforgiving and abused bladder. And two, I am so sure she told me no twice with no explanation. I thought it was against the law to tell a pregnant woman she can't pee. It's against my law anyway.

At this point, we are being ushered in through the doorway of the ultrasound room and there is so much anticipation between Hunter and I (mostly on who is right about the sex) that I almost feel like the baby is going to leap out of my belly, say, "I'm a _____" and pop right back on in. Surprisingly, this doesn't happen, so I heave my body up on the table and roll my pants down so a strange lady can put strange goo all over my belly and push on my bladder.

She starts probing around and, of course, finds the baby immediately. And he moves immediately. And then moves again, and again and so on. She seems surprised but I'm trying to explain to her that this always happens while trying to use adjectives like "active" so she will understand that this is just how it's going to be. Finally the baby settles down just enough so she can start pointing out things.

"You see this right here?" She points at the screen.
I'm thinking, 'Oh my gosh, that's the vagina!'
"That's the stomach."
Not even close. Then, a few seconds later...

"You see this right here?" She again, points at the screen.
I think, 'Ohhh. There's the vagina.'
"That's a kidney."
I think, 'Ok funny lady, enough with the jokes.'

She does this several more times. At this point I think I am going to explode if she doesn't hurry up and tell us what the heck it is already. Then, finally, she says. "Do you want to know what it is?" You have got to be kidding me. Now she knows and I know she knows and she hasn't said yet. What a tease.

We both said "Yes" so quickly and with probably a bit too much force that I think we scared her. Then she types on the screen, "It's a" and stops. "Are you sure you want to know?" I am seriously going to freak out at this point. She smiles, like this is supposed to be fun or something and finishes typing so now the screen reads, "It's a boy!" I see the letter 'b' and start crying immediately. I think Hunter said, "Yes!" but I'm not really sure because at this point I'm a bit delirious because she has been hardcore pushing on my bladder for about 20 minutes, teasing me with information I have wanted since I found out I was pregnant, and my little girl is now a little boy which makes me have to rethink things. I immediately feel like I should start eating a steak or something. I have no idea what to do with boys. But of course, I'm totally thrilled. I just don't know what to do with a boy.

Ok, so equally as great as finding out that I was right all along and it's totally a boy....after I wiped the goo off my belly and heaved myself off the table...I head right for the bathroom. Being that this office is full of pregnant women, the bathroom is occupied. Of course. I'm waiting, and glance to my right to see a doctor on the phone in the hallway. I glance at his name badge and guess what it says folks? Dr. Beaver. OH MY GOSH. I totally ran in to Dr. Beaver on the day of the best ultrasound of my entire pregnancy. What perfect day.

And now for part two....

I had a routine eye appointment the other day because my contacts ran out and my prescription was up and since I've gotten used to seeing, this is what must be done. It was a new eye doctor because I haven't been since we moved to Harrisburg. Naturally, I look up the closest doctor in the health care provider's directory and book the appointment there.

Have you ever seen the first Men in Black with Will Smith? You know the part where he is being 'tested' to work for the government and he has to answer questions in that chair that looks like a giant egg? And everything is all awkward and he drags that table across the room and it screeches the entire way? This is pretty much what it was like to fill out my paperwork at my eye doctor's office. But instead of a huge room, it was tiny (I don't know how my belly and I both fit in the waiting room). And instead of pulling a table across the room to write on because there wasn't a table or room enough to pull anything across anything, I got to sit in a chair with arms that came up to the middle of my upper arm. This meant that the clipboard and my arms couldn't both fit in the bounds of the chair at the same time (and I felt like a midget) so I got to rest the clipboard on one of the decorative knobs of the arm of the chair. Have you ever tried to balance a marble on the tip of a pen? That is pretty much what it was like.

While I am struggling to fill out my family medical history, the lady I gave my insurance card to comes into the waiting room (well, really halfway in the waiting room and halfway in the back part) and places my card on my lap and lets me know she is done with it. Are you kidding? That couldn't have waited another two minutes? So now I am trying to avoid letting the card fall off my lap because I can't really pick things off the floor with much ease or grace these days and balance the rotating clipboard while trying not to write like a five year old.

The rest of the visit was normal except after she sized me for my contacts, she told me that the curve of my eyes had changed. Considering I stopped growing sometime in late middle school, I thought this was odd and gave her an appropriately puzzled look.

"Well...you are pregnant, aren't you?"

Up until this point there had been no mention of the bun in the oven whatsoever. Not by the doctor, not by the receptionist. Which is odd, because at this point I am so obviously pregnant (I mean I had to heave myself out of that terrible chair when the doctor came to get me) that nearly everywhere I go people are constantly asking when my due date is and the like. So for about half a second, I stare at her and respond with a, "Yes?". It really did sound like I was questioning myself because this was such an odd question for the enormity of my belly.

Then she went on to explain that this can happen when you are pregnant because of all the hormones and basically my eyes have swollen a bit but not that I would have noticed and it should go back to normal about 6 months after I give birth. That, to me, seems like an incredibly long time to have fat eyes. So now I have shrunken brain cells and fat eyes. What the heck. And if I haven't told you about the brain cell thing, I will now because I can't remember because apparently they are shrunken.

I read in "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" that somewhere around the start of your pregnancy, some of your brain cells will shrink and expand back the the normal size about 6 months after you give birth. I don't remember why and I don't remember which cells because mine are small now. All I know is this seems like kind of an important time to have fully functioning brain cells at their full and proper size.

And, when I was leaving, I heard the receptionist typing. On a typewriter. A real one. Like 'tick tick tick tick tick, ding! The end.

Busy Little Beaver

So last night was one of those nights where I didn't sleep very well. Apparently the baby doesn't sleep at night so I'm not allowed to either. haha. My cell phone rang shortly after nine am which was totally annoying because I had just fallen back asleep. I ignored it out of spite then laid there for about five minutes wondering who it was. Even more totally annoyed, I grabbed my phone and called my voicemail. It went something like this:

"Hey, Samantha. This is Michelle from Dr. Beaver's office." I'm thinking, 'this has got to be good and why is his name still Dr. Beaver?'. "I was calling to see if you could come in earlier for your appointment today because Dr. Beaver got called into surgery." 'How many times can they say his name in the span of several seconds?' "Give me a call back as soon as you can."

Now I'm up. Wouldn't want to miss out on a chance to see Dr. Beaver in action, now would I? So I call them back and tell them I can be there in about an hour then proceed to rush getting ready. I get there about an hour and fifteen minutes later (which is pretty good considering the dog took her sweet time going to the bathroom before I left). I walked up to the desk, gave her my name and in response she says, "He already left." The busy little Beaver left before I could get there. For the next couple of seconds I debate in my head if I want to leave and go back to bed even though I am totally awake at this point or...."Is there anyone else who can see me?" So she checks and my midwife can "squeeze" me in. Interesting choice of words.

I wait around for a little while, getting some good book reading in before I do the standard weigh in (I gained two pounds, not bad) and pee in a cup (which I feel like a pro at now). Then they send me to the room to wait for my midwife. When she comes in she asks me the usual questions, tells me everything looks good and has me lay down for the Doppler so she can measure the heart beat. Well apparently my child is an acrobat. The little one was moving around and twisting and everything else so much she couldn't even get a blip of a heart beat on the Doppler. So she sent me to the ultrasound room. TOTALLY awesome. My baby just got me an extra ultrasound peek. SO sweet. Way to go, kid. You rock already.

The usual technician is on maternity leave so one of the assistants got to do it. She was so fantastic. She let me stay in there so long just watching the baby do flips all over my belly, kick, twist, squirm and even wave. Then she printed like ten pictures which was the greatest thing ever because the first time I got two. We were in there so long that my midwife got nervous that something was wrong so she came in, too. It was so cool to see her get excited about the show that the baby was putting on. Then we all watched some more and saw the heart beat (which looked totally fine) but the baby still wouldn't let us measure it because apparently constant flips and twirls in mommy's stomach is way more fun than chilling out for a minute. And it's not my fault. The baby makes me eat candy.

The assistant technician (or assistant to the technician for The Office fans out there) tried to see if it was a boy or a girl but couldn't tell. Thank God because if she could tell then I totally would have had her tell me which is not fun because Hunter wasn't there. So we will have to wait two more weeks for that one. It's OK though because today was the best visit ever.

Here are six of the ultrasound pictures along with my lovely descriptions.

Position #1: looking right at ya

This is what I lovingly call the Skeletor picture. The baby is on its side starring right at us. You can see the eye sockets, cheek bones and mouth. It totally looks like a skeleton which they tell me is normal. You can also see the spine running along the top of the back. The arms and legs are flailing around somewhere.

Position #2: facing away and twisting around

Just a back view of the baby. You can see the back of the head and the back. Also, it looks like the baby is resting its head on a pillow in my uterus. What the heck is that thing?

Position #3: Your guess is as good as mine

I did have them tell me what everything was before I left but there are so many pictures. I think this is a back view with an arm on the side.

Position #4: The bottom

Check out that glorious butt. We still couldn't see what the sex is yet but you can see a foot on either side of the body and just for fun, a kidney.

Position #5: Side view

This is almost what Hunter looks like when he's in his hammock in the man room. Is that weird? The head is somewhere to the left, the baby is laying on its back with its feet propped up and crossed over. This baby appears to be totally chillin' but actually it was a brief pause in the acrobats we witnessed.

Position #6: Bird's eye view

This is the top of the head where you can see the brain because everything is still very translucent which is not creepy at all. At least less creepy than Skeletor.









And that concludes the 16 week slide show. In two weeks I get the sex determining ultrasound and two weeks after that I have another regular visit. But not with Dr. Beaver. Apparently he's too busy for me. This time I get Dr. Barefoot. At least that's better than Beaver.