26 weeks & an English hothouse cucumber?

" The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. She may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. She's inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of her lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when she's born and takes that first gulp of air. And she's continuing to put on baby fat. She now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel. 

maybe the silliest thing to compare a baby to...

I've been going to thrifting a little when I have time and buying toy outfits with spare change in my bag. I have found the CUTEST dresses and overalls for her! Can't wait to dress up my cucumber. <3

Linea nigra aka my "shrimp poop line"

I started to notice a very faint, thin, darkish line that goes down the center of the top of my belly button. I googled it and found out it is caused by pigmentation in the skin where your abdominal muscles stretch and slightly separate to accommodate as your baby grows. It's due to an increase of hormones. I am fascinated with it's strange symmetry and perfect ruler-like line.

weird. i like.

yeah, that's my baby girl in there. :)

25 weeks and some pain.

Size: 13 1/2 in.                              Still SO active and responsive.

Weight: 1 1/2 lbs.

Pain has hit. I am getting more frequent Braxton-Hicks contractions, which are never pleasant. My ribs also feel like they are being pulled forward by imaginary death claws. It hurts to sit and sleep. I'm also finding it harder to breathe. I went for a run around 16th park and I was wheezing badly but still trucked on. 

I am scheduled this week to go get poked and prodded for my glucose screening test to check for gestational diabetes. --Gonna drink some sweet orange flat sugar water early in the morning per midwife. She was like "ya might throw this up". bleck. 

Besides the discomfort and constant urge to eat-- I am loving seeing her move around when I lay on my back and distract me with wild movements when I am feeling less than myself. She wakes me up already with intense kicks and other times with a foot in some organ. Pretty sure she's round housing my bladder too. I miss riding my motorcycle and sweating under a welding mask- the urge to just jump on my bike and take it around my block is growing with the days. Alas, I shall wait for the wind and heat until after she is born. 

My Oma sent me a sleepy time lamb that plays soothing sounds for the baby when she sleeps. I took it out of the back of the lamb and it's a little speaker with sound options and volume. There is a "Mother's heartbeat", "rain", and a few others. She didn't respond to the other sounds when I put the speaker up to my belly but when I put up the "Whale songs" she was freaking out!!! Everywhere I put it on my belly she would kick that exact spot. I would move it to my left and ...boop! Move it down towards my pelvic bone..."boop-boop!" It was hilarious. SO that's her jam and I have been wearing it out when I am feeling needy for her. I don't know if she loves the whale noise and response accordingly or if it pisses her off, the muffled "oooorrrhhhhhhhhh," and she kicking it to be, what in my mind, like "ughh moooooom- stop!" If that's the case.. That's what you get for making my ribs feel like they are about to break home girl. :)

xo

oh yeah, Screw a glass of wine- I just want to ride and button up a pair of jeans again. Few more months! 

So much to look forward to-- in the meantime, I will enjoy cryless nights and this unreal experience. 

nesting & busy digits

The shower is 25 days away. I decided to make almost all of the decorations and use decor around my home (& storage) to save money. If you guys have any cute blog spots, craft sites, or ideas...holla at yer girl. 

something like this...

Mobile for sleepyhead

Joel made a mess of one of the string lanterns but I was inspired by the "nest" look. We don't have a mobile yet so we picked out card stock today and I went to town on making some birds for my little byrd.

Wha-laa!

The paper is different on each side giving it a unique look from every angle. 

my boys

F.y.i.

24 Weeks

BELLY UPDATE: "Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts her at just over a pound. Since she's almost a foot long (picture an ear of corn), she cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but her body is filling out proportionally and she'll soon start to plump up. Her brain is also growing quickly now, and her taste buds are continuing to develop. Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help her air sacs inflate once she hits the outside world. Her skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon."


All I think about is this moment I get to hold her. I've let go of the stress of gaining weight and focused more on the way I feel.  School is frustrating & stressful & sometimes people make my head want to explode...but I find myself breathing slower and trying to practice patience. I am so grateful for the friends I have acquired and especially the ones that support me through this strange transition. 


My closest friend, as cliche as it sounds, is Joel. He has been unbelievable. Friday morning we woke up and, ever so effortlessly, talked before school. Usually mornings consist of one of us milking the snooze button and the other stumbling throughout the house collecting whatever we need to accomplish our errands for the day. I sat eating a bowl of cereal and expressed how badly I can't wait to meet her. Joel, "me too baby." I told him in the same breath how scared I was to become overwhelmed in the beginning when she comes. The constant breast feeding and uncertainty. The fear of becoming depressed, a common symptom that runs thick in our family and many other new mommas. The fear of not being able to shower without peeking through the curtain every few seconds to make sure she is ok. 


Joel is amazing. He just looked at me and told me he would do everything in his power to make sure I didn't get like that. "I will do everything I can to help you and give you the time you need throughout the day so that you can be you and do the things you want to be happy." 


I went to my sociology class soon after and didn't think much of the conversation beyond it being an effective one JUST- Me worrying and him nurturing that worry. 


Coincidently, my professor began talking about the Father's role in parenting. The traditional 1950's view that the father is the financial stability and disciplinarian of the household and those are his two essential roles. Then the more modern theories that a Father's role is essential in both gender's success throughout youth and especially into adulthood. 


The Father's Influence: A study performed by Professor Norma Radin and her students at the University of Michigan along with a panel of distinguished social scientists chosen by the National Academy of Sciences were selected to also participate in these studies. 
The more involved the father, the better developed the child intellectually and socially. The children are better socially and emotionally adjusted than children of noninvolved fathers and score higher in academic tests. The fathers roles were in feeding and changing (physical care), responsibility for socializing the child ( e.g. setting limits and play dates) power in decision-making regarding the child, availability to the child, and an overall estimate of his involvement in raising his preschooler. This study also expressed the importance of the working mother, two job households and equality in parenting roles. Children of father's who spent late nights out (even just 2 a week), work long late hours away from the home and display little responsibility for child-rearing were socially inept, displayed behavioral problems, and showed more anxiety. 


I felt ease in knowing that Joel not only will display grounded and stable morals and values but display the support and selflessness that our child will have the gift of knowing/feeling/becoming. 


The idea is that equal gender roles in the household are essential. Both display a calm effective way of communication while still exposing the child to conflict. It's okay to argue, perfectly healthy actually, but important to express effective methods. It made me feel at ease- as I know we will differ on certain aspects of childrearing. My biggest goal is to use the no "you" rule. Instead the latter, I feel...when...because. 
Focus on:
the behavior instead of the person
observations and incidence rather than judgements
sharing ideas rather than giving
the AMOUNT Joel can process before stonewalling
-appropriate time and place (my biggest error zone)

found you

oh, the times I wish I knew how to knit.

Baby Shower Decorations

As posted below, Avery found these string lanterns on an adorable website and thought they would be cute for the shower. None of the original attempts survived. Joel, with his brilliant self, suggested that the yard was the issue and brought home a spool of paper twine. It was thick and really hard to work with but I decided to whip up a mixture of Elmer's glue, corn starch, & water and soak the twine in a pyrex glass bowl. I liberally lubed up a 12" balloon with petroleum jelly and began wrapping it around the top and weaving it into itself. The first balloon popped and I just hung my head for a solid minute. I decided that it was a perfect time to practice this "motherly patience" I'll be needing- so I tried AGAIN and was very methodical and persistent. 

I hung it up and sprayed it with Krylon clear spray paint. This morning I hesitantly peeked into the living room, where I hung it to dry overnight and lo and behold...

I also had a crochet spool that I used for embroidery and it was a success! This one came out wild. It's all about the string.

It is beyond messy and there is a lot of preparation and clean up. But the result is worth the work. I love them and look forward to making more tonight with Joel!

UPDATE: HERE IS WHAT JOEL DID!

He combined both of the twine and string. So SMRT.
I love how organic they look.

23 weeks, 118 days to go

As with all occasions in life, when you are hit with a change - music always speaks to you like never before. I listen to songs and dedicate them to the "little bean", as Adriene calls her. I recently uploaded all 3000 songs onto iTunes from my external hard drive. I sat for hours two days ago listening to music I haven't heard since I lived in Asheville. I made a playlist for her to listen to and I sat with the laptop on my belly and let her enjoy Songs:Ohia, Cinematic Orchestra, Bohren, Adam Faucett, Future Islands, Russian Circles, Thou, and some cheesy old school 80's love jams from a mix that was made for me (and lots n lots more).

"Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With her sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance. And now that she's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound (about as much as a large mango), you may be able to see her squirm underneath your clothes. Blood vessels in her lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that your baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing her for entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as your dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze her when she hears them outside the womb."

Adept & Adapt.

Sunday was reserved for crafting. Jami, Allison & Avery came over to help make baby shower decorations. It was raining and due to the mess factor we decided to take over the large front porch and get down.

Our goal: yarn & lace lanterns 

Our mess level: 9

Our success level: 4

The rain made it impossible for the string and lace to dry. We made two glue mixtures. One with corn starch, water and glue. The other --wallpaper glue. Yarn in hand, we dipped it in the glue and wrapped it around the petroleum jellied balloons. 

We all seemed to have a difficult time blowing up the balloons, tiny things and more trouble figuring out how to hang them so they wouldn't drip/sway/intertwine. 

After a few tangled strings, trial and error cuts and popped balloons we managed to get going. This is what we accomplished! 

We parted ways and when I woke up this morning there were half of the balloons still hanging. Some were eaten by the rain. Others deflated completely leaving saggy clumps of intertwined string or piles of gluey lace on the porch. It was such a sad sad sight. All our hard work literally melted away. There were a few survivors which I immediately hung all over the living room. 

I went to class and when I returned I cleaned up the porch. The string and lace was saturated with glue and I decided to make the best of the situation. With the left over balloons I unwrapped the string and rewrapped them very tightly and hung them inside. 

So far... they look adorable and I manage to salvage a good portion of our materials. 

I'll post the final products when the balloons are removed and they are dry!

Looking ahead and "back then"

English is so painful to sit through some mornings. Both literally and physically. I shift back and sideways like a middle school kid who has used up too many bathroom passes. Blocking out my "Professor's" (which I cringe- out of distaste and lack of respect- to call him)  ramblings between "ummm-ummms" and constant battling of the wits with classmates...I daydream about this baby in me. 

I remember my way of thinking when I was a little girl, such an omniscient point of view on my future. I pictured my self a lawyer, as I was a 7 year old expert at arguing any point to exhaustion, even if completely wrong, and a love of observing people's traits and antics...holding close, like a secret power, almost a sixth sense of people's transparency. I had my entire life planned out according to a life of Disney movies, my parent’s mistakes I would never make and, my salvation, Long Hollow Baptist Church. I dreamt of a broken home I would never have- because of the one I came from, no curse words because it's not a Christian way of life, a big white house with no clutter or tension, and porcelain dolls and bookshelves lining every wall of my home. My kids, all five of them which I had after college and marriage, by 25, would sit in their canopy day beds and read all the books I saved as a kid. "This book belongs to Nicole Samantha" written in the covers with pens I wasn't supposed to use. Happily ever after.

Will she be as emotional and sensitive as I was? My heart would burst when I would see my dad grab my naturally frown faced mom off the couch- as she did what seemed like mountains of laundry and begrudgingly sat through MTV's Bevis and Butthead- to slow dance in the middle of the living room to Eric Clapton. Oh that feeling that our family was "all better" because I would hear her infectious laugh break the tension of the abuse I only had a Titanic's view of. My heart would sink into a deep place when I would see an old man limping or a child with a mental disorder. I cared SO much for everything and yet knew so little about it all. I used to pray to God, then Jesus, and finally the Holy Spirit ( who ever that was) that everyone would love me. That was all I wanted from him. To feel a constant love-- that I craved from my parents. My dad was absent a lot.  Always leaving on "business trips" which were later discovered as separations.  Always absent where we needed him and too present where we didn't. My mom-- always over-stressed, nothing said softly or with patience behind it. My dad wore a cloak of gregariousness and false stories to entertain whoever was near and my mom the burden of his truths and the damage of an abusive marriage. You'd think as much as I loved to play dress up, with my supposed ever so present sense of transparency, I would have seen such costumes.  Alas, love is the biggest mask of  them all. To sum my juvenile emotional-state up, my kindergarten report cards would come home, written in (what took me a few minutes to decipher due to this secret code between teachers & parents called cursive) bold pen "Samantha cries WAY too much." I specifically recall my mom and dad jesting to friends about how emotional I was, saying "She cries at the drop of a hat." Where I followed up with tears and anger "No I DON'T, I NEVER HAVE...tell me when a hat dropped and I cried" as their laughing only perpetuated the tears. Oh how little I knew when I knew it all. 

If she is this way...I welcome it openly and hope she grows from it like I did. I laugh looking back at my rendition of my future, a hope to live out some Christian parable with lessons learned and perfection dotting every I. 

Reverting back to English class, I found myself softly giggling aloud--to the point that it startled me, as my train of thoughts were the above, that the only part of my perfect life --in the mind of 7 year old me --was that in the nursery sits an antique bookshelf full of my childhood books, that I have held on to with extreme sentiment, that will be hers. I daydreamed of reading her the books just like my mom did with me in her bed, sounding out and explaining words to the point of exhaustion. And did I proudly giggle. 

When I came home I sat and stared at that bookshelf with a content smile- as I AM the woman, still, that I wanted to be, and so much more. 

Pregnancy Gems

Meghan and Adriene shared some sweet pregnancy pics. I don't know if Joel and I will do the professional pregnancy photos thing. We don't do regular photos and I don't feel like doing the whole obligatory posing in a weird studio thing. But these are sooooooooo amazing and awkward...

modern baby

   Check out:  http://www.liapela.com/Furniture/

This website is so inspiring to build little baby girl some furniture. I love the modern designs and simple mediums to work with. The prices are laughable but I feel with our garage full of  tools and wood-- not to mention my craft room overflowing with beads, buttons, material and strange collections of treats...team Tynes can make it happen.

For me, felt has never been that inspiring. I always felt (ayee ohh) like it was just a material for kids. I saw these hair barrettes for little girls and can't wait to make them. I'm drawn to whales with this pregnancy (especially the bathroom novelties) and it will have to be the next project.

The cow!   I'm already thinking of other animals.


There are also these felt shoes! I'm there.

Sonogram DVD- here she is!

Nesting = Sewing!

I bought this pattern off Amazon and figured, what the hell, I can do this! Tiny baby Kimonos. EEK.

I opened the pattern last night and it was two HUGE sheets of really sheer thin paper that were folded ever so intricately. I sat and read the pattern instructions. It was bit like reading Stephen Hawking's "Universe in a Nutshell"- where I had to have a dictionary next to me to interpret every sentence. There were a lot of sewing terms that I wasn't privy to. Sewing class, here I come. I went ahead and cut out the patterns and material and once it was cut out I knew exactly what to do! I am really excited and motivated to make her tiny clothes. I have SO many folds of material I have been saving foreva- and finally get to use it all. I'm even using an old stained lace tablecloth that was Joel's grandmas for pretty little sleeves.

Opinions, please!

Personally, this woman's face says it all. I just can't see buying into this as much as the thought of an orgasm versus pain sounds appealing. But really? In the words of my not so favorite English teacher, "I don't buy it."