29 weeks: A Kitten Shower

Annie and Jody threw me a shower. I was adamant that I didn't want an overly formal shower or one where boys weren't "allowed". My favourite part of the showers that I've been to has always, always the part where everyone pigged out on lots of FOOD.

So they delivered and there was a ton of delicious food (latkes, sandwiches, veggies and dip, chips and dip, brownies, lemon bars, cupcakes, cookies, coffee, punch, beer....) Ange's Mom brought an amazing chocolatey cake that's still feeding us today. We had chocolate and marble cupcakes and pink or green buttercream (everything from scratch!) for the cupcake decorating station and they also set up a "Onesie" decorating station for everyone to design an outfit for baby. Miss Kittenheart is going to be a well-dressed little kitten baby! Thank you a million times to Auntie Annie and Auntie Jody for putting together the perfect party!

It was an amazing day! Friends and Family all in one place... It was amazing and fantastically touching that so many people made the effort to come. Everyone is so supportive and excited and we're very well-stocked on kittengear due to their generosity. It was more than anything I ever expected the day to be. I normally find the phrase "touched" to be a bit vague and contrived.... but I realized that this was what it feels like to be "touched". A million thanks to all our Friends and Fam. For being awesome to us and for appreciating my "Pigs n' Turds" plate instead of being weirded out by my gross-out humour.











Bean is also still going strong with her uncharacteristically high level of affection towards me. This is her lying on my chest this morning when I woke up. Now that the Kittenheart is super active, Bean's been more attentive to the belly than ever. It's adorable and totally bizarro.

Bigger every week!

One of the Yoga studio regulars said to me today "Whoa! You're getting bigger and bigger every week! How far along are you now?" So I told her that I was 28 weeks.... still quite a lot of weeks to go. And she goes "Oh man! You're soooooo much bigger than you were last week!"

It's a good thing I like her and I was at work because I totally felt the urge to be like "NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!" and boot her in the ass or something. But that wouldn't be very yogic of me now, would it? Ah the joys of being a moody snarky pregnant asshole when you were kind of a snarky asshole to begin with.

28 weeks! It's crazy to think that Kittenheart is now older in gestational age than Lowell and his twin were when they were born! It's somewhat of a comfort I suppose because that means if something were to happen, she could completely grow up to be healthy and normal. That said, I'd like to keep her in for at least another 9 or 10 weeks. Get back to me in 9 or 10 weeks and I'm sure I'll be ready for her to come out already.

Cat bow ties

Well, I may not have anything to nice wear yet to my own shower next week.... but my mission is to make sure Baxter is dressed his best. Since I lost his red and white gingham bow tie years ago, I think it's about time he got a new kitty bowtie, yes?

I'm a crazy cat lady at heart. This should not be a secret to anybody by now.

27 weeks. Cartoon belly.

I'm behind on taking belly photos. I'll get on it soon as I have an awesome new phone with a freakin' awesome camera on it!

Random belly related things to report....

So far no stretch marks! I'm pretty pleased about that. When I had my growth spurt/quit ballet and gained 25lbs at puberty, I got hideously intense stretch marks all up the sides of my thighs and all over my hips... so I thought I was in for it now. But so far, I'm keeping the ol' belly skin lubed and moisturinzed constantly all day and things are looking okay! There's still a lot of stretching and growing left but I'm proud to have made it this far without stretch mark damnit.

I got that crazy dark stripe thing. When I went swimming with Alice, she noticed it. Alice doesn't have the dark stripe thing. I don't understand the point of the stripe thing. It's kinda amusing and strange. It now runs pretty much from the private parts up to almost my boob cleavage area.

Some days when I wake up in the morning, the belly is rock hard. Doesn't hurt or even feel uncomfortable and my Doc says it's normal that the uterus will contract...but it feels totally bizarre from the outside. Lowell calls it's "The shell".

Call me Kittenheart

I have this weird hang-up about telling people what we're going to name the Kittenheart. At first I thought it was pretty normal, but then I talked to some of my Momma friends and Alice, my fellow soon-to-be-Momma friend and realized that apparently I'm the big weirdo for being uber secretive about names. Everyone else seems pretty content to start referring to their baby by name. I don't like doing that. Lowell told his parents the name we were considering and last week his Dad says to us "How's little [insert Kittenheart's most likely "real" name to be here]" and I freaked out. It was a silent freak out in the back seat of the car which I forgot about for 3 days and then belatedly yelled at Lowell about.

I still really like the name but I like the idea of keeping it private until she arrives. I dunno... I have just under 3 months to change my mind about this, I suppose. I have this hilariously awesome nickname so I think everyone should just keep using that instead of her "real" name please. And my writing it here is my passive-aggresive way to not have to bring this up in person to anybody.

In completely unrelated news, I got an iPhone and I hate it. I'm returning it for the Samsung Galaxy S II (or some such nonsensically long name along those lines) because I tried it out yesterday and it's freakin' awesome.

And also, I want that cat.

Biggie biggie biggie

Holy freakin' jesus!!

Today I got on a scale not at the Doctor's office for the first time since being pregnant. It was all because Lowell weighed himself on the fancy futuristic glass scale in the bathroom at our super-lux temporary apartment (more on that later). So I got curious and wanted to try out the fancy futurama scale too, even though I had decided not to weigh myself outside of Doctor's appointment. I joked about how I was probably going to weigh more than Lowell at some point probably hopefully towards the end of the pregnancy.

Well, that day is now. Today is the day I discovered that I now weigh MORE than Lowell. Gah!! I knew this day would come but I thought it'd be sometime in the new year when I felt huge and disgusting. I don't feel that huge yet!

Although.... I think the Kittenheart had a growth spurt this past week because my belly skin was super flaming ITCHY all week to the point where I scratched a big welt near my belly button in my sleep. I've been using my normal lotion as well as lubing up constantly with that greasy, greasy "belly butter" stuff and over the past few days, the itchy tightness has subsided. But then in the past 24 hours, strangers have started to comment on my belly. Like last night, an obviously crazy disheveled man congratulated me on the street. "OH! You... you... ya got a baby in there! Congratulations!"

I've gained about 20lbs, which at almost 6 months along, I'm told by the Internet is quite normal. But now I am officially the heaviest person in the family. Oh man. I wasn't ready for this.