Week 34 and the Great Blizzard of 2010

Everybody already knows that Mother Nature dumped a huge amount of snow on NYC at the beginning of the week. I had been hoping for a white Christmas, and the storm definitely scratched that itch. We had plans to have dinner with a friend, so we wandered out into the blizzard and walked to the west village to a very empty (and tasty!) Mexican restaurant. All of these photos were taken on our way back home. Keep in mind that NYC got 20" of snow by the time all was said and done, and our photos were taken at about 8" of accumulation.

Other than the wind (which was brutal!) it was a lot of fun to walk through the storm - everything was so pretty, and what human beings you did run into were enjoying themselves, too. There was definitely an air of comradery that night - my brother and his wife were visiting from North Carolina and commented on how the snow made everyone so much more friendly. They were supposed to fly out on Monday but got stuck here until Thursday - it was nice to have a few extra days with them!

Week 31

Zut alors! I'm getting big!

The past few weeks I've found myself feeling very...impatient. At this point I am close (9 weeks!) but still not really all that close (9 weeks!). Patience has never been one of my virtues, and pregnancy is the ultimate waiting game. Now that I am closing in on the end, I find myself frustrated with how much longer there still is to go. I am just really looking forward to meeting this little being that has taken up residence in my belly. That and I can't wait to be able to sleep on my back again...

Week 29

I keep popping the buttons off of my coat. Gah! It might be time to invest in some maternity wear...

Week 28

We missed week 27 - whoops! These days I always find myself a little bit surprised when I see my side profile - I don't feel as big as I apparently am. The view from up here (looking down at my belly) doesn't seem nearly as substantial as the view from the side...

Week 26 and Halloween

It was Halloween weekend, and in the grand tradition of many Cornell architecture kids, we built some bad-ass costumes. During our college days, there were no less than three big costume events every year - Halloween, a Beaux-Arts ball, and Dragon Day. People always went all out for Dragon Day, which is where our love for dressing up and making costumes originates.



We brainstormed for weeks on ways to incorporate Anna's belly into a Halloween costume - we were going to a Hollywood-themed party, and wanted the costume to have something to do with the theme...Someone on twitter suggested the idea of capitalizing on the bump with a light bulb costume, which we thought was clever, and we figured I could complement Anna's costume by being a lamp (we'd be props, get it?). But after sketching it out, I thought I'd end up looking more like a royal guard from Alice in Wonderland or some sort of roman centurion armor, so in the end we settled on the hippo and the alligator characters from Fantasia's Dance of the Hours. It was a fun costume to wear, but it was super hard to gauge distances with the masks, so we ended up bumping heads a bunch of times.



It took me three evenings of cutting and gluing cardboard, taping, and painting, but I think the alligator/hippo heads came out pretty nicely in the end. Unfortunately, most people haven't seen Fantasia since they were kids, so not many people knew what we were until we told them (except for one girl at the party who got it immediately because she used to watch the movie all the time as a kid).



So now we are brainstorming for ideas for next year. We will have an unruly six month old to deal with, so our team costume will have to accommodate her. We're thinking about Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and of course - backpack Yoda.

Week 25

This week we were able to feel what we are pretty sure are the baby's elbows and knees, or some joint along those lines. The movements they make are different from the typical kicks I've been feeling - more like something sliding around instead of kicking...And if we push on the area of the belly that those movements are happening in, we often hit a hard spot, which will move when we touch it. It's all so weird (and wonderful!)!

Week 24

Sean and I are struggling to come up with a name for BN. We have a handful of names that are contenders, but coming to a consensus on any one is harder than I thought it was going to be. I can't even make up my mind about which one I like best - my preference seems to change on a daily basis. I'm kind of commitment phobic - I often get buyer's remorse, it takes me forever to make a decision and once I do I start second guessing it - this drives Sean nuts, as I'm sure you can imagine. Settling on a name for our baby is a pretty permanent thing (though I suppose she could change her name if she really wanted to). If only the baby could name herself!

Week 23

This last weekend baby and I went on a solo trip to Miami. I recently started freelancing again for Notcot, so I was out there for a hotel opening, and it was a fun and relaxing work/play weekend full of good eats, a lovely hotel, and time on the beach. Sean enjoyed a totally bachelor weekend of playing video games, watching movies that he couldn't pay me to sit through, skateboarding and eating ramen noodles.

As nice as Miami was, it felt great to get home. It was an especially nice homecoming because Sean came all the way out to the airport to meet me, cooked me a lovely dinner, and bought me my favorite fruit from chinatown, a pomelo. I'm super lazy when it comes to my fruit - if it involves more than peeling or cutting it down the middle, I probably won't eat it, but I love pomelo so much that I will gladly spend the 10 minutes or so it takes to get the deliciousness out of its skin and onto a plate. If you see one at your local grocery store, you should totally grab one - so tasty (it's citrusy, tangier than an orange, but sweeter than a grapefruit)!

Week 22

Somehow this was the only belly photo we ended up with this week. Oh well! The baby is getting stronger and stronger - Sean has taken to calling her Belly Ninja.

This week, Sean and I watched Nursery University, which is a rather frightening documentary on the process (more like trauma) of applying for private pre-schools in NYC. We haven't really thought about how we want to approach the whole school thing, but we definitely can't afford $20k for pre-schools, and I'm not sure that my mental health would survive the whole application process anyway. I don't know if we'll still be in NYC by the time she's pre-school age, but if we are, I wonder what affordable, quality options there are in NYC?

I don't know what it's like in other cities around the USA, but in NYC it seems like there is this hype built up around the what nursery school your kid goes to - almost as if your kid doesn't get into the right pre-school, that therefore means that she won't get into a good college and life will spiral downwards from there. I'm exaggerating, but only a little. I totally believe in giving my child a good education, but is it really necessary for kids to go to the best pre-schools (or even go to pre-school, period?)? Or does it work just as well for a parent to read to their child, teach them their ABCs, make art projects with them, and get them together with other kids? I'd love to hear from any parents who have actually been through the process here in NYC (or in other major cities) - what do you think? Maybe I'm just a newbie parent making naive assumptions? I'd love to look three years into the future to see what my future self thinks.

Week 21

This week you have been plenty active - lots of movement in my belly going on. In fact, Sean was talking to you one morning this week and you rewarded him with a punch/kick/hi-five to the mouth! He said it was the highlight of his day.

My brother, Ben (your uncle!) and his wife, Sarah, came to visit us this weekend and they brought you your first comic book! It's called Princeless - a comic book by Jeremy Whitley and Luis Franco about a princess who is smart, strong and adventurous - a princess who is capable of rescuing herself. I hope that you grow up to be an adventurous, self-sufficient young lady (though not one who is afraid to ask for help if you need it).

Week 20 - hump week - halfway there!

It's hard to believe that we've passed the halfway point. The last 4.5 months seem to both have flown by but also taken their sweet time - I guess that is inevitable when you are counting weeks (kind of like watching for water to boil, right?). 20 more weeks seems like forever, but I'm sure it will go quickly, especially with the holidays coming up. These days it seems like my body is changing all of the time, and so we've been trying to take a photo a week to document the changes.

This week we found out that we are having a girl. Knowing the gender makes the baby feel so much less abstract. That and I've been feeling more and more of her movements lately. It feels less like little pokes now, and more like butterflies, as I've heard it described - it's a weird sensation. Sean felt her kick for the first time this week, too. I was surprised - I didn't think that her movements would be strong enough to be felt outside my belly. I guess she was listening when I asked her to grow stronger.

Week 19

I haven't really had any pregnancy cravings yet, but maybe this counts - tonight I had a late evening hankering for a bagel with cream cheese, and scrambled eggs and mustard. Of course, it could just be that breakfast is awesome at any time of day...

Tomorrow we find out if this baby is a boy or a girl. Excitement!

Week 18

I'm now 18 weeks pregnant, and relatively "symptom free" at this point - somewhere between the nausea stage and the stage where you can feel the baby moving inside. I've had a few instances that I thought might have been the baby moving around - little flutters - but it's so light and infrequent that it's easy to convince yourself that it's just gas, or something along those lines. I'm looking forward to really feeling movements, because other than my growing belly, it's sometimes hard to believe that there's anything in there. Grow stronger, little one!