Painting and organizing

First off, I apologize for the long lapse between posts. I just really haven't had anything facinating to blog about!

Today we painted the nursery. I love it. It's white, which is pretty simple, but the white city girl helped me pick out has just a tiny hint of blue in it. Okay, so the hint of blue is pretty much impossible to see once the paint is actually on the wall, but it still looks great. It looks so clean and crisp, I just love it. Next step is putting up the crib, I'm hoping we can do that sometime this weekend. I think I must be hitting the nesting stage everyone talks about because I really want to spend my time putting up baby stuff and deocorations, but I can't because I don't really have much yet. Ah well, my first shower is on the 28th!

The husband and I were on a bit of a roll, so we also spent some time on the study room. Mostly, we just moved the bookshelves over to a spot that looked better and finally organized the books. There is still so much work to be done in that room, but it's getting there.

Not much to update on, except that I'm a monster, thanks to the lovely 40 lbs I have gained thus far. My OB seems shockingly unconcerned by this, citing the fact that my blood pressure is great and I passed my GD test with flying colors, and the baby is perfectly healthy so I should stop worrying. Should, but haven't, mostly because I'm afraid of what I'll look like after I give birth. Thank God for my lovely friend city girl who has promised to bust my butt back into shape after this little man makes his appearance. Don't know what I'd do without her!

Registry update

After taking a step back, I've realized I let hormones get the better of me and let myself get stressed out over some of the silliest things. Oh well, it certinatly wasn't the first and definitely won't be the last time. ;-) After talking with my husband, I decided on the Graco SafeSeat. It's a little more spendy, but cheeper than the Chicco. My husbands largest request was that we get an infant seat that will last as long as possible - only the SafeSeat and the Chicco will hold a child up to 30 lbs, everything else cuts off at 22. I think it's the right decision, and if it's not, oh well I'm done thinking about it! Now I'm having fun registering for cute little outfits, burp rags and bibs. This part is so much more enjoyable.

Here is are my registries if anyone wants to take a look. I would love opinions on anything that might be unnecessary, or anything I might be forgetting.

http://www.toysrus.com/ControllerServlet?searchBy=&defLName=schlip&defFName=leah&defCity=&defState=&maidenName=&maidFName=&maidCity=&maidState=&registryNumber=&target=search&userType=giftGiver&searchForPerson=primReg&whereTo=viewRegistry&firstName=leah&lastName=schlip&city=&state=&submit.x=61&submit.y=0

http://www.target.com/registry/baby/3FUKKLWOADNM3/guestview

Registry Woes

I don't know why, but the whole concept of a baby registry has overwelmed me from the beginning. I get online and there is just so much - I start to feel panicked and I wonder, could I possibly need all this STUFF? Most of it seems ridiculious and unnecessary. But then there are the essentials, like a carseat and a stroller. Why didn't anyone tell me these things were so expensive? I feel almost guilty putting it on a registry, basically asking family and friends to spend enourmous amounts of money on me. I'm sure the grandparents on both sides will be more than happy to, but really, where are the inexpensive things to register for so my friends can get me things as well? Ugh. I would like to thank a great friend for giving me a crib. That has been such a huge relief to both myself and my husband. There's a normally $300+ item crossed off the list!

I did finally sit down and force myself to start the registry, and some of it was quite fun. Some of the baby gear, like the pack and play and the baby bouncer, look just so adorable. I got a matching pack and play, swing and highchair just because the print was so cute. Other items are causing me more stress. The biggest right now is the infant car seat. I have been doing research and like the Chicco one the best for safety ratings, etc. But everything I read about it also says it is heavier and bulkier. It seems short moms don't give it the best ratings. Being not that tall (okay, being extremely short), and defintiely not that strong, I wonder if I will find it to be a pain to carry around. At one point I had registered for the Graco SnugRide. And now I just can't choose! I don't know why something as simple as a car seat can cause so much stress! And do I register for the whole travel system, or just the car seat and a stroller seperately?? The travel systems seem pretty expensive, and I don't think I need a regular stroller quite that nice, since I plan on using a jogging stroller around the neighborhood for walks (yay gravel!). I could just register for a cheeper stroller to take with me to say the mall or the store. But am I making the right choice?? AHHHHHH HELP!!!

Old Friends

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being able to take a day off work and drive out to the city to see an old friend and roommate who was only in town for a couple days. I had an absolute blast. We first went to the mall, and of course when we walked into Nordstrom I was drawn by all the bright and pretty colors at the MAC counter. I managed to buy 4 eyeshadows for minimal money out of my own pocket, thanks to Christmas gift cards! Sadly 3 of the colors were just replacing ones I all ready have and that are slowly running out, but I did manage to buy one new color titled 100 strokes, a shimmery almost burgundy that makes a brilliant smokey eye when pared with Trax (yes, I do think it is sad I know my eyeshadows by name). We walked all up and down the rest of the mall, perhaps spending just a bit too much money, but having the time of our lives, then headed downtown so my friend could hit Urban Outfitters. After all the merriment there, we walked into what we thought was an asian restaurant of sorts, (it sure looked like it from the outside!) only to discover that it was a sort of buffet style serve yourself with just about everything you could imagine. I was still craving asian food, and I had the best tempura shrimp EVER. Mmmm still salivating over that. Overall the entire day was wonderful. We reminisced over the time we had our apartment together, grieved over the loss of the cat we had once owned, giggled over the silliest things. I got to hear all about her new boyfriend, who I actually really like and think might just be 'the one' but alas, only time will tell! She admired my, as she put it, 'Buddha belly' and I got to congratulate her on her new waistline, thanks to the loss of 30 lbs. Go Krys! The best news? She's coming back in August for a friend's wedding, and is planning on taking an entire week off so she can have time to drive out to my place and introduce me to her boyfriend. I can't wait!

4am phone calls

First off I want to thank my two wonderful friends, mammagriffith and city girl for convincing me to finally open this blog! While I origionally assured them that the blog would not ever be used for anything of a personal nature, and simply to share my writing with them (and them alone!) this morning seemed ripe for a good rant.

I cannot begin to express how frustrating I find it when people call or send text messages at inappropriate times. I have a few friends who live in different time zones and for them I can forgive this mishap, they usually just forget that I'm still sleeping even if it may be close to 9 where they live. This is much harder to forgive, however, when the culprit is your own father who definitely doesn't live in a different time zone. My dad recently had surgery and, in my opinion, has been home for way too long to recover. This has caused him to forget some of the basest of social skills, one of them being that you simply don't bug people over mundane things while they are sleeping. Or perhaps he has his nights and days so mixed up he forgets the time. Until today, it has only been a few text messages and I've been hesitant to mention anything to him. Today however really takes the cake. I was awoken (from a pretty awesome dream I might add) from my phone ringing early this morning. How early I didn't yet know, I'm blind without my glasses and it was still dark. I fumble for my phone and after about the third time I manage to pick it up. I see it's my dad and I instantly start to panic. My thoughts go immediately to an aunt who has end stages MS. I'm certain she must be dead or dying. Or maybe something has happened to my mom or my brother. I answer the phone. The first thing he says is, "I'm sorry, did I wake you up? I thought you might be up by now." Okay, so it must be around 6am or so, and I'm wondering now why my husband's alarm didn't go off. I'm not really sure what I managed to mumble back. The rest of the conversation is fairly fuzzy to me, because I realized that this was not an emergency. He called because he was watching the news and saw that my town was flooding. I guess he was worried? I told him something about how I knew that all ready, I saw it on the news the night before, but we were fine. I'm sure he must be hanging up now. But no. He goes on to tell me that their power went out a little while ago for about an hour or so, and they have one inch of snow. At this point my spouse rolls over and whispers to me, "It's four thirty in the morning!" and I'm suddenly so irate I want to throw the phone. He called me at 4:30am to tell me about flooding, an small power outage and one inch of SNOW? Oh, and he's not done. He's heard the place where my husband works is flooding, too. (by the way, no it's not). I realize he's going to keep going if I don't do something about it, and I somehow manage to say goodbye and hang up the phone. By this time both myself and my husband are fully awake and will spend the rest of the night that way. The addreneline is still pumping in my veins from thinking a family member was dead or injured. The only bright spot is, after I hung up, I realized that the baby was moving around and kicking like crazy, so my other half got to feel it for the first time. It wasn't the great and wonderful moment I had always imagined however, given we were both still irritated. I've been informed that if I do not call my dad and tell him how inappropriate this was, my loving husband will do it for me. I trust myself to be more diplomatic than him, so it's probably good, but I'm all ready dreading the phone call. I don't handle confrontation well. ugh.