Week 35

 Hello again.  Wow two updates in two days, you're getting spoiled!  Today I am considered to be 35 weeks pregnant.  How did that happen seriously?!  Time is going by so fast and I think I need to write up a daily plan for the next while so I don't forget to do anything that I want to get done before Kiwi makes his/her debut.  


Other than this stupid throat infection thing and nasty cold that goes along with it I've been feeling great!  I tire quickly but overall I'm feeling good. The last two weeks of work were difficult only because I was not only doing my job but training the new girls as well as out of towner BI's.  Training is exhausting because you have to be on two different mental levels at all times.  Keeping the child engaged as well as keeping them learning while you're trying to explain as you go what you're doing, why you're doing it, and the several ways you can hit that goal by being creative as well as when it's appropriate to reward the child and how long they get their reward for and so and so on.  It's tricky.  This last week I was only suppose to have 2 training sessions all week, but it turned out to be 5.  I felt bad for Friday's shadow because I kept jumping in when it was suppose to be her running the show and I was to be a fly on the wall.  However, it's hard not to jump in when you see the kid totally playing her.  


I am still in denial that I'm on mat leave.  It won't feel real until tomorrow when I don't go to work. However I have a little job to do tomorrow so that will help the denial go on a little longer.  


I have been really bad at taking pictures of my belly along this journey.  I haven't taken one since week 28.  I have to make an appointment this week for maternity pictures.  I won a contest at a baby fair I went to for 50% off a maternity shoot.  Actually I won both photo contests at that baby fair and have decided to use one for maternity pictures and one for new born pictures.  Or I might give one the packages away to a friend for her to use and then just take new born pictures myself or get a friend of mine to do them.  


It hit me this morning that we will have a baby in our home in the next 7 weeks for sure (that's giving myself a 2 week late timeline).  That's such a surreal and exciting and scary reality!  I am so excited to meet Kiwi.  Lately we've been talking to Kiwi and saying, "kick if you're a boy" or "kick if you're a girl" and then we wait, both times we've done this Kiwi stays still and doesn't respond.  It's like he/she is saying I'm not going to reveal the surprise!  


I am so excited for all the family that will be in town in and around that time.  It's going to be a crazy time but we have decided to not have anyone stay with us during that time.  Although I would love to host I think our new reality will be overwhelming and we will need the space to adjust.  We have a couple of family members that will be here before my due date and I hope that Kiwi comes a little early for them to meet him/her.  But being realistic and knowing that first babies tend to be late I won't be counting on it.  My sister and her family are also going to be in town around that time and so is my step sister and her family.  It's going to be mayhem.  But such an exciting time.


We have a couple friend who are getting married on June 9.  When they asked us to RSVP I told them that it was tricky.  I want to say yes we'll be there for sure, but it all depends on Kiwi and Kiwi's timing.  He/she calls the shots at this point.  We have decided that if baby is a week old we will go, or if Kiwi is still baking we will go and I will dance her/him out!  


Wow that became more of a ramble post.  Could I already be going stir crazy?  Uh oh! Time to get writing out that list of "to do's".  


Until next time,
Michelle & Kiwi

Day One of Mat leave

Ok, so blogger totally changed it's look and I'm a little confused.  I miss the blue and cream coloured wall that was easy on my eyes for writing.  I don't care for this completely white screen and it makes me a little unmotivated to write anything fun.  I don't know why but I'm resistant to change today.  Oh well, I guess I'll get over it.  It just seems to suck my creative juices, this white boring screen.  


Today is day one of my maternity leave.  It is so surreal.  I feel like it's just an extended weekend or a two week vacation but in reality it's a year off to begin our family.  So strange!  The people at work were so kind and they held a baby shower potluck for me.  They even brought in a slurpee for my drink!  They know me so very well :)  At the end of the day when we sang the goodbye song with the kids I lost my composure and sobbed, not just cried a little, sobbed!  I will miss these kids, there has been so much invested and I've seen them all grow so much and a lot of them will have aged out by the time I go back.  It just hit me all at once and I couldn't handle it.  Especially in the line "good bye good bye see you again" line.  Because I know for some of those little kiddos I won't.  Heartbreaking!  


Than this morning when I woke up I had the sorest throat and it felt really nasty at the back.  I have been battling a cold on and off for the last two weeks. It had gone away but came back with a vengeance this last week.  When I would cough a certain way it meant my cookies were coming back up.  In a funny, but not so funny moment this week, I had just lost my lunch (taco salad) and about 10 minutes after that episode got a text message from a friend inviting us over for dinner on Sunday, the menu - taco salad. It almost sent me back to the washroom but I just laughed instead.  Anyways, back to this morning my throat was so bad - I lost my cookies after brushing my teeth - which is really annoying because than you have to brush them again risking the same outcome.  Anyways, after I cleaned myself up I took myself to the doctor to get checked out.  Apparently I may have a viral infection but will have to wait for Monday or Tuesday(at the latest) to get the results back from the swab test.  The hangy thingy in the back of my throat is so swollen that it occasionally gets caught on my tongue and causes me to gag.  Not fun!  But the doctor said it didn't appear to be strep so that was good news!  And I didn't have a fever which was also really good.  


I really have a hankering for The Old Spaghetti Factory. I think we may order some in, but I am also feeling rather social but know that I shouldn't because I am sick.  Dagnabit! So a quiet evening it is.  Until next time, 


Michelle

Almost 34 weeks

I tell ya, these weird dreams keep coming. The other night I had a dream that my work hired a new girl and while I was training her she kept sitting on me making it really hard to breath. When I woke up I realized I needed to roll over because the way I was sleeping there was too much pressure on my stomach. It made me laugh later when I thought about it.

I have started to wake up much more frequently through the night. Good training on kiwi's part. But it's exhausting to be up 10 times through the night. That's double what it has been. It's also super hard to get comfy and find right under my right shoulder blade, that muscle is always tense. I don't know why. It's kind of annoying, but I don't want to complain. I'm still very much enjoying being pregnant and find it to be such a gift to experience it. I love when kiwi does the wave or flips over. I find it funny when he/she is way over to my right hand side snuggled up to my ribs. There's a lot of pressure there but it doesn't hurt. I try to wiggle her/him back to the middle of my belly though cause I think it's weird when she/he is way over there and the rest of my tummy looks weird. For the most part kiwi hangs out in the middle of my tummy or on the top part.

People have been asking me if I think it's a boy or a girl. I really don't know. Some days I feel girl and other days I feel boy. All the kids I work with (including little dude that told me I was pregnant before I knew) say girl. My one niece is the only kid that has said boy and that we should name him Herbert. (Where do kids get this stuff?!) My other niece has tried to scare me into having a girl - "Auntie M it will hurt a lot more if it's not a girl."

I can't believe I only have one work week left before mat leave. How did that happen? I am getting exhausted by the end of the work day and I know my time is ticking but seriously, how did the time go by so fast? I have been following a couple of vlogs (YouTube blog type things) of two girls who are going through the pregnancy journey. One girl just gave birth to twins and the other just gave birth to her daughter. I started watching the one that gave birth to her daughter before she found out she was pregnant. Her story is extremely similar to mine. To think she was only 5 weeks ahead of me in the pregnancy journey and here she's had her baby already! Reality check!!!

This past week at work I've been busy training (hence the dream) the new girls who will be replacing me for the next couple of months. It's so tiring trying to train people because you have to be on two different levels. You need to engage the child and get the work done, but you also need to explain what you're doing, why you're doing it and where to get the info to do it at the same time in adult talk. Next week I'm training again (not as much as this week). It's a tiring way to go out but I understand it needs to be done. And it was brought to my attention that this week (because one of the other BI's is away) I was the most seasoned BI. That's crazy!

Well this just turned into a rambling post. Can you tell B's been away?? He comes back tonight.

Until later,

Michelle

What a week - and a Vacuum rant!

This past week seems to have been event after event making for one tired mama at the end of the week. Last Saturday we went to B's grandparents house for breakfast and then visited with a few different families before heading to where my brother and his wife were staying for a week to have a games night. We left our house at about 10am and didn't return home until almost 1am. Than Sunday we opted to sleep in (B had had 4 late nights in a row so I let him sleep in). I was up at a ridiculously early hour. Than we leisurely took in the day making a few errand stops but nothing major. Than on Monday B went to work and I did some errands and cleaned the house and then in the evening we hung out with some friends of ours. It was really fun, we watched a movie and had a great dinner over at their house. Than on Tuesday I went to work (ok I did that every day this week -Tues to Friday- so I will leave this detail out of my daily recap). After work I had my sign language class until 5 and then at 5:30 our maternity class started and went until 7:30. Needless to say it was a long day. Wednesday I was a cranky pants, just seriously irritable at work. Even during my lunch hour I was like I should really just go for a walk to get away. People were talking loudly and talking with their mouths full and chewing without closing their mouth and I hate that sound! Like I said, seriously irritable. Normally I can ignore these things but on Wednesday it just seemed to escalate the more the minutes went by. Eventually I removed myself from the lunch room to collect a little sanity before heading down to work with a little guy that has been having a very off week.

Than the evening came. This is where the venting comes out. I apparently "won" a draw where you get your choice of a free carpet shampooing, floor wax or furniture cleaning. I decided to go with the furniture cleaning and get only the couch and the chair done. Shouldn't take more than 20 minutes right, than I can have the entire evening to relax?! HA!! Yeah right. Turns out it was a sales pitch ploy. I won't say which company, but a vacuum company and when he arrived he seemed nice enough. Very pleasant and said, I'm going to show you the product and everything you see today is for sale, but there is no obligation to buy. Good! I am not intending to, is what I was thinking. He did his thing and then proceeded to show me all the other things it could do to. I was like I just wanted my furniture done, it's done, you can go now. He was here for over 2 hours. By the time he left I was super duper grumpy and super duper tired. I was also struggling with heartburn for the last 45 minutes of him being here and wanted to shout "GET OUT" but didn't. Hind sight, I should have.

When it came time for the end of the presentation he asked if I was interested and I said I don't make those types of financial decisions without first discussing it with my husband (we're talking $3000). He proceeded to tell me reasons why I should just make the decision without checking in first and that just made me annoyed. One reason being that B wasn't here to see to believe what his product could do. Another reason because women are many steps ahead of men and we are able to make our own decisions. Another reason because there was a contest going on right now and it's only applicable if you get it on the first night they come to your house (for the record this was an employee contest and there were no benefits for the customer so really I didn't give a rip about the contest). Another reason if I did a trade in for our old vacuum cleaner they would give us $400 off the price. Every time I said no he had a rebuttal and that just annoyed me even more. Did I mention I was struggling with heartburn and fatigue and an already grumpy kind of day?! Finally I got it through to him that I was not going to be making that decision today, not that I didn't agree his product was really great and awesome, just not going to get it today without first talking to my husband. So he finally left shortly after 9:30. I immediately called B (he was at work for launch night) and told him about my experience. Than I tucked myself into bed and went to sleep. Note too everyone - if you get drawn for a "free" cleaning don't fall for it, unless you're willing to put up with the annoying sales pitch.

Thursday I don't really remember. I remember it being a long day and I came home and put my jammies on immediately until it was time to go pick B up from work. Than we went to a friend's baby shower. Their little girl is super tiny and so sweet. Her cry is very quiet. We had a great time joking around with the new parents because we all have a similar sense of humour which I can see as dangerous, but so much fun!

Friday - today was a fun day at work. When I first woke up I didn't think I would make it through the day. I was dragging myself around the house to get ready. But once I got to work I had a few moments of clarity of how to make some of the programs that I had to run fun and exciting and fresh. The little guy I was working with responded well to these ideas and we had a blast. However, some of these things included literally running around from one activity to another. And when I say running I mean we were racing. It was a lot of fun but I knew that as soon as I stopped for the day I would crash. But it was so worth it because it was such a fun day! After lunch I ran a girls group (3 girls) and our theme today was camping. It was so much fun to watch them pretend they were going camping how they set up their camp. When one of the girls decided that it would be a good idea to move the fire into the tent I explained to her why that might not be the best idea. So funny (it wasn't actual fire, just pretend). After our play group they earned some free time and then we went outside for a nature walk and picked up some things we thought might make a good craft. It was an overall amazing day. The little girl I was working with made me laugh a few times. One time during snack time. I hadn't heard her ask for help to open her container and she just sat there and stared at me while I ate my cantaloupe. Finally she asked, "Are you ever going to open this for me?" It was really funny. I apologized for not hearing her and opened up her snack container.

There was another point where we were having a body break from sitting at the table for too long and we played the keep the balloon in the air game. After the game was over she cried out, "Now our fun is over" As if I didn't have more fun planned out. I told her that if there was time we could play that game again at the end of the day. But I will have to remember that one for a body break activity for next week. It was an overall hit. I know there was one other thing she said today that made me laugh but I can't remember it right now. I just love how kids are so funny. I'm going to miss them all so much! It's so surreal that it's coming to an end in 2 weeks from now.

That brings us to current time: Nothing much happening this evening. I stopped in a baby store today that I didn't know existed and that was exciting. I was so happy that they had some gliding chairs set up for trying out because I used every single one to give my feet a break. There was one chair that I found really comfy but it didn't have padding on the arm rests. Than I looked at the price and decided I didn't like it after all. haha. (Too expensive). But the store for the most part was very reasonably priced and a lot of options/selection. Than I picked up B from work and we got some dinner on our way home and now I'm ready for bed. Until next time,

Michelle

Good Friday and crazy dreams!

The other night I had a crazy pregnancy dream. It was about me going to the doctor to have an ultrasound just to make sure everything was alright. Than I had one of the cousins over and she told me that she has a friend that works at the ultra sound clinic and her friend had told her that I was having a girl. I cried because I wanted it to be a surprise and I was so upset. I started shouting that the clinic had broken their confidentiality code but also that this cousin would just tell me the outcome knowing that I was wanting it to be a surprise at birth. She was confused and asked, wasn't I happy to be having a girl? I told her I am but now I'm mourning not having a boy or letting it be a surprise. So weird!

Anyways, I was quite relieved when I woke up and realized that it had just been a dream. Seriously these dreams keep me quite entertained. Just to chalk it up, that's one dream where it's been a boy and now one dream where's it's a girl...surprise factor - still a go!

Yesterday evening I went to B's parents' house for Good Friday dinner. It was awesome!!! I can't even explain how yummy it was! There was ham, scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn, brussel sprouts, salad, the green marshmellowy type salad with fruit in it (I can't remember what it's called), homemade applesauce, pineapple...I think there was something else but I just can't remember. Than for dessert we had banana cream pie. Sooooo good!!

At one point I wanted to get in behind B's Grandma to get to my chair, but my belly was too big to get passed and when I asked her if she could scoot up she did and then when I sat down she said, "what's your problem? Maybe you should go on a diet" haha. It was really funny. I wasn't expecting it. It made me laugh any ways.

I do have to say that I am sticking with my new years resolution really well. Do you remember what it was? It's to gain weight in the first 6 months and then lose weight in the last 6 months. So the first half of the year goal is going really well. Hopefully the second half will go just as well.

Well I think that's about all there is to report for now. Until later,

Michelle and kiwi

Michelle

Tick Tock

I am starting to get really tired by the end of my work day which only averages 6 hours most days (I have two days that it's only slightly more by an hour or two). It's sad really, I get home and I'm ready to call it a night at 7pm. Didn't I already go through this stage at the beginning? Oh well, no complaining here. I am actually really enjoying pregnancy and I'm already starting to think of when the baby is here and how I won't feel him/her in my stomach any more. It's going to be so weird because I've gotten so use to it. I think I may miss that, but at the same time I'm so very excited (and nervous) about meeting Kiwi!!

The nursery painting is at a bit of a standstill until B's cousin is done with classes. So hopefully after this next week it will be on the go again and I can post some pictures for you. This coming Sunday I will be 32 weeks pregnant. That's insane! The time is going by oh so fast and I can't believe I only have 3 more work weeks left. It's going to be so surreal when I'm done. Like I'm just going on a vacation but.... not. I don't know how it's going to be. I know the time will go by fast afterwards because I feel like there is still so much to do.

Yesterday at work we said so long to another co-worker because it was her last day before mat leave. Crazy! She's only 6 weeks ahead of me in pregnancy talk. We had a baby shower for her and we had it vegetarian style because she is a vegetarian. I was surprised with the different dishes that came out of it. There was only one salad, everything else was something different and there were no veggie platters either. I took the easy way and brought drinks. The reason for this is because at every potluck we've had no one ever brings drinks so we always end up having water. (Boring!) So I brought ice tea (because that is what she's been craving through her entire pregnancy) and some other drinks too.

I think today I might make some cookies. Don't hold me to it though cause that desire may disappear. I don't know why but my desire to cook and bake has been haltered. I wish it would come back. I'm sure B does too!

Well until next time

Michelle