Month: June 2011

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11 month stats

D turns 11 months old tomorrow, so let’s see what’s new since last month, shall we?

Not a whole lot. 🙂

Stats

  • We don’t go for official measurements again until August at her 1 year appointment, but since she’s been in so often recently for these damn ear infections I know she weighs about 19.5 lbs.
  • Discovered she’s allergic to the Omnicef family of antibiotics. Sweet. That was fun.

Likes/Dislikes/Miscellany

  • Feeds herself a lot more, which is encouraging. Daycare said they haven’t actually fed her for months, besides stuff that obviously needs a spoon, like yogurt. She much preferred to have me feed her at home, though, but has recently become more willing to pick stuff up herself to eat. She does like to grab for the spoon now too, which I know I need to let her do, but I rarely like to since whatever she grabs for ends up on the floor, her head, or me.
  • To go along with the self-feeding, she’s started eating a wider variety of foods, too. Doesn’t favor just baby cereal anymore, which I think is awesome. Since we’ve already switched her to cow’s milk, I’ve started giving her whole milk yogurt too, instead of the specific baby yogurt (which i think is just whole milk yogurt, anyway). This is great, since I can stir a dropper-full of those nasty iron-fortified vitamins that she needs to take into the yogurt, and she’ll still eat it. Victory! (watch, now that i say that she’ll stop eating it. pray for us all) She doesn’t mind meat now either, probably because we just give her tiny bites of our regular stuff, not pureed and mashed up. Brats and sausage are ones of which she’s particularly fond. Blueberries are her new-found favorite, and those and Cheerios I think she would eat by the bushel-full if we let her.
  • Loves to cruise around the house and does so with ease. She still does the hands and knees galloping that she transitioned to from the frog-legged scooting. Before this funny little maneuver she would scoot with one leg forward and one leg back, and when she finally got onto her hands and knees we were like oh nice, she’s gonna crawl! Nope, she’s still scooting. Leap-frogging, actually. She literally bounds along on her hands and knees, very much like a little pony galloping. Especially when she sees you and gets really excited – man, she moves! She’s already burned some holes in the knee of one of her pairs of pants. I thought only little boys did that.
  • Now stands without assistance for a couple seconds quite frequently. She still needs something on which to pull herself up to standing (the coffee table, couch, dresser, toilet, your leg), but she can let go and just hang there by herself. Last weekend I had taken her to see some of our friends, and she was trying to get some Cheerios out of the cap to her bottle while standing there like nobody’s business. Like yeah, Mom, I’m standing here, no big deal, nothing to see. I haven’t gotten her to take a step while standing yet to begin the actual walking phase, though. She still plops back down to the ground to start moving. I have a feeling, however, that first step will occur any time now.
  • Still loves playing with all her toys, and now especially likes her gumball machine. She knows how to open the door at the bottom to take a ball out, then drop it back in the top so it can go down the slide. Don’t worry, they’re not actual gumballs, they’re toy balls, not chokeable.
  • She loves riding in the cart at the grocery store. She still is pretty tiny for it, so I make sure to strap her in each time, but she has the best time going up and down the aisles laughing and squealing.
  • Loves to whip her daily sheet from daycare around when you pick her up like a flag, often hitting you in the face with a paper cut. I have learned to now fold it in quarters before handing it to her to avoid getting sliced. For whatever reason, carrying around pieces of paper is one of her favorite activities – her daycare sheet, grocery lists, receipts, etc.
  • Still doesn’t appreciate being put onto her changing table for diaper changes, so I’ve found a tactic that makes her laugh – I reach into the basket of diapers that’s just behind and above her head, grab one of her shoes, and quickly put it on top of my head while making a ridiculous noise and smiley face. This turns tears into instant giggles. Why, who knows? She’s a baby, that’s why.
  • Still loves all her lift-the-flap books, and will look up at you and smile as you’re reading to her. I love that.
  • I thought she’d outgrown her jumperoo, but I put her in it the other day while doing a workout dvd, and she still goes nuts.
  • Can still wear 9 month sized clothes for the most part, but is slowly moving to all 12 month stuff. The 9 month pants are getting pretty capri-ish on her, plus all the summer clothes I’ve bought are 12+ months anyway. Unfortunately the weather has been such shit up until now that she hasn’t even had a chance to break out these cute new outfits yet and has still been wearing her long sleeves and pants.
  • Is in size 3 diapers. What, you didn’t want to know that one?
  • Still has just 6 teeth, 4 top front ones and 2 bottom front ones. I kept thinking some new ones would break through these past couple weeks since she was so uncomfortable, but I think all of that was just from the ear infections and subsequent rash. Boo.
  • Dropped her afternoon nap at daycare a while ago for some reason (not sure if i mentioned that last month or not). She’ll usually take about an hourish nap at some point mid-late morning, but refuses to nap in the afternoon. I guess there’s just too much fun stuff happening there that she doesn’t want to miss, because she almost always takes 2 naps when she’s home on the weekends. As a result, she’s often wiped out tired by the time we get home from daycare each day, but I try not to let her nap so she’ll go to bed earlier and usually sleep pretty well through the night. With no second nap she’ll go to bed as early as 6-7; with a second nap she might be up until 9 or sometimes later, depending on how wound up she is.

And for your viewing pleasure, recent photos of the wondrous and amazing Miss D.

 

Yep, 2 bottles, that's how I roll

 

 

Come here, Mom, gimme that camera

 

 

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Buffett recap

Here’s a photographic recap of the Jimmy Buffett concert at Alpine Valley last Saturday. Once again, fun was had by all and plenty of shenanigans ensued. Unfortunately I left my phone in the grass where we were tailgating when we cleaned everything up to head into the show. Fortunately the guy who was set up next to us told me our friends had it when we got back to our car at the end of the night, so I had to go get it on Sunday afternoon once Grandma headed home. It’s always something out there…

R with the fixins for Roaring Dan dark & stormies

 

I will play for gumbo!

 

The giant tiki bar was right next to us this year - awesome!

 

The boys

 

The girls

 

Our group

 

Me & some swimmers - I was apparently overserved and finding something utterly hilarious

 

Still drunk. Still hilarious.

 

Wastin' away again in Margaritaville

 

 

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Aka “Shut the f*ck up!”

Sorry, I didn’t want to put a giant screaming “fuck” in the title. 😉 But I’m sure you’ve all seen this by now:  Go the F**k to Sleep

If not, you’ve apparently been sleeping for a couple months. Someone sent me a pdf version of that book before it was even for sale on Amazon, and I about died from the hilarity reading it. Parents-to-be, just you wait. You will love your child more than you ever thought humanly possible, but those nights when getting him/her to sleep seems impossible? The words of this book will ring oh-so true.

There’s a wonderfully narrated version of it by Samuel L. Jackson that just might make you laugh out loud, too. I’m hesitant to post it here since it is copyrighted, so if you’d like to hear it just let me know. You can also find it on YouTube, but it might make you sign in or create an account to view it since it contains explicit language. Rules.

I saw this article today, however, and I think it’s a little much. No, the profanity in this book is not suitable for children, but the book is not intended for kids. And the author certainly is not instructing parents to physically harm their sleepless offspring in any way. And demeaning to children? Someone’s taking themselves way too seriously here.

This book has simply put into writing what I guarantee every parent has felt or will feel at some point in their child’s lifetime. It is not the cause of parents not reading bedtime stories to their children as much anymore; it is not responsible for the unfortunate fact that many parents do use language like this regularly with their kids. Yes, my heart breaks into a million pieces when I think of all the children in the world whose parents do not care for them as they should, or at all. No child deserves that. But to portend that this book somehow perpetuates that? I think someone needs to lighten up. Go ahead, laugh at the book. It’s ok, it’s funny. And it does not make you a bad parent.

 

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NY, my thumb, and a dog

Random much, SM? Yeah, I know it’s a weird title, but I didn’t have any good way to connect the 3 totally unrelated topics I wanted to write about this morning. So there ya go.

I know this is old news, but I felt I would be remiss in not mentioning it. On Friday of last week, NY became the largest state to recognize same-sex marriages. Awesome!! This has been a contentious issue across the nation for a very long time, and probably will be for years to come, but I was very happy to see this law passed. It’s one step in the right direction, anyway, in my opinion. I know so many people feel gay marriage is wrong, since in the Bible it says marriage is between a man and a woman, but you know what? I don’t care. I’m not religious (another entire post in itself), I’ve never read the Bible (i actually did start on that endeavor years ago, but didn’t get far at all. does anyone else find trying to read that language about as enjoyable as pulling out your eyelashes one by one?), and I don’t understand why a book written thousands of years ago is still considered relevant enough to rule our laws today. If 2 people are in love, want to spend the rest of their lives together in a recognized union just like the rest of us, and are doing no harm to either themselves or anyone else anywhere on the planet, why should they not get married? I still have not heard a good answer to that question, so I personally hope the rest of the states eventually follow NY’s lead. I knew I liked that place.

So remember how I was all excited about the gardens I planted last month? The veggie plants, the veggie seeds, the mulch? Apparently my green thumb wasn’t so green after all. None of the seeds had sprouted a few weeks later, so I just kept patiently watering and waiting. I was showing R where I’d planted everything one night, and he said, “You didn’t mulch over the seeds, did you?” Well yeah, don’t you see that beautifully spread mulch before you, right where I said the bean, cucumber, pea, and lettuce seeds are? “You can’t mulch over seeds, it’ll suffocate them, just like it does to weeds.” DUH, SM. Seriously, I’m stupid. Why this obvious and most logical of facts escaped me as I laid bag after bag of mulch over the entire seeded area, I have no idea. So yeah, I totally failed at the veggie gardens. The seeds, anyway. The plants are doing swimmingly, especially now that the sun has finally decided to remember that the Earth is down here. I pulled the mulch back in those areas where the seeds were to uncover the dirt and try to resuscitate them, but unfortunately only a couple pea plants have sprouted – no beans, no cucs, and no lettuce. So I finally had to resign myself to the fact that I killed them and needed to start over. Last night I got a chance to reseed the barren areas, so I planted more beans and lettuce; unfortunately the cucumber seeds were gone, and I figured I’d take my chances with 4 pea plants up so far before planting any more seeds in that part. Fingers crossed that this round survives and the sun helps them out this week, since each day looks like it’s going to be gorgeous. I had a little helper last night as I was working in the gardens, too.

Mommy & D in the backyard

 

And now for the dog part. This morning on my way to work I saw a dog, running with its leash attached, right down the middle of the road and onto an onramp to the highway! What the?? It was a pretty small little guy (i’m calling it a guy. it could very well have been a girl, for all i know), but he was moving like a bat out of hell. I didn’t see anyone chasing him, but I did see one car that was stopped just behind where I first saw him, so maybe she was his owner and he’d gotten out of the car somehow. She had to stop since the light changed, which allowed the dog to get even farther up the ramp toward the highway, so I really really hope that lady was his owner and was able to get him once her light turned green. I felt terrible for not stopping to try to pick him up. I always think oh yeah, I would totally stop to help an animal, but here I had a chance and totally didn’t. But I’m honestly not sure what I would have done with him had I nabbed him. I guess just taken him back to wherever his tags said, because I don’t know where any vets or animal shelters are around here. I still couldn’t help feeling a touch heartless. Please little doggie, be ok and back in your owner’s care!

 

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Ok, back to milk for a second

I know I’m done with the whole breast milk thing and all, and I know how much you miss me talking about my boobs, so I thought I’d throw you a bone. A while ago I linked to a post from What the Blog? where Jenny was asking readers to comment on breastfeeding recommendations, tips, products, etc. Well last week I saw that she has now compiled all the feedback she got from that post into one giant breastfeeding guide. Check it out here.

 

Her post got me thinking about what breastfeeding advice I would give, so I thought I’d make a little list for any of you moms-to-be who are planning on breastfeeding or interested. A lot of this is contained in Jenny’s post as well, so you might get a double dose.

  • Take the nurses’ advice on positioning the baby, positioning your breasts, etc., when you’re in the hospital after delivery and trying this out for the first time. I had no idea how to do it or what was going to happen, so having them there to guide me was essential. I never used a lactation consultant, either, so they were my main resource.
  • It will hurt at first, both inside and out. Having baby’s mouth sucking away on your nipple is a sensation that takes some getting used to, and it also causes your uterus to contract, which can feel like, you guessed it, mild contractions. It’s a little painful, but normal, and is key to getting your body back to normal. Contracting uterus = flatter stomach
  • Drink LOTS of water. I don’t know why, but nursing makes you extremely thirsty. I always had water with me when I fed D or pumped.
  • Make sure you eat enough. You need to keep up your calorie intake to make enough milk. Depending on how much you produce and how often baby eats, you can burn like 500 calories a day just by breastfeeding. Feeling ravenously hungry? Eat!
  • Feed on demand. Don’t try to put a newborn on a schedule, it won’t work. You might feel like you’re constantly feeding him/her for a while, but that will subside and more of a routine will emerge. The cluster feedings may return during growth spurts, but by then you’ll be used to them and know better how to handle it.
  • At first, feed baby on one side for 5-10 minutes, then the other. This helps get both breasts going right. After a couple days I dropped this pattern and just fed D on one side at a time, but this is what the nurses recommended right after she was born and it worked for me. Before your milk comes in and you’re still producing colostrum, this also helps make sure the baby is getting enough to eat.
  • Some people may yell at me for saying this one, but don’t wake the baby up to feed. He/she will wake up soon enough once discovering the hunger; you don’t have to worry about anyone starving to death. Yeah, it might throw that day’s schedule a tad out of whack for a little while, but honestly, in those first few weeks after baby’s born, everything seems out of whack. It’ll be ok. And if you get a surprise long stretch between feedings while baby decides to sleep, you should try to do the same. You never know when an opportunity like that will present itself again. (i promise i’m really not trying to scare you guys, i’m just being honest. it gets better, don’t worry)
  • When baby wakes up for those nighttime feedings (or even daytime ones, for that matter), a diaper change before feeding helps wake them up a little more. Being more awake will help the efficiency of the feeding. A baby who is still basically asleep can take for-ever to nurse, just fyi. And when you’re up 2, 3, a million times a night, a fast feeding will be very welcome.
  • Make sure you burp the baby often enough. Sometimes burping during a feeding as well as at the end helps get the air out and lets baby eat more comfortably. Along with this, have plenty of burp rags on hand. We burned through many every day when D was real little.
  • I always tucked a burp rag over the bottom part of my bra and let it hang down the front of me while D nursed. This saved many shirts from drool, milk, and spit up that would occasionally fall out of her mouth.
  • Having a watch or timer near where you nurse is very helpful in figuring out baby’s rhythm. I mentally kept track of how long she ate each time, and if you’re alternating sides during feedings you’ll be able to see when time’s up to switch. It also helped me keep track of how long it had been between each feeding. By the time I went back to work and R took over on parental leave, I was writing down D’s feeding times so he could see what her schedule was each day.
  • Determine which position is most comfortable for you for feeding. I always did the standard cradle hold with D.
  • I’m fairly indifferent on the boppy nursing pillows. I did get one, but pretty much never used it for nursing. I just found it easier to hold D in my arms than rest her on a pillow, or however you’re supposed to use it. It ended up getting used more to prop her up so she didn’t fall all over the couch when she was really little. And we did set her in it sometimes when she fell asleep, which I know you’re not supposed to do. Oops. She survived.
  • Get lanolin for your nipples when they get sore. I put it on after each feeding and after every shower for the first couple months. Watch out, though, because it will leave greasy marks on your clothes if it gets on them. It’s like a really thick vaseline type substance. I used Lansinoh.
  • Get nursing pads to protect your bras from leaks, dribbles, and lanolin stains. I liked the disposable ones best, since you’ll have plenty of laundry to deal with anyway. Again, I used the Lansinoh ones.
  • Comfortable nursing bras are a must. The ones I liked best were from Destination Maternity. Just their brand, not the expensive A Pea in the Pod ones. I got 3 – 2 neutral beige and 1 black. I wore them every day until I stopped pumping and they were lifesavers. You’ll also want some comfy sleep bras. I liked these, again from Destination Maternity.
  • Get some good nursing tank tops. These were especially useful for me, since D was born in the summer and it was HOT. But even if you deliver in the winter months they’ll still be handy and comfortable to wear around the house since you’ll be keeping it warm enough in there for baby anyway. I bought some from the Gap which weren’t the greatest and one turned into my sleeping tank, but I loved this one from Destination Maternity. I could put the nursing pads right in the cups and not even have to wear a bra with it. Sense a pattern with that place? They really do know their stuff.
  • If you’re setting up a dedicated nursery room for the baby, getting a glider or rocking chair of some sort is a good idea. I liked the kind with the matching gliding ottoman. Here’s the one we got, and I have spent countless hours in it. I still give D her morning and bedtime bottles in it, and probably will for as long as she takes them.
  • If you will be nursing in public, or maybe in front of people when they’re at your house, I highly recommend a nursing cover. I never ended up having to nurse D in public and would just go in her room to feed her if people were over, so I actually never used mine. But having it just in case isn’t a bad idea.
  • Get a good pump. Even if you don’t think you’ll need it right away, get it before baby is born. If you have supply issues, or baby doesn’t latch properly, or it just takes a while for the whole breastfeeding thing to click, pumping will be very important to get your supply going and maintained until baby will nurse. Or if you do end up with a long stretch between feedings, you might need to express some milk so your boobs don’t explode you stay comfortable. It’s also great to be able to have some bottles on hand if you’re going the breast milk route for those times when you have to go out somewhere with the baby or have someone else feed him/her while you’re gone or sleeping (sleeping? ha! i meant trying to sleep. or do laundry, or take a shower, or go to the bathroom, or eat…). I recommend a double electric pump. This is the one I got, and it worked like a charm. Medela also has a totally hands-free version that comes with a bra that holds the breast shields in place, but it’s obviously more expensive. I did get a little cheapie single hand pump for when I had to go places where I still needed to express but couldn’t take my big double pump bag. Like Camp Randall. Not kidding. Excuse me, what’s that in your purse? Oh that, don’t mind that, it’s just my breast pump. 😛
  • To go with that pump, get the quick clean wipes. Are you really going to want or have time to clean all the parts in soap and water after each use? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Neither did I. I did also get the steam clean bags, but I only used one once. I did use it again when I put the pump away for good (you can use each bag up to 20 times), but I don’t know if they’re really necessary or not. I think one even comes with the pump, so maybe just try that one out and see if you’ll need more before you get a whole box of them.
  • Get some extra bottles and nipples, preferably ones that are compatible with whatever pump you get. That pump above comes with 4-5 oz. bottles and lids, but only 1 wide base slow flow nipple, which is what newborns use. I got an extra set of the 5 oz. bottles as well as a set of 8 oz. bottles with medium flow nipples for ages 4+ months. Right now Medela only makes slow and medium flow nipples, so now sometimes D sucks the nipples flat trying to get milk out faster, but I think they’re fine. We have a whole bunch of other bottles that we’ve never even used. I asked for and received a nice set of BornFree bottles at one of our showers, which was the brand one of my girlfriends recommended when I was pregnant, but we’ve honestly only used one of them to put water in for D. The Medela bottles have been our go-to because they attach directly to the pump. This tended to be much easier for me than pumping into the storage bags, especially if I knew D would be taking the bottles soon after I pumped them (i.e., when I pumped at work and we would send those bottles to daycare with her the next day). I did, however, pump dozens, if not hundreds, of the 5 oz. storage bags full when I knew we would be freezing the milk instead. Medela has actually changed the style of their storage bags even since I started pumping last year, and they now come with an adapter to screw onto the pump instead of attaching the bag with an adhesive paper strap. Much nicer.
  • These were 2 sites I used a lot during the first weeks after D was born to help with breast milk guidelines:  LLLI, About.com.

 

Sorry, I guess that turned out to be more than a little list. But hopefully you find something of use in there somewhere. I know when I started breastfeeding I was like wtf?? Clueless. I’ll probably even have to look back on these notes the next time around myself.

 

(some of the links above are affiliate links, but every product i mentioned i either bought myself or was given as a shower gift, and i would personally recommend all of them)

 

 

 

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FF

Fins up!!

Tomorrow is the annual Jimmy Buffett concert at Alpine Valley, and I can’t wait! I say annual, but he did skip a year in 2005 when he played down at Wrigley Field over Labor Day weekend instead. Jerk.

I was just figuring out how many Buffett shows I have now attended, and this year will be my 8th. Sweetness! I went in 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and now this year. For some reason I can’t find any pictures from 2007 or 2009, but I know we went in 2007 because I saw my Ticketmaster order. And I know we went in 2009 because it turned into a night that will live in infamy. The weather was shit, it started raining so hard we actually left the show early, I drank an entire bottle of Jeremiah Weed sweet tea vodka mixed with lemonade then transformed into a complete and utter ass, was a bitch to R, and basically ruined the night. Ugh. Note to self – don’t drink whole bottles of liquor single-handedly anymore (not that it was ever a good idea).

Each time we go now we meet up with a woman I bartended with the year after we moved back to Milwaukee and her husband, and sometimes some of their friends from their neck of the woods. They’ve been to well over 20 Buffett shows now, and holy shit, do they bring a spread! She brings table upon table of food, we always set up a tent, there’s booze out the wazoo (which was just divine last year when i was pregnant. 1,000s of drunk, hot, sweaty Jimmy Buffett fans and me sober. awesome), and often festive accessories of some sort make an appearance. We’re not the full-on Parrothead costume types, but we do like to decorate a little for the day. I know most of the people they’ve brought through the years from the bar where we worked (which she still runs), but we are definitely in agreement that when it’s just the 4 of us we have the most fun. And tomorrow it’s going to be just the 4 of us again, plus it’s her token Saturday off this whole summer (again, that bar she runs, it has a beach bar, so summer is prime time), so look out! R’s cooking up his famous gumbo and teriyaki shrimp skewers to add to all the food they’re bringing, so we are set for a great time.

Here are some pictures from our past shows. My photos from 2001 weren’t digital so I’d have to scan one of those in for you, and frankly, you know I’m just lazy. But if I get ambitious I might toss one of the oldies in when I post this year’s recap. Your fingers are crossed, I know.

Hula R & our friend we go with G, 7-10-04

 

Me, R, & our friend S, 6-10-06

 

Me & sis A, flanked by 2 of our friends' friends, 7-19-08

 

R & me, 6-26-10

 

This show is seriously one of the most fun days of the year. Everyone’s in a good mood, everyone’s just out to have as much fun as possible, and we’ve lucked out on the weather most years (knock on wood!). Right now they’re calling for mid-70s and mostly sun tomorrow, so let’s hope they’re right! I said as long as it doesn’t rain, we’ll be golden. For slopping around in the parking lots at Alpine in the rain and mud can make for a miserable day and night.

Happy Friday, Parrotheads!!

 

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Things they don’t tell you about pregnancy – #3

The more I add to this little series, the more I think I should change the title. Because none of this stuff is secret, really, it’s more like I just didn’t know it going in. I don’t want to lead anyone on in thinking I’m revealing all these never-before known gems or anything, they were just my experiences. So what do we think? Do you care what it’s called? Should it just be “Things about pregnancy”? Should I just shut up and leave it?

So here’s my next one – parts of your body that have so far remained fairly dormant will begin taking on a life of their own.

Well duh, there’s a tiny human in there, of course your body’s going to change. Things stretch (what’s with that gross dark line running down the center of your belly?), things swell (have you seen your ankle bones lately?), and some things will never be the same again (the va-j? TOTALLY different from this day forward, assuming no c-section).

No, I mean parts that you didn’t even think would have anything to do with being pregnant.

When I got pregnant I obviously expected my stomach area to get huge, and probably an overall general weight gain evenly dispersed across my body. What I did not expect was that my ass would suddenly decide that it wanted to encompass a zip code all its own. I’m not kidding – it GREW!

I’ve always been relatively thin, so had never really thought much about my butt. It has some roundness to it for sure, it’s not a pancake by any means, but I’ve never considered myself as having a ghetto booty, per se. Leave it to a growing baby to change all that. Apparently fetuses enjoy feasting on large ass cheeks, and mine obliged accordingly.

Whatever, SM, your butt didn’t get that big when you were pregnant.

Ha! That’s where you’re wrong! I give you Exhibit A:

4 weeks, 5 days pregnant - notice the fairly small bum

And now I give you Exhibit B (keep in mind D was born at 38 weeks, 6 days):

38 weeks pregnant - BLADDOW!

Or, if you prefer, a side-by-side comparison:

Note there's a shadow behind the 1st one too, making the backside seem a little larger than it actually was in the starting picture

Baby got back! Seriously, you could rest a drink on that thing by the time I gave birth.

The photos are a little deceiving though, because what they don’t show is how wide that area became as well. I’ve never been very “hippy” either, but man did I spread out during those 9 months. I know that’s normal and it’s just your body getting ready for the baby to pass through the birth canal, but still. I didn’t know I was going to expand to such an extent in my derriere.

What was also weird to me was that my butt and hips were the very first things to change and grow once I got pregnant. Before there was any sign of an expanding belly, the seats and thighs of all my pants were already tighter. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that my hunger was suddenly insatiable and focused primarily on greasy foods like cheeseburgers and pizzas, and exercise was pretty nonexistent, but whatever.

On a side note, but still pregnancy related, I found out last week that 3 more of my friends are pregnant!! That makes like a million girls I know now that are due sometime within the next 7-8 months. I may be verging on having more pregnant friends right now than non-pregnant friends. So crazy. I can’t wait to meet all these little squirts. D will be the “big kid” and boss everyone around, I’m sure. And I’m not gonna lie, it’s kind of making my ovaries start to twitch a little…