look at him move

the baby's movements have been getting stronger. the first video has more movements captured but the second one has a pretty intense movement at the beginning. it's really hard to get this stuff on tape. sorry if this is lame to you, but to me it's absolutely crazy.

the second half of each video has nothing so don't bother watching to the end. and in the second video....please excuse the squeaky couch....steve gets on and off the couch while i was filming

"excessive debt"...WHAT???

do you see the words "excessive debt"?? yesterday i grabbed our mail and when i opened this letter from ICBC i was SHOCKED to see those words. it was a letter claiming that we can't re-insure our car in may until we have paid this "excessive debt" for crossing the golden ears bridge. what?? i can't even remember the last time i crossed the bridge. steve has crossed twice in the last month but there is no way that we could be getting a letter saying that we have unpaid fees already. i immediately called the number on the paper and of course they were closed. so this morning steve called and apparently they have been sending us letters to the wrong address (even though this letter came to our house) and we owed $32. THIRTY TWO DOLLARS. how is that excessive debt?? this must have been from a long time ago since we haven't crossed the bridge in over a year until this past month. i was feeling so stressed about this thinking that we owed thousands somehow and our credit would be ruined....yes, i "catastrophize" everything (as steve would say). but all is solved now. phew.

oh my...slight sinking feeling

8:45am. lying in bed enjoying my last sleep-in morning of spring break. i started thinking about how exciting this next season of life will be with this baby. then i sort of had an "oh my" thought where it sunk in that steve and i won't be alone for a loooonnnnngggg time. we are going to have a baby by our side for quite a while. no more going out for appetizers at 9pm. no more going to late showings of movies. no more "no scheduled" days. nope. there will be a baby. a baby who needs routine. a baby who need to have the comfort of home and not be out all the time being over-stimulated. a baby that will depend on us for EVERYTHING. wow. life will sure be different. steve and i will have had 4 years of it just being us by the time this babe arrives. are we going to be able to easily change to life as a family? don't get me wrong, we are SO excited. we can't wait to have a family and i can't wait to be home, taking care of this little one. but i also don't want to feel like we have lost our identity as a couple. another 6+ weeks of it being 2 and then there will be 3. crazy thought.

day with the husband

yesterday i had one of the best days i have had in a long time. first of all i woke up to amazing sunshine, which always makes me feel great. steve had to run to work and open the store so i threw breakfast in the oven (which i had prepped the night before, GO ME!!) and he picked up timmy's coffee for himself and a hot chocolate for me on the way back home. we had sticky buns and fruit for breakfast.

next we hopped in the car and headed for granville island. i love walking around the market. by the time we got there (true to pregnant form) i was hungry again and ready to have lunch. we each found some food that we were interested in and found a bench outside to sit on while enjoying our lunch. everything tastes better when eaten outside.

the sun was shining and we spent a while just sitting in the sun and people watching. there was a girl (maybe around 10 years old) who saw someone busking. so she put her hat on the ground and started singing twinkle twinkle little star and hoping to get some cash. haha. unfortunately she wasn't any good and she was right by someone else who was actually busking.....awkward.

next up....PAPER YA! love this store. i always spend lots of time in this store. i usually want everything i see. i love their vera wang cards sets, super classy, but CRAZY expensive. i bought a couple cards for some upcoming events and then i bought some big pieces of paper. i decided that framing the paper would be a nice and cheap way of having some art in my basement. the hydrangea paper is for my bathroom, the purple flower paper is for my guestroom and the other paper...not sure. i might do a smaller frame with this paper that i can put on the book shelf in the baby's room. we shall see.

i also love getting some fresh flowers while at the market. i usually buy individual stems and make my own bouquet but yesterday i really enjoyed this pre-made pink bouquet. i put it in my bedroom and waking up to these flowers was nice this morning.

after leaving granville island we headed to coquitlam and picked up some frames at ikea so i could bring my ideas to life. then we had a lovely dinner at cactus club before heading home to put together the frames and watch a movie. great, great day!! my kind of day for sure. :D

yay or nay?

slowly working on the guestroom. bought these frames today from ikea after falling in love with the paper at Paper Ya on Granville Island. yay or nay? i am really not sure how i feel about it. is it too blah? is it too much? i haven't painted this room yet but the paint colour is fairly neutral for now. tell me what you think, i can't decide.

shake, rattle and roll

do you see that orange bulldozer? that is the machine responsible for my house rattling for hours a day. it's loud and annoying. ugh. hopefully they finish the digging for the new townhouses soon.

diaper cover advice

yet another etsy purchase. we are going to be having a newborn photo session within the first 2 weeks of our son's life. my sister, very generously, paid for the photo session and a bunch of prints. we are pretty excited about it. the photographer's (vairdy) work is great and i can't wait to see how the session goes. anyway....back to etsy. i want to get a diaper cover (a cute diaper cover) for the photos. i like the knitted look a lot but can't find a ton of options on etsy. here are a few that i found. which do you like?

OR there is this option....it's some kind of diaper swaddler....comes in MANY colours and you get 3 (3 different colours)

nesting?

yesterday i felt what i think may have been the 'nesting' instinct. i felt restless and wanted to get EVERYTHING organized as fast as possible. i spent a few hours doing tons of laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, organizing my recycling bin (weird right?), hemming curtains and packing my hospital bag. i was getting ready to go outside and wash my car when i told myself that this was insane. i haven't cleaned my car by hand in years. steve and i take our car through the car wash when it needs to be cleaned, so this was an odd behaviour for sure. i felt unsettled when i sat on the couch. i knew i needed more stuff for my hospital bag and considered running out and buying everything else that i need. i didn't want to just sit and relax, i wanted to get everything ready. then i started thinking, isn't it too early to be 'nesting'? does this mean that the baby might come early? or was it just a one time thing? today i also feel like getting stuff organized. i feel anxious over not having everything perfect. what is this? did any of you have this during pregnancy? maybe it's not even a pregnancy thing. i am often too quick to blame things on pregnancy, maybe it's just a desire for spring cleaning. i kind of want to clean my blinds right now.

belly touching

whenever i say that strangers or strange men have touched my stomach people seemed surprised. so here are some of the situations where this has happened to me.

1.) lots of parents at school have touched my stomach. some of them i know. some of them i have met once or twice and a bunch of them i have only seen but never spoken to. it doesn't really bother me because they aren't really complete strangers, being that i know they have kids at the school, and i often know their children.

2.) meeting people for the first time. i have met some people in the last few months for the first time ever and they have touched my stomach. some of these people (i feel) only talked to me because they could see that i was pregnant.

3.) i have been to some wedding and baby showers lately for friends and have seen people there that i haven't seen in a long time and i really never talked to much before the day of the shower. i approached them to say hi or they approached me and the hand quickly goes to the belly. again, these are not complete strangers, but i don't really know them. i know their name, or i ask someone near me to remind me of their name because that is how little i know them.

4.) strange men. this happened to me at the grocery store. i was in line for the teller and an elderly man was behind me. i asked if he could please move his cart a bit so i could put my basket on the stack of baskets. he did. then he said "should you have been carrying the heavy basket?" i said "oh, it wasn't too heavy". while i was answering him he walked over to me and put his hand on my stomach and said "you need to take care of that little baby". "yes. of course, thank you" i said. it was awkward. at least he was an older man and not some guy in his 40s or something. but still.....very weird.

5.) i am one who likes to smile at babies or toddlers or say hi to them if they are staring at me. usually the moms look over at me and say to their child "say hi" or something along those lines and we exchange smiles and that is it. since i have been noticeably pregnant i now get the moms asking me how far along i am, when my due date is, whether or not i know if it is a boy or a girl. i in turn ask how old their child is and if they have other children. but sometimes, not always, these moms also feel the need to touch my stomach. these situations aren't as odd to me. they have a baby with them, they are chatting with me about babies or about when they were pregnant and it seems more appropriate in the moment.

i am not one who touches other people's bellies. maybe that will change once i have had my baby but for now i don't do it. there has been 1 time where i did and as i was reaching out i was screaming to myself DON'T DO IT!!!! but it was too late. my arm was out there and it was happening. crap. i didn't know this girl very well. she is a super sweet girl, but i bet she was uncomfortable. i think about that situation sometimes and think that maybe these "strangers" who touch me feel the same way after they have done it. here's hopin.

pregnancy pros and cons

pregnancy...lots of pros, lots of cons. here are some of mine

pros (other than the obvious....getting a baby at the end)

• feeling the baby move for the first time, or even the first time in a few hours
• seeing the baby at the first ultrasound
• hearing that fast heartbeat
• knowing that your body is doing what it is "supposed" to do
• always having a small-talk topic for those awkward moments
• getting to buy cute small things
• dreaming about what life will be like with this precious baby

cons

• feeling and looking huge
• thinking you look small then seeing yourself in a mirror and seeing that you actually look like a blimp
• having strangers rub your belly, especially strange men
• people telling you that you are big for how far along you are
• having to buy all that stuff
• thinking about what life will be like once this baby arrives
• people wanting to tell you how to do things
• having to pee 4 times a night
• not being able to lie on your stomach or back
• being uncomfortable pretty much all the time
• having your stomach touch your thighs when you are sitting (that's just wrong)
• worrying that you will get stretch marks, water retention, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, gestational diabetes or that you will pee your pants when you laugh or sneeze

i could go on....but i think the pros actually do outweigh the cons.

TOMS

i really want to get a pair of TOMS (if you don't know what they are they are shoes, and very cute shoes, and for every pair purchased a pair is donated to a child in need....pretty awesome!). so i am gonna check out some local places that sell TOMS but if they don't have ones i like then i will order them online. i want to get plain ones cause i am not really a flashy shoe kind of a girl. i wear blue or black jeans basically everyday so i want some colour but i don't want a print. here are the ones i like. let me know which pair you think i should get.

blue green

grey

blue

red linen

red canvas

getting old....not fun

my grandpa has dementia and as much as it is sad to watch him be confused...sometimes you just have to laugh. i hope you don't think i am horrible for this post.

we get the occassional comment from him about someone being behind us or there being piles of sugar cubes in his room but those comments are usually quickly followed with "i know you can't see what i see"...at least he knows it's not real. but sometimes we play along because it's better to let him be confused and not stress him out by telling him that his "mind is playing tricks" on him.....which is his classic line. for example i have carefully picked up "babies" off the floor and placed them safely on the bed. i have caught "shortbread" that is falling off his lap and i have removed the "mask" from my face. there have been times when i have been pushing his wheelchair down the hallway and he says "oh no. you are crashing into the wall" or "you just walked through a sink"....i feel rather powerful in those moments because i managed to do all of that without breaking a sweat or hurting either of us. go me!

there are also times when it is frustrating to deal with him now that he is aging. i usually visit him on wednesdays (my day off) and either saturday or sunday. he knows that wednesday is my day off and he knows that i usually show up at his place by 4pm and visit with him until he goes for dinner at 5pm. so if i am not there by 4:05pm i get a phone call. a few weeks ago i told him on the weekend that i would not be there again until thursdays because i had switched my day off that week. on tuesday he called and left me a message..."well lael, you aren't at home and you arne't here so you must be on your way over. see you in a few minutes". calling him back usually accomplishes nothing because he is rarely by his phone or even if he is right next to it he often can not pick it up fast enough. today he and i had a chat on the phone and this is how the conversation went:

grandpa: how is your hip today lael?

lael: it's actually worse today. but i am sure it will get better soon.

g: are you going to go to the doctor and get it checked out?

l: i might go if it doesn't start to get better soon.

g: do you need crutches?

l: maybe. that would actually be quite helpful.

g: well why don't you call tommy (my great aunt's son who i don't think i have ever met) and ask him for some crutches. i am sure he will have some.

l: i would rather wait and see how it feels tomorrow. and i am sure i can get crutches here in langley.

g: so where is your dad?

l: i don't know grandpa. why? do you need something?

g: well i called him at the house and on his cellular and he is not answering or calling me back.

l: oh. he must be out somewhere or at a meeting or something.

g: why don't you know where he is?

l: well i don't live with him grandpa, nor do i know his schedule.

g: is something wrong with him? why is he treating me like this?

..........

i was stuck. i didn't know what to say. i couldn't really say "because he has a life" or "just because someone doesn't call you back the minute you call doesn't mean that they are treating you badly". nope. i just said "i don't know. but i am sure he will call you back when he can". ugh. these are the situations where i have to laugh, otherwise i would want to pull my hair out! it's so irrational. it's hard to tell sometimes when he is confused and when he is just being unrealistic and not realizing that our lives are not as simple has his life was when he was our age.

i love him. he is awesome and has a great life story but there are days when i just don't know how to handle him. it's a weird season in life.