Oh dear — how did a month go by already and I’ve missed out on updating this blog. Terrible. I’ll try to be more frequent, especially in this last month of pregnancy.
Well, since the last post, one of the more exciting things that happened was my baby shower!!! Phoebe, Asayo and Jigna were kind enough to organize a shower for me on a beautiful Saturday at the end of February with the theme of “tea time”. There was a good turnout and the games were all thoughtful and not cheesy or gross. (thank goodness they didn’t do the “smell the diaper” game) We feel incredibly blessed with the generous gifts we got — and many of them directly from our registry which was awesome! I had heard that sometimes at showers, all that you get are clothes and none of the things you register for. Of course, we did get some very cute outfits, and my mother brought a whole suitcase of clothes she bought while in Hong Kong…but we are so happy with the wonderful items we got. Pictures from the event can be found here (thanks Jigna!)
The pregnancy itself is going well — I’m 34 weeks now — 3 more weeks til I’m technically full-term, 6 weeks til the due date! Crazy isn’t it? OB appointments for the most part have been very uneventful (which is good!). My blood pressure remains low and nothing alarming has happened. The belly is definitely feeling bigger (she’s about 4.5 lbs now and supposedly the size of a honeydew melon — it’s funny how when in utero, the baby is often compared to fruits and vegetables). I’m starting to feel fatigued more and have a harder time sleeping at night — it’s just hard to find a good position. I’m hoping she remains heads down (she was at the last OB appointment) so that I don’t have to worry about having a breech baby. One thing I’m excited for is getting maternity belly photographs! After researching quite a bit, I’ve chosen Laurel McConnell Photography to do our maternity and newborn pictures—our first session will be this weekend. For kicks, Pierre came over this last weekend to also do some belly pictures which was a great experience—for him, it was practice in doing portrait photography, and for me, good practice for the pro shoot as well getting a lot of great pictures!! Because of it, we can focus more on couple-y pictures with the pro session (Matt was busy studying so most of the pictures are just of me). Here’s a selection of some of my favorite pics — for a lot of the poses, we just went online and google’d “maternity photographs” and tried to mimic ones we liked…I think it came out quite nicely!
We’ve also now finished up our childbirth & newborn preparation classes as well as recently taking a great class on Infant Safety & CPR. We just have 2 more classes and then I guess we’ll be ready to be parents? All these hours of classes have been incredibly helpful, if anything just to resonate the same message in our brains about the same thing.
Aside from preparing for our daughter to enter this world, I’ve also been pretty busy at work. I’m pretty excited to finally tell y’all about what I’ve been working on for the last few years — Windows Phone 7 Series!!! (I didn’t come up with the name) It’s really different from previous versions of Windows Mobile and I’m pretty psyched about what we’ve done. I’m most proud of the area that I’ve been working in — the People Hub, which has been featured prominently in a lot of press. This was formally announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and reception has been good so far. Here are some links to articles:
Whew!!! So yeah, it’s been busy!!!! We have one last thing — which is having our housewarming party this weekend! About time! Not everything is set up but it’s mostly there…enough to finally open our home and have friends see it. Last shindig before our life revolves around a little one!
Over the weekend, I finally finally decided on what kind of glider to get — the Pottery Barn Eco Comfort Grand Swivel Glider. I was really torn between something like this and a Dutailier wood glider, one of the more popular brands of gliders out there (because they have an awesome awesome gliding motion that is effortless). I was torn because while I loved the movement of the Dutailier, I wasn’t wild about the fact that it just looks like a baby glider. I really wanted an upholstered glider that moves like a Dutailier. Well, tough luck….but I eventually tried out the Pottery Barn chair with a little stool (one popular thing to get is a nursing stool to help raise the feet and relieve back pain with a glider…or to get a matching ottoman). Once I tried it with a stool, it made a difference and I love how comfortable the chair is…in addition to the fact that it looks like a piece of furniture I can just have for a long time without it looking like a nursery item! Anyway, I wanted to write about this because the best way to figure out the best glider rocker for you is to try it in person….or to just take a gamble and buy something online (but for an item that costs hundreds of dollars, I’d rather try it in person–although they say with Dutailiers, you can feel pretty confident with how the gliding motion will be regardless of what you buy online…so then it’s just a matter of fit). In the Seattle area, there seem to be so few places to check out glider rockers, so I thought I’d list out such stores and my experience at them:
Pottery Barn Kids — there are 2 locations, one in the University Village (where I went) and in Bellevue Square (never been). They have 4 glider rockers in the store: the Eco Comfort, Grand Eco Comfort, Dream Rocker and their Larkin Wood Glider. Note that the Dream Rocker comes in both a glider or rocker option. The employees here were wonderful and informative. I sat in a chair for 10-15 min with a Boppy just to get a feel for if I would like it or not. They have tons of other baby stuff like bedding, cribs, decorations, etc…
Land of Nod – this is the children’s store branch of Crate + Barrel….and yes, they do have their own gliders (maybe 2 or 3) that you can check out in the store. Employees here are also helpful. I personally didn’t like any of the gliders here (the back was too short) but it was nice to try them out. If you’re going to be in the U Village, you might as well go here and Pottery Barn. Aside from gliders, the store also carries some cribs, strollers, bedding and lots of older children furniture.
Babies R Us — this is the major Wal-Mart of baby buying stuff. I’ve only visited 2 locations: one in the Alderwood Mall area and the other in Bellevue. If you’re going to check out at BRU, take the trip up north and go up to the Alderwood Mall—that location is more than twice as big as the one in Bellevue and carries a TON of gliders. (the Bellevue location maybe carries 4?) They offer way more gliders on their website than in the store, but it can give you a good sense of range. They carry some of the low-end and high-end Dutailier gliders in-store (though they offer mid-range on their website) as well as some other brands (other well known brands include Best and Little Castle). Many families will buy their glider from here. The store is so large that it’s a hit or miss how helpful an employee can be. Either way, it’s worth taking a trip here because the store carries EVERYTHING and is a good first trip to familiarize yourself in person with all the possible things you could need for a baby.
Merry Go Round — this is a little family-owned store in Bellevue. I LOVE this store and they carry a lot of nicer, high-end brands. I personally found the employees to be very helpful and nice. They carry a few Dutailier Gliders, including an upholstered version (which I didn’t like) as well as some other brands. As with any Dutailier vendor, you can order any style of Dutailier from them, even if they don’t carry it in store, so if you have a sense of a model # you like, go ahead and price it with them. For price comparing, I found them to be significantly cheaper than Go To Your Room (for the exact same chair). As an extra bonus—if you’re a Microsoft employee, they offer 15% off everything (except strollers and car seats, which are 10% off). That’s pretty major. We ended up buying our crib, dresser and stroller from here. I did find that the few Dutailier gliders they do carry in-store, they are the more expensive ones (like $800+). Aside from furniture, this store carries strollers, car seats and tons of clothing, feeding supplies, etc….
Go To Your Room — this isn’t far from Merry Go Round and is in Bellevue. This store carries mostly furniture and bedding (a lot of similar brands as Merry Go Round). I did find that they had more gliders to try out than Merry Go Round — and MOSTLY upholstered gliders. They carried only 2 wood gliders (both Dutailier)—the upholstered gliders were mainly Best and Little Castle. It’s a very small store with maybe 2 employees working there at a single time…the one lady I worked with was helpful.
So those were the places I went. Supposedly you can also check out lower-range Dutailier gliders at Target but I never did. Beyond that, I know you can buy them online, such as at Amazon and many other baby supply stores…but I agree it can make a big difference to try something out in person to get a feel for it. Some of the things that can make a difference:
- How high is the back? I liked ones with a high back so my head could rest back — many of the upholstered ones tend to have a low back so my head would just dangle back.
- How wide is the chair? This really depends on your size and your comfort — but you should sit in one with a boppy and pretend to hold a baby (grab a stuffed animal) to see if you’d be comfortable in it. Will your husband also use this? Think about him.
- How deep is the chair? For some of us vertically challenged folks, super deep chairs are too deep and make it difficult to sit in and then get out of because our feet are dangling out.
- How does it rock or glide? Will you get tired from it? Try sitting in one for 10 min and rock the whole time and see how you feel.
- Will you want to get the matching ottoman? Do you care if the matching ottoman also glides? Not all matching ottomans will also move — also, the height of the matching ottomans vary–for some, it’s lower than the chair…for others, it’s higher. I don’t know about you, but I’m more comfortable if the ottoman is either the same height or slightly lower than my chair. I sat in some chairs where the ottoman was ridiculously high.
- Consider getting a nursing stool instead (usually around $25 – $35) instead of the ottoman (usually $100-$300). It will probably equally do the trick and take up less space.
February 16th,2010
pregnancy |
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Happy Chinese New y’all!! This is a special year because it’s the Year of the Tiger — special because both of my parents are Tigers and our future daughter will also be a Tiger. I’m not sure why, but my parents always tell me that whenever it’s your year, you have to be extra careful because you’re more likely to be unlucky or open yourself to risk. 2010 would be such a year for my parents….but that risk can be cancelled if something celebratory within the family happens: typically a wedding or a new baby. In this case, the birth of our daughter will cancel out any bad luck my parents might have this year…so yippee!
This year, though, Chinese New year falls on the same day as Valentine’s Day…so Matt and I celebrated that instead 
We usually do something low key and tonight, we enjoyed a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner at a local restaurant we’d never been to, Nell’s, which is located in Greenlake. The meal was absolutely delicious and we look forward to trying the restaurant’s regular dinner menu sometime.
February 14th,2010
events,
food |
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The 21st Winter Olympics have started and I’m at home watching them on NBC. Current observations:
- I really didn’t like the re-make of “We Are the World“. I’m sorry. It just wasn’t as good as the original. There were some good singers (i.e. Streisand, Jennifer Hudson…) but I felt like the original had more people who could actually sing and harmonize with each other.
- Super lame that it’s not being broadcast on CBUT, the Canadian channel, here.
- Even more super lame that NBC time-delayed the ceremonies for the West Coast…when the ceremonies are taking place in the same freakin’ time zone, 2.5 hours north of me!
- Disappointed Obama isn’t there — shoot, he could attend and be back in D.C. late tonight if he wanted. It’s just Canada dude.
- I really admire the Southern continental countries that show up with 1-5 athletes. It cracks me up.
- LOVED the bit where they mimicked whales swimming through. Very cool.
- Appreciate the march of the athletes at the beginning so that they can enjoy the show mostly instead of hanging out in a parking lot.
February 12th,2010
Uncategorized |
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My husband recently turned 40. It’s funny, we were both saying that when we were kids, 40 sounded soooooo old. It seems like nothing now! Anyway, we just had to celebrate in style a la Sousa….so I rented out the Penthouse Suite at the Hotel Sorrento and invited his friends to enjoy the evening with us. Unfortunately, with me planning this after returning from the holidays, I was a bit late in getting the invitation out and a number of good, close friends weren’t able to make it….but we still had a great turnout, so thank YOU to everyone who was able to make it. It was a classy evening and it was such a beautiful venue to be in, exactly what we wanted.
On top of that, by renting the Penthouse Room, we got to stay in the adjoining Penthouse guest suite that night for free which was awesome. The bed was incredibly comfortable and it had the biggest bathtub ever, with the faucet literally in the ceiling. That was so amusing that we took multiple trips showing guests our bathroom so people could see the water come down from the ceiling. It’s kind of a cool effect though I don’t really know how practical it is.
Check out photos from the evening — you can even see my most recent preggers belly although it’s a little hidden under the dark dress I’m wearing.
February 12th,2010
events |
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Nice. It feels good to have finally migrated, though it was just a tad more involved than I had planned. First off, Dreamhost doesn’t allow me to install Wordpress into any directory that has a SINGLE file or sub-directory in it. As a result, I had to delete or move all of my files into the root directory just to save them so that I could just have this blog at moohaha.org as opposed to /blog or something like that. Then, when it came to importing, Wordpress has a nifty import feature–sounds great right? Except that it won’t import from Blogger if the blog is published via FTP. That doesn’t do me any good right? Well, I know that Blogger is rolling out some sort of tool to help users who publish via FTP export their stuff but I was impatient…so I created a temporary blogspot blog, exported from my current blog to this temporary blogspot blog and THEN I was able to import from there. Once that was done, I moved over all of /ramblings all over again back to moohaha.org so that any readers using the old URLs wouldn’t get screwed….posted my last post, announcing the new URLs and then I was finally done. A few quick tweaks to put up some sort of decent theme (I’ve got a cheesy Asian-inspired one right now…which actually isn’t too bad) and started putting up pages. One of the first things I did was download a cool Picasa plug-in, kPicasa, that allows me to just display all of the Picasa web albums that I create….very cool. I’m pretty pleased with how it looks. Over time, I’ll continue tweaking everything until I’m satisfied with the appearance…and then I’m sure I’ll change it up again. But for now, it feels good to have finally migrated over and be done with it. Goodbye Blogger! You’ve been a good friend, but I’m ready to grow up.
I’ve been using Blogger for quite some time to write this blog. I started with a really old blogging tool called PITA (anyone remember that?) but that went kaputz and then I switched over to Blogger as an early adopter, way before they got bought out by Google. It’s been a good tool for me and I haven’t had much incentive to move. I toyed around with the idea of moving over to Wordpress 2 years ago after I used Wordpress to manage the wedding website but got lazy and never did it…..but now I must. I just got an e-mail from Blogger announcing deprecation of their support for publishing via FTP. Since I have my own domain hosted elsewhere, this is what I’ve been doing…and I guess I’m one of only .5% of all active blogs using Blogger doing it this way, so they made an engineering call to stop dedicating resources to support this. Makes sense….but for me, that means bye bye Blogger! I have until Mar 26th to switch over, so now I finally have the excuse to move over to Wordpress. So what does that mean?
Well, for me, it means a bit of geeking out as I dig into all of my files again and install things and get them into the right directories.
For my website, it will probably mean some downtime here and there as I convert everything, as I’ll probably end up just using wordpress to manage the entire site (not that there’s much beyond the blog anyway)
And for my readers, however many you are, it means either updating your bookmark to my blog or, more than likely, changing the Feed URL to read my blog in your favorite reader. With blogger, it’s always been this weird atom xml file — but with wordpress, it’ll finally be RSS2. So anyway, the feel URL will change. I’ll try to make my last post here announce that new URL so y’all know….but don’t tell me I didn’t warn you!
Meanwhile, I’m playing around with my site and already have ported over all of my blog posts into a test area. I’ll probably do this sooner than later…so be on the lookout!
Well, that “Baby Your Body” class was a waste of time…for me at least. I was one of two women that was pretty far along in the class. Most of the other women were just starting their 2nd trimester and, quite frankly, had not experienced any body aches or pains yet. All the stretching movements and exercises the instructor showed us were all movements I’d seen in a ton of my Pregnancy books so it really wasn’t anything I didn’t know already. I feel bad but I think I’m just going to skip part 2 of this class this week—I happen to know it will be spent mostly on Kegel exercises which I’ve already read plenty about.
In some good news, our little girl is free of gestational diabetes! Sometime at the end of the 2nd trimester, pregnant women go through a glucose test that involves drinking this super sweet liquid called glucola—my OB’s office offered it in both fruit punch and orange flavors (I choose fruit punch). The first test is the 1-hour test in which you fast and then drink the glucola 1 hour before your appointment, then get your blood drawn. The results of the blood test show how much sugar is left in your system. If you don’t pass, then you move onto a 3-hour version of the test. I fortunately passed (score of 126 — don’t want to go above 139), woo hoo! I was expecting the worst as I had heard from many women how nauseous this drink made them, how it was nasty, how the 3-hour test was almost as bad as labor, etc… you get the picture. But honestly? The glucola wasn’t bad — I mean, it was sweet but it wasn’t bad at all…and I certainly didn’t get nauseous. Count me lucky I guess…..or for having a major sweet tooth.
In some productive news, Matt and I got some major shopping done recently! After work this week, we stopped by Merry-Go-Round in Bellevue, which I had been recommended to check out by a number of coworkers….I can now see why: they take the Microsoft Prime Card, giving 15% off everything! (except strollers + car seats, which are 10% off) Well, once we heard that, we were on a mission! Fortunately, it wasn’t like a last minute decision as we had been looking at cribs for awhile as well as strollers and had a good sense of what we wanted. So here I present our new crib + dresser set:
That’s not the actual dresser we got but I couldn’t find a picture of it — you can get the style though. We just got a basic 6 drawer dresser that will also double as a changing table.
And then the stroller that we got:
The stroller is the 2009 model and was on sale—after learning some minor differences compard to the 2010 model, it was a no-brainer for us to just buy this. One other thing we love is that there is a Graco Infant Car Seat Adapter attachment so that we can snap the car seat we registered for into this frame if we want (apparently, this is a great thing so that you don’t have to take the baby out of the car seat if they’re sound asleep). Also, the fact that there is a bassinet attachment is a great alternative so that we don’t necessarily have to take the car seat in and out of the car if we don’t have to. I’ve even heard of parents who just use the bassinet while at home.
Anyway, the crib won’t arrive til the end of February but that’s still plenty of time to prep the nursery. Now it’s just a matter of slowly getting rid of all of the moving boxes in our house….
January 23rd,2010
pregnancy |
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Well, we just got back from Class #1 out of an 8-week series of classes that we are taking (we’re also taking some other classes, such as infant car seats, conscious fathering, etc..) There were about 20 couples in tonight’s 2 hour class, most expecting in April and mostly with girls! So far, with Day 1, I don’t think I learned anything I hadn’t already read about it in the many pregnancy books I have except for the following: each labor room at Swedish Hospital (where we will deliver) should have either a jacuzzi tub or shower…except for one (what the hell, what’s up with that one?), the average labor for a 1st pregnancy is between 12-18 hours and that with an epidural, you can’t stand up at all (I really have no idea what you can and cannot do if you get an epidural). It’ll be nice to slowly meet the other couples who are going through the same things we are. Tomorrow night, I’ve got some “Baby your Body” class that’s just for me — I presume learning about exercise and stretching techniques to deal with the general achiness of pregnancy? We’ll see.
Speaking of, the constant achiness is starting to hit me. My mid-lower back is always just sore and I constantly need massages from Matt. Thank goodness for the super awesome pregnancy pillow he got me for Christmas which really helps me with supporting my back and hips while I sleep. I’ve apparently started semi-waddling now. Grrr. What in the world is it that makes pregnancy women waddle? I’d like to know that.
Over the weekend, we went to BabiesRUs together for the first time to get started on our registry…and man, it was overwhelming. I’ve only been in that store twice before, to get gifts for other friends…but that was way before I knew ANYTHING about baby needs. We still don’t know what we really need…but at least we’ve started something. Hoping to pick a crib in the next week or two, just in case it takes some time for it to get here. It’s funny how the “lifetime convertible” crib is all the rage now — these are cribs that convert from a baby crib to a toddler bed and then finally to an adult-size full bed. The majority of cribs we’ve looked at are like this…and it’s rare to find one that’s JUST a crib. Then next is figuring out how we want to decorate the nursery. I’m hoping not to go all crazy pink and moreso just throw splashes of pink here and there. We’ll see. One thing that’s been a lifesaver for me is this awesome book that a bunch of friends recommended, Baby Bargains. It walks through all the different types of products, reviews brands, talks about what’s okay to just borrow or buy used, and what things are totally unnecessary. Totally recommend it to all first time parents.
Anyway, I’m excited as the invites for the baby shower have gone out now — it’s like a reminder to me that this baby is really about to come here! Plus, my mom is coming out for the shower so that’ll be fun to have her here, albeit briefly.
January 19th,2010
pregnancy |
2 Comments
After what felt like the longest day of traveling, we’re back home in Seattle….where the weather is just as cold as when we left Florida if you’d believe it! Shortly after my last post, the weather took a sudden downturn and now Florida’s temperature is so low that citrus crops are at risk and even a state of emergency was declared by their governor. I think the day we left, temps were in the 50’s with a low in the 40’s…and getting even colder.
Anyway, it’s nice to be home, although just a couple days after returning, I caught a cold and now I’ve just been laying at home, in my PJs and sweatshirt non-stop crying “woe is me” with a box of Kleenex and cup of tea next to me at all times. That said, it’s really nice to be home and I thought I’d reflect on the things I love about this new home…and just being in a house in general (as opposed to our condo)…in no particular order:
- I love that I can lay on our bed and see a gorgeous view of Mt. Rainier from our bedroom window
- I love not hearing drunken party-goers late at night on the weekends
- I love that we don’t have to separate out our recycling (previously, still had to separate glass from other recyclables at the condo) and that we now have a separate bin for Food & Yard Waste! It really helps in cutting down on the amount of things that go into the actual garbage.
- I love that friends can visit and not have to worry about finding parking
- I love that there’s much more room for storage
- I love that we each get our own office now
- I love the deep soaking bathtub in our master bath (note from previous post – I’m still trying to be careful and not soak for too long…but I do love my baths!)
- I love that Matt can watch his football on Sundays in the basement and I don’t have to hear the sound of the sportscaster in the rest of the house
- I love not having to deal with the slow elevator from our condo anymore
- I love not having to deal with some of the more annoying other residents at the condo
- I love that since it’s a house, UPS & FedEx will just leave packages on our doorstep, instead of me chasing down their post-it-notes and ultimately having to drive down to South Seattle to pick up the package
- I love having a garage and not dealing with getting soaked on while bringing things in from my car
I’m so eager to really get settled. Over the holidays, we got a fancy new closet system for our master closet so over the last few days, we’ve really started to put our clothes away. Once I get myself a desk (we had 1 previously, which is being used by Matt now) and perhaps some more bookshelves, I think we’ll really be able to start unpacking boxes…..and then clear the nursery room and actually spend time thinking about baby stuff! Eeks. My 3rd trimester is going to begin in about 2 weeks and time is going to fly by.
