Halfway there!
At week 20 we are now halfway to “evicting Baby G from his current habitat” (S’ words). In some ways it feels like this time has flown by, and in others as if it has just dragged on. I suppose when you average it out we are moving along at just the right speed.
I celebrated this milestone by wrapping up our baby registry. S and I are looking at this registry more as a personal shopping TODO than anything else. I’d like to think it’s pretty detail oriented (it has Q-tips on it, to give you an idea), but I’m sure come “Bring baby home” day, S will be making several store trips.
I created two lists: one at Target and one at Babies”R”Us. I will say that doing this has taken far more effort than I anticipated. I’ve spent a week researching what a baby is recommended to have, assembling one of our infamous Excel sheets, reading Consumer Reports and online reviews, and painstakingly clicking on “Add to Registry” link after link. I also learned the art of the scanning machine. There are some items you just can’t decide on over the internet, you just have to go and see them in person. It is so easy to go overboard with this thing: now I understand how people end up with “Chocolate Syrup” on their wedding registries: you see it, you scan it, you move on. Don’t worry though: I’d like to think I did pretty good. I went into the store w/ an exact list of what I wanted to accomplish — it’s hard to do impulse shopping when it’s not on the list.
Baby G has also been rewarding me for my accomplishments by moving around more. I am definitely feeling him in there! It took some time convincing myself that this was what I am in fact feeling, but now I’m convinced. I think I’ve narrowed down his movements to two types of sensations: the general one, and the more localized one. I’ve been having a hard time verbalizing to both S and myself what it feels like. This is amusing to me, because when I asked others to explain it, I received such vague descriptions that made me just nod and go “Uh-huh, oh…. okay…”. I had sworn to myself that I will be able with such eloquence to express the sensation, that everyone immediately understand…. and now I’m at a loss for words.
The “general” motion for me feels like stomach cramps when you are gassy. Your stomach kinda churns for a second, “hardens” and then it goes away.
The “localized” one is stranger. It appears in a “surprise” location each time… within the lower abdominal limits (of course). It feels like a very gentle poke… or at least gentle for now.
That’s right: I’m sure you are now too nodding your heads and thinking “U-huh, oh… ok”. I don’t blame you — I wish I could do better!
All these sensations make me really wish I had a TiVo for my body. It makes me want to pause and replay, because the feeling is so bizzare I want to re-live and analyze it more.
So now with the registry TODO out of the way the next big item is finding a day care provider. I am genuinely dreading this part! I’m stalling on this task because I just have a feeling it will be really tidious and will take forever. I’m really glad that our friends A&B (who are also expecting just a few weeks behind us) want to do a nanny-share with us. I’m hoping that a divide and conquer approach will help, but it’s still so scary to me. Between the stories of monthly costs, waiting lists that require entry at the moment of conception, I’m a little scared at what we’re going to find.
You think work will mind if G begins working there full time come January of next year? One salary for two people sounds like a deal, if you ask me! In addition, some of the questions and comments I get from our clients are just as eloquent as what our son will be able to provide at that age 🙂
Wow, has it been 20 weeks already? Time flies! I didn’t know that finding a daycare is that competitive. Man, wait till you have to put Baby G’s name on a waiting list for kindergarten, or grade school… Do you need to start that now too?
Ha! If we still lived in SF, YES. Luckily we don’t and I think we should be OK w/ the public school system.