Pinkalicious

Pink, pink, everywhere!

Buying baby clothing is a whole new game. There's a lot more to think about--most of all, "What size will she be during what season?"--and it's been an adjustment. However, despite having to do more planning and less impulse buying, I've really been enjoying picking out little girl clothes.

Soon after our Gender Reveal, Ryan expressed an earnest concern to me: He fears a closet full of pinks and  pastels. And, truthfully, I understand. Really, if it was up to him, he'd have (what we've deemed as) a "Pinterest kid," which means a little girl who belongs in a J.Crew or Anthro catalog (and, yes, I'd love that too!). I know it's not realistic (or truly important), but I made a promise to him to make a concerted effort to NOT buy ALL pink.  And I've done pretty well...

But, let's be honest, "pink" doesn't have to mean "obnoxious pink." Thankfully this season there's been a ton of coral and neon pink out there, and, of course, other wonderful summery colors to choose from. As many of you may know, I won a sweepstakes for a Gap employee discount for a year, which is up in April, and I've been trying to take as much advantage of it as possible. I love their baby clothes (which are less practical but way cute), and between Old Navy, Carter's and Target, I've amassed quite a few things so far.  I thought I'd share a couple of the pink things we've found--let me just say that I can't wait to get some use out of them!

Right now I'd say we're at about 50/50 for pink/non-pink clothes, and I consider that a "win" since most baby girl clothes naturally fall into the pink category.

We did have a moment at lunch the other day that made Ryan realize why so many baby girl clothes are pink: A woman was strolling her infant past us, and Ryan and I couldn't figure out if it was a boy or girl. The stroller was blue and brown, he/she was wearing a yellow onesie with a turquoise bib, and he/she was cute but didn't clearly look like a boy or girl yet. After a bit of speculating, we realized upon closer inspection that SHE had on zebra leggings, which we deemed the only tell-tale gender-revealing item.  (Unless, poor thing, the mom put zebra leggings on her little boy, to which I say, "Good luck, kid...") It got us into a conversation (since our stroller is black and our car seat is turquoise) about how I didn't want to have to have any awkward interactions in public about the gender of our baby, and how pink clothes, a hair bow or barrette, or some obviously girly toy or blanket was the only way to avoid those confused looks.  I think the experience opened his heart a little bit to the idea of some pink in her wardrobe. :)

Also, one last note about buying baby clothes: I know I'm supposed to be stocking up on sale items for next year, and not the 0-3 or 3-6 sizes (since I know deep down she'll be spending a lot of that time only in onesies that will inevitably be destroyed), but I'm having such a hard time purchasing the 12 month size.  I mean, I don't even have a baby yet, much less a one year old! I can't hardly imagine that yet. So, I figure even though they're not practical, the smaller sizes make me happy right now, and I'll want different things next summer.

It's heeere!

I love that it's feminine and vintage-y.

Three years ago I saw a lady strolling her baby around the mall with a super cute diaper bag and thought to myself, "If I ever have a baby I HAVE to have that bag!"  A little bit of snooping and internet-searching paid off, and I discovered the then-not-so-crazy-popular brand Petunia Pickle Bottom.  Now, of course, it's everywhere, and I'm obsessed with the diaper bags.  I've been keeping an eye on The Bag for a while, and it's from a collection of theirs that hasn't changed much over the past few years. When I found out I was pregnant, my friends joked that I could finally get The Bag, but I wanted to wait a bit to decide on a color (blue or yellow).

In January I had decided, boy or girl, to go with yellow (do I have a yellow thing lately? maybe...). I put the diaper bag in my cart, then faulted: Surely they'll offer free shipping or a Spring sale or something.  At the end of February (when I hadn't gotten any sale notifications from PPB), I decided to pull the trigger--and discovered that my decision to wait was a bad one.

The Bag was gone! And I mean gone. Like, sold out at PPB.com, Amazon, eBay, all the children's online stores...I even called the physical stores (like Koo Koo Bear Kids) that sold The Bag. Gone.  I was so annoyed--at myself.  THREE years of stalking, and I missed it by a couple of weeks? Arg.

I contacted their customer service to double check that they didn't have any hiding in the warehouse (they didn't), and the (wonderfully helpful) representative tipped me off that they had the yellow fabric in a different style bag in-stock and were having an outlet sale coming up.  I was disappointed that I wasn't able to get the actual bag style I wanted (it was like a doctor's bag, the available one is more box-shaped), but when the sale happened, it was cheap enough that I could get a diaper bag and matching clutch for less than The Bag.

And it just came in!  It's not exactly what I had wanted, but in retrospect it is a bit more functional (read: bigger) and I love it and can't wait to use it soon!

Grandma Blankets

Oops--this is the back of the blanket...

My grandmother has always been the knitter in the family: blankets, hats, scarves, capes--you name it, she can and has made it. Traditionally she knits pink or blue baby blankets for all of the new babies in the family, but since I'm making my own bedding, I thought I'd request a couple of specific (not pink) blankets.  Of course this threw her off a bit at first (she always uses the same yarn and same sizing for baby blankets), but after a few trips to JoAnn's, she's started!

I just received the first blanket--and am in love with it!  I chose an off-white, really thick and comfy yarn that will be great for the room color-wise and temperature-wise (the nursery is the coolest room in our house because it doesn't get much sun). Next up she's going to do an "ombre" (striped) yellow blanket to match the crib bedding.

Oscar (and the front side of the blanket!)

The only problem?  Oscar immediately adopted it as his own.  (My bad for leaving it within reach, right?)  Actually, this has been a little quirk we've run into with him thus far--he has a hard time understanding that the toys and teethers coming into our home aren't dog toys!  In fact, the bear I photographed with the blanket has been an issue; it lives on our rocking chair right now, but it mysteriously keeps ending up on the floor with Oscar's other toys.  Hmmm...

26 Weeks

26 weeks down!

Yay! Ryan's finally home for the weekend, so sorry to anyone who tries to contact us over the next two days...we're spending some much needed time together while we can!

Registry Woes

SWAG

So I registered on a whim the other day.

I was eager to check something out a Buy Buy Baby and figured that while I was there, I might as well sign up and scan my stroller and car seat.

Fast forward three hours.

Holy moly.  I really want to be concise and thoughtful with my registry, but that proved to be a challenge.  I know I can (and, despite all of my research, will have to) do some exchanging as I learn "what works and what doesn't," but I'd like to minimize the run-around as much as possible.

Thankfully I really only need practical things since our nursery's planned out, but I was really overwhelmed at the decisions I had to make. I've been gathering opinions and advice from the "moms" in my life (and Amazon) over the past few months and thought I would be prepared.  I wasn't.

The craziest thing to me is that I felt like there were right and wrong decisions, not just matters of opinion, and I didn't know what to do.  I don't mind trying things out and having to exchange them if they aren't great, but it seems like a lot of baby products aren't returnable.  Really, when it comes to the "gear" side of having a baby, I'm pretty clueless.  I can determine if I like the way something looks, but as to whether or not something works, I have no idea!  And what's even more confusing is that everyone seems to have strong, VARYING experiences on a lot of products, so there's no clear-cut winners.  Yikes!

The second craziest thing is that in the course of three hours, my registry still isn't done, mostly due to indecision. For example, take pacifiers.  My mom never used them, so I'm not even sure that I'll need them.  I figured I better register for some, though, because everyone I know uses them like baby crack.  BUT they all swear by different brands...which made me confused about which ones I should choose. So I registered for a couple of types--maybe a total of six pacifiers overall.  But I know that if I use pacifiers, I'll need like a million of them, which makes me want to register for more... Needless to say, I had a lot more fun registering for pacifier clips (a totally opinion-based decision!) than I did for pacifiers themselves. :)

Since Ryan dodged a bullet with the first round of registering, he's agreed to come with me for the much-needed second round next week.  It'll be good to have some back up and someone to share the painful experience with.  And thank you to all of my lovely friends for the advice and offers to registry-edit once we're done; we'll need it!

One final thought: The only consistent piece of advice we've gotten from all of our mom-friends is that the baby will decide what she likes, and really no matter what we register for, she'll survive.  Whew. That's the important thing, right? :)

gDiapers

The chartreuse is my favorite color!

Last week Ryan and I had brunch at West Egg down in White Provision (which, by the way, was delicious!), and since we usually only get down there during post-shopping hours for dinner, we decided to stop by the Seed Factory to take a look around at baby stuff.  It turned out to be a great decision, because 1. We ran into Ashley Nolan (a much-too-scarce occurrence!), and 2. They were running an event that included a raffle...and I won!

Ryan and I have been discussing what to do about diapers for a while...as in disposable v. cloth.  Unfortunately, I don't think that we'd landed on a clear answer because both arguments are imperfect:  Disposable diapers make me a little uneasy because of the waste, but clearly the convenience is unbeatable; cloth diapers are better for the environment, but are such a pain (and a little gross, truthfully) that I worried the effort wasn't going to be worth the payoff.  We had almost landed on being okay with disposable diapers when the Seed Factory surprised me with a gDiapers starter kit--problem solved!

Check out how they work at the official site: www.gdiapers.com

When I received the email saying I won, I assumed I had won a single pair of gDiapers so I didn't rush down there to claim my prize, but to my surprise yesterday, I picked up a whole kit full of 18 plain and colored covers and a pack of liners!  I talked with the shop owner for a while about gDiapers, and she totally convinced me of their amazing-ness.  I can't wait to use them!  I think that we'll still use disposable diapers on occasion (traveling, emergencies, etc.), but I think that we've found a solution to our dilemma.  Crossing fingers that they're as wonderful as they seem--I'll let you know a review come June!

Nursery Update!

Heart this crib!

I haven't been in the posting mood much this week--partly because all I feel like doing is sleeping, and partly because I've been engrossed in decorating our baby girl's nursery!

We're moving along quickly (mostly because I'm a planner at heart and was just waiting to see if this kid was a boy or girl before officially starting!), which feels great from a nesting perspective. Our furniture is all here--crib (which I'm obsessed with), changing table, rocker/ottoman, side table and an upholstered bench.  Our former guest room is a little on the small side, so all the furniture's present and accounted for, but I've been debating on where to place everything. Truthfully this has been a week of (shhh!) heavy lifting and pushing and pulling for me (Ryan's on tour), but I think I've landed on my final floorplan--for now at least. I find myself sitting in my rocker a lot, surveying and considering the furniture placement, and I think it's all set.  I think.

Our crib isn't a traditional shape (it's a little bigger and rounder than a normal square crib--but it's not oval), so it wouldn't take a store-bought crib skirt. I've made the skirt (late-night project!), which is three tiers of ruffled burlap (I fancy myself a sewer--just don't look too closely...), and I made it so that the bottom ruffle will always just hit the floor even as the mattress is raised and lowered.  I've collected several crib sheets (normal crib sheets do fit our crib despite its shape) in white/tan/brown/yellow; actually I think I own more than I really need, but oh well...the more the merrier! Then there's the bumper...

I fell in love with Pottery Barn's Painterly Paisley fabric in yellow and brown a couple of years ago, and when it went on super sale at the outlet, I bought a king duvet and sham just in case. It's been boxed up all this time, and finally it's getting put to use! (Our master bedroom will never be yellow, so I don't mind parting with it.)  I've been considering whether or not to sew the bumper myself (once again, I'm a good-not-GREAT sewer), and right now I'm leaning toward having it made by a seamstress. I want a little ruffle and piped edge and sewn ties; plus there's the odd shape of my crib, and I'm afraid it's a bit above my skill level.  I think I could do it and be okay, but I have an odd feeling that it would unravel the first time it needs washing or the first time she steps on it to try to climb out of the crib...so my peace of mind may win out over my pride in hand-crafting.

Other than that, I've pretty much got almost everything ready to go--a mirror, a library shelf for books, a ledge for nick-nacks, frames for above her crib, a couple of lamp options, lots of storage...I wanted a rug for the space and have one picked out, but I'm not sure that I really need one, so I'm holding off on ordering it. The only unknown right now is really the drapes.

We're going to paint the room beige (not exciting, but great for a house on the market), and the drapes I've picked out are a light tan linen with white accents.  I'm just not sure if they'll be too blah, so I'm thinking on it for a bit.  I also have some white drapes that are light and feminine, so those may work as well. We're aiming to have the nursery painted toward the end of the month, so I figure I don't need to make any decisions until then.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll have an almost-completed nursery to share, but for now, that's the update!

25 Weeks

25 down, 15 to go!

I believe that I might be exiting my second-trimester-of-energy and entering the energy-draining-third-trimester.  The past few days I've been so tired--not really physically exhausted, but really like I could be narcoleptic and fall asleep at any moment. Maybe it's the unseasonable heat (which is proving to me that I'm going to be a worthless homebody come the true, hot summer weather), or maybe this little girl's just going through a growth spurt, but man, I could use a nap...or two!

Dr. Michael Scott

Yep, that's him!

Uh-mazing. Despite being on the verge of throwing up (due to that ding-dang diabetes-testing-drink...) during my 24-week appointment this morning, I have to say that Dr. Michael Scott did NOT disappoint in any way!

Let me first say that I actually really liked this doctor--although my experience may read otherwise. :)

My first impression of Dr. S came before he even entered the room; his booming voice actually came through the other exam rooms into mine (maybe not a good thing due to the sensitive nature of an OB-GYN office), and got even more distinct as he walked his patient out and said in a very serious voice:

Sweetie, don't worry about this all week. It's going to be fine. I mean, your angels will hopefully be looking good for you...


(pause, as I think of what terrible disease the patient must be dealing with and how sensitive he was to her concerns)


...I mean, they just drafted that Japanese pitcher, right? They should be fine.


(Ha! Not "angels," but "Angels.")

Then he came in to my exam room.  If his headshot doesn't paint enough of a visual picture for you, keep in mind that today was Friday--as in Casual Friday, which Dr. S took to mean "Western Wear Friday." Yup. Boots, jeans, belt and snap-front.  Really he was just one ten-gallon hat away from a rodeo.  Plus, he introduced himself just as "Michael Scott," which made me think he must like the comparison, which made me automatically like him.

I won't bore you with every hilarious detail of our interaction, but let's just say he was very casual and very candid, which only enhanced my whole experience with him. Here's a few snippets of his responses to my questions:

1. I'm concerned because I really want to sleep on my back (which every nurse and doctor thus far has said will keep oxygen from the baby).
Do it.  The baby'll be fine. 


2. I'm getting ligament cramping when I walk.
Ignore it and keep walking.  


3. I'm still throwing up.
Eat less.


4. I'm not sure I want to get the whooping cough vaccine.
Having your baby end up in the NICU sucks.
(I got the vaccine.)

Maybe not the most traditional responses you'd expect from a doctor, but they were all delivered with entertainment and informational value, and it was awesome.  I really expected a hum-drum interaction with a guy who would shy away from any humor to avoid drawing a comparison to The Michael Scott, so needless to say he left me surprisingly satisfied.

And THAT'S what she said.

24 Weeks

24 weeks and feeling BIG...

So this pic's a little late in the week, but I haven't been feeling too great since the party. I'm not sure if it's the post-adrenaline let down or a little bug, but I've been achy and exhausted for the past few days. Crossing fingers that it passes quickly!

Gender Reveal

www.carrietabbphotography.com

When Ryan and I first thought about doing a gender reveal party, we went back and forth a LOT--we knew we wouldn't be able to do it right at 20 weeks (so that a few key people would be able to attend); we knew it was kind of a newer thing that a lot of people (especially the older generations in our lives) wouldn't "get;" we worried that (deep down) people wouldn't really care that much what we're having (it's not like this is the first baby in our group of friends); and, of course, there's the time and effort that goes into actually planning a party. Thankfully, after yesterday, I can only say that we made the right decision.

Being surrounded by our family and friends at such a big moment really meant a lot to us. Truthfully, beyond actually finding out we were pregnant (sorry, I can't say that we would've wanted anyone else there for that!), this is the first major surprise about our future baby, and beyond simply loving hanging out with everyone, it definitely made the moment even more memorable.

In the coming days we'll have more pictures, but I also wanted to thank Carrie Tabb for taking such lovely photography!  She's great to work with, and, yeahduh, she's got major skills. :)