Week 18

Well, my belly keeps getting bigger. It's terrific!!! When we got back from the reunion and saw Jim, my father-in-law, he asked me if I had been eating baby food because it was so much bigger! Bartok is now the size of a sweet potato. B is yawning, hiccuping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching, sucking and swallowing. I'm supposed to feel the baby sometime between this week and week 22! I'm facing a new challenge: sleeping comfortably. Well, I feel comfortable when I fall asleep and I have no trouble getting into the dream stage. But I wake up and feel like I slept like this:
I'll have to get creative with pillows!! I'm sure Shamus is really excited about that... seeing how he loves to throw all but 2 pillows onto the floor every night. I've also come to the realization that I can no longer wear my non-maternity clothes. Since I got so many last week, it isn't that big of a deal. It's actually pretty fun having a new wardrobe that is super comfortable! Shamus asked why maternity pants and shorts aren't just in style for everyone since they're so much more comfortable and they don't really look weird. I didn't have an answer for him. I suppose that we American women associate discomfort with good style. Don't be surprised if you see me hanging out in maternity clothes long after the baby is born. (That is, after some time of not wearing them at all seeing how every mother I've talked to said the first thing they wanted to do was throw away their maternity clothes.)
The Marzonie reunion was a blast!! The highlights include: the ping-pong tournament, the corn hole tournament (bean bag tossing), a wedding shower, playing with the second cousins, the Wii, telling everyone I am pregnant (although most knew or suspected it), Apples to Apples (particularly the Helen Keller card), and tons of food. It was the first annual Marzonie reunion and we've already started making plans for the second!
We're off to Charleston this afternoon for the weekend to see another friend walk the aisle and to hang out with some other good friends from college. Then, Monday, we close on the house!!!
Coming up in July, we've got...
- A Brannaka wedding
- A Culpepper reunion
- A Brannaka reunion
- Painting and decorating the new house and moving in!

Week 17

Well, another week passed and I didn't write. We left on Thursday to go to the Marzonie reunion so we were a little busy preparing.
In my pregnant world, I hit the jackpot on Tuesday!! I went shopping for more maternity clothes at Plato's Closet, a consignment shop for teens. No, they didn't have a maternity section and they are not promoting teen pregnancy. However, there were several skirts and shirts that are perfect for a pregnant tummy so I picked up a few things. It's nice to have clothes that fit!
I guess shopping there was kind of like playing the lottery - you think that you have little to no chance of getting what you need but you give it a shot anyway. Well, I took a shot and got a bullseye!!
On my way out, a woman was gathering several garbage bags full of clothes that Plato's Closet had decided not to purchase from her. As she picked up the bags, the woman behind the counter said, "We don't take maternity clothes here since it is a store for teens." My ears perked up like a puppy hearing the food hit the bowl. I followed her out and asked if I could look through her stuff and buy a few things from her. She was happy to have me do that since she was hoping to get a little money from her outing.
After I sorted through 1 and a half bags, I had found 6 shirts that I really liked. We made a deal and I paid her $20. After I had put her other stuff back in her bags and was ready to be on my way, she said "Why don't you just take it all?" Wow!! So I ended up with 4 kitchen-sized bags of clothes, most of which were maternity. I finally finished sorting and washing all of it and I ended up with around 15 or 20 shirts and around 7 pairs of pants/shorts that fit.
I was really worried at first about being able to afford a whole new wardrobe. We had already spent most of the monthly clothing fund on a few nice shirts for me that I think will make it through the summer. As I thought about it, I started to realize that at that rate, I wouldn't have enough clothes to make it through a week. So we'd be doing laundry all the time and I'd be wearing the same clothes all the time. God really provided for us with this big gift - as He always does!
As for the clothes that don't fit, I'll be passing those on to my pregnant friend who's smaller than me. And the clothes that are not maternity are being passed out to sisters, cousins, and friends. We're all thrilled to be getting like-new, free clothes!!
On to Bartok....
Bartok is now the size of an onion, has fingerprints, and can chunk it on!!! (Fat is finally accumulating.) I'm showing more and more everyday, it seems. At the reunion, I didn't really get a chance to tell everyone I was pregnant - I had a belly already! It could pass for a tubby tummy, but most of the family knew that Shamus and I want children and they put it together. It was fun getting excited again in sharing the news, though!
I had my first strange feeling. I didn't feel the baby move, but I felt the baby..... I was sitting on the couch after we got back from our reunion and I had the strangest feeling. It was like someone had slowly blown up a balloon inside of me and I just noticed this thing taking up all the space where my digestive organs used to be. It's kind of like after you eat Thanksgiving dinner and you secretly unbutton your pants so you can breathe because you couldn't stop eating that delicious sweet potato pie. The difference was that my belly button was what needed to be unbuttoned and I hadn't eaten very much. I was actually hungry at the time! That feeling lasted for several hours. Shamus suggested that Bartok may have been doing a full-body stretch and I could feel the pressure from the little hands and feet against my uterus. If that's true, Bartok is a very thorough stretcher because it lasted for hours and hours!!
I read that I'll probably feel the baby sometime in the next 3 weeks!! I can't wait!!!!

Week 16

Happy Father's Day, everydad! Our celebration has been post-poned until tomorrow but hopefully I'll have some pictures to put online of the celebration later this week.
I've got another belly shot for those of you who haven't seen the real thing. Our neighbor upstairs saw me today and said, "Ooo, you have a baby bump!". Well, this bump is causing a few problems in the wardrobe department but I did make my first maternity purchase recently: shorts. I'm wearing them in the photo and I did an interesting video explanation of how they work - but it's on my cell phone. If any of you are in the Boston area, my sister-in-law, Morgan, has a copy of the video, which was actually made for her. It's a bit of a science experiment. I seem to be doing lots of those recently...
"Hmmm... what would happen if I drank an O'Douls non-alcoholic beer??" "How many pieces of cake can I eat before Bartok decides not to like it?" "Can I balance a full cup of juice on my belly yet?" "Can I bend over and pick something up off the floor within 15 minutes of ingesting something?" "What can fit in my maternity clothes besides me and Bartok? That soccer ball? That mixing bowl?" The answers: 1. I fulfill the craving I've had for beer and don't harm the baby!! 2. Unknown - requires more research, and therefore, more cake! 3. No. I can't even balance an empty cup. 4. No, not even if I do the pregnant lady squat because it still makes me feel like I'm going to un-gest what I ingested instead of digesting it. 5. Not the soccer ball, yes the mixing bowl.
Bartok is now an avocado. If you're not sure what that is or how large it is, please go to the grocery store, purchase one, cut it into thin slices (without the skin), salt it, and eat it on some bread. In the process, you'll not only learn how large our baby is, but you'll also enjoy a savory Hispanic snack. I also encourage putting it on ham sandwiches. Mmmmmmmm....
Back to the pregnancy:
I had an appointment and all we did was listen to the heartbeat. It was amazing, of course!! My doctor gelled up the microphone and started rubbing around my belly trying to find B. There were some very loud noises!! She said that's the baby bouncing around!! I still can't feel it, but it was really encouraging to hear. She finally got around the poking, jabbing, dancing baby appendages and found the heartbeat. The machine couldn't even get the heart rate because of all the other noise! Then...
Okay, let me correct the original statement: "I had an appointment and we listened to the heartbeat, I gave some blood and we made our next appointment!" Most exciting part: Next appointment is July 7th and we're having an ultrasound to find out if Bartok will be wearing pink or blue and we'll get a more accurate due date!
Only 22 days left!! Better get your votes in!!
I added a few things on the blog for your enjoyment and to connect you a little more with what's going on around here. Love you all!!

Week # ... oh man I'm late!

We'll I've been blogged and emailed by my own wife so here's my post for weeks whatever to whatever +1:

We have a new red car, a new house, and are working on the baby (well Karen's been stuffing down enough calories to build AT LEAST a baby human if not a small army - just my opinion). The car's shown here and we kind of disown it whenever people see it because we're not new car people, or nice car people, or expensive car people, or really car people... but it gets us to where we're going. :-)

The new house is on the right and more pictures are on the link on the right (somewhere). Tyler already claimed one room so you'd better speak up or you'll be sleeping in the crawl space. We're almost completely done setting up everything to buy the home and now we just have to wait until June 30th... and then sign on a lot of debt to the Cronin name. (Maybe Debt Cronin already took a room too... they're going quick!)

I've just seen that Karen posted ahead of me anyway so here's a quick list of upcoming coolness:

- Reunion in Kentucky with many a' family member
- Wedding in Charleston (I hope it cools off)
- Wedding in PA (another cousin leaves the ocean for the lush jungle of married life... can fish breathe in jungles?)
- Buy a refrigerator, washer, and dryer
- Stock above mentioned refrigerator
- Win some gold cups in Mario Kart Wii
- Become official members of North Hills Community Church (it's about time!)
- Watch a whole lot of European and World Cup qualifying soccer
- Sleep?

I hope that stops the emails / blogging / tar-and-feathering about not posting on here. Someone's got to work for all the food that's "feeding the baby". :-) WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!

Week 15

Bartok is the size of a naval orange!! And is bouncing and kicking and swatting around but I can't feel it. I wish I could - it's so encouraging to have some kind of a response from the child living inside of you. Since Mother's Day, I've been thinking about how Shamus and I are parents now even though our bun is still in the oven. The baby is obviously more affected by me at this point, but Shamus plays his part. There's plenty of asking how the baby is, touching the belly, and talking about the baby as an active member of our family. I'm sure that every parent has said, "Is the baby making you sick?" Granted, that was asked by my husband while I was sitting on the couch recovering from breakfast. I'm sure it will come up again during a diaper change, spit-up incident, and a moment of breathlessness from the pungent odor of a baby toot.
Anyway, while thinking about this whole "my child is depending on me for food, love, and shelter" thing got me feeling a bit lazy and foolish. I started out doing great, reading and learning and taking notes and filing them in my nerdy school binder. By nerdy I mean ridiculously awesome! It even has dividers for 5 major pregnancy topics! But now, I'm immune to such lines as "stay away from soft cheese because of listeriosis, a rare but horrible infection that can cause miscarriage". Why? Because almost every woman that is reading this and almost every woman that is related to you ate soft cheese during pregnancy. And none of them had a problem. And soft cheeses are DE-LISH!!
But Karen, you may be saying, it's foolish to ignore new developments in research that can directly affect the health of your child! I agree. I'm working on the whole "foolishness" issue. Let me prevent some worrying - God's actually doing the work. I've been busy being lazy. After 4 weeks, I just started reading about pregnancy again to refresh myself on how I'm supposed to be taking care of myself and Bartok. Not only that, but God sends little sticky notes by way of others. I got an email the other day from a good friend: "Hello, future mom! Are you doing special exercises yet?" Well I hadn't done any before that but now it's on my daily schedule and I did several that day. And that's God doin' his thing, taking care of me and Bartok. And yes, Standing is an exercise now that I'm pregnant. Is standing so much to ask?? :) Don't worry. I'll be standing as soon as I finish this entry and I'll even try tucking my buttocks!
I got another message about my habits recently. I ate 2 pieces of KFC and some potato salad and I felt like my body was trying to digest a live chicken running around my insides with it's head cut off. So Bartok doesn't like fried food. Good to know!
Time for me to have a little snack and head to bed... hopefully my recovery time will be short. Recovering is the new thing my body does... instead of digesting. Pregnancy will rock your world.. even if you've already got it rockin!