In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small things they show themselves as they are.

Hola Monday! I wish I could say that I was glad to see you, but let’s face it, unless you fall on a holiday, you are out of luck on the likable department. It’s just something you are going to have to grow up and accept, like I had to when I get up every morning and don’t want to wear pants to work. You just have to do things you don’t want sometimes.

Baby Blog
I’m going to start off with the baby blog today because this (after all that sad baby blogness) is a super happy great baby blog, and you all deserve that on a Monday morning:
7 weeks!
Joy, elation, terror, overwhelming love! Today-today tiny pea, we saw your heartbeat. We both cried (Seth swears he just welled up, no tears), it was the biggest relief. There it was, sounding like cat throw up beating away, at 128 bpm. So fast. I have never cried so happy in my whole life. Not even on my wedding day. And watching Seth get all weepy faced with his big smile put me over the edge. I'm so very very glad that everything is good and you are here and now I can start celebrating and being excited. We are so, so blessed. My heart aches at how truly blessed we are.
Yesterday I proved my theory that the baby hates pickles. Which is HORRIBLE NEWS because I love pickles with a passion. I ate ONE pickle yesterday and power vomited so hard toilet water splashed back up into my mouth. Gross. The weirdest part was once I got the pickle out, I was still hungry and went back and finished my dinner like nothing was wrong. It was strange. Today my lunch isn't sitting so hot either, but work waits for no baby-so I have to suck it up and finish the day. Especially since this weekend we are going to Cheeto and Whitney's wedding (eeeek! It's going to be SO HARD not to tell people!) I'm secretly hoping you are born on St. Patrick's Day because if you are a boy-then I will name you Kellen, in honor of your St. Patrick's birth.

Weekend Review
What a busy weekend we had. Dad came over on Friday (Seth had to work late) and he put down the durarock (actually it was called fiber rock, but Dad kept calling it durarock) onto the laminate flooring of our entryway, there by banishing it forever! Yay! Seth came home just in time to help him glue it down and screw it into the existing floor. Then Dad and I went home and Seth and I went to Walgreens where we spent a stupid amount of money to get a gender test (the same one Kendra and Hank Baskett took) and I’ll just tell you now, you must need a degree in Chemistry for that stupid thing. We couldn’t figure out what color it was, so we are just deciding it was inconclusive and now I’m crabby for wasting 30 bucks I could have spent on the Grey’s Season 5 DVD’s coming out this week. After that we literally went to 3 fast food restaurants to get random things (the baby wanted different flavors) and went home to watch football and some shows off the DVR (Destination Truth and Hard Knocks). Around 10:30 Chet came over after he got off work to spend the night so he could wake up early and help us clean out the guest part of the guest bedroom and rearrange the storage closet with me.
Saturday Dad showed up around 10 and he and Seth got started on the floor. This proved very difficult for Chet and I as they were blocking the main thoroughfare thru the house. But Chet and I worked it out and got the storage room totally rearranged and got the giant dresser I’ve had since I was 6 (it’s a BEAST, my brother has the matching one) into the storage room snugly and still had room leftover! Next week, I’m going to see if Seth wants to tackle under the stairs…
Chet left for work at noon and Seth and Dad finished laying the tile (it has to sit for 24 hours before you can grout with the spacers in) so we all went to lunch over at the “Beyond Golf” which was a super cool place, it’s basically virtual golf, where you can play an entire course indoors. I’ve linked it if you are interested. I’m pretty sure it got my dad’s wheels turning about starting a winter league. The Nebraska game was going on so they had it up on all the screens, even the virtual golf course screens. We had a nice lunch and then Seth and I went to run errands.
And so began our battle at Alltel and Verizon. If you remember, last weekend after hours of the run around, we were told by Alltel to comeback in a week and they would set us up. We went back to that same Alltel and it had turned into a Verizon. And they couldn’t help us. We decided to give up and go look at Nebraska Furniture Mart for baby furniture since I had gotten the room almost cleaned out. Seth decided to call Alltel and give them the what’s what. After 45 minutes on the phone they basically told us Verizon was lying and we needed to go to a Verizon store and have them check our account where Alltel made a note that said we could change over. The closest store (after the scary baby furniture store we happenstance across) was a “Premium” dealer, which is basically like a McDonalds franchise, it has the McDonalds name, but it’s owned by local people and you never know what you are going to get. Long story short, these guys were VERY helpful and 4 hours later with the right coaching, Seth got Alltel to terminate our contract fee-free upon setting up new Verizon ones. Now here’s the part where it gets hinky, the store only carried certain phones, and of course they were mostly blackberries and ugly crap phones. I decided a long time ago to get a blackberry but not get the service to it, just the ability to make phone calls and text. The people at the store laughed at me, apparently this isn’t possible. So Seth and I both ended up talked into blackberries with a much higher bill then we had with Alltel. While I like the blackberry and love the convenience of it (I just forwarded our ticket for our trip to New York to everyone and I wouldn’t have been able to do that until I got home) I just don’t know if it’s worth the money. Especially with a baby on the way. I’m trying to see if we can take them back to a different Verizon store so I don’t feel bad since those guys worked so hard and spent 4 hours helping us get out of our contract…
Saturday night we came home and basically played with our phones all night. Seth has a loaner phone since I took the last Storm, we went back yesterday to get his Storm and of course they didn’t deliver them because this NIGHTMARE WILL NEVER END. He’s going to try again today. We still have one more battle with Alltel-we have to call today and say, our Verizon accounts are activated, delete our account and charge us nothing! And hope they remember the epic battle from Saturday. If not I’m pretty sure Seth’s going to start cussing.
Cody also stopped by with a friend late Saturday night while they were making their party rounds. They were only there about an hour, and honestly I was the worst host ever because I was like totally into programming my ringtones.
Sunday Dad came over and Seth and him finished the grouting work which took all of 10 minutes. Then I rode back with Dad to the house and spent some time with my mom who I hadn’t seen in like, forever. We went shopping and she bought me a beautiful dress (which I’m going to wear to our anniversary dinner on Sunday) and my favorite bubble bath from Bath and Body Works. (Black Currant Vanilla) We were going to get some fantastic sweaters from Ann Taylor loft that really helped my bloated pregnancy belly and would be nice for winter, but the saleslady told us the wrong ones were on sale and we weren’t about to pay 80 bucks for a sweater.
After that I came home and took a nap, then we tried to get Seth’s Storm and failed, then we went to the grocery store, I had a pregnancy meltdown because I was hungry and exhausted and I should have stayed in bed instead of getting up and wearing myself out. But Seth and my Dad talked me thru it (It included a lot of repetition of “I can’t do this, I just can’t, I’m just falling apart”) and then I ate some cottage cheese and made dinner and finished all of my stuff that I needed to do (apparently I COULD do it) and Seth helped. Then we watched Football and Mad Men and went to bed.
True story. The end.

Busy week ahead!
This week I have a meeting tomorrow morning (boo) and Wednesday we have our next checkup at the doctors (yay!) and then Thursday I have a full day of training so I won’t be blogging, but I’ll try to get some pictures up when I get home of the new tile, the new car, and other exciting stuff (not my baby lump).

*sidebar*
Here are some things I can tell your right now about being pregnant that you won’t read in the books. One, everyone woman’s body is different, so what they tell you will happen in the books actually might ONLY happen, since it’s a compiled list of a bunch of woman’s experiences. For example, I could blow the cats out of bed with my butt, but I’m not constipated, everything I’ve read is like “So we know you are frustrated being constipated…”no actually, I’m frustrated because I can’t figure out how to fart quietly at work.
During weeks 9-13 I had a HORRIBLE back pain that left me almost motionless when it hit. Apparently, according to my doc, the baby before that was behind my pelvic bone, as it got bigger and pushed over my pelvic bone, it pushed right into my sciatic nerve. Thanks tilted uterus! You probably don’t have a tilted uterus, but I pretty much thought by the time this baby got huge, I would not be walking. Blessedly, this has passed since the baby got out from behind my pelvic bone.
These last couple weeks I have been plagued by intense oncoming hunger, that if not taken care of immediately, leaves me feeling like I have the flu. Weak, achy, headache, nausea. We are going to talk to the doctor about it, because it’s not right, it’s like I need to eat but don’t have the energy to get up and feed myself because all I know is I feel like crap and I need to lie down. I have also had crazy mood swings.
But perhaps, the worst part of all, that they don’t tell you in the books and I’ve never heard a third trimester woman say, but there is NOTHING glamorous yet (at least in the first part, as far as I’ve gotten) about the second trimester. My skin has broken out worse, I can’t wear make up at all and have to wash my face 4 times a day. I’m in a weird in between stage where I don’t have a baby bump, I have a baby lump, I just look fat, and everyone is like “no, no” but people, I’ve had this body for 27 years. I know what looking and feeling fat is like. I know when I can’t put on a large shirt and not look like I eat at Golden Corral three times a week. I know those judgey looks from people in the store-I used to give them! I don’t have a beautiful baby bump yet. I have a fat lump. And I’m not kidding at all. Which is why I don’t want to take pictures of it yet, right now it’s probably the WORST part of pregnancy, this awkward stage. It causes me a lot of strife. Like Saturday I was trying to find a shirt to wear for errands and lunch and I gave up and put on the Nebraska shirt Jesse got me when he went to UNL. Then after sitting in Verizon for four hours, I suddenly felt like the ugliest frumpiest woman alive. They didn’t know I was pregnant. They just knew there was this girl in a oversized t-shirt and jeans, no make up, not washed hair, silently weeping on their credenza because she wanted a new phone so badly.
But the fun parts are starting the nesting and finishing up old projects and starting to see super cute baby clothes at Kohl’s and being excited to dress something tiny and sweet in them.
Maybe next week I’ll have a real bump or feel it move. But this week, seriously, you can’t convince me otherwise. Thanks for trying though, ask Seth, he gave up too. He just gives me his old t-shirts and holds me when I weep in the mirror. He’s a good husband.

Whoa Nelly!
2,300+ words? You lucky people you. Maybe I’m feeling guilty for abandoning you on Thursday. Alright off to work and to track down Janet’s performance on the VMA’s because I heard all the SYTYCD choreographers were in it!

Love (to be in week 18 or something already),
Carrie