Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

Wow.  I can barely believe SEVEN months have gone by without a blog update.  Yikes.  The problem was that I found a surrogate for blogging.  In January I started doing Project Life, which I like to call Scrapbooking Lite.  I've put pretty much all my time & effort into keeping up with Project Life and it satisfies my need to document things in my life.  And trust me, I've often thought about my blog and I wonder if anyone has even noticed that I don't update anymore.

And I had a great reason to start blogging again starting in late February.  The Mister & I found out we're expecting a baby!  I'm pregnant!  Due at the end of October!  After I found out, I definitely thought about coming back to the blog to document everything but then in addition to Project Life, I decided to DIY a pregnancy journal using the same pocket-scrapbooking technique.  So again, analog trumped digital.

But man.  Pregnant.  It still feels surreal at times.  And then the little one starts kicking and moving around and it's like, "Yep.  Definitely housing a wee tiny adorable parasite in there."  We think we are having a boy.  Here's why I say "think" there.  My mom & step-dad were visiting us a few weeks ago and they tagged along to my widwife appointment because I thought it would be pretty cool for them to hear the heartbeat on the Doppler.  Well, since everyone was there, the ultrasound tech managed to squeeze us in for a mini anatomy scan.  She was moving the wand all around and was about to tell us we were expecting a girl when she changed her mind and said, "I think that might be a penis!" She printed out a photo for us with the supposed penis circled (which I tucked into a notebook and then carried around in my purse for weeks, thinking to myself, "I'm carrying around a photo of my baby's penis everywhere I go.  WEIRD.") and we went on our merry way, talking about our son.

Then two weeks later we had the real anatomy scan where they check all the organs and body parts and make sure Baby is developing on schedule (he is!).  And I guess since we had already had the mini scan, she just sort of glossed over the bits and said, I quote, "That could be a penis" and continued on her merry way.  In the moment I didn't think too much of it, but now it keeps bugging me that she didn't sound very convinced.  Baby wasn't being cooperative enough for her to capture the profile, so we have another ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow.  I'm going to play Preggosaurus Rex card and ask very nicely if she'll take one more look at his bits just to make sure he has boy bits and not girl parts.  Not that it really matters except that we've started buying some boy things and we've been calling him by a boy name.  And I just want to knoooooooooow.

Interestingly enough, my sister is also pregnant and is due about two weeks ahead of us.  She is NOT finding out the baby's sex until the birth.  I don't know how she can deal with that level of suspense.  I was dying to find out.  But to each their own.

That's a VERY flattering selfie from about a week & a half ago.  I've put on more weight than I was hoping to and I feel enormous.  Last week the Mister & I joined the local Y and I started going to water aerobics classes and walking hills on the treadmill when the Mister is swimming or in yoga.  There is a slow yoga class on Tuesdays and the instructor told the Mister she was comfortable teaching me as long as I got a note from my doctor, so I'll ask for that tomorrow at our appointment.  I'm trying not to eat so many snacks and sweet stuff, but man.  Ice cream is SO GOOD.  But then I think about how much harder I'll have to work AFTER the baby is born to get back into shape.  I've already told the Mister that I would really like to hire a trainer for that and he thinks it would be a good idea.

I'm out on maternity leave from flying, which is nice.  But it means I have a LOT of time to kill.  Project Life helps with that especially since I still haven't finished documenting our honeymoon, which we finally took last month.  Oh, yes!  We went to New Zealand and Sydney at the end of May!  It was amazing!  I took a zillion photos, which I am slooooooowly editing and printing and journaling about.

Also, the Mister has begun a twelve month sabbatical from work to focus on his graduate studies, which is great for so many reasons.  But it's means that we are BOTH home 24/7.  We probably spend way too much time together.  So far it hasn't been a problem, but I encourage him to take his studies OUT of the house.  And I should probably take some of MY time out of the house as well.  Going the Y helps.  I'm really enjoying water aerobics even though I'm the youngest person in the class by at least 25 years.

I don't even know where to end this post.  I still have so much I could talk about.  But maybe I'll come back soon.