Kimba

Luxury

Long story short: My parents flew back to Oahu to spend their last few days and we stayed here in Maui, and consequently lost our internet connection. So there's that. But low! Here I am! That's because this morning Caleb surprised me by whisking me away to a 5 Star Resort in Kaanapali for our upcoming 3rd anniversary on Monday (which will be spent flying home...). We spent the day lounging by the pool drinking water with lime and orange slices, dinner at a Benihana-style establishment (particularly funny, because he originally wanted to go to Benihana's, but found out, after telling me that's where we were going, that it just so happens to be in Waikiki. Woops.), and just finished our room service dessert, a really decadent macadamia nut ice cream pie. Heaven? Definitely. Also? They upgraded our room for free, to a full ocean view. I know, I'm spoiled, it's true.

I'm also exhausted because it's officially 11:22, the longest we've stayed up since coming here. Off to bed, and what a comfy bed it is!

Aloha, probably until we get back to the mainland, when I'll be posting my favorite pics of the week. There's even a really great one of Caleb jumping on the bed here...

Baby Bump Wednesday: Week 7

You didn't think I'd miss Baby Bump Wednesday, did you? I'm not dead, far from it, I'm just too tired at night to blog. This time change has been hard to get over for some reason and I have try to stay up until 10pm local time, the time I've decided is okay to hit the hay. Though some nights I'd be okay going to bed at 7.

This week has been fabulous, I've hardly felt pregnant. I feel guilty, having these magic pills, like maybe I should be suffering a little. I should be a little sick, right? This is what I think for about 2.5 seconds, and then the rest of the time I'm thanking my lucky stars that my doctor was nice enough to have pity on a pregnant woman about to spend a week and a half in Hawaii. I mean, as much as I love hotel beds, I really didn't want to spend every waking moment nestled up to the stiff sheets bemoaning my existence. Instead, I've survived the Road to Hana, have spent countless days at the beach in the sun all day, and several hours shopping. Hard life, I know, and again, I've felt fabulous.

Glances quickly around for some wood...

One thing that's changed is the amount of food I can eat. I may be wrong, but I've always thought that when you got pregnant you could eat more, but not me. I seem to be able to munch all day long, but can't eat much. The other night at dinner I had a small house salad and a baked potato and couldn't finish. (That might be partially due to some cheese fries as an appetizer...yeah?) Last night we ate at a really fabulous restaurant and I ordered my very first steak in a restaurant. I really wish I could have finished it, but after the salad wedge I was pretty much done. Again though, I did manage to add a couple spoonfuls of this insanely decadent dessert. Speaking of which, sweets. That's one item that never sounds UGHHHHHHHMMMMMPPPPHH to me. I managed to eat an entire box of Cookie Crisp for breakfast this last week, the only cereal that sounded good in the morning. Normally I'm a Special K or Oatmeal Squares kinda girl, but lately it's Cookie Crisp and Lucky Charms. Not boding well for me, is it?

I'm slowly losing my mind. The other day we were at the beach and I literally fried myself crispy. I put SPF 15 on, which is fine, but normally I reapply several times. Not this time. I totally spaced it and came home tomato red and barely able to move. Caleb reapplied. Caleb. If you don't know Caleb this may not be surprising, but trust me, it is. Caleb took this of me that night:

(Looking oddly like the picture from last week...) If this weren't a family friendly blog I'd tell you I was only wearing a very thick coating of Solarcaine aloe under there, but it is. So I won't. I'll just say I was hot and cold and very tender to the touch. I'm afraid for when I really lose my mind to the Pregnancy Brain. Who knows what I'll come home looking like.

Last night I had my first baby dream. There were two. I'm not looking at this as some kind of premonition, it didn't feel like that. I'm blaming it on the People Magazine I flipped through yesterday featuring J-Lo's twins. (Holy nursery...have you seen it? It's gorgeous!) A boy and a girl, though the boy was much larger than the girl, and I only saw him for a minute. I was feeding the girl and freaking out because the milk was going everywhere and no one was around to tell me how to do it. The bed! It was wet! And the little girl had strikingly large eyes that were staring up at me while I was trying to get her to eat. It was odd.

I don't think it's supposed to mean anything, especially since after going back to sleep (after the 4th pee of the night, WHEN IS THE PEEING GOING TO END?!?! I NEED MY SLEEP!!!) I had another dream where Caleb and I were supposed to be having surgery together for the pregnancy (eh? No idea...) and he totally forgot it TWICE and I had to do it without him. I woke up totally annoyed with him. Oh, and the doctor totally rammed my legs into a glass picture and we threatened to sue and I started thinking about what we could do with all that money. Don't ask me, I have no idea.

All in all, this last week has been a breeze. For the most part I feel lucky, but I do have my moments of freaking out when I wonder if it means there's something wrong. Then I pee for the 30 millionth time and try and reassure myself that at least I have that.

Oh, and I could really go for a Diet Coke right now. A nice, tall, ice cold Diet Coke. Sigh.

Please forgive my sleep lines. They know not what they do.

Road to Hana

Yesterday we survived The Road to Hana. And by survived I mean we barely survived. We left at 10 and got back at 10, and immediately went to bed. We took some great pictures though, 180 of them,and I'll upload them soon, as soon as I recover from yesterday. I'm completely exhausted, the most I've been in a long time. My limbs feel like they're an extra 10 lbs!

So until then, check this out. We're famous! Click on the video with the houseboat as the slideshot (underneath the other shots). That's our boat! This last year at Lake Powell we were approached by the Utah tourism people to take some shots for the state commercials that seem to be all the new rage. We agreed and they took shots of our boat, us eating our dinner, some of our people wakeboarding, and my favorite, Caleb and I kayaking, which can be seen if you click on the picture with the sailboat. That's us in the kayaks, me in the red and Caleb in the yellow. Fun, eh? We think so! You might even see them on tv in the next little while, so be on the lookout.

Until tomorrow! When I should have regained my strength. That road is a killer.

Aloha!

Things I am thankful for today:

*New fancy anti-nausea meds. Ohmywow. Amazing.

*The 6 hour plane ride that's behind me now. (Seriously? Felt more like 10...I was DYING when I realized we still had three hours left. I almost melted right there.)

*Family, excited to see us and our little white pixel blob

*Babies! I'm an aunt again. Congrats Rob & Lindsay!

*The beach. Waves. Sea air. Stress level going waaaaaaay down......

*My chamomile tea easing me into an early bed...we didn't get much sleep last night, and it is impossible for me to sleep on the plane.

Seriously? I am so exhausted. It's nearly 9 pm Hawaii time, and I'm through with sticking it out to get on their time. It's my bedtime and I'm going to bed!

Baby Bump Wednesday - Week 6

It's blurry, that's because Caleb was in the shower and it started gettin' all hot in there. (Not that way...trust me on this one...) My mornings for the last week or so have gone something like this: lie awake since 4-ish (when I got up to pee last) and try to get a few saltine crackers down. It's like trying to stomach cardboard that early. Then I chill and wait until the stomach cramps die down. Sometimes they don't. Such as this morning, when I went in to take my picture and wow, that's some bloat. I've started to take a few Tums though, and hallelujah for that.

Yesterday, as I said, I experienced my first wave of nausea and the Sea Bands are definitely helping. It seems to last through about mid - late afternoon. Nothing sounds good, and I've been just eating anything that doesn't completely give me the heevies. Soup, cold cereal, today a smoothie from Jamba Juice (tart....so refreshing).

This morning we had our first ultrasound! Yippee! Caleb was absolutely unnerved, he was so nervous. I don't know why, but I was completely calm. No worries here. We even got a print out!

Look! We have a white blob! That's our tiny rice-baby! AND. The doctor said she's 90% certain that's the only one! We just have to wait and see if that other...maybe-blob is baby #2! Seriously though, we just have to wait and see if it continues to develop, or if it's just a...another blob....or maybe one that started to, but stopped developing. So, there's that. I'm gonna bank on one for now though, okay? Oh, and Caleb also decided that the minute he saw our baby that it was a boy. Never mind that it hasn't even developed into one or the other yet, he KNOWS. No, really, he KNOWS. For serious, guys.

I told him he has a 50% chance of being right. Just math, people.

I told the doctor that we were leaving for Hawaii tomorrow (yippee!) and she prescribed me two different kinds of anti-nausea pills (let's just say I'm hoping I don't need the second set, because you don't want to know how those pills are to be taken...)and another set in case I start bleeding in Hawaii and am not able to see a doctor. $60 worth of pills later, I am calm. I might not puke on the plane! I'll have my trusty magic pills, Sea Bands, and Glamour magazine to get me through.

Oh, and one more thing. I went to Trader Joe's to pick up some Lemon Ginger Tea and real ginger as another alleviator for the nausea (can you tell I don't want to be sick?) and I decided to try the crystallized ginger. Have you ever tried this? No, trust me, you'd remember.  It's like hot death. I was so shocked after my first bite I threw the remaining piece into my grocery bag. And then I made Caleb try them. It's only fair, right?

Now I've got to finish packing and try to get a few hours sleep. Very precious these days, sleep. I'm not getting much at night anymore, and so Caleb usually finds me like this after work:

Snug in my bed, amid our sheets that I don't have the energy to replace. I am so hot right now.

And so ready for the beach. Aloha!

The wave

I feel a bad pattern of erratic posting coming on, and I'm trying to combat it. It's just that I USED to be able to come home after hanging out with friends and throw up a post just before midnight. Now? Now I'm frantic because OHMIGOSH IT'S 11:00 AND I'M NOT IN BED, and brushmyteethwashmyfacecrawlintobed. And fall asleep asap. Which some nights means three seconds and other nights an hour. Hence, no late night posting. Sorry! I shall try to be better, though the next week or so might be sketchy what with us heading off to Maui and all. I've been looking forward to this trip for nearly a year now and still maintain that The Sickness is going to start soon. Or possibly already has. This morning I finally rolled out of bed, into the shower, and then quickly sat down to send off an email to my sister on her mission. Halfway through the email I felt my first real wave of nausea and told Caleb that I needed cereal, STAT. As in, bowl, cereal, milk, NOW. He took his sweet time (or so it seemed) exclaiming over the toy car that feel into my bowl, "Kim! You got a car! There's NEVER toys in cereal boxes anymore!", and I'm like, yeah, yeah, great, FEED ME. I only managed a few bites and then took to bed and threw on my trusty Seabands. (Look how happy that woman on the top looks! Like, wow! Nausea! I love life!) It seems to be working, I can still feel The Wave, but they do seem to be manageable. I may be forced to sport these lovely sweatbands wristbands for the next month or so.  Light blue wristbands are so hot right now.

Tomorrow is our first appointment! Should see the baby's heartbeat and find out a date. Wish us luck! And that I won't puke on our doctor!

Next, I'll be sniffing for drugs

Not much went on this weekend, we ate, we watched movies. It was perfect. Saturday though was The Battle of the Green Onions. For real. Well, I didn't battle the onions, Caleb did. You see, last summer when we moved in to this house I noticed a horrid smell every time I opened the back door, especially during the hottest weather. I didn't know what the plants were, just knew that they stunk. When Abby, lover of all things garden, saw them she told me excitedly that we had green onions growing back there! How great was that? Green onions at my disposal!

Which would be nice, yes, except that we had four very large plants RIGHT OUT THE DOOR. And as much as I wanted to save $1.66, well, I couldn't handle the smell.

Now times that smell by one hundred million thousand, and you'd start to get an idea of what those things smell like to my newly pregnant nose. And it isn't even very hot yet. I told Caleb I wouldn't be able to handle it very much longer, so during my three hour nap on Saturday after shopping (trust me, I needed it. Swim suit shopping. Don't need to say anything else.) he ripped out every single offensive root. And I loved him for it for an entire minute until I got a whiff of him. Green onion essence all over him. I couldn't stand to be within 10 feet of him for the entire night, even after he changed clothes. Literally, the smell was enough to take my breath away. He washed his hands (the most offensive part) several times to no avail.

Those onions got the final say. It's Sunday night and I can still smell it. And I'm starting to get a hankering for grandma's potato salad.

Designed with me in mind...

I might have just stumbled on a new obsession. Alright, alright, I know I have. I know because I could literally spend the rest of the day perusing this website and mentally adding everything to My Wishlist. Also, mentally adding up the cost and then adding a whopping "FAT CHANCE" in bold letters for good measure. It's just that it's all so WONDERFUL. AND MAGICAL. AND SPECIAL. AND PERFECT. And Caleb? Are you there? We might have to start seriously saving up some monies. And possible purchase a few lottery tickets. Seriously, how could you say no to this?

Or this?

Seriously, check it out. I promise you'll find something to covet as well.

Baby Bump Wednesday: Week...5ish? Maybe?

Still not sure how far along I am, the only thing I have to go off so far is the internet, and half the sites say I'm 5 weeks-ish, and others say 4 weeks-ish. Some even say 6 weeks. Whatever, it's all odd to me, though I tend to go with the sites that factor in my average cycle length and luteal phase (what in the?) length. Those tend to be the ones that say 6 weeks (exactly today). I suppose I'll find out for sure next Wednesday during my first appointment, until then I'll just float along hoping I really am 6 weeks. A girl can dream.

This week there hasn't been much of a change, I've been gearing up for the nausea but every day I wake up feeling....okay. Not fabulous, not pre-pregnancy normal, but okay. It definitely feels better to have something in my stomach, so I've become the poster child for Saltines. I've gone through sleeves and sleeves of them, and there's nearly-gone sleeves all over the house, by the bed, in the cupboard, in my purse. Gotta have my Saltines. This last weekend Caleb unwisely questioned my consumption of them and Mark, father of Mr. Owen, clued Caleb in on a little husband-of-the-crazy-pregnant-woman etiquette: Never question your wife's food choices. If that's what calms her stomach, great. If double chocolate chip fudge ice cream does the trick, hand her a spoon. (Thankfully it hasn't come to that, or I'd have doubled my weight by now) Yesterday I had my first craving, McDonald's chicken nuggets, so there I stood in line for my kid's meal with apple dippers and Sprite. My other must have is a new found salad dressing that Bridgette turned me on to, and I haven't been able to live without it since.
Annie's Naturals Goddess Dressing. Dairy free and vegan! But who cares! It's divine! I could literally drink the stuff. We've had a salad for dinner, or at the very least a side dish, at least 10 times in the last two weeks. The bottle is small and doesn't last us long (we've gone through 3...) but I'm tellin' you, it's worth it. AND. I loved it even before I was pregnant. Honestly, you've got to try it. Bridge, I am forever indebted. I'm currently debating whether to buy a case or not.

Also? My girls, my ta ta's, my shelf? They're a growin'. And a hurtin'. Jogging is out of the question even with my new sports bra, so couple that with my increased saltine intake and we've got a problem. I've been trying to take the mutt for a walk, a quick walk, every day, and have been semi-successful. Usually I just want to come home from work and bury myself under my covers. The exhaustion is constant. Caleb has just chalked it up to another pregnancy injustice.

Yesterday at work I decided to check out The Roach Coach that my coworkers have an affinity for, namely The Croissant.  It's $1 and about the size of your head, maybe larger. I've avoided it until now because I've seen their undying love for it, and knew I'd become just as hooked. And that yummy, flaky, buttery little devil would pop a squat around my waist and set up shop. Maybe invite a few of his friends. I'm going to be strong though, surround myself with my Saltines and prepare for battle. It has no power over me.

(Now I have a hankering...maybe we can rent that movie this weekend, right Caleb? Right?!)

Last night I spent 15 minutes trying to find The Best pregnancy book, and found nothing. I found a few that were nice and medical-like, (since I already have The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy, which, bytheway, is a good fun read, but not super informative...at least not for my taste), but there were no pictures. I need real live pictures people, I want to know what my baby looks like now.  And now. And soon. Does anybody have any good suggestions? Maybe one that isn't too frightening for a man? I want Caleb to see that I'm crazy for a reason, and the only one I could find was some dumb caveman book about Gronk The Caveman, promising that "with the help of this book a guy will become the proud Cro-Magnon caregiver he longs to be!" And sorry, but I just find that all a little too cheesy. I mean, Caleb may have the feet of a caveman, (or a hobbit) but he knows how to make a great panini. 

No change. Except a few thousand Saltine crackers. I think you can see them there. And of course, the ever present...bloat. It's worse at night, just be glad I don't take the picture then. Also, notice my whiteness. I'll look fabulous in Maui. Just fabulous.

Way past my bedtime

Caleb usurped the laptop tonight, saying he had "important business stuff to do". Psh. So I'm usurping his Blackberry-take that!

He doesn't care.

I would like to throw out some advice- don't grocery shop while pregnant. The dairy isle smells like cold death and you'll end up with some weird organic macaroni and cheese stuff (when you don't even like macaroni and cheese) and 100 calorie Cheezit snack packs. Praise the Grocery Gods for 100 calorie snack packs. Amen. Also, who came up with dark chocolate mini Cadbury eggs? Curse you! They're fabulous!

That is all. My hands are starting to cramp worse than my baby oven.

Manic Monday

Thanks everyone for all the support! We're so excited, it's been a long time coming. Like I said, so far I've been okay, but I'm not counting myself out of the morning sickness clear yet! Not with my mom's history, and me being like her in all the wonderful female ways. Most places I've read said it begins anywhere from 4 - 6 weeks, and I seem to be smack dab in the middle. (Half the sites have calculated I'm 4-ish weeks, half have said 5-ish. I don't get the whole pregnancy weeks thing anyway...) I'll know more during my first appointment next week, the day before we leave with my family for Maui! We're both excited about that as well, and I am planning on having my morning sickness start the morning we leave. Because that's my luck. :) We'll see. Anyone have any fabulous motion sickness remedies, I'm all ears. So far I'm leaning towards the motion sickness wristbands, getting excited about the fabulous fashion statement that will make.

So today I had a lovely / horrible day. It started off lovely, grew increasingly worse, and then I capped the day off with a little stupidity. It was a typical Monday. I woke up this morning, got ready as usual, and went to find my keys to leave for work. A minute of searching confirmed my fears, Caleb had taken my set of keys (he drove my car today) which had my work key. Normally this would be only a mild inconvenience, I'd just have to wait in the parking lot until someone came, hopefully before their usual hour of 10:30 (so jealous...I'd die to get up at 9:30 every day!). This week however, they're all up in Tahoe for a work event. Caleb  said he'd try to come down soon, but knowing that he had a full day of appointments I told him not to worry, I'd just call in sick. I was exhausted anyway, and my stomach was a little unsettled. I crawled back into bed, fully clothed, watched a bit of TV and then dozed for an hour or so. It was so relaxing. Is that a woodpecker? Hmmm....zzzzzzzzz. Was that the mail crashing onto the entry floor? That's nice.....zzzzzzz... Was that a nuclear bomb? That's too bad......zzzzzzzzz.

My co-worker called me at about 11:30 waking me from my slumber, panicking because I wasn't in the office. Apparently another group of people were waiting to drive to Tahoe at the office, needing the car rental keys that were of course inside. Lovely. There goes my day of rest, recouperation, and errand running. Caleb, as it turns out, was in Emeryville, a good 45 - 60 minutes North of us. He promised to head down though, and I made my way over to calm them and hopefully smooth things over. Hopefully keep my job. I felt terrible, it was hot outside today, and made them all take a case of water bottles and our remaining snacks from the previous event when we finally got inside.

The rest of the day went well and I decided I'd head out at 4:30 since I hadn't taken a lunch break. Stop off at Costco, get the pictures I'd sent to be printed...and at 4:20 I got a call from Caleb saying sorry, he'd be leaving the office soon, he promised, he'd just had a busy day.

"...okay..." I said, not quite sure why he was calling at 4:30 to assure me he'd be leaving soon. After talking to him for a few minutes, I realized my mistake. It wasn't 4:30, it was now 5:40. Our clocks hadn't changed. I'd been sitting unnecessarily at the office for an entire 30 minutes, or an hour from when I'd wanted to leave. Genius! I am so smart! SMRT smart!

Can I chalk this up to pregnancy insanity? Please? Blame it on technology? Aren't computers at least supposed to update themselves?

3rd X's the Charm

This is why I've had a difficult time posting lately. I've been exhausted. Not sick so far, knock on wood, but exhausted. And crampy. And maybe a little bit bloated. (You are so excited to hear all about this for the next 9 months or so, aren't you?) We're pregnant! Clomid is our new best friend and we treated it to ice cream last night, in hopes of showing our appreciation. I think it enjoyed it. (I know I did!)

Caleb and I are insanely excited, though we've still got a long way to go. I'm only 4 weeks and change, but felt we couldn't keep it a secret from our friends here and since we'd be telling our friends, we needed to tell our families. Then we just got caught up in The Baby Fever, and started telling everyone. I'm hoping this doesn't jinx me, and pray that baby's latched on properly. I told my parents and sisters, who are particularly excited since this will be the first grandchild. I believe my mom is ready to stock up on clothes, reasoning that she'd "just have to buy blue AND pink until we know...".  I'll need to remind her that we have about two square inches of storage space in this little home of ours, and that's if I get rid of half of Caleb's shirts.

Also, I've decided to run a little experiment, partially on behalf of my sister Kathy who will miss my growing large with child, and the first several months of his / her life, while on her mission for our church. I'll be conducting Baby Bump Wednesdays (or maybe it should be Baby Hump Wednesdays?) where I'll post my growing belly. Maybe throwing in a few lamentations about finding suitable clothing and such. So here's this last week's, my first shot days after discovering the second pink line (is it strange that I had a hard time throwing away that test? I left it while at work, and when Caleb came home that evening he asked me if I wanted to throw it away. I hesitated, and he asked if I was going to scrapbook it. Which is funny, because I don't scrapbook. We compromised, and Caleb threw it away. After taking a picture...).

(That's my new swimsuit, ala Old Navy. Three cheers for cheap swimsuits!) No "bump" yet, just a little bloating...no one ever told me about the bloating, I figured it was just my regular IBS on overdrive with the waiting-to-pee-on-the-stick-stress. Sadly, it's still here. I'll take it over nausea any day though...except for when Caleb eyes me while brushing my teeth and says excitedly, "Kim! You're showing already!" And I have to take a deep breath and tell him that no, that's just my Gas Baby, but thanks.

Abandonment issues...

Sorry about the delay in posts, I haven't been able to log in to my account since Wednesday, thereby making it a teensy bit difficult to post something. Have no fear! It appears I'm back up and running. A real live post will be up shortly...

You can make up the cheesy title for this one...

This last weekend Caleb and I wandered downtown Willow Glen, a kitschy part of San Jose with fabulous little shops and restaurants. Mainly I wanted to take him to Powell's Sweet Shop, my favorite candy store. I love it. I will open one someday, just you wait.

Caleb seemed to enjoy it. At least I think. Enough that he'll allow me to brainstorm ways to come up with the cash to start it up. Apparently you have to have some sort of collateral to get a small business loan? Psh! Can't I just promise to pay it back, pretty pretty please? Maybe an IOU?

Guess not.

The new can

So, maybe you're wondering where the mutt is? I haven't whined about his puking, his garbage invading, his need to be constantly pressed up against one of us.

(That part hasn't changed...I'm afraid it never will.)

That's mostly because last weekend we purchased a new garbage can. After nearly three years we decided that we could afford one that wasn't plastic and worth about as much as a Jamba Juice (mmm...Jamba Juice...). We went straight to The Container Store and basked in it's beauty. Or, I did. That store is my Mecca.

It's metal, it's sturdy. It's larger, the lid opens only if you press the top. It's my new favorite thing. (Next to my new lamp, which I will show you soon. Once I find a table to display it on. It deserves that, at least.) He hasn't been in the garbage once, and I love it. No more are the days when I walk in holding my breath, wondering if last night's dinner will be scattered all over the floor in one form or another. Not that he hasn't tried, I've seen a few nose prints on the stainless steel. I'm on to him.

Also, I bought that shirt for him for $1.28 at Target. First and only article of clothing he'll ever have. It's all he needs. %100 Mutt. Says it all.

Recently Caleb decided to buy some dog treats for Bear to help train him. He will not roll over, it's almost like he's afraid of falling or something, and hasn't managed to not flip out every time the door bell rings. Anyway, this is new, because we don't usually give him any treats at all. After raising a Guide Dog I've been of the mind that dogs do just as well, if not better, on praise than treats. Praise can be doled out anytime, while treats only last as long as..well..they last. Bear is loving the new treats. We do this often with him, make him sit with the treat between his eyes to teach him patience. Also, to see him squirm. You might not be able to tell, but he's positively quaking with anticipation. Once I released him he flung his head and launched that treat across the entire kitchen. (Not that it's that far...you're nearly looking at the end.) He inhaled it with just as much enthusiasm.