March! March! March!

I have designated March 1st as the new First Day of Spring. True, it IS simultaneously melting and snowing in Syracuse, but I've decided it is time. Time for above-freezing temperatures and early hardy flowers (crocuci! pronounced crow-cuh-kye of course) and SUNSHINE!!!! Jess and I have been leaning towards Spring with all our might the past couple weeks. We are determined that February will have been the last FULL month of winter - thereby, it will be fully springtime by the time the end of March rolls around.

So you can probably tell we've thought about this a lot . . . ;)

I've been walking (sometimes) to (but mostly) from school this fall and winter. That's good for baby, but I feel like I could be doing a bit more to stay active (especially on the days when I end up getting rides to AND from school, not to mention the weekends when Jess and I are various hybrids of couch vegetables) for me and for Baby She-glass. And it was actually a pregnant-lady blog that I found one day that really gave me a bit of a kick in the pants about being active. She's a Type-1 diabetic mommy-to-be who's been documenting her progress from the early weeks of pregnancy right up until about a week ago when I THINK she probably gave birth! I hope all is well for her and her family - once she's back on the blogosphere I'll ask if I can post a link to her site to share with you all . . . ANYWAY, she is super-active: prenatal pilates and yoga, multi-mile hiking trips, bike riding . . . I definitely get the feeling she was pretty active pre-pregnancy but she uses the exercise to keep herself healthy and her blood sugars under control. For someone who has been powering through an "at risk" pregnancy, it sounds like she's been doing the most she can to be healthy and centered for her baby and for herself. She inspires me! I've got no excuse to be sitting on my butt!

So I've a new resolution to be doing my "Perfect Prenatal Workout" DVD 2x/wk and my prenatal yoga video 1x/wk in addition to my walks to and from school - which I will continue for as long as humanly possible into my pregnancy. You can all help hold me accountable! Today I did the workout DVD so that's once already this new week and this new month!

On another (cuter) note, these are some little moccasins we got in the mail from Julie in Massachusetts - thank you Julie!!! Even Mr-I'm-Not-Ready-For-All-The-Baby-STUFF-Jesse was excited to open these up :)

I hope to be writing a little more frequently - even if we dont' necessarily have new cutie-pie pictures to put up. Hope you are all having a wonderful March 1, 2010!!

lotsa love
caitlin

Ultrasound Pictures

We know you've been hankering for them :) Our ultrasound tech, Sarah, said that Baby She-Glass was doing flips in the womb! She had to chase her around to measure all the parts. It was amazing to see so much movement - hands waving, head turning, little heart beating, beating, beating! The tech asked if I had had orange juice before coming over (the sugar energizes them!) and I had to admit that I'd had a hot chocolate (plus about 20 oz of water!). Needless to say, about half-way through the exam Sarah noticed my bladder looked to be at critical mass and she let me take a pee break!

We got to see Baby's spine and arm and leg bones, feet and hands, face and profile, even the lady parts. Speaking of, this post will be our first official act of embarrassing our child by putting her body parts up on the internet - and she's not even born yet! I'm sure lots more mortification will be to follow, especially because we've decided to name her Rainbow Radish Goodglass (Rainy for short) after our favorite organic CSA vegetable . . . .

JUST KIDDING!!!! Margaret, are you still breathing???

We like to tease! Except I DO kinda like that nickname Rainy . . . ALL shall be revealed in due time ;)

So anyway, we're enjoying a Snow Day here in Syracuse: Jesse's jamming away on the XBox drums, I've got show tunes playing, and we're both grinning like idiots over baby-girl femurs and fingers.

Love you all!
PS - In the picture at the top, you can see Baby with 2 little hands next to her face. In picture 2 on the right, there's a good profile shot where you can see the nose bump and then 2 little lips! In the bottom pictures you see the profile with hands again, a footprint, and then the last has a thick bright line that is Baby's femur!

The Bump's Got Lady Parts!

Well, I am 19 1/2 weeks preggo which means we are about half way there with this bun in this oven! And, it is officially a LADY bun :) We had about an hour-long sonogram this afternoon - it's the longest one because they measure all the parts and bones and organs - tho I'm sure most people, like us, just want to know BOY OR GIRL (or OCTOPUS)???? When yer looking' at a 19 1/2 week babe on a sonogram, it's really a matter of 3 strategically-placed LINES versus DOTS. And we got 3 lines so we get a Baby She-Glass!

This is also a good time to post pictures of my bump - because it is now fully recognizable as a PREGNANCY bump, not a Ben and Jerry's bump (tho, I'm not gonna lie, there's some of that in there as well . . .). AND - true milestone here - I purchased my first pair of maternity pants. They have a super sexy stretchy denim-colored top to them ;) They may be a bit goofy-lookin, but they are crazy comfy and totally worth the initial feelings of surreality while standing in Sear's paltry 1-rack section of maternity clothes. (Why Sears, you ask? Well, we were getting a humidifier filter, so why not a pair of stretchy jeans as well???)

So we know that baby is a "she," but we're not settling on a name(s) anytime soon. Most likely we will all find out together on the big day :)

We'll post more pictures of growing belly and baby. Love to you all!
Caitlin +Jesse+Baby

Snow!

Now, I'm sure that most of you down south must be thinking that these storms you've gotten over the past week have totally altered life for the moment -- schools closing, businesses closing, streets closing...

But this link is just to remind you that, thus far, Syracuse still has the next snowiest city in the country by a foot! We just get it in little bits, and everyday.

Happy shoveling!

Adventures in snowblowing!

After finally getting home in daylight and having the time to try out my handy-dandy starter fluid, I got the snowblower working! Aside from the fact that there was only about 3-4 inches of already-driven-upon-snow, it was a complete success. Uncle John had walked me through the thought process of where I needed to spray the fluid (into the carburetor) and how to open it (with the choke) this past weekend when it had warmed up to 0 degrees and the blower needed an extra little kick to get going. So, this afternoon I took the time to try it out. The first few times that the engine got going, it almost immediately turned off, which was a little frustrating, because I didn't know what was going wrong. But I was persistent, and each time sprayed a little more fluid into the carb, and as the engine turned over, I raised the throttle a little more and slowly closed the choke, I got the machine moving and it was awesome! I cleared the driveway and our sidewalk in about 10 minutes without breaking a sweat, whereas in the past I had spent over an hour shoveling and my back would be sore for at least a day afterwards.

Thanks Stevo for the machine! Thanks Uncle Donny and Uncle John for the lessons!

State of the Union

Caitlin and I watched Obama's State of the Union last night together, and I, for one, felt hugely relieved at finally listening to eloquence and intelligence coming from that podium. After 8 years of listening to a man who had difficulty just memorizing his lines, it was like fresh air hearing a man deliver concepts to his audience with confidence, lucidity, and a flexible state of mind.

I thought it was particularly amusing to watch him chastise congress for dragging their feet on so many issues, but one of my favorite new pieces of legislation he's bringing in is the Childcare Tax Credit!

Anyone else have thoughts or comments about last nights speech?

We've Officially Spilled the Beans!

Alright all you blog junkies - we know what you've been craving - we know what you've been missing!! You've been waiting patiently to hear about . . . .insulating our attic!! No? . . . . . Caitlin starting a new semester!! Not that either? . . . Jesse's recent election to the board of Slow Food of Central New York (SFCNY)??? Hmmm . . . .what else could I POSSIBLY post about . . . .

How 'bout babies?

Bingo! We are pregnant - or, in the words of my physician when calling me with the results of the blood test, we are "very positive." I do say "we" because while I know that yes, technically I (Caitlin) am the one physiologically preggers, it certainly took two to tango on this one - and our Caitie-Jesse Super Duper Team America is psyched and (mostly) ready to take on Babydom!

I am officially 14 Weeks today according to our first ultrasound back in December. The first trimester included some constant low-level nausea ("morning" sickness is a misnomer! Some women have it at different points throughout or during the ENTIRETY of the day - moi - and some have it last throughout the entire pregnancy - not moi thank goodness), funky things going on with my joints (who knew my xiphoid process would start hurting???), and a general feeling of "oh my doodness."

The second trimester seems to moving along fine - much less nausea, the ability to tell you all (secrets are HARD!), and I think I may even have a bit of a baby bump! We won't be able to tell for a few more weeks if it's a boy or girl, but I've come around to being excited about either :)

(By the way, Auntie Nally has informed me that those are the only options - nothing with tentacles. You got it, dude!)

Thankfully, it looks as if I am going to be able to continue right along with school - though I feel as though there are warnings out there about "best laid plans" . . . .Anyway, I've been talking with the PT Department over at Upstate and they have been amazing in their support and encouragement thus far. My Clinic II (which WAS previously scheduled to be 4 hours away and in the middle of my new due date of July 13) will have to be shifted around a bit, but we are going to try, try, TRY to keep me on track with school. Luckily, a July 13 due date ALSO means that Jesse will be home for the summer from work - so it looks like we'll have 6 weeks of togetherness at home as a threesome! We'll see about those "best laid plans" . . .

We'll be posting more pictures - mostly of my growing belly at this point since there won't be any cute infant-like pictures for about 6 more months!

Love to you all - we are so happy to be able to finally share this with all of you. Happy January!

Caitlin and Jesse