teddy's nursery inspiration

guess what? in less than two weeks i can say teddy is coming "next month".

that is more than fifty shades of cray, you guys.

i've been looking around for nursery inspiration for a while, but a few things have really stuck out to me. i've been a little more minimalist (wishful thinking?) in my shopping habits, but we've managed to purchase most of the bedding and decor for teddy's nursery.

we're leaning on gray and brown neutral tones with hints of blue.

i liked these photos from this website. what do you think?

the crib, dresser and recliner we purchased are all different from the ones in these photos, but the color scheme (and feel) is similar. i'm on the hunt for a mobile i like that isn't too out of our price range.

i like these two, but i'm having a hard time committing to one of them.

and isn't this little plane to die for? sigh. oh money...

anyway, still lots we've got to get done. it's fun to window shop though, wouldn't you say?

what's your favorite decorative thing in your nursery?

first week home.

it seems like the first few days home from the hospital are the longest.

the hours creep by, and yet are somehow filled with things like nursing sessions, burping, spitting up, laundry, and changing sweet little diapers. 

if you're lucky perhaps you get a nap or a snack here or there. 

i like to think someday when my sister's family look back at pictures like these they'll somehow forget how tired we were when we took them; only that they were the sweet beginning hours of a new addition to a sweet family.

"look how much he loves me!" mimi said, right before i snapped this shot.

sometimes life is just the sweetest, you know?

30 weeks.

i cropped my face out of this so you couldn't
tell how hard i was trying to suck in....

i have ten more weeks left. it sounds like a really long time.

i've hit that point in my pregnancy where complete strangers feel comfortable asking me when i'm due. i shouldn't feel weird about it, but i always am really tempted to play dumb like i don't have a 7 month baby inside of me. (what, this bump?)

we haven't bought a stroller yet because i convinced myself that i want a different one now (ahem, that costs twice as much as the one we were looking at originally...) now i'm thinking maybe i never want to buy a stroller ever.

i don't have stretch marks yet, but i can tell they're coming. maybe after teddy comes i'll throw a party mourning the beautiful smooth skin on my belly i used to have but never appreciated.

we registered for a birthing class. is that what you call it? i forget the name of it, but it cost more than i thought it would (annoying) and they encourage you to bring snacks (less annoying).

i went a whole week without throwing up. it was such a good week.

sometimes my computer is my best friend. i use it to watch tv, research weird baby facts, and wake up from naps with it next to me on the bed. gid gets annoyed/jealous sometimes. (why is there a computer where your husband is supposed to be!?) he's hid it on more than one occasion. i still like him a lot.

teddy moves like crazy lately, and he's getting bigger. i used to be able to feel him very specifically in the lower or higher part of my belly. now i feel him in both. always. he punches upstairs, kicks downstairs, and does somersaults before bedtime that throw me into weird positions, startling everyone around me. it's weird having a human in you.

i miss my family today really badly. i never in a million years thought i'd say this, but i wish we all lived on the same block in texas. we would have dinner parties, go swimming in the backyard and eat snow cones all day and it would be so so fun.

you guys, i'm starting to get nervous about the whole delivery thing. it sounds like it hurts really bad. sometimes i worry about how little i know about babies and having babies. (like for instance-- one of my co-workers was warning me about the skin in your nether-region sometimes TEARING DURING BIRTH? i almost cried. and did you know that breastfeeding is unspeakably painful at first for some mammas? and did you know that you get all puffy and swollen when the baby comes, and sometimes you STAY puffy and swollen for weeks after the delivery?? why am i hearing about this only now?!)

i think there's more stuff people want to warn me about, but they don't want to freak me out even more. i want to go to sleep, but my brain is too awake thinking about it. nightmares.

brand new.

i feel like there's never been such a sweet baby in the history of the world.

of course, that's not the first time i've said this. when i held my first nephew for the first time i fell in love just as quickly. every time i hold a new baby i'm instantly wrapped around their tiny fingers, i can't help it. don't even get me started on my nieces.

  (what's that, little baby? you insist on crying unless i bounce in a very specific way making a shushing sound every 7.3 seconds ALL NIGHT LONG? i don't care if i can't stand up straight in the morning-- if it keeps you happy, i'll do it.) 

what is it about a brand new little baby that makes your heart melt? goodness those sweet little quivering lips kill me. the velvet soft skin. the nuzzles. !! the nuzzles! 

i can't handle it. i can't handle the sweetness of being an aunt. can you imagine how obsessed with my own baby i'm going to be? it's going to be nuts. look out world.

my baby keeps kicking me,
so i'm going to go to bed.

teddy

we don't have a name picked out for him yet. why does everyone seem to think that i know what his name is going to be? i imagine he'll come out, and introduce himself to me. just to be safe  i'm planning on having a list of five names to take with me to the hospital. i should get started on that.

you want in on a secret? i call him teddy. that doesn't mean that's his name forever. i just like thinking of the baby boy in my tummy as teddy tolman.

teddy has been doing this thing lately where he does jumping jacks on my bladder when i'm trying to fall asleep, and first thing in the morning when i'm trying to stay asleep. i twitch, hoping to coax him to get into a new position, but he politely declines every time.

these days he almost always wakes me up with sweet little thumps ("how about a little breakfast, mamma? no hurry- whenever you're ready... i''ll just keep entertaining myself by practicing flutter kicks till you get up, take your time...")

i'm not digging the whole lactation thing. no one warned me about this. the first morning it happened i thought i just kept dripping cereal milk on my chest. and then i was like, "that's weird, why do i keep spilling exactly where both of my nipples are?" then i flipped out a little.

don't you love how she's half puckering half smiling?

my sister is having a baby any minute. i hate that i'm not there right now, but i'm visiting soon. then mimi and i can resume our traditions of baking cakes, sharing milkshakes and playing with homemade shadow puppets first thing in the morning and last thing end of the day. she calls me her best friend (obvs i trained her to do that...) and it melts my heart every time.

i know some day, sooner than later, i'll just be her (super cool and trendy) aunt alyssa.

but for now i'm lala, her best fweind. we have a secret handshake and everything.

i have a feeling after teddy comes everything will change. like i won't be able to just jump on a plane and visit mel and mimi just because i haven't seen them for 4 months.

maybe i can. maybe teddy will be an awesome traveler. i've heard most babies don't really like planes. if he's a good traveler, than i'm planning on going on a trip to amsterdam, prague and vienna with him and gid.

sigh. do lots of mammas to be stay up late at night wondering all the ways their life is never going to be the same again? that's what i'm doing right now...

April Style.

Anyone care to join me?

happy birthday, eiffel tower.

thanks for letting us visit you last summer. 

hopefully we'll see you again sometime soon.

10 things not to do when you're pregnant (if you're me...)

1. don't get your hopes up that maybe your belly will stop growing, and don't feel bad about it. just be grateful it's as small as it was today, because tomorrow it will be bigger.

2. don't ignore your nose. if something smells funky, eliminate it from your environment. does that sound dramatic? i don't care. ELIMINATE IT.

3. if that means that smells from cleaning and cooking make you sick-- don't apologize. just ride the wave as long as you can and enjoy it. your husband does not resent you for not cooking or cleaning because it makes you vomit horribly. he's a nice husband.

(let's be honest: you were never the perfect cleaning and cooking housewife to begin with. very little has changed...)

4. don't skip a meal. ever. your baby will make you pay.

5. don't make lofty goals during your pregnancy like exercising, learning languages, or studying instruments. make goals of sleeping. you can do that for sure. you will rock at sleeping.
(except at night, when you want it desperately...)

6. you're not going to cook. unless its cold cereal. so don't buy cookbooks.

7. don't take rude comments about baby name ideas too seriously. ("oh, you hate the name that's at the top of my list? you think it sounds dumb? you're dumb." -like that. don't do that.)

8. don't be too hard on yourself when your skin gets even worse, you lose the desire to shower, and you've started wanting to do incredibly lazy things like drink milk straight from the carton.
(still shower. even if you don't really want to...)

9. don't think about those pictures of celebrities who are pregnant. i'm looking at you, blake lively...(she's joking, right?)

10. don't daydream that maybe this is the last day you'll get sick. just appreciate that you have a cute little bathroom to throw up in.

babymoon.

we were eating dinner one night, looking at our calendars and realized we were completely slammed till the baby's due date-- except perhaps for some potential time off in a few days. so we moved our schedules around and planned a last minute 5 day trip to the oregon coast. 

there was a quick stop in our beloved city of trees including seeing some sweet friends.
thanks again for a lovely lunch everyone! Delishdelishdelish.)

the only thing better than boise are the people who live there. 

We also stopped in portland for a bit of fun. It was weird.

the rest of our time was spent visiting astoria, seaside, cannon beach, and driving up and down the gorgeous coastline. the weather predicted rain and wind, but we got lucky on the last two days.

i can't even tell you guys how beautiful and fun it was.

we stayed at cute little bed and breakfasts, shopped at small shoppes and ate at funky restaurants.

i think the best part was how much we made each other laugh as we drove.

(there was lots of driving.) he's getting funnier and funnier.

have you guys been to the tillamook cheese factory?

gid asked me to go through the cheese tasting line twice.

he really wanted to go three times but got a little shy.

didn't want to get kicked out of a place he respected so much, i guess.

we ordered a huge amount of ice cream and the baby was kicking the whole time really hard ("whatever this stuff is mamma, keep it coming!!")

we walked along the beach and watched kids fly kites.

so fun to touch the ocean- even if i wasn't wearing a swimsuit.

 it was a pretty quick weekend, but it was the most fun we've had in a long time. 

see the bump? it's getting bigger every day!

that's all.

on curtains being closed.

I stared at my ceiling with tired eyes and resolved to commit five solid minutes to hashing out this problem in my brain. "Problem" seems to severe of a word. Issue? Question? Problem?

Problem seems to be the most appropriate word to me.

I've been feeling a little down lately. I'd love to blame it on pregnancy blues, but it'd be a lie. I've been feeling this way on and off for over a year.

Sometimes I find myself getting sucked into this weird hole of anti-social introversion. I first noticed it when I was working on my thesis. I stayed inside all day with the curtains drawn, writing and rewriting my paper draft after draft after draft. I avoided socializing, because the thought of having fun or going out when I still had another draft due was too much to handle. The only person I wanted to talk to was gid. And maybe the take-out food guy on the phone.

My thesis is done. I've defended. I've published. But I still kind of avoid people.

This is going to sound silly (because it is) but it's like my belly button. I was born with a suupper outie belly button. When I was a kid my family would joke when I'd wear swimsuits or leotards; it would stick out stubbornly, even with the spandex trying to flatten it. Around the time I got into middle school it started making it's way in, and by the time I was in college it was as much of an innie as it used to be an outie. Sorry I talked so much about my belly button- that was a weird comparison.

I don't want to go outside if I see people I know hanging out in the courtyard. I keep my curtains drawn, even when the weather is nice. I dread things that used to be super fun like lunch dates with a friend (even if the person really really is a friend). When I go on campus to visit gid for lunch, I strategically avoid the building I took classes in. I've gotten pretty bad at answering text messages. I've started exchanging small talk for silence. Silence used to make me a little uncomfortable.

I'm worried that  I'm starting to not like people very much. Not all people!! I probably like you, whoever is reading. (No guarantees, of course.)

It's a bad sign if I'm starting to feel closer to people over a digital platform than I do in real life, right? That's something I've always thought other people would have a hard time with. Not me.

Last night a girl from church texted me, asking if I could cover her shift in nursery. I responded yes, and then, realizing it was friday, and sunday was only two days away, started feeling really uncomfortable. Church gives me major anxiety lately. I have to pump myself up before and sleep afterward. I don't look forward to it. Once I stepped out of class because I started having a hard time breathing. That could've been because the baby was in my lung space, to be honest...

Has this ever happened to any of you? I've never felt like I don't belong so much, particularly in a place that insists that everyone belongs.

I used to really love sundays. Sunday was the day to recuperate, the day to invite friends over for a nice relaxing dinner. Maybe even play games. I used to love church.

And as I type, I'm cringing with closed eyes, because I know this is probably too much honesty. (Who do I think you are, my therapist?) I was reading an article the other day about being aware of the image you create for yourself on the web and one of the top warnings was to be cautious of how honest/frank you are in your writing. "It has the potential to turn readers off or offend," the article said. (My baby just started kicking really hard-- I wonder if he's trying to send me a warning to not publish this post on pain of losing readers.)

I don't care about readers nearly as much as I care about being authentic. Sorry little baby...

To be fair, I do better in small groups, and especially well with long time friends. I even talked with a girl who I've never had conversation with for over 15 minutes today. She said I was "funny" and "outgoing". I paused, smiling at her and actually took a second to check if she was being sarcastic. She wasn't; I don't think. I think I come across a lot more comfortable in social situations than I really feel.

I don't have a problem with introverts. Most of my closest friends hate social situations. The thing is, I want to be more social, so I should just keep trying, right? Fake it till you make it, right?! The only problem is I'm not sure how much longer I can keep that up. It's exhausting. I'd rather just not.

So I stare at the ceiling. It's a creamy, almost buttery color and right now all I want to do is to paint it a muted gray. 

I think my five minutes of hashing is up.

ps- my belly button is starting to become an outie again because of my growing belly. maybe the belly button example is an appropriate comparison after all. maybe pregnancy/having a baby will force me to be social again.