A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Happy Father's Day Dad!

I wanted to wish my dad a Happy Father's Day and thank him for all that he has done for me. He has always been there for me, even through REALLY REALLY bad perms. Also, thanks for being such a great papa! I am so glad that Allison has you in her life.

Happy Father's Day

To any of my readers who happen to be a dad - Happy Father's Day to you. To my fellow moms, hope you enjoy the weekend with your husbands. To my Dad and Allison's Papa. Happy Father's Day to you too!

"This blog entry is dedicated to the one we love" - Brian (aka Dad)

It has been so amazing these past 10 months watching Allison with her dad. I love watching the two of them, especially now that Allison is old enough to play. I always get a kick when I am in the basement working on the computer and I can hear them play "ball"; I can hear the ball roll back and forth and Allison giggling. She really loves it when he pretends to chase her when I am holding her, or he chases me when he is holding her. That really makes her laugh.

Walks in the Baby Bjorn are the best, especially when they end up at the ice cream shop, where dad always shares his ice cream cone with her. "Date night" with dad is pretty cool too. When I volunteer or have to work, he usually takes her to the mall where they walk around or on nice nights, they will take a long walk around the neighborhood.

Because we didn't share our news about our pregnancy until I was around 13 weeks, I was never able to brag about what a wonderful help he was during the first trimester. He really picked up the slack by doing the laundry, cleaning, and doing extra stuff with Allison. I can't thank him enough for being so supportive those first few months when all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch and sleep.

So on this Father's Day, Allison and I would like to say Thank you for all that you do. And as a special treat, we hope you enjoying golfing with your friend Jaisen on Saturday morning. We thought you deserve a special weekend that starts with a round of golf.

Love,

Maribeth and Allison (and our little banana)

P.S. Jai won't know until Friday night, so don't email him yet to set up plans

A Fan of A Big Breakfast

I guess you could say that Allison is a fan of a big breakfast. We brought her over to Woodlawn Mall yesterday for some playtime. She had fun watching the kids play.

It's A......

It's a happy and healthy baby! Well, at least the baby looked happy. And no, we didn't find out the gender of the baby. Up until last night, my interest of finding out on a scale of 1-10 was at about a 1. On the way to the ultrasound it raised up to about a 3, but that was about it.

Maybe if the ultrasound was in a few weeks, I would have wanted to find out. But at this point, I just wasn't ready to give up the "unknown" yet and the wondering - is it a boy or is it a girl. With Allison, I KNEW it was a girl. The thought never entered my mind that it was a boy. With this pregnancy, I go back and forth. I think it will be fun to speculate.

The ultrasound went well. My doctor hasn't reviewed it yet, but I figured the ultrasound tech didn't go running out of the room or looked concerned. In fact, she was having so much fun with our ultrasound that she wanted to keep scanning. Evidently our tomato was cooperating and being very photogenic. There is a heart with four chambers, two kidneys, a brain, a spine and all that other important stuff. We even counted 10 toes.

Towards the end of the ultrasound, the tomato must have had enough of the poking around, so he/she started kicking and punching me. It was so cool to watch on the screen. At my 20 week ultrasound with Allison, the tech was young and new to the job, so all she focused on was taking all the necessary pictures they are required to take, I never really got to see a profile of the baby or had any other fun shots.

Another thing that we found out is that the baby is measuring a week ahead, so no one can give me crap about being so small and that I am going to deliver a tiny baby.

We celebrated by going to dinner with Brian's cousin, Amy, who treated us to dinner. Thanks Amy! It was great seeing you.

Tomatoes and wings give me heartburn

The baby is 19 weeks along and is the size of an heirloom tomato. Evidently tomatoes must give me heartburn because it has started again. It was real bad last night, but the stress of the Detroit Red Wings game could have contributed to the problem also. Darn Wings!

Our Sweet Bell Pepper

I'm am 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Our baby is the size of a bell pepper. Each week I get an email update from http://www.babycenter.com/ and they give a comparison to the size of the baby to a fruit or vegetable. So far our baby has been a fig, avacado, apple, turnip, and now a bell pepper.

I am feeling more movement which is very cool. I started feeling light flutters a few weeks ago but didn't notice much since then. The past few days he/she has started moving more. I can't wait until when I can feel it from the outside so Brian can enjoy this experience.

I have an appointment next week and also an ultrasound. As of now we (i.e. I) still don't plan on finding out the sex of the baby, which means I need to come up with a nickname for the baby so I don't have to say he/she all the time. I guess I can use the vegetable or fruit name.

And...yes, that is my belly button sticking out. Pretty bad huh? I was tempted not to post the picture, but I figured since the blog is meant as a journal for the kids as much as for my readers, you will just have to share in the horror of the belly button photos.