23 Weeks

I have anticipated the publishing of this blog all day, and yet I do not know where to begin.

hmm...

I suppose I could start with today and work my way backward over my 23rd week of being a sacred vessel.

Today was a nice Sunday.   Blah. Today, Texan spent all afternoon studying for the illustrious LSAT while I cleaned, organized, put-away, and took a delightful nap. But yesterday, oh boy. Yesterday we...wait, let me preface this with the fact that yesterday we slept until noon. Glorious. When we finally woke up, Texan let me pick our daily deed. I chose to go to the Fort Worth Zoo. Only $12 admission and the temperature was not even supposed to reach 100! I donned my lightest and tiniest maternity dress and pulled my hair into a sensible up-do for optimal sweating and we hit the road. I would say we spent about 4 hours roaming the zoo. And the temperature was not an issue! Enough shade and air-conditioned venues full of gorillas and penguins to cool us off completely. Most of the animals were sleeping, which might disappoint a child, but Texan and I were glad to walk about ooo-ing and ahhh-ing at some magnificent creatures. My Texan loves facts and trivia, so he especially enjoyed the Texas Wild area of the zoo, where we had to read every poster and flip card there was. It was all very hands-on, so we got to touch a lot of cool things like an elephant skull and a GIANT tortoise shell. It made me very excited to bring SJ there with my family and her big cousins. It also made me very thankful for a husband who enjoys animals as much as I do. We don't need a giant production to tickle our fancy on a Saturday afternoon. We would rather stare at a gorilla, or marvel at a baby kangaroo. Gosh, I love that man of mine. I abstained from taking any photos at the zoo, since it's kind of one of those, "You had to be there," kind of things. But fret not. I will load up on the photos when we take SJ, believe you me. Oh! At the zoo my fingers got really swollen toward the end of the day. This worried Texan and he made me chug some water and we shared a piece of homemade fudge from the Candy Shoppe along the way. I don't know if the fudge helped. Okay, it helped my spirit. Things always taste better when they come from a Shoppe. (A shop is so mundane.) After this we had dinner out and went home and stayed up until 3 am watching movies. Great day.

Like I said in my previous post, I have been VERY crafty in the past two weeks. I did most of the big work last week, but this week I had to do some fine-tuning. Here are some photos of the fruits of my labor. (If you're on facebook and have seen the pacifier clips, just skip down to the swing re-do.)

Here are some pacifier clips I made. I attached the paci (that I got in a registry gift bag) to make sure they did their job. But I will have to throw it away before the baby comes lest an unknowing family member tries to pop it in her mouth. My sweet hound dog, Bailey has taken a liking to the taste of the binky and has given it a few good licks whenever she gets the chance. Such a weirdy.

Here is my piece de resistance. It's not finished yet. I still have to finish edging. However, I have broken FOUR, mind you, FOUR sewing needles on this bad boy. The first one I broke is the one that came on the machine when I got it for Christmas  2011. Then I bought a pack of 5 and was down to 2 within an hour of putting the first one on. It turns out the lower left-hand corner of the swing cushion has it out for shiny metal objects. So, you'll understand why I have taken a break from finishing the border and the edging.

Here is the before. I used a picture from the Fisher Price website because I didn't take a very good shot before starting the task.

The swing was a gift from Texan's grandmother. The seat turns a full 90 degrees and it has soothing ocean, rain and forest noises to go along with the movement. I really like it. But the more I looked at the cushion--and I have a lot of time to spend looking at cushions--I couldn't help but wonder what a polar bear, 2 penguins and a walrus were doing on a sing with a sea turtle and two tropical fish. Fisher price doesn't expect us to believe that all of these creatures coexist in Antarctica, do they? Then, on the mobile, there is a random whale that doesn't appear on the swing. So I decided to jazz it up a little, if not make it a little more geographically accurate. And here's what I have come up with so far.

I had to add the photo bomb by Bailey. As you can see, there is extra fabric around the pom pom border, which I intend to finish. But the hardest part may turn out to be that little triangular piece of fabric above the mobile. I did a practice piece, but it doesn't look quite perfect yet. Also, I am in the market for some replacement do-dads to hang from the mobile since the ocean friends don't match anymore. Perhaps I'll make some cute little stuffed animals from leftover fabric. (No seriously, that just came to me.)

Other than the crafting, Texan and I have had a very active week. I did my normal pregnancy workout one day, but ended up going jog/walking with friends early Friday morning. I would have jogged, but it turned out that my bladder thought otherwise. So, to maintain my dignity, I kept my feet closer to the ground. Thankfully, the two non-pregnant friends continued running, but I had my pregger friend to stay behind with me. She's only 7 weeks, so it's fun (is that evil?) to hear what she's going through. I am as encouraging as possible because I truly enjoy being pregnant now despite how yucky it was 12 weeks ago. Thursday night we played Tennis with friends, and Friday night I watched Texan play basketball with a group from church. Basketball transitioned into more tennis, and we rounded out the night pretty exhausted. That led to the zoo the next day, so you can imagine why we stayed off our feet all day today.

I had better finish this up with a belly pic and get you on out of here. But I will mention that in this picture I am wearing my favorite pair of jeans, which happen to be non-maternity jeans. You see, I had a pouty time about getting bigger recently, and I really needed some cheer. So I decided to try on my favorite pair of jeans, and I buttoned them with ease! They are low-rise, and pretty uncomfortable when I bend over, and I much prefer the freedom of maternity shorts and pants. But it made me feel better to know that my lower half is still normal. Jiggity-Jig for normal-butt!