Thankful

I am so grateful that the government shutdown is over, at least for now. Things have been tense at work. We were very concerned we would get furloughed because of the shutdown, but luckily that crisis was averted and now we are on to face other challenges. But even though things are still somewhat up in the air, I wanted to pause very purposefully and give thanks to God for taking care of this obstacle. I am so appreciative, and I don't want to always be thinking of the next thing to ask for.

Speaking of thankfulness, I am so grateful that Reed Baby is healthy and is growing and developing so well. Things started out difficult-- I am not a great mom intuitively, and I was pretty overwhelmed. Now that Reed is getting a little more mature and I am getting better at anticipating his needs, things are improving. The ladies at his daycare really dote on him, and Charles has been doing a fantastic job of getting him up and ready in the mornings. I am just so grateful for our handsome and healthy little boy. :)

Return to Work

Yesterday was my first day back at work after my 6 weeks of maternity leave. I was really looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time. I had pretty high anxiety about coming back but everyone has been awesome and I am easing into things. I am so tired! Luckily Reed had a good first day of daycare, and I think he was so worn out that he slept a little better last night, too!
I am looking forward to getting back into a routine. :)
I'll have to update more later, because duty calls!

Ninja Time

So much has gone on in the past few weeks as we prepare for the arrival of our baby. I can't even begin to blog about it all. I will just hit the highlights. I can't remember if I've already posted that we know we are having a boy, and that his name is going to be Reed Edward. My apologies if I am repeating myself, but I think I have a good excuse. ;) So, Reed is my maiden name, and we are going with Reed to honor that side of my family-- my Dad's only son is a priest so there aren't gonna be any more Reeds unless we provide one! Since my Dad is into genealogy, we wanted to keep the name going. Well one of the all-time coolest gifts we have received was a quilt, handmade by my oldest sister, Sarah. The quilt is awesome first off because she is an excellent quilter, but secondly because she combined some elements that are important to us: the name Reed (which she took from one of my Dad's sets of army khakis), and my love for martial arts (Charles and I first met and bonded over martial arts, and have trained off and on for several years). So, without further ado, here are a couple of pictures of the quilt that Sarah made for us, which is called "Ninja Time."

In the top right corner is the badge that says "Reed." The fabrics include baby ninjas, foxes, Japanese style temples, yin/yang symbols, and pac man ghosts. :)

The other side has a pretty throwing star pattern, that I think was originally called something like "ballerina" or some such nonsense. It is obviously more throwing star than ballerina. ;)

Sarah did a fantastic job. We love the quilt and can't wait to take pictures of Reed enjoying it. So many people have been incredibly generous to us during this very special time. We've gotten many, many wonderful things but this ranks up there as one of the most amazing and thoughtful. Thanks very much, Sarah!

I can't believe we are 38 weeks today. I was kind of uncomfortable and overly-emotional today, but Charles has been very nice and supportive, and helped organize the nursery. Soon we will have a baby. I can't believe it!!

Control

Some things are out of our control, and other things we think are in our control, but really aren't. Sorry for the vagueness of this post, but the 'problem' at hand, though it affects me, is really not 'my problem' to share. There is just something going on and I feel there is nothing I can do about it except pray and trust that it works out. When there is something that you really feel you need or want to happen, are you supposed to just pray about it once and assume it is taken care of? Or do you pray and pray and pray about it, thinking that more prayer is better? God only needs to hear it once, I guess, but maybe for ourselves we need to keep praying to get peace of mind. I hate to be a nag. :/
I do believe that God has a plan for us, and that he has certain things happen for reasons. I also believe there is a lot that God is indifferent about, and that there are things that could go a variety of ways. If those small things don't factor into a master plan, then isn't it OK for us to pray for them to work out the way we want them? I would never pray for something to work out against God's will, but if there is a way for things to be the way I feel I want or need them to be, it's not wrong to ask, right?
Ugh, I feel very conflicted and slightly overwhelmed.

Unrelated side note: last night I slept horribly because of some very vivid nightmares. I often have vivid dreams and nightmares, but it was a little worse than usual. I blame the combination of pregnancy, Chinese food, and cake.  I was quite glad to wake up and find that my house was NOT a home to large black widow spiders and ticks, and that I had NOT strangled a penguin to death. :/ Oy.

8 Years of Wedded Bliss

Yesterday Charles and I celebrated our anniversary. We had a wonderful time. We wanted to eat somewhere a little different, so we went to Altruda's, a local Italian restaurant that we haven't been to for years. I had forgotten how good their garlic rolls were. We had great meals and have leftovers that we can eat tonight. I got the lasagna and Charles got the ziti.
Once we got home I saw that he had fulfilled the promise of cake! He went to Magpies and got the same kind of cake that we had at our wedding. It was slightly different than I remembered, but the flavor was just exactly like I recalled. You could taste the strawberry juice in the cake, and the buttercream icing was super good and rich! Here is a picture of the cake.

I look forward to eating more of the amazing cake and to spending many more years with my super great husband. I am so thankful to have him in my life. :) I also think he's going to be such a great dad! I am excited about that. :) ♥

Fitbit One

I recently had a birthday, and my dear hubby got me a Fitbit One. I've had my mind set on getting a fitness tracker for awhile, but I couldn't bring myself to spend the money, and I thought I'd wait until after the baby was born to try to really watch my weight. But we have been talking about fitness and lifestyle a lot, so he took the opportunity to get me a tracker and I think it's going to be fun. :)
The fitbit one counts steps taken, flights of stairs climbed, estimates calories burned, and monitors sleep. I haven't gotten to look into the sleep monitoring function too much yet, but it's one of the things I'm looking forward to. Last night was my first night using it, and I slept TERRIBLY. So I haven't reviewed the data yet, but I expect that last night was an outlier anyhow. The default goal for steps taken is 10,000 a day, which I think is a decent challenge. Yesterday I got about 8,000 steps, so I'm hoping for 10K today. It is neat to be able to push myself like that, and it gives me a whole new respect for my sister, who aims for 14K a day and often succeeds!
I don't think the calorie estimates are correct, either for what it says I burned, or for what it sets as a goal. One thing that was neat though was that in the setup of the device, I was able to tell it that I'm in my third trimester. So maybe it adjusted the calories automatically as a result of that? I will look into that further after the baby arrives and I am settled into a good nursing routine. For now I don't want to overwhelm myself. The fitbit also syncs with MyFitnessPal, and also has a mobile app. I have looked at the app a little, but haven't linked it to MFP yet. Again, I want to keep it simple for now. At this point I am just striving to take 10K steps a day, and I want to see how much I'm sleeping. Everything else can wait. :)

Update to my last post...

Charles got a super generous offer from a colleague for her crib, changing table, and dresser, so my storage woes are likely resolved!! Thank goodness. I don't know when we might arrange to pick up the furniture, but it means I will have a place to store all the adorable little baby outfits and blankets. It's funny how something so small can take such a load off my mind. I keep waiting to see if a nesting instinct is going to kick in; maybe this will set it off! :)