The Nursery - Part 1 & 2

Here's what's been happening with the nursery since June:

20 June 2012
Today we officially started preparing the nursery. :D  We're actually a room short - our third bedroom is used as a home office / study, so that has to move out to *somewhere* 'cause it has to become the nursery!  So today we were clearing out the cupboard in the study and moving the stuff over to my craft room-slash-guest bedroom cupboards (before which I had to make some space for the office stuff first!).  What a JOB, and needless to say I had to throw some stuff away to make some space, but luckily nothing that'll be missed really.

So here's the nursery BEFORE photo:

 

And this is where everything in the study has to move to . . . somehow . . .

I was thinking that I want this colour scheme for the nursery, except I'm going to add some yellow too, so pastel green, yellow and white - I think the colours are nice and cheery!  And neutral.  :D

We're just not gonna paint the walls green, I'm going to leave them the almond-white they are now - that makes it easy to change the colour scheme later, especially if future-baby wants it's own colour scheme.  So always leave the walls neutral I say.

And I think I'm gonna have green curtains made for the room too.  Here comes more work for you mum-in-law, hehe!

Here's the cupboard that we cleared out (mostly!) in the so-far-still-a-study, so I finally had place for some of baby's stuff that I'd bought already (on the right):

5 August 2012
And the nursery's been set up! :D

Everything's (well almost everything) been moved out the office and Aidan's furniture is in. :D

We still need to get rid of that broken office chair, get some green curtains and get the fabric for the bedding.

And we need to get rid of that office stuff on the wall too - I'm gonna make some cute wall decor for the walls!  Oh, and that table in the back corner there has to be painted white too.

And we had some fun buying some clothes already. :D

Noob Dad decided he rather wanted to move his office to the TV room and not my craft room, so instead we had to move our exercise equipment out of the TV room to make space for the office - my eliptical bike thingy went to the other TV room and his gym stuff moved to my craft room . . . which meant we had to get rid of one of the spare beds in my craft-slash-guest-bedroom.  And the office bookshelf was put in my craft room too:

My craft section of the room is out of sight on the left behind the door, but nothing changed there.
And here's his office now!

There in the back, see?

In fact, now he's got a better view - he can look out onto the garden and pool and he still gets all the warm winter sun too, so, considering the space constraints, all in all I think it worked out well enough! :)

Random Pregnancy News

Aidan's 19 weeks today!  (according to my calculations anyway - the doctors always put him a few days to a week older, hmph - probably because they all use those little pregnancy charts of theirs that most likely state that baby's age is determined by the fact that you ovulate 2 weeks after your last period, but I always tell them I ovulated a week later because I have longer cycle . . . by ANYWAY).

Last night he was being really active for a while there just after we got into bed, the most active that I've noticed so far. :D Even Noob Dad had a chance to feel it this time, 'cause usually he'd only kick (or punch?!) once and then you'd wait AGES for another one, so Noob Dad would always miss them, but not this time!

According to this size chart, he's more or less 15.3cm big now, and I can definitely see that I'm now pregnant.  And I'm finding it hard to find some nice loose-fitting tops!  It looks like I MAY have to visit a maternity store now . . .

And on a sadder note, I've gone and picked me up some stretchmarks on my boobs. :(  And it's itchy!!!  And you're not allowed to scratch because it aggravates the stretchmarks more and could make them worse.  But luckily the worst seems to be over now . . . I started using this cream about a week ago, twice a day - hopefully it helps with the marks! :

But it's a hard butter and so it's a schlepp to apply.
And I'm gonna get me some bio-oil this week too, it sounds to be pretty good:

Now onto some more "fun" pregnancy things.  From about the 14th week I started noticing that I was getting heart palpitations - it feels like a skipped heart beat and heavy pounding heart beats - it's REALLY annoying especially since it tends to become worse (ie more noticeable) when you lie down and are trying to take a nap or snooze (or at least that's when you notice it more because you're being peaceful and still)  - it's distracting and difficult to doze off while this is going on.  This last week or so it seems to have eased up a bit, thank goodness, and I don't notice it that much anymore.

It seems to be quite a normal thing during pregnancy - they say it's caused by your crazy hormones and the extra blood flowing around in your body now.

And I've been getting something like heart burn a little more regularly at times these days too - they say this is caused by the diaphragm that's a bit more relaxed during pregnancy and so acids move on up your digestive tract more freely - I'm not sure if it's real heartburn because I've heard it's quite uncomfy or painful?  I dunno, but mine is more sort of ticklish as it moves up the pipe and that makes me need to cough and that in turn sometimes gives me a stomach muscle cramp (also another common thing during pregnancy because of your muscles stretching and adjusting etc to accommodate the pregnancy) . . . aaahhh . . .  fun times.

And now onto the fun stuff.  :D  Mostly to do with baby-stuff shopping.  :D  We've collected a few items of clothes and socks and his first pair of teeny shoes, and later this week we're going to get his cot and a chest of drawers / compactum for his room. :D  I've also knitted him 2 blankies, and I got a cute baby food preparation thingy last week - so far I've tested out the steamer and it works good, and the milk bottle warmer function and that works well too!  Cooool.

I've also been googling and inquiring about milk pumps and Medela seems to be the best - the Medela Pump in Style Advanced being the best (but it goes for R5000) and the Medela Swing Pump which costs half that but it only pumps one boob at a time where the expensive one pumps both.  So since I haven't won the lottery yet, I'm looking into the Swing pump.

Let's see . . . what else was there . . . Oh yes, we still haven't quite figured out where Noob Dad's office is moving to (so that we can use the office as the nursery) - what a schlepp, I really wish we had another bedroom - but we shall make a plan!  He's reluctant to move and I don't blame him, 'cause it's the coziest and warmest room in winter. :)  All I can say is that hopefully we get to set up the nursery soon after we get the furniture. :D 

And oh! I still haven't gained any weight, in fact I'm still about 1-2kg less than what I was before I got pregnant - weird.  It must be because of my decreased appetite and often my meal portions (especially dinner) are smaller than what they used to be since I can't always eat so much anymore.  Oh well, hopefully I'm losing some much needed "extras" around the belly region, hehehe.

And finally, some general stuff - I actually can't wait for summer to come back!  And this isn't something I say all the time since I tend to not like the warmer months because they can get TOO hot at times and then I'm in heat hell.  But winters are brutal in this house and I think I've just had enough winter this year.  I think winter started early this year, so hopefully that means it'll end early too.  :)

Babymoov Bebedelice Food Processor

I think I've found a food steamer / blender and bottle and food warmer-in-one!

This will replace THIS (going for R1 700) and something like THIS (going for about R200), but the Babymoov one only costs R900! 
This goodie heats milk bottles and small jars of baby food, it cooks and blends fresh food, it defrosts food and it says it sterilizes bottles too (and electric sterilizers themselves are usually priced from about R600 upwards)!  Wow - for this price I have to wonder though whether it's good quality . . . hmmm . . . but I've found some good reviews online and so far everyone seems really happy with it.

I think I'm gonna get one!  Before they run out of stock or something . . . ya never know!

Update - 5 minutes later . . . ok, it's ordered! Hehe.

18 Weeks - Aidan Moves

I think (I THINK) I felt him move today :D  I was laying in bed with my hand resting on my belly and felt something.  It definitely wasn't gas (lol) and I doubt it was a muscle twitch either, so it must have been Aidan! :D

Today he's 18 weeks old and is 46% complete, with 154 days to go!

It's Gonna be an Aidan!

2 days ago we found out it's gonna be a baby Aidan. :)  First we thought we weren't going to see anything because he wasn't in the right position, and the doc said it sort of looked like it could be a baby Danielle, but then he squiggled around and gave us a good view, hehehe . . .

At 17 weeks & 3 days and baby's 12.8cm big with a heart beat of 153 bpm.  And apparently he weighs about 237 grams - I dunno how the machine can tell that, but anyway!  He did some measurements of the head, the midsection and the femur and everything is perfect he says. :D

So now that we know the gender, we could finally start buying some clothes! :D  We found some cute stuff but some of them's going to have to lay around for a while because they're suitable for 3-6 months old and some from 6-12 months :O.  Hehe.  It's going to be a summer baby, and it's winter at the moment, so it's not easy finding summer clothes - we managed to find a few, but the rest will have to be bought later.

And in about 2 weeks' time we're going to get the cot and compactum / chest of drawers for his bedroom, yippeeee!

And on another good note, the nauseousness has mostly disappeared, but there are still some foods that I don't even wanna get a faint whiff of.  :S