24 Weeks

Today, I am 24 weeks along! In (about) 16 weeks, Caius will BE HERE!

My uterus is the size of a soccer ball, as is evident:

I'm feeling him kick quite a lot. In the past week, I've been feeling him move a lot more. I'm sure he's moving the same amount he always was, but now that he's bigger and heavier, I can feel more of the movements. I'm pretty much hungry all the time. I can eat a meal and want a snack an hour later. I've found, though, that I need to eat slightly smaller meals than I'm used to because my stomach is running out of room to keep it! If I eat too much I feel reeeeeeally full and uncomfortable. It's also getting more uncomfortable to sleep, and if I'm in bed much longer than 8 hours, I wake up sorrrrrre! My hips hurt and my back hurts. Maybe I just haven't found the right combination of pillows and how to lay and stuff. I don't do that too often, though.

New red hair! The lighting's pretty bad, sorry. I'll have it like this until school starts, though, so there will be more and better pictures of it, I'm sure.

Caius is approaching a pound and half now, and is around 9 inches crown to rump. He's still awfully skinny, but starting to plump up, and beginning to breathe in amniotic fluid as his lungs are preparing to breathe air eventually. He's a very busy little guy! On Saturday I had two juice glasses of orange juice, and he was going crazy! All kinds of kicks and punches and rolls! A friend told me that for liquids and stuff that goes right into my bloodstream, he gets it within about 20-30 minutes (whereas something that takes a while to digest, like a steak, might not be for an hour or more). That explains why he's really active after my occasional cup of coffee or syrup-drenched waffles.

We (and by we, I mean Matt and a friend) got the futon moved into my office downstairs, the sewing table and bookcase moved to different places to make room, and my vanity and extra desk chair off to Goodwill. In the small amount of cleaning and organizing it took to make room for that change, we've started yet another little pile of things to get rid of. It feels good to clean out things we don't use or need anymore, and it's a little addictive! I find myself looking in the cupboard at all the coffee cups and wondering if we really NEED all of them, and even (gasp) considering some of my shoes! Matt cleared out a LOT of his stuff, from his mead-making gear (an interesting and fun hobby for a while, but not something he's that into anymore) to some of his "craft" things (miniatures for geeky games and the like). I'm proud of him and glad for it, and I'm glad that he's helping to motivate me to do the same. (I'm still not sure I can bear to think about going through all my fabric just yet. I'll get there. I did do quite a number on my yarn stash, though!)

Caius' room is fairly cleared out except for the dresser that's staying in there anyway and the shelving unit that is cleaned off but will probably move to the downstairs closet for storage. I'd show you progress pictures, but right now both the guest room/office and the nursery just look like empty-ish rooms with half-filled shelves, disassembled furniture, and piles of stuff in various places. We did, however, pick out a nice light blue paint color for Caius' room, a little tiny bit on the grey side. We're hoping to paint within the next week or two. Once his room is painted and the furniture is put together and where it belongs, the fun part--actual decorating--can begin! I can't wait to show you the baby Star Wars pictures a friend got us! (Google "Wookiee the Chew" for an idea.)

Matt's sister sent us home with a bunch of baby stuff AGAIN, huzzah! Some of the stuff from her girls could also be worn by a boy, and things like burp cloths and insulated breast milk bottle cases don't matter. I believe a friend of hers left some baby boy clothes with her, and we took all of those. Matt's aunt had also been saving a grandkid's car seat for us, so we have one of those now! And Matt's sister will give us her stroller once she's done using it with her littlest one. I'm also super excited about two kinds of baby carriers she gave us. One is a loop of fabric that folds in half and goes across the body like a sash would. Not sure how that works yet. The other is a Moby wrap, which is totally what I wanted! And it's plain black, so Matt won't be embarrassed to wear it. (It will shortly be accessorized with dog and cat hair, I'm sure.) I don't think we'll have to buy anything for this kid until he's at least six months old!