Random things

- Matt got to feel Caius kick for the first time on Thursday night! We were on our Lake Powell trip with Matt's dad and step-mom and his older sister with her husband and three kids. (It was very fun and relaxing.) Matt and I were sitting alone on the top deck of the houseboat for a few minutes before dinner, and Caius was kicking up a storm! I put Matt's hand on my belly right where he was kicking and we were quiet for a minute. waiting for him to go again. Just as I asked, "Did you feel that?" he said, "I think I felt him, right under my knuckle." And I said, "Yep, that was him!" Matt was kind of quiet for a second, and I smiled, and he smiled, and it was really cool. I may have gotten a little teary for a moment. Matt's felt him a few more times since then.

- My tummy has been baaaaaaad since yesterday afternoon. I haven't really been eating well (a balance of things) for the last few days, and apparently it's taking a toll. Ugh. Preggo hormones are of course only compounding the problem. I've eaten better since I started feeling bad, and that's helping some, at least. I need to stay on track better.

- I haven't used the Doppler for about a week. Since I can feel Caius moving around multiple times a day now, I don't feel the need to check on him every night. I do still like having it, though, in case (God forbid) I don't feel him for a while and need some reassurance. It's also still nice to hear his little heartbeat when I want to.

- He seems to be pretty active in the mid-morning and between about 10 and midnight. He also goes to town whenever I lay down for a nap (which happened at least once a day on the houseboat). Then when I'm up and moving around and doing things, he's sort of rocked to sleep and is still. Loud noises also set him off kicking. We saw the new Star Trek movie in the theater last week, and he was going crazy the whole time what with all the yelling and shooting and explosions!

- The kicking/punching is a cool little feeling, but it's super weird when he rolls over! Such a strange feeling. He somehow tucked himself into a place in the left front of my uterus on the drive home from the lake, and there was this pressure there. It didn't exactly hurt, but it was sort of uncomfortable. I prodded at my belly (with my whole palm, not just a finger) to try and get him to move. That had no effect, of course, but eventually he did shift over. Whew!

- I don't think I mentioned this before, but we literally just got the name Caius from a list of names. We were sitting at dinner one night scrolling through baby boy name lists on Matt's phone. (This was just a few days before we found out the sex at the ultrasound; we were set on our girl's name, but weren't totally sold on the boy's name we'd sort of settled on.) I wish there was a more interesting story there, but... there's not. Just Matt and I at a table in Dos Hombres, eating chips and salsa and Googling various things like "German boy names" (too weird-sounding), "myth boy names" (either too common or too weird) and "Latin boy names" (which finally got us Caius).

- I've been thinking about baby shower stuff a little bit lately. I've had in mind for years that I wanted an Alice in Wonderland tea party shower if we were having a girl, but that didn't seem to fit for a baby boy. Ultimately, it's not up to me, but it's fun to look on Pinterest and think about games to play and such. I know I'll have some input, but whoever hosts the shower will really be in charge. It's not my wedding where I get to pick out everything and boss everyone around! And honestly, it will be nice to just show up to a party I didn't have a large part in planning and organizing! Usually I'm the one in charge, or at least partly in charge, of parties.

- Related: I will likely end up having two baby showers. One in my hometown with family and people I grew up with and people from my old church, and one in my town with nearby friends and co-workers. I hope this doesn't seem greedy or anything, just logistically, this makes sense. Otherwise, I will have, like, seventy people, literally, at one shower, and I don't think that's doable.

- I sort of see the family shower being generically baby-boy-shower-themed with the usual party games (guess the belly circumference with ribbon; clothespins or similar whenever you say a word like "cute" or "baby"; etc.), and the one with friends being a little more laid back and having a specific theme. (I'm kind of thinking Avengers right now! Heehee.) Maybe fewer or no games, more just milling around and eating and talking. Eh, I have until at least August or September to talk to host-type-people about these things.