Here is a pic of what my belly currently looks like. It’s DEFINITELY bigger than it was, but I don’t look pregnant as much as just looking like I’ve been eating too many pastries! But nonetheless, here it is. Also, the other morning, Ben finally got to feel her move for the first time! He was resting his head on my belly, and she punched him right in the face — three times! I’m so glad he finally got to feel her — makes it more real, I think.
My belly at 23 weeks!
So here I am, halfway through week 22. I have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I know they’re only once a month, but they seem like they’re every week and a half or two! I guess once I start going that often, it’s just going to see like I’m there every day! I don’t really mind, though. We get to hear her heartbeat, and that’s always a welcome sound. (I do a great impression, by the way!)
Still not much to report in regards to symptoms, size, or anything else. I still feel great, and and still not really showing. I have started to develop a little bit of a tummy, but I still don’t look like someone who’s 5 1/2 months along already!
We bought the crib and changing table this weekend…they are lighter wood than we’d wanted, but as it turns out, it matches the trim and doors in the house (and in her room) almost perfectly. So that’s one less thing we’ll have to paint. Painting should begin next week. Sage green walls. I can’t wait. After that we’ll get the furniture put together and then I’m sure more stuff will just start appearing in there!
I’ve made a conscious effort to not buy much for her yet. I bought her a sleeper with big, bright polka dots on it, and a couple pairs of pants and onsies that are all interchangeable. Anna bought her one, too…super cute. Gotta love Target and their $3 clothing items. 
Other than that and The Little Red Hen, we’ve bought nothing but the furniture. That’s quite an accomplishment! (I’ll go ahead and pat myself on the back…)
A few friends and family members have already given us some things for her. Dad and Mom brought the cutest little Ladybug outfit when they came to visit last weekend…absolutely precious. Can’t wait to see her in it.
I realized the other day that I never started the food diary that I said I was going to. I guess PLANNING on it was enough to get me headed in the right direction. I started exercising again and eating better, and it’s amazing how quickly I feel the good results of that. Awesome!
Anyway, that’s pretty much an update for now. I’ll write more when there’s more to write.
We see them all the time. A man (or woman, occasionally) standing on the corner with the scraggly cardboard sign with something like “Anything helps”, “God Bless”, or “Homeless and hungry”. You look away, reach over and subtly lock your doors, turn up the radio, roll up your windows–anything to separate yourself from that person. Have you ever stopped and given them a few dollars? “They’ll probably just use it to buy beer.” “They’re probably just scamming people, and will walk back to their SUV after they’re done” I have heard those excuses more times than I can count from almost everyone I know. I used to say the same thing.
But here’s the point I’m leading up to: IT’S NOT YOUR JOB TO DECIDE THAT! They are God’s children just like we are. God loves them exactly as much as He loves us. We are not better, we are not holier, we are no different by God’s standards. Read the following verses from Matthew 25–read them slowly and really think about what Jesus is saying:
31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
My dad is the one who brought this verse to my attention when I gave the “They’ll just buy beer” excuse several years ago. He said that my intent in giving is what mattered. By giving to those people, my heart was in the right place and giving to them was the same as giving it straight to God. If they choose to deceive people or to make bad use of it, God will deal with them…it’s not our job to judge or to try to figure out if they’re being honest or not.
So next time you roll up to a corner and you have a few extra bucks, go ahead and give it away…and don’t give it another thought after that.
“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.”
Check it out, but NOT from your computer at work!
Deuteronomy 6: 4-9:
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:5 is the verse that popped in my head this morning. It’s strongly worded. So I looked it up and discovered that the verses following it are even stronger. Not only does God want us to love Him with our hearts, souls, and strength, He also commands us to impress that upon our children. They are our future and our biggest responsibility. We’re also supposed to make sure everyone around us knows it. We should be a walking, talking reminder of our responsibility to love God with our whole being, and the best way to do that is to lead by example.
Unfortunately, we often let other things get in the way of our love for Christ. There are three ways He tells us to love Him:
1. Heart–I believe this is referring to our emotions.
2. Soul–This can also refer to our emotions or our thoughts.
3. Strength–as I take it, He is referring to our physical bodies.
God doesn’t just want us to love Him when things are going our way, on Sundays when we go to church, or when we happen to think about Him. He says “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”. In other words, nothing should ever trump our love for Christ. Nothing. It is the one thing that matters above all else…above our families, our friends, our jobs, and our hobbies.
Here’s what’s been on my mind over the past couple of days:
1. Weather–I LOVE how the weather is outside right now. When I step outside in the morning, it feels like a crisp, cool Colorado morning. There’s nothing like it and it makes me instantly happy despite anything negative that may be going on in my world (see #3). Ben just giggles at me ’cause although he does appreciate the cooler weather, I don’t think he understands why it makes me downright giddy. I don’t really understand it, either.
2. Baby’s Nursery–I don’t have to have a nursery that looks like it came out of a magazine, but I also don’t want it to look like every other baby girl’s nursery–white furniture with pastel pink everything else. I love the idea of sage green walls, dark wood furniture, and decorating with a darker shade of pink–either salmon or hot pink. Luckily, Ben agrees. We’ve found the furniture we want, now it’s down to finding things in sage green and salmon or hot pink. Not an easy task. I figure worst case is that Mom and I can make something. Anyway, keep your eye out, and let me know if you happen to see stuff that fits that description!
3. Fleas–They suck. Literally and metaphorically. Our poor cat, Molly, has been put through every imaginable flea treatment to try to get rid of them. Our new house had renters before we moved in, and they had an indoor/outdoor cat that evidently brought fleas in with her. So Molly is miserable. We gave her two flea treatments, neither of which worked. Then we gave her a flea bath and put a flea collar on her, which seemed to help at first, but soon she was scratching worse than before. So yesterday I went to the all-knowing source, the internet, to try to figure out what our next step was. We decided to get a Frontline Plus flea treatment. They claim to destroy 98-100% of fleas within 24 hours. She stopped scratching almost immediately, and slept in one spot for the next ten hours or so…must’ve been exhausted from scratching all day. During the night last night, she started scratching again intermittently, but it’s still less than before (and hasn’t been 24 hours yet), so we hope that stuff is still working through her system and doing its job. If not, I don’t know what we’ll do next. I feel awful seeing her suffer like that. I never thought I’d care about a pet that much, but I do. Guess we’ll see this afternoon what the results are and go from there. Until then, I’m just trying not to think about it.
4. Caylee Anthony–the little three-year-old girl from Florida that has been missing for months now. I figured she was dead, and now it appears that assumption was probably correct. I don’t know why this story has grasped my attention the way it has, but I just can’t read enough. I always like a good ‘whodunit’, but would prefer it to be a “Law & Order: SVU” episode, not a real-life drama. Perhaps since I am on my way to being a new mommy, I just can’t fathom why someone would kill their own child, and a toddler at that. I am just assuming, of course, that she did it, but I just don’t see how she didn’t have something to do with it. I hope they can get this one solved before it drags out too much further.
I, the self-proclaimed health enthusiast, have a confession to make. My eating and exercise habits have taken a SEVERE nosedive since I found out I was pregnant. Granted, there is no need for them to be as strict as they were before, but now they are really pathetic. I eat what I want when I want, rarely exercise, and only recently starting feeling bad about it!
I don’t believe that pregnancy is the time to be super-strict about either of those things, as one might tend to go overboard, but I do believe it is VERY important to ‘practice what you preach’. I have decided to go back to keeping a food and exercise journal (or diary, whatever you want to call it), to help hold myself accountable. So I will be posting what I eat and what I’m doing for exercise on here as often as possible (except when I am out of town or have no internet access). I think if I’m posting it for the whole world to see, I will do much better.
Having a healthy baby (and being a healthy mom) is my ultimate goal, and I think what we do with our bodies AND what we put into them plays a very large role in the health of the baby. Also, I am planning on natural childbirth, so the better shape I’m in, the more endurance I’ll have for labor and delivery.
I weighed about 148 when I found out I was pregnant, and I weighed 163 this morning (after a yummy weekend at my grandparents’ house), so I am up about fifteen pounds so far. I’m okay with that. Our baby girl is growing as she should and seems to be perfectly healthy at this point, but it’s time for her momma to step it up a notch. So here goes!
