Monthly Archives: December 2011

on names

It’s interesting how adults in TV shows always have baby names. If TV was realistic, the characters in their 20s and 30s would all be named Jennifer and Stephanie and Jessica and Amanda. Instead, they’re named Emma and Isabella and Ava and so on. There is not a lot of love for Jennifer in current TV, movies and books, despite the fact the name was ridiculously popular in the 70s – more popular than any name today, including the all-too-prevalent variants of “Bella.” (It’s worth noting that Isabella was already rapidly rising in popularity before the vampire books were written, meaning the vampire author chose a popular name, not that she made the name popular.)

Anyway. I wish I could name my child . . .

Quinn. It’s my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. I love that it starts with Q. I just like the sound. However, B’s nephew is named Quinn, and he thinks of it as a boy’s name as a result.

Aoife. Is that not the coolest spelling for a name ever? I first came upon this name after reading The Children of Lir as a child, and it’s kind of been growing on me ever since. However, it’s obviously not popular in this country, and I couldn’t subject my child to a name that difficult to pronounce.

Sinead. I just like the sound of this name. I like the “sh” and the long A. It’s just a great name in my opinion. However, B has totally vetoed it as the name makes him – and he says most people – think of the pope-hating singer.

We are really struggling to pick a name. It’s a problem. There is no name that B is even remotely on board with that I really love (or vice versa).

buy, buy, buy

I couldn’t sleep last night. So far, I’ve been very lucky in that pregnancy has only cost me a few nights of sleep. I know a lot of women have a lot of trouble sleeping throughout. I expect after a zombie-like day today I’ll be able to sleep tonight. It’s going to be a long day, though.

This year, I’ve been much more conscious of the consumption side of Christmas and the holidays. The first reason is that we were in town for Thanksgiving. It’s the first year we haven’t gone away for Christmas, so we were around to chill out on the couch and watch TV. In addition, I’ve been watching a lot more TV lately, since moving is kind of uncomfortable, given a no-moving restriction, the choice of activities decreases significantly. Anyway, I find the whole emphasis on spend, spend, spend a bit sickening. I love getting Christmas presents for family, but the images of people stuffing giant TVs and such into shopping carts just seems wrong for some reason.

I think the other reason it bothers me is that I’ve been doing a lot of shopping and buying lately in stocking up for the baby. Even if you stick to the basics, there are still so many things to buy. I feel like I’m spending money like water. Our house feels like a shipping and receiving center.

I’m a natural consumer / shopper. I like to shop. However, all the baby shopping combined with the media crush of buy, buy, buy is leaving me a bit shopped out. It’s one thing to agonize over reviews on a single item – a lens, for example. It’s another to do this on 10 items – crib, stroller, mattress, etc. You can really drive yourself stark raving mad.

In my family, we’re doing a round robin Christmas gift exchange for the second year in a row. Basically, everyone buys a gift for one other person. I actually really like doing this as you can spend a little more and instead of having to figure out what to get for lots of people you can just think really hard about one.

gift ideas?

It’s B’s birthday in a few days, and I’m trying to figure out what to get him. My current thought is either a GPS data logger or a GPS watch. He really enjoys hiking, and he enjoys checking out his hiking routes on Google Earth after he’s finished, so with a GPS logger, he’d be able to easily see where he went and how long it took and so on. It also might be useful for the trail running he does occasionally.

On the other hand, he takes a GPS with him when he hikes – one that’s at least 10 years old, is fairly big and clunky, and has very limited functionality. Basically, he will take a GPS reference periodically, mostly so that if he gets lost, the GPS reference might be helpful in finding his way back. I think he’d enjoy having a newer, very light device he could just look at for his position and easily take a reference point on.

I guess the third option would be a spiffy new lightweight GPS.

Any thoughts or recommendations? I found this data logger – it seems to be the best rated pure logger and comments indicate it should do what I think he’d want fairly easily.

The GPS watches I looked at seemed giant and clunky; I’m not sure he’d be happy with a giant watch.

young(ish) love

My brother has been dating his girlfriend for somewhere between six months and a year – not that long, I know. Still, they are so happy it is very cute. One thing that really amuses me is that they are both active Facebook users (as many people of their generation, 5 years younger than me, are) and they both like and/or comment on every single thing the other posts! It amuses me.

29 weeks

Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for her developing brain.

I have to say this week’s description of what’s going on with the baby is a bit disappointing! The rest of the description was basically lecturing me to consume enough calcium – a totally unnecessary directive as I’ve been consuming dairy products like nobody’s business since I’ve been pregnant. I practically live on dairy. Thank God I’m not lactose intolerant.

Right now, I’d say I’m feeling pretty good. Last week (28 weeks), I said “just OK” but Thanksgiving really recharged me and made me feel much better. I did get a little alarmed last night when I found out I was the only woman in my prenatal water aerobics class experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions. I’ve been getting them since the first trimester, and they’ve been increasing in frequency as time goes on. These days I get them several times a day every day. However, my OB (and the internet) has said not to worry unless I get them 4 times in an hour, which I don’t think has been happening, except on one occasion. However, the internets also said people don’t usually get them until 20 weeks, which was definitely not the case for me, though they’re a lot more frequent and obvious now than they were before 20 weeks.

I had an appointment with the dermatologist this morning. I go every 6 months for inspection of my multitude of moles. Anyway, for basically the first time ever, she didn’t actually remove anything, which was really nice. Yay for that.

Water aerobics was a lot of fun with my husband last night. I wish he would come every time, but he flat out refuses. 🙂 Unfortunately, he’s going out of town for a week starting Friday.

The dermatologist told me I was looking very small for how far along I am, which I think is just polite talk. (People assume any woman, even a pregnant one, likes to be told she’s small, which is not totally wrong.) However, as it happens, I’m measuring exactly on for my gestation (28 cm at 28 weeks), and my weight gain continues to be on track for me to gain 30 pounds, exactly in the middle of the recommended weight gain range given my initial weight. Despite all this, I feel large. Well, not large, but heavy. Specifically, my belly feels very heavy, and this hurts my apparently inadequate core muscles. Maybe if I’d done a million sit-ups or something before pregnancy it would hurt less?