My little baby belly

So between the bloat and my personal belly, I can definitely see and feel the baby belly! It just looks like a little curve above my pelvic bone and bellow my belly-button. Feels to be about the size of a grapefruit (though some days more like a watermelon). Hard to believe the little one in there is still only about the length of a dollar bill. Husband is quite fascinated with the protruding belly and loves to pat it with a silly grin on his face... which just makes me go "awwww." I'll post a pic soon of the traditional profile shot :-)

Science Mommies

Whew...what a weekend! I had the opportunity to attend a conference about undergraduate research in North Carolina. A fellow faculty member and I flew down at the butt-crack of dawn on Friday (4:00am) and didn't get home again until 2:30 Monday morning. Great conference! It was specifically geared to junior faculty at small schools who want to establish undergraduate research programs. We got lots of great ideas and suggestions to try to make this happen at our little school. As a tangent from this main goal of the weekend, I got to meet and talk to other mommies in academia. It was great to hear how they are/did juggle baby, feedings, teaching, and research. Quite a few of them just slung the baby on and went to lecture. One had a special sign for her office door stating P.I.P with a cow (pumping in progress). Another kept two sets of office hours...some when she had the baby and some without so that students could choose when to visit. A couple pieces of advice that I definitely wanted to remember as I headed home was:
1) Since this hasn't been done before in the recent past, I am setting a precedent and should feel that I can push boundaries. Remember to just ask for it!
2) Many of the students see me as a role-model. What I do in front of them may help them when they are in a similar situation. Women can juggle work and family and the Men can get use to a baby feeding in public.
I heard great suggestions for helpful gadgets as well. One mom suggested the bouncy-swing for the doorway and another swore by the baby play gym she kept in her office. All of them really recommended getting an automatic pump (preferably with duel pumps) just to save time. The best part is now I am building a great network of science mommies that I can chat with online when I have questions/guilt/happy news. Awesome.

Thinking about the nursery

I'm thinking nice bright modern themes for our new little one's room. Perhaps blue/green walls with bright circle accents. I like the idea of keeping things hip an a little mod instead of the traditional pastel lambs/ angels/ winnie the pooh items. I think our next steps will be choosing a crib, then some cool bedding that is reasonably priced, and from that choose the wall colors. I love the idea of stripes and circles :-)

It's official

Mark it on the calender, it's official . . . my pants do not fasten anymore. Thanks so much for rubber bands and bella bands so I can at least wear them for a little while more with the snap undone.

Weekend yard sales were fruitful

I was quite successful at the yard sales this weekend in my hunt for baby objects.  I found a good handful of baby clothes 0-12months that were in the green/yellow/blue range.  A darling little sleeper with a blue moose on it too!  I also found out the great store that is Once Upon a Child which sells new/gently used baby stuff at really great prices.  We have two in the Grand Rapids area and might check them out when do some hard core crib shopping.  There is just so much baby do-dads I am having a hard time figuring out exactly what I NEED versus what looks really COOL.   My greatest bargain of the weekend was a toy chest. . . in the shape of a pirate ship!  How awesome is that!  I passed it up early in the morning 'cause the lady wanted $20 and wouldn't take $15.  However, three hours later I was still thinking of the darn thing and went on back to the sale.  She had taken 50% off her remaining items, including the toy chest!  YEAH!  $10 and it was mine.  It has a little treasure chest, a wheel that spins, and even a plank that pulls out!  Brian thought it was way too cool and way too appropriate for gypsies like us :-)

Sharing with the hubby . . .

I am determined to share as much of this experience with the hubby as possible...whether he likes it or not :-) That means that when I'm feeling interesting plings and twinges, I try to tell him about it in descriptive detail. This past Sunday was definitely a "growing" day and I was feeling quite a bit of round ligament pains. Don't worry, they aren't really pains but, well, twinges. The best description I could give hubby was that my uterus felt like a balloon half full of hair gel with a pool ball inside. When I moved suddenly, I could feel the billiards ball slosh around in the gel and smack the sides of the balloon. Whoa, did he give me a look after that one! But I'm pretty sure he understood what I was feeling :-)