Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Plates + Belly = Dishwasher

The baby is changing the kitchen.

I keep the plates and half the set of glasses in a bottom cupboard in the kitchen. The other half of the set of glasses are in higher cupboard more typically used for glasses for Josh to easily access. I can no longer keep the plates in that cupboard. Let me explain for those of you who are not familiar with my kitchen.

The plates are in the back corner of the cupboard on a shelf organizer that is very similar to this:

The largest plates are on the bottom. I can no longer bend myself in half enough to reach them. The baby is getting that big! I'm delighted that my belly is big enough that it is changing what I am able to do, but at the same time, it is hindering some of my functionality which is not great. But not to worry. I have a solution to this problem.

Eureka!! Store the plates in the dishwasher!

In the wonderful apartment that we live in (being only slightly facetious because it really isn't that bad) the dishwasher has never worked more than to rinse and provide a place for the dishes to dry. If you want the dishes to come out clean, you must put them in clean. So I don't use it other than to rinse dishes when we get them out of the box when they are new. Ordinarily it is empty, or filled with the few dishes that I can't put away until Josh can put them away. But now it is the new home for the plates.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

... after a blogging absence

It has been a while since I've posted and I want to apologize for that. I know that it can get addicting to check for new posts and quite annoying when they are not there, (at least that is the way I feel about it when I check the blogs I read). So for those of you who are checking in here from time to time, wondering what is going on, I am committing to posting more often: hopefully at least once a week, but I'm not making promises. There have been some things that I thought I would post about but simply haven't written them. So I may have a few back stories to share, but this post will be about what is going on currently.

Right now I am almost to 20 weeks, marking the midpoint of this pregnancy. In the pregnancy books, they say you typically start to feel the baby move sometime between 16 and 20 weeks. They also say that it is usually easier to discern the baby's movements after you have been through a pregnancy because you know what types of movements to notice and your body has already been "stretched out" and you just feel the movement easier. So I figured that since this is my first pregnancy, I don't know what I'm kind of movement I should be feeling, and my sensation starts being compromised below my belly-button, I won't expect to feel anything until I'm closer to 20 weeks. But people start asking me if I can feel the baby yet. And I start paying attention to what I feel more often. Around 17 weeks I think I may feel something that could be the baby, but I can't be sure or even almost sure. So when people ask me if I feel the baby I say "not yet" even though I might be feeling the baby move. Even though no one is going to call me a liar if I say I feel the baby when I'm not sure if it is the baby or gas (because I have been much more gassy since being pregnant, so that is a very real possibility), I still felt unsure about telling people that I indeed was feeling the baby move.

Then in week 18 I was again trying to figure out if I was feeling the baby moving or if it was wishful thinking as Josh read a chapter of Eragon to me. I was getting a bit frustrated because I really wasn't sure if I was feeling the baby. When he finished the chapter, Josh started feeling my belly and he was more successful that I was. He slowly moved his hand around and said he could feel the little movements of the baby. I wonder if it was because his hands are so much bigger than mine that he was better able to discern the movements for what they were.

Since then, I have been able to feel some of the baby's movements. I still think I'm gassy and probably misinterpret some of the things that I "feel," but I am confident in saying that I do feel the baby move sometimes.
:)