28 Weeks!

Here are the highlights:

Size of baby: according to the The Bump, still eggplant (but that's crown-to-rump length, or CRL) ..... but with legs extended, baby is about 14.5 inches long, weighs around 2 pounds
Maternity clothes: I'll put this category back on the highlights list if anything changes, but I'm pretty sure that I won't be wearing any regular clothes until after baby from here on out
Movement: baby has on/off days... the off days are like little radar blips, and when I have one of those, its followed by a couple of VERY active days, like the last 2 days.  Also, baby kicked the remote control off my belly yesterday, that was pretty funny.
Food cravings: this week I discovered that blueberries + nutella + whole wheat waffles = YUM
What I miss: being able to walk up our entire number of stairs without the heaviness in my legs as if I had just gone for a long run
Sleep: mostly pretty good
Symptoms: belly stretching.... no, not as in stretch marks (still none of those!), but as in muscles.  At first I thought I was having a BH contraction, but no, it was just some muscle stretching/aching low on my right side... which spread to the middle and left side the next day, and then completely went away.  I wouldn't call it painful, just a bit uncomfortable... enough that I couldn't finish working out on Tuesday.  I spent the next day just resting, and then I was back to normal.
Best moment this week: the joint shower that was Friday, and getting 2 pieces of the nursery put together yesterday
What I am looking forward to: having all of the nursery furniture done, and picking up some items at Babies-r-Us this Friday

This was a pretty good week, though it really seemed to drag by.  The weather was not bad at all until yesterday when the snow came..... and came..... and came.  We had scheduled Bailie for a grooming appointment for yesterday afternoon, and were quickly wishing we would have just rescheduled it.  The roads were terrible and the lovely 360 spin we did when attempting to turn onto our street was just lovely.  The plows didn't come out until late last night.  At least we don't have to get out today at all, and tomorrow is a holiday, so we will probably be in most of the day then too.  But, we took advantage of some of yesterday and we (mostly Chris) got our crib and changing table put together.  Its pretty crazy to see a portion of the nursery complete!

The baby shower on Friday was really fun, and it was really nice to meet the 3 other pregnant ladies, 2 of whom are also first-timers.  One is due next week, then one in February, then me, then one in May.  We played shower games (I won one of them), ate yummy food, and were each given some very generous gifts.  We each received a very generous gift card to Babies-r-Us, a gift certificate from one of the ladies here who does photography for a free newborn session, a Mother Goose book, a US Embassy baby blanket (super cute and soft), and some baby clothes, specific to each of us according to what we're having.  My favorite of the clothing items were these adorable little onesies with monkeys on them, and they were the cute pale yellow, not gross canary yellow.  Chris loved them too.

One of the ladies at the shower is having a boy, and the other two are having girls.  I was the only one who chose not to find out.  I really enjoyed being "that" person.  I've definitely had days where I think that it would be nice to know, but especially now, I'm enjoying not knowing.  It makes me think that maybe we'll never find out.  I keep thinking about the moment when the doctor will tell us what we have, and that makes me too excited to want to have that surprise ruined any earlier than D-Day.  Even if on subsequent babies we choose to find out what we are having, we will never reveal name choices, just fyi.  Never.  Not budging on that one.  Everyone tells me that privacy goes out the window when you have a baby, so why not preserve any secrets/surprises that you can, so that you can enjoy them just for yourself for a time?  That's important to us.

There's really not much else to report for the week.  It was really just a time to adjust to home life routine again.  This Friday will be a long day - doctor's appointment for Chris, then a quick trip down to Syracuse for our Babies-r-Us run, then home.  Then the next Friday we will begin our every-two-week appointments at my OB's office.

For now, the baby is moving, the belly is growing, and Bailie seems to be increasingly suspicious that something is going on here.