week 23

this weekend, we spent many many....many many many hours registering for baby whatsits and we've finally got our registry done!

for the most part, it was pretty fun. we spent about 2.5 hours in target on saturday night, getting as much checked off the list as we could. (seriously, the baby caps and baby mittens were the cutest things i've ever seen in my life.)

then on sunday, we spent about three hours in babies r us, which ended up being kind of discouraging. by an hour and a half into it, all we had on our registry was a nursing stool and two packs of medela membranes. i started to cry in the crib section because we couldn't find anything we liked/agreed upon that was under $400. further, we couldn't really settle on a crib color until we figured out what bedding we wanted, but we couldn't find any we were in love with (well, that we BOTH were in love with at the same time). we couldn't find a pack n play we liked, because the ones with patterns that we liked were HUGE and really expensive ($180 for a playpen?!), and the smaller, less expensive ones were ugly. not only that, but we wanted a pack n play/highchair/swing set that all matched...oh, it was kind of an ugly trip. i had to take 3 or 4 "sit" breaks in the rocking chair section. too bad we weren't looking for rocking chairs.

after all of that and three hours spent in the store, we still didn't have a crib or a bedding set picked out. so we left and walked around pier 1 for a while, then we went to texas roadhouse. i was feeling MUCH better once our food arrived!

after we got home, we spent another 2 hours online looking at cribs and bedding, and we FINALLY decided!

the first picture is of the crib we picked out (while i'm loving the pink ballerina teddy bear, we decided to go for something a little less elton john for our little guy), and the second picture is of the bedding.

we got a few other things registered for online sunday night, then we went BACK to target yesterday and spent about an hour registering for the last little things on our list that we could. the rest we went online for - again -and finished up. so, after about 6 hours in the store, about 3.5 hours online, a meltdown, and a really good steak, we're finally finished.

i think we were both surprised at how long the whole process was. our wedding registry took a total of 7 hours and no trips online.

so, there's the beginning of week 23...whew.

ragbrai ragbites.

so, i came awfully close to hitting about 4 ragbraiers yesterday on my way to tara's. 3 were unintentional.  however, one of them gave me a funny look, and was lucky he got away before the light turned red. i hope he got a debilitating butt cramp.

oh, bicyclists. ride on the freaking sidewalk and obey traffic laws.

why is it that this one week every year we celebrate people who spend their week sleeping in tents, drinking beer, and migrating from town to town on their bicycles? the other 51 weeks, we'd call them vagrants or carnies and call animal control or something. but this week, when they all team up and swarm around, it's reason to celebrate and let them sleep in our yards.

i still regret not hitting that one guy with my car.

i'll love you till the wolves come home.

todd and i both had really vivid dreams last night. todd's involved waiting for a friend to push her car to the gas station where he was waiting, and then seeing a squirrel. not just any squirrel; a squirrel with wings that it was using to fly around. suddenly, its wings and tail fell off and it landed on todd's back. he desperately wanted to pet it, but he didnt' want it to bite him. he also had a feeling that if he turned around to look at it, it would peck his eyes out. with its squirrel beak. so he reached around and pinched its beak closed with his fingers so it couldn't peck him, and he began to pet it and tell it, "i'll love you till the wolves come home," which in his heart he knew meant, "i love you so much that i would turn around to pet you even if i knew you would peck my eyes out." awww.

i, on the other hand, had a dream that i auditioned for a dance company owned by dustin hoffman and kirstie alley. i auditioned, and then a stately black butler handed me a plate with a piece of apple pie on it. i was expected to dig through the pie with my hands to find a slip of paper that told me whether i was hired or not. i found a bit of the piece of paper, but not the whole thing, and i started freaking out because i thought kirstie alley had eaten the rest of the paper, and i would therefore never know whether i was hired or not. dustin hoffman was very reassuring, though, and told me that i had, in fact, been hired, but i needed to be less "ballet" and more "victim." all in all, a creepier dream than what i just conveyed. it was raining.

in much happier and more real-life news, we had our ultrasound today!!! our little bugger sure is cute...and MALE! we're having a baby boy! he was awake during it, and he would scratch his eye and yawn and move around. the ultrasound technician said that he REALLY liked to suck his thumb, because no matter how he moved, his hands would always end up right back in his mouth. it was so cool to see our little guy moving and hiccupping and yawning, like a real little person. i mean, i know he's been a real person, but to see it...it was indescribable. it was so cool.

i bawled like a baby. it was just so weird to see the little guy for the first time, even though i've spent the last 5 months thinking about him all the time...and todd was there and we were both so excited...probably one of the best times of my life, in all reality.

so. weird transition.

another exciting thing that has happened recently is that we've obtained a car seat AND a second base...for free! god has been awesome at providing us with all kinds of really neat surprises through generous friends. jared and allison gave us a car seat that allison's co-worker had given them. it's in great condition, and was only made in 2007; practically brand new. so i was thinking that i would only have to register for a second base so we could easily transport the kid in both cars. so, i was telling jamie and marnie how excited i was that i would only have to register for a base, and marnie offered to give me a base from one of her old car seats! how sweet is that?!

also, jamie has been awesome and found us a free bouncer-thinger, and has given me a bunch of breast feeding stuff, like milk storage bags, nursing pads, and a handy how-to pocket guide, which is funny. and gross. but nonetheless very appreciated and i'm sure will come in very handy.

god has been so good to us. he has blessed us with such an awesome marriage, and now a kid, and really generous and supportive friends and family...seriously, couldn't be happier. well, maybe a little happier...if only my belly button wasn't starting to show through my clothes...gross.

exciting times.

stuff going on in life:

1. i'm almost finished reading my first vaccine book!! (it's about time.)
2. i can feel the kid move pretty much every day now. last night i could actually feel it on the outside of my belly with my hand...weird.
3. a random stranger asked if i was pregnant (which is actually pretty exciting when you actually are pregnant and not just fat or tired.)
4. the guest room is totally re-arranged, thanks to the help of my awesome husband. we now have a place for the baby stuff...that we don't have yet! so, yay, big emptyish room! (the other side of the room is all cluttered with crap we don't know what to do with yet, but that'll be fixed soon. don't judge our clutter.)

5. i made 55 bucks at my first garage sale. can't complain!
6. i have washed and folded all the tiny baby clothes we have so far. i want to do it again.
7. todd let me buy this ADORABLE onesie that says "i love my mommy." it makes me cry.
8. i keep thinking this speck of dust on the wall is a spider out of the corner of my eye, but i'm too lazy to wipe it off.
9. i actually did have a spider in my bathtub yesterday morning, so i chased it around the tub with handfuls of water until it finally curled up into a ball and one of its legs fell off. for as scary as spiders are, they're not very resilient.
10. our ultrasound is in less than two weeks and i'm SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!
11. after we find out the gender of the kid (pray it'll be spread-eagle in the ultrasound) we're going to go register. again, so excited!!!
12. i'm eating more and i think i've gained a little weight, which is really good. we'll find out in a couple weeks.

that's it for now!

the weekly meltdown.

hello all. and happy july 2nd.

so...yesterday i was pretty much in tears because i have all kinds of baby crap and no actual baby stuff...does that make sense? i have powder and wipes and no changing table; i have little clothes and no dresser; i have a blanket and no crib; i have a car seat headrest and no car seat; i have all kinds of baby crap and no baby. not that we're ready for the baby right now...like i said, no crib or car seat. it's just hard to look around the room that is supposed to be for the kid, and see piles of junk everywhere. where will the baby sleep? oh, in that hamper of garage sale clothes. or on the guest bed. if it rolls off, no big deal; it'll land in a box of blankets. better yet, why not just let it sleep in the box of blankets? i feel like the worst mother in the whole world. (well, maybe not the worst, but i'm just one drug addiction away from being the worst mother in the whole world.)

to further the feeling, i've realized how truly grossed out i am by the thought of breastfeeding. not the thought of other people breastfeeding their kids, or my baby... "breasteating" (gross...nix that term), but of actually having to deal with boobs. that juice. that you have to pump. seriously, getting queasy just thinking about it. what's more, how come breast pumps don't come with instructions?! what's even more, how come babies don't come with instructions?! why are there entire books and entire classes and "lactation specialists" and nipple shields and all kinds of things that are supposed to help you breastfeed? call me crazy, but shouldn't it be instinctual? or, if not, at least easy enough to figure out on your own? what the crap did people do before babywise?

todd has been very reassuring through my latest meltdowns. at the time, i get frustrated that he doesn't get what a big deal some of these things are to me, but then i stop to think that if he got worked up over the same stupid things i get worked up over, we wouldn't do anything but sit around and cry all day. thrilling.

whew. that felt good to get it all out. however, i just realized that i've been blogging for the last 15 minutes and not picking up the baby's room like i came in here to do...no wonder nothing's done.

on the exciting side of life, i made refried beans from scratch yesterday. from real beans. not even lying. maybe i really can do the mom thing...after all, i can cook beans. babies can't be that much different.

accountability

i am finally getting to me "summer-to-do-list," which in all reality was really more of a "once-i'm-done-with-school," list. i have read "total money makeover," all 7 of the "chronicles of narnia," "the coffee house Gospel," "the friendly road," "brave new world," and am still enjoying my daily time in the Bible. i recently started meeting with my friend andrew weekly to talk about life and sharpen each other as well as my friend hofer, with whom i'll be meeting once a week as well for the same purpose. it's been a long time coming. i'm so excited to be back being busy doing things for God's Kingdom that i really enjoy. i know finishing school was an act of honoring my parents and thereby filled with as much religious zeal as doing accountability, but i'm really glad to be done with the school part (not because i'm done honoring my parents and that was the last punch of the time card). i love reading for the fun of reading and learning about things that help me communicate God to my friends and fellow believers (who often are one in the same, but God has blessed me with many unbelieving persons who find me friendly an reciprocate quite graciously.). i teach at the light on july 10th, so i'm already mentally putting together items for that. i have some resumes in at various places. lots of neat things going on in my world. i got some mad overtime this week, always nice for padding the baby emergency fund. life is very good. God is too good to me. i can't quite explain it probably no more than jacob finding rachel, finding forgiveness from esau, finding riches, finding God. the mystery of grace is unbearable. i'm thrilled to be part of the team however, when i know i deserve to be left on the playground wishing i was better at dodgeball. if you're reading this, you are a peculiar person, quite rare, but hopefully the better now equipped to make conversation with your friendly neighborhood van voorsts. we'll leave a light on for ya.

(as if it weren't painfully obvious enough, this has been todd -- or as i'm affectionately known around the home, "husband." i like the sound of that.)

more preggers news...

sorry i feel the need to share all of my pregnancy information. i'm sure i'll end up being one of those annoying moms with flip-book photo albums of every second of my kid's life, who tells you more than once about "the funniest thing that little johnny did the other day." and the story isn't funny at all, or is one of those "had to be there" kind of things. sorry in advance.

so...we're about done with week 17 of kid-cooking and stuff has been going relatively well. i'm pretty sure i felt the kid move last night. i think i've probably felt it move before, but because it's in a part of my body in which i can sometimes feel my heart beat internally, and my stomach growl, and gas move around, and all kinds of other stuff, it's hard to know for sure whether i'm feeling the baby or just some visceral, digestive activity. but last night on the way to the light social, there was like a little...twinge? maybe that's not the right word; it's hard to describe. i tried to tell todd it was like someone running a finger over the inside of your cheek for just a second. not really super accurate, but the best way i could think of to describe the feeling of a tiny person moving inside my body to a person who doesn't have a uterus.

other than that, stuff hasn't been super out of the ordinary, pregnancy-wise. i'm starting to show (finally!) but still a long way off from maternity clothes, i think. maybe a belly band, but that's pretty much all i'll need for a while i think. my clothes are still actually even a little too big. i lost 14 pounds at the beginning of pregnancy, and at my last appointment i'd gained two back. i'm sure i've gained a little since then as well, but i'm still well below what i was before i got pregnant. i've had to get a makeshift wedding band, since my fingers have shrunk into tiny skeleton fingers and the engagement ring (aka, "the rock") todd got me just kind of jangles around all the time...mostly annoying, but kind of scary too. i have no idea what i'd do if it slipped off and i couldn't find it. probably cry for a really really long time then develop a bitterness or even a complex toward our kid, blaming it for having lost my ring. then we'd not only have to pay for a new wedding band, but also family therapy. so, to avoid all that, i dug out an old pinky ring from the 10th grade and will make do until my hands start to swell and i'll have to get another makeshift ring that's BIGGER than the rock. ah, lovely pregnancy.

even though i haven't gained much weight, my appetite has been plenty affected. some days, i have to remind myself to eat, and others (like today) it's like the kid goes into some xanax-worthy panic attack that it's going to die if i don't feed it like RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT. and by "right this very instant" i mean five minutes ago. annoying really. today i just stood in the kitchen for about 15 minutes, snarfing down a carrot while popcorn popped and rice cooked. the carrot was gone too soon, the popcorn didn't cook fast enough and the rice...well, it was rice. even though it was labeled "instant," between boiling the water, then letting it sit for 5 minutes, i seriously thought the kid was getting hungry and pissed enough to "twinge" his way right out of my uterus and raid the fridge himself. then, of course, after eating too much too quickly, i felt sick.

other than that, the only other new thing is that i'm developing a gross dark line down my stomach. at first i thought it was just dark hair, which is disgusting enough, but no. it's definitely the skin. i know it's supposedly really common during pregnancy, but seriously. weird.

man, as i'm typing this, i'm realizing just how glamorous motherhood is going to be. if it's this "mtv: diary" now, i'm sure life will really get posh once the kid is actually here.

in other news, todd is still looking around for a job. he had an interview a couple weeks ago, but between the hours (50-55 hours a week, with variable shifts), and the drive (35 miles each way) and the actual job responsibilities, he decided it wasn't something he really wanted to do. which is great in the sense that he figured it out in the interview, rather than taking the job THEN realizing it wasn't something he liked. however, it also means that we're still not sure what he'll be doing, so please be praying that a job opportunity would be available to him that would provide well for our family (i'll be staying at home once the kid shows up) as well as being something he actually enjoys.

well, that's about it for now. i'm sure i'll have something pressing to reveal to the world in a few days, though. and by "the world" i mean the handful of people who kindly read my "friday night when todd's not home to entertain me so i'll get on the internet instead" ramblings. i might even get todd to take a pregger picture (our first one, minus the many shots of the pee-stick that said i was knocked up) and post it... life sure is thrilling!

top ten and bottom ten. ish.

things that excite me most about the prospect of not being pregnant anymore:
having a normal appetite.
drinking a glass of wine every now and again without worrying that my baby's going to wind up with a third arm.
more predictable hormones.
clearer skin *crosses fingers*
never wondering whether my child is a boy or a girl. hopefully.
staying home.
being a "family" rather than a "couple."
having a baby.
getting to know my kid: what they look like and sound like and smile like and poop like.


things that excite me least about the prospect of not being pregnant anymore:

having to go through the process of becoming de-preggered.
working off the baby weight.
figuring out nursing.
having to actually figure out (and use) a breast pump. scary.
dealing with diapers (i'm seriously considering doing cloth...yikes.)
being responsible for a whole other person's life.
not having any idea what i'm doing.
not having any idea what i'm doing while trying to figure it out on serious lack of sleep and yet having tons of advice thrown my way.
staying home.

so much to think about.

in addition, here are some things i'm seriously considering:
1. using cloth diapers (way cheaper)
2. using glass bottles (way safer). hopefully the kid will take them and won't demand one teeming with BPA.
3. making my own baby detergent (seriously, dreft is a gouge.)
4. making several of my own baby toiletry products (it just occurred to me that baby powder is basically cornstarch with a bunch of preservatives and a pretty scent. cornstarch + essential oil = cheaper same thing, minus the chemicals)
5. hopefully having a garden by the time the kid needs baby food (way cheaper and better for you).

meanwhile, garage saling and second-handing has been magnificent. i bought a rocker today for 15 bucks. granted, it's lime green and has no padding whatsoever, but those are easily remedied for cheap. for those of you not in the loop, i also bought a BRAND NEW medela breast pump for 100 bucks (normally 240) - everything is still sealed up and it's still under warranty until february. um, score? i got a boppy for 5 bucks, a bunch of board books and some little toys, a like-new baby monitor and some brand-new onesies...seriously. i love digging through other people's junk. my kid will will be thrifty-chic.

however, our apartment is starting to look like a garage sale. i need to learn to get rid of our own junk before bringing other peoples' into our house.

welp, off to dinner with the bible study gals.

oh yeah, one more thing.

oh yeah, one more thing.

we heard our kid's tiny heart beating on tuesday. it sounded like he was transmitting from a submarine...or U-boat. maybe our kid's a german. it was so crazy...there's a tiny seafarer inside my body. weird...

(the lady in the picture is donna, my midwife. the thing in her hand is the heartbeat-counter thing)

more baby news...it's all i think about

so...i'm a college graduate. i'm now officially a good catch. a trophy wife, if you will. as evidenced in the picture at right.

yesterday, i finally decided to further investigate what appeared to be a rotting pile of noodles topped with a bottle cap in our parking lot. lo and behold, it was not noodles, but rather my tassle, looking rather bewildered and orphaned after sitting around in the muddy, rainy parking lot for almost a week. it had been run over and hope for recovery was dim. however, my wonderful, loving husband spent time at work today washing it and untangling it and it looks like its old, cheerful, citron self.

on a similar note, our kid must be a freaking genius, having already walked in a college graduation ceremony whilst in utero. i bet it'll be born with a pair of spectacles and a severe case of near-sightedness. and an allergy to sunlight.

i'm very excited - i'm going garage-saling with marnie tomorrow to get some reptarwear. while my kid may be a genius, it will by no means be too good for 10-cent onesies. i wish you could dress fetuses...think how cute little dockers would be for a tiny softball-sized human. although, it might be kind of awkward trying to actually dress the little fella...

as a final fyi: as little reptar has had his mean-spirited way with my skin, i have a feeling i will post very few "during pregnancy/pre-accutane" photos. blech.