18 weeks!

I am 18 weeks along today; time is flying by! I am going to try to take pictures every 4 weeks just to document my growing belly. But, I think to get a true comparison, I have to post not only the most recent picture but also the previous one. So, here's me at 14 weeks or 1 month ago:

And here is me today at 18 weeks:

The belly doesn't seem to be a whole lot bigger, but definitely a lot more rounded. Starting to look a little less like I just had a huge lunch ;)

Oskar and Flat Stanley

So my nephew Gabe is doing a "Flat Stanley" project for his school. For those of you who don't know, "Flat Stanley" is the name of a book in which a little boy named Stanley gets flattened and then mails himself to different places. For his project, Gabe chose me as his destination, and I got a little, flat "Gabe" in the mail. Despite the fact that he was sending his "Flat Stanley" to a foreign country, where I could possibly take pictures with it in lots of interesting places, he was adamant about one thing: I had to get a picture of it with Oskar. Now, despite the overwhelming number of pictures I have of OKB that might speak to the contrary, this dog HATES getting his picture taken. I swear, any good picture we have of him is pure luck. Anyway, I knew getting his picture taken with "Flat Stanley" would be an adventure. What follows are just a few of the series of pictures I took in attempt to get ONE good picture for Gabe's project:

Picture One: "What the heck are you doing? What is this thing?"

Picture Two: After multiple "no's" and "stop biting it," I promptly got the "I am completely ignoring you" face.

Picture Three: He finally got fed up and tried to jump off the couch. I stopped him and reset the "Flat Stanley." His look says it all: "I really hate you right now."

Picture Four: After trying everything I could think of to get him to look at me, I finally mentioned the word "cheese," and which point I was able to snap this picture. This is his "I'm only doing this to humor you until I get my treat" face.

After giving him the promised piece of cheese, he hid behind the couch for the rest of the afternoon. So very sorry, Your Majesty.

A Cure For (or at least Distraction From) The Blues

I've been feeling a little blue lately. Now, I don't want anyone to freak out--I don't have pre-partum (is that a word?) depression or anything. I've just been feeling a little off. It always happens around this time of year. The weather starts turning warmer so I get antsy for summer, but it's not quite warm enough to do those summer-y things (plus, two days later the temps are back in the 30s). To me, this is when living in Korea is most difficult. I long to just drive on some back road with the windows down and ENJOY being outside. This is not an option here, for many, many reasons (pollution and traffic, just to name a few), so this adds to my restlessness.

But, I will be honest, this season in my life has definitely given fuel to my end-of-winter blues. PCS season is upon us and, especially with this next upcoming change of station, I have emotions so mixed that I don't know how I feel about it from one day to the next. I am both excited and terrified about moving back to America, and knowing I will have to do it without the community of friends I have come to love over the past 5 years is extremely hard. On top of that, the uncertainty that is surrounding our move in regards to my pregnancy has my stomach in knots. Where will I have the baby? Will Jonathan be there? So many unanswered questions. . .

This past weekend has been especially hard. It was the weekend of the Seoul marathon. As some of you may know, I was training for the half-marathon before I got pregnant. I was up to 10 miles before the doctor called knock-it-off, so I know that finishing the the half-marathon was a goal I definitely could have achieved. Granted, I know I DIDN'T run it for a very good reason, but it's still hard to see a day come to pass when you know you could have achieved one of your goals. I wanted so badly to be there to cheer on my friends who were still running but, with Jonathan gone, I had no one to watch Oskar, and I was unfortunately stuck at Osan for another weekend.

All of these things were going through my brain Friday night as I struggled to sleep, and I woke up Saturday morning realizing why pregnant ladies "nest": they need projects or else their pregnant lady brain will drive them INSANE! I couldn't see spending another weekend mulling over all of the above drama, but nesting is not quite an option for me since we are leaving before the baby is born. However, I realized, I did need a project---desperately. Then, I remembered the cute skirts my friend Chris had sewn for her two little girls (check out her blog about it here), and her mentioning in passing how they would make GREAT maternity skirts. Project question solved.

First things first. Measurements and a pattern, made simply out of pieces of computer paper taped together:

Next up, some beautiful material from Happy Quilt that I loved but couldn't figure out what to do with. I cut six of my pattern pieces out of the material.

Next I sewed each piece together wrong sides together until I created a "tube" of fabric.

Then, I turned the skirt wrong side out and sewed each seam again. This created 'french seams' all around the skirt.

After heming and top-stitching the bottom of the skirt, I took some elastic that measured about an inch smaller than my hip measurement and stitched it together to make a loop.

I then pressed and folded over the top of the skirt, encasing the elastic, and top-stitched around the top of the skirt to hold the elastic in place. Viola'! A skirt!

The finished skirt on me. Don't mind the mis-matching colors. My red IU shirt didn't QUITE match the fabric, but I wasn't going to change my ENTIRE outfit just for a picture. I'm pregnant and lazy, remember?

Knowing my luck, I'll grow out of it before the weather gets warm enough to wear it, but at least it was easy enough to make that I can make another one if I need to. But it looks like I'll need to make another trip to Happy Quilt. . .

Pregnancy is Bizarre

Pregnancy has been the most bizarre experience of my life. I don't mean that in a bad way; I just mean there is no other way to describe this experience but bizarre. It's strange to be a stranger in your own body. It's changing in ways I never thought was possible. The girl who was training for a half-marathon just three months ago now gets winded and exhausted from a 5k. I once spent my afternoons doing at least something active (walking, playing with the dog, etc); now, its all I can do to get through the morning and make it to my afternoon nap on the couch. And dry heaving! Oh Lord have mercy--the dry heaving! Although I am so thankful that I am only puking about once a week now (as opposed to every single day), not a day goes by that SOMETHING does not make me dry heave. And it's the weirdest things too; smells and sights that never used to bother me suddenly make me gag. One of the weirdest? The inside of the toilet. The toilet could be sparkling clean and still glisten with Lysol. . .but if I see the inside of it, I will gag. Weird, right? Speaking of toilets, I used to be able to hold my bladder for hours on end; now, I get up at least twice a night to pee. Food has become my best friend and worst enemy at the same time because, although I am ALWAYS hungry, EVERYTHING gives me heartburn. In addition to heartburn, I'm dealing with all kinds of things I've never had to deal with before: gas, pimples, dry hair. I'm like a smelly teenager. And, even though I'm not going crazy and "eating for two," that "adorable" bump keeps growing and my cute clothes no longer fit. It's insane to watch yourself expand as a result of something completely natural and NOT from an obsession with Krispy Kremes.

And it's not just my body. It feels like my mind is longer under my control either. I have the strangest and most vivid dreams. I had one the other night about the BTK killer. I mean, really. . . what is THAT about? Pregnancy has also made me borderline bi-polar. I can go from deliriously happy to uncontrollably weepy to insanely angry to manically depressed to pleasantly contented---all within the course of a half hour. My poor husband had no idea when I got pregnant that he'd be trading his loving wife for a psychotic one for the next 9 months. And, bless his heart, he's constantly asking what he did to make me so sad or angry or who knows what else? I have to just tell him it's because he left the toilet lid up and I saw the inside of the toilet. I know he would not understand (or believe me) if I told him the truth: "You did absolutely nothing! I am just a crazy pregnant lady!" Oh, and the pregnancy cravings? How in the world does my mind convince me that I need to eat an entire jar of pickles or my body will wither away and die?

So, Baby W., I love you already, and I cannot wait to meet you. But you have turned my mind and body into a freak show. You and I will need to have a serious talk when you get here.