37 Weeks

Wow! Where has the time gone? April is nearly over. We're almost completely ready, and everything should come together very soon. I've had some minor swelling in my hands and legs, which means I can't wear my wedding ring any more, but at least my shoes still fit! I can still go on my walks, but I try to keep it to less than a half hour and my stamina is quite obviously less than it used to be. I also still sleep through most of the night, but I wake up around 5 a.m., starving! The cats are getting used to a little snack in the wee sma's. Anyway, here I am!I swear my hair looked cuter before I went out on the balcony. It was a gorgeous, but windy day. I heard a weatherman say that winter is over in Wisconsin, but spring isn't quite here. Although I've noticed that Wisconsinites stubbornly abide by the calendar when it comes to the seasons. In California, we used to say that spring arrived when the trees started blooming (or the first Santa Anas hit, whichever happened first). Here in Wisconsin, once the spring equinox has passed, it's spring, even if it's still snowing outside!

I Don't Feel This Big

I've gottten several requests for belly shots, so here I am at 31 weeks. Not much to see frontwise:
Whoa! Where did that belly come from? I get a surprise every time I look in the mirror, but that's nothing compared to seeing the photo documentation. I still feel like me, even though I can't sleep on my back or belly. A couple of weeks ago I caught a few acquaintances giving my belly suspicious looks. Just in the past week or two the cats have started stepping on my belly as they climb over me. I can't see my feet very well any more, and I've stopped trying to zip up my winter coat (until last week I was able to zip it before lunch, but not after lunch). The t-shirt I'm wearing in these pictures is not a maternity shirt, which also makes me want to reconsider some of my wardrobe once the baby's born and I've lost the baby weight. I mean, if I can wear something while essentially 8 months pregnant, do I really want to wear it normally?

In all seriousness, we're very excited. Baby will be coming sooner rather than later!

Acclimated

I wish I could remember what temperature it was last winter in San Diego when I pulled out my wool pea coat, scarf, and mittens. I suspect it was in the 40s or 50s, I know it was January because I was still working at my old university job. Our receptionist always laughed when I arrived in the morning because she had just returned from a winter trip to Germany.

I figured it would take me a full year to adjust to Milwaukee winters, but it ends up that I just needed a couple of arctic blasts. We had a major thaw this week with the warmest day getting up to 59 degrees. In San Diego I would have been pretty bundled up at that temperature -- at least a sweatshirt, probably a scarf and, in the evenings, maybe even fleece-lined jeans. Definitely socks.

What did I wear here? A t-shirt, thin cotton capris, and sandals. And it still seemed too hot!

Polar Bears are Crazy

Milwaukee has a long history of the Polar Bear Plunge. Apparently, 1916 was the first recorded year of people celebrating New Year's Day by swimming in Lake Michigan. We decided we had to see this for ourselves, so on New Year's Day we headed down to the beach (have you ever seen a frozen beach? I have!) to check it out:

See those big rocks out there? Those are chunks of ice. Can you see the dude in the red and black? He's the lifeguard. The funny thing was that the lake temperature was still about 10 degrees higher than the air temperature, but when you're talking about the difference between 27 degrees and 37 degrees, that's still cold. And you have to walk on the snow/ice just to get to the actual water!
Aaron models appropriate cold-weather gear. You can get a sense of the crowd behind him. Some people had erected tents and lit bonfires, but I wonder how long it really takes to warm up after something like that!

Why They're Called Peanut

We had our second-trimester ultrasound yesterday! We're having a boy! Here's the ultrasound picture, just to share:
This is the baby's profile. That first bump is the nose, I assume it's followed by lips. It was a lot easier to tell yesterday when he was moving around.

And here's our first-trimester ultrasound.
As I recall, he was actually on his side, but turned his face for this one. It was funny because he was in perfect position for the picture the whole time, but when it came time to take pictures, he rolled over. "Done!" So getting his little profile took a bit of prodding.

Imagine, only another 15-20 weeks until we get to see him on the outside!

White Christmas

Being in Wisconsin, you'd think that a white Christmas is a no-brainer, right? Well, on Christmas day Aaron sprung on me the following idea: that a truly white Christmas means that it actually snows on Christmas day. Now, I'm not sure whether I agree with this. After all, the only other time I've experienced anything remotely close to a white Christmas was in 1984: I was 10, living in Ridgecrest, CA, and it snowed on December 22nd or so. Snow in Ridgecrest is extremely rare, occurring every 4 years or so, and even then it usually shows up in February. Then it melts by 10 a.m.

That year we'd built a snowman in the front yard and not all of it had melted by Christmas. So for years I counted that as my (tongue-in-cheek, of course) white Christmas. I'll let you decide, based on the pictures below. After all, it snowed on Christmas Eve!

Here we are, touring one of the lighted parks near our home:
You can see our building in the background of this picture. Every time we come home we look to see if the kitties are hanging out in the windows. :)
And here's a sweet scene we saw on Christmas Eve. You can't really tell here, but if you click on the pic you can see that the guy had written "Will You Marry Me?" in the snow in red letters. I hope she said yes, but it was really funny because they were walking a dog, and he kept leading her back to the snow to admire his handiwork. It was all gone in a few hours -- the snow filled it in!

Cute Kitties

I have way too many cute pictures of my cats to post here -- I don't want this to become a cute cat blog! But I had to share these photos:

This is Taco, fascinated by the snow falling. Sometimes he tries to catch the flakes. Oh, that darn window always gets in the way!

Taco has always been a "window cat;" in San Diego he loved to sit by the window and watch the birds, or hang out on the balcony and watch (or attack) the birds. Our new apartment doesn't have a balcony and we were really worried he'd be too bored. But we haven't had much of a problem, and the snow helps! I wonder if he'll still be interested in spring?

No real story to accompany this one, I just love that our kitties are hanging out in their matching beds. Plus the look on Taco's face is priceless.