Not much new to report...

We had another doctor's appointment Tuesday and everything still looks good. I am measuring right where I should and my weight is good. My boss told me last week that I didn't look like I had gained enough and I almost hugged him! No worries though, he obviously hasn't seen my rear up close and personal so I still have him fooled!
We have decided to definitely find a new doctor seeing as how she rolled her eyes at me when I was asking questions and I almost cried. That was the last straw for Brian and I had visions of him and the doctor coming to blows in the delivery room so...let the search begin!
We have another ultrasound next Tuesday. Hopefully we won't have the technician from hell and the little man will be cooperative so we have some more fun pictures to post!

Alright...

...here is a recent picture. Now everyone can quit bugging me!


This picture was taken last weekend at Sara's bachelorette party. There were 3 pregnant gals there - Mindy (at the time, 25 weeks), Emily (12 weeks) and yours truly (20 weeks). You can't see much of my bump, which we figured out later was due to the black shirt.

The maternity shirt was a gift from Brian that says, "We're Hungry" across the chest. I thought it would be perfect to wear out to the bar for part 2 of Sara's bachelorette festivities because surely people will notice my big belly and get the reference to the baby. Apparently it has been a long time since I have been drunk because I TOTALLY overestimated the observational/reasoning skills of the Minneapolis bar patrons. Let's just say that most people thought the "We're Hungry" referred not to the bump of my belly but the two bumps directly above my belly. There were some uncomfortable exchanges which was due (for the most part) to me being completely sober and the other party being completely NOT. I did realize the amazing power of beer goggles so I guess it can be chalked up to an anthropological study.

Since the shirt technically backfired it has been temporarily shelved until "the" bump is noticeable enough to everyone!

21 weeks

Holy moly! I just got the email from Babycenter.com signaling I have hit 21 weeks. Look at the size of this kid already. Apparently he is about 10 1/2" long now. From the looks of our 17 week ultrasound, I think 8 inches of that are legs and feet! We are pretty confident that he will be tall and have those longs legs (and really cute butt, if I do say so) like his dad!

He also has eyebrows and fully formed eyelids now. Babycenter also says that I will be developing varicose veins around this time, especially if my mom has them. Um, too late. My thighs look like road maps. But, this little man will be worth it (I am staying positive now but rest assured that as soon as I am done popping kids out, I will be undergoing "repairs").

Registry

Thank goodness for Jaimy Clarkson! She was kind enough to take time out of her busy day (which includes Ashley 22 months and James 2 months) to list out all the baby must haves so I could start our registry. She gave great details so I was able to go online to get started.

I must admit that the thought of actually going to Babies 'R Us and registering was intimidating. I had visions of me standing in the middle of the store with the registry zapper gun having a nervous breakdown while Brian wondered around looking for the "Stainless Steel/Chrome" section!

Here is the registry address:

http://www.toysrus.com/ControllerServlet?lastName=peterson&firstName=elisabeth&state=AZ&x=15&y=6&target=search&userType=giftGiver&searchForPerson=primReg&whereTo=viewRegistry

Mothers, please feel free to offer more suggestions for things I will need!

Aunt Lisa & Uncle Evan

I knew that the gauntlet had been thrown when Uncle Andrew presented us with the "My Uncle Rocks" onesie and that it would be only a matter of time before "The Godfather" Uncle Evan retaliated with his own wardrobe contribution.

We laughed ourselves silly when we opened the package and saw the Lil' Eban onesie.

What a cute idea to have onesies monogrammed! From what I understand about baby spit up, I will need to Scotchgard the heck out of these so we will get lots of mileage out of them!
(Lil') Evan also received another book to add to his growing library and a monogrammed frog throw that is the softest thing I have ever felt.

I think the score has been evened between the Uncles. If (lil') Evan is lucky, this battle will wage on throughout his life and he will be the beneficiary!
(If I may offer some suggestions...a car on his 18th birthday or a college trip to Europe, these are good one uppers.)

Nursery Artwork

I have been brain storming lately for ideas as to what to put up on the nursery walls. Because we decided against doing a theme (no clowns for us!) we have been trying to come up with creative wall decoration that won't give Evan (or us) nightmares.

So far, we have found a beautiful wood picture box that is being custom painted in the nursery colors with a quote we picked out (that I obviously don't have memorized or else would repeat it here). Granny Annie also brought us a Beatrix Potter framed picture that was in my nursery that is being reframed to better suit the colors we are using. You could tell it was straight out of the seventies with an orange mat and bright yellow frame!

In MN this past weekend Grandma Gail pulled out Brian's baby book and other fun things she has collected over the years. When I saw this relic from Brian's esteemed academic career I knew it would be the piece de resistance of the nursery artwork. This gem is dated June 1, 1984 and was done on what we assume was one of Brian's last days in kindergarten.

In case you can't see it clearly...

Brian Peterson
I want to go to
first grade because
be kos im giten tiyrd
of kinde gardin.

And at the top the teacher wrote, "I love it!"

My favorite part is that you can tell the teacher put the assignment up on the board like, "I want to go to first grade because..." and Brian copied that exactly and then things went down hill from there!!

I am so thankful that Gail was willing to part with this heirloom so that we can pass it along to our kids. What a great treasure to have!

19 Weeks 6 Days

I had another hi-tech ultrasound today and came out of it feeling like a piece of tenderized meat! The technician I had today wasn't as gentle as the past two were so it made for an interesting 45 minutes.

She was trying to measure all sorts of things on the baby (heart, brain, kidneys, etc) which necessitates that he move around quite a bit so she can get all the different angles. Usually this is no problem for our little man (please see blog posted below) but today I think he was feeling a bit crabby at being woken up by the not so subtle jabs of the technician because he really dug in and refused to move. In fact, I would say that today he demonstrated that he is my son as well because when the technician needed him to roll to the right, he went left. Atta boy, you show that lady not to wake you up with demands.

At one point, he was trying to roll over onto his belly and the technician decided to stop him. This consisted of her digging the ultrasound wand into the side of my belly to try and block him from rolling. Try to imagine the kind of pressure that it would require to stop a person the size of a grapefruit from moving IN MY UTERUS. I was actually having trouble breathing while this gal and our son had this battle of will with me being, quite literally, in the middle.

She did manage to get all of the measurements needed and everything looks great so that was a positive that came out of her beating me up for 45 minutes! The downside of our boy being so stubborn is that we didn't get many good 3D pictures. This one was the best...



You can see that he was curled up trying to get his snooze on while this woman kept attacking him. Even though we didn't get many good pictures, I was really glad he asserted himself ;)

He's a mover!

Lots of people ask me if the baby is moving and my usual response is, "He is Brian's kid, he can't stay still!"

I thought I would post some visuals so you could better understand what this little man is doing in utero...(Notice Jill and Jens' looks of utter amazement at the wonder that is Brian.)