Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Baby Recap #4

This is the final post recap, and this post was actually published after I started this blog. Just a couple of weeks ago, actually, on the 5th of last month. Funny, right? Anyway, it was originally titled "The Final Stretch!" and here it is!

I have now officially entered the third and final trimester of my pregnancy. Woo-hoo! 
My belly really popped out over Christmas break! 
Adorable shirt is courtesy of my wonderful mom. It is possibly my favorite shirt now.
I have cleared the final hurdle and am sprinting for the finish line (metaphorically, of course. I hated running even pre-pregnancy.)! This scares me a little and excites me a lot. It scares me because I've passed the last known landmark and am trekking into unknown territory- I have no idea when little Evie is going to be born. At least with the other two trimesters, I knew the exact date I would transition into the next one. But this final trimester ends when she decides it ends, and I have no control over that. That lack of control secretly terrifies the snot out of me. On the other hand, I am excited because it is going to be one amazing surprise! All I want is for her to arrive safe and healthy: my very own gift from heaven. I'm so looking forward to holding her warm little body in my arms, and counting her tiny fingers and toes, and dividing her features between mine and Todd's (he's already convinced that she has my nose instead of his). I can't wait to rock her, and sing lullabies as I nurse her, and push her in the stroller. I love zoos, and I have a vision of going as a family and watching her fascination with all of the different animals.
Speaking of animals, I know that I mentioned in an earlier post that we were planning on using a Noah's Ark theme for decorating. Well, in my mythology class last semester, there was a really sweet girl that I sat next to who brought her little boy to class. We started talking about babies and strollers, and became friends. One day, while we were talking, he dropped his fleece blanket and I bent to pick it up. It was the cutest motif of baby animals I have ever seen! I asked her where she'd gotten it, and she didn't know because it was a gift from her mother. Then, when we went to Idaho to visit my family for Thanksgiving, my mom pulled out a quilt panel she'd found and was planning on sewing for Evie. I think I startled her when I shrieked "That's the fabric Allison had!! Where did you get that?!?" So on Black Friday, we went to Porter's and I got one for $2. Then, we went to Wal-Mart and happened to find the matching fleece:


It is so soft and warm and adorable; I can't wait to wrap my baby in it and just snuggle with her. Best yet, there's a whole range of fabrics that match it, so we can make sheets as well as the blanket and the quilt! Finding that pretty much made my whole weekend. :D I wanted to hold it on the drive home and just stroke it, but Todd looked at me sternly and asked "Is this for you or the baby?" But I still sometimes sneak the fabric out and wrap the teddy bear that we made for her in it and just practice rocking. Yes, I'm a dork, but I accept this about myself. :D This is the teddy we made for her at Build-a-Bear all those months ago: Isn't he cute? We sure thought so. And, speaking of animals AND of strollers, Todd and I picked out the most adorable travel system. It's great quality (we were assured) and also very cheap, especially with the coupon we have.
                                      Click to view large image
I'm slightly obsessed with monkeys lately. Sadly, I can't enlarge the picture without making it fuzzy. Oh well. I love it so much, and can't wait until we can go buy it for her! The best part about all of this stuff is that it's gender-neutral, so we can use the same gear if/when we have a little boy. Hooray for saving money!
As for the actual pregnancy itself, everything is great. I'm still feeling fantastic, although a little achy. I'm also experiencing painless Braxton Hicks contractions, but that's entirely normal. Evie is being interesting: sometimes she's really REALLY active, but increasingly she's calming down. I don't know if it's because she's getting too big to move around as easily, or if it's because she's busy dreaming (REM sleep this week, according to the book!). I'm not worried though, because she moves around often enough to keep my life exciting. Over Christmas break, people across the room could see her shifting around and got quite a "kick" out of it. (Yuk, yuk, yuk. Cheesy, I know.)
Also over Christmas break, it came to our attention that some people might come to some incorrect assumptions about her name. I'm going to clear those up right now. NO-she is not named after Evangeline Lilly, the actress who plays Kate on LOST. I like LOST, and Kate, but I did not name my baby after her. NO-she is not named after the star in the Princess and the Frog, NOR is her middle name a nod to the firefly named Ray in the same movie. That one surprised me, actually; the connection hadn't even occured to me. NO-she is not named after Eva from the movie Wall-E. Her nickname is Evie, NOT Eva. Where I DID get the name: Henry W. Longfellow, American poet. From the time I was little, my whole family would get together and play Authors, a card game based on Go-Fish, except with 4 specific books by each author. One of the books listed for Longfellow is his poem Evangeline. When picking out baby names, I was looking for elegant names of 4 syllables that began with a vowel and had an "interesting letter." (Alexander, Elizabeth, Olivia, etc. (Yes, I know I'm way too... anal? about some things. I accept this about myself, too.)) Well, Todd's brother had already named his son Alex, and Todd didn't like the name Olivia, so I was running low on options. Suddenly, the name Evangeline popped into my head and I decided I really liked it. Todd agreed. It took another eternity to find her middle name- nothing seemed to go with it. We didn't want something super long, since her first name is pretty lengthy, and Todd didn't want something "hoity-toity" like Belle. So I was cruising around Facebook, stalking my friends, and came upon one of my best friends from middle school and early high school. Her middle name is Rae, and I looked at it and said the whole thing to myself. Then, I tentatively suggested it to Todd, and he loved it. And thus was our baby's name born. I kind of hope her own birth will be that easy. ;)
Jess
**On a side note, I'm purposely not including the brands of the stuff I've pictured. This is because I'm evil and selfish. I want to keep all of the cute stuff for myself and not share any of it with others. I want to imagine people pulling out their hair trying to FIND the cute stuff, and smugly sit back with a smirk and fondle my treasure hoard. I'm feeling very draconian just now.

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