This Ain't No Beer Belly!: Kicking 24/7

Hey everybody! Whew! What busy days I've been having! Is it just me or do the days go by faster the older you get? Why is that?

It got cold for a few days here last week, so I got this stupid looking hat at Ross ($5!). Lina bina took this pic of me on our way to school one morning. You don't see many cowboy boots around these parts. I'm educating these people on southern style, lol.

Substitute Teaching
I have been busy with my substitute teaching gigs. It can be tiring but I'm really enjoying it. I am working at Lina's elementary school, sometimes for full days, sometimes for half. Elementary aged children are new to me. In many ways they are a lot more tiring than the middle schoolers I used to teach, but their sweet innocence and willingness to follow directions makes it feel easier. So far I've done special ed pre-school and 3rd grade classes. I think I like the littler kids better. They are so darn cute! And they have nap times :) a great time for me to be able to sit down and rest my feet. I'm looking forward to my Kindergarten class on Monday! It's nice to get my mind somewhat off of pregnancy for a bit (although baby Bubba does a good job of making sure I never forget his presence). And boy is it nice to earn some of my own money after several years of being a volunteer in El Salvador.

Little Bubba Kicks!
I am FINALLY starting to be able to feel Little Bubba's kicks! They get stronger everyday, and I love it. I'm still not used to the sensation, sometimes when I get a strong one I actually gasp out loud! Ok, so this is the cool part of pregnancy! Today I was sitting watching Lina do her gymnastics class, and I feel Bubba kicking. And I look around at other people as I feel him move, and I feel kinda like it's our little secret. No body knows but us. Well, and Noel because I told him.

I will call for him to come from the other room just because I felt a kick. But then he comes and puts his hand on me to feel, Bubba stops moving. That's ok I guess pretty soon here he will be so big and strong, he won't be able to miss it.

I feel like he is always kicking me in my (sorry to be so blunt) vag.

Delicious Dream
I haven't been having many crazy pregnancy dreams lately. Unfortunately, I have been dreaming about food. One night last week, after several days of successfully being good and avoiding junk food and sweets, I woke up and realized I had a gluttonous dream in which I ate a thousand donuts. There was me. A long table filled with towers of every donut imaginable. And there I was stuffing my face with all of them. I wish I could eat lots of donuts in real life!

While on the topic of food... Noel took me to have my first Dim Sum last weekend. It was delicious! I can't believe I'd never had it before. Apparently Dim Sum is just like Chinese tapas. People come by your table with carts full of different foods and you take what you want. You all reading my blog probably already know this, but it was a new and exciting thing for me to try so I felt it was totally blog worthy.

Happy Girl likes Dim Sum!
(except for that sweet mushy stuff on the left, that was gross)

Hormones and Tears

The worst thing about pregnancy for me is that I tend to cry easily, about small silly things, or sometimes about nothing at all. So what has it been lately?

Last Tuesday I went shoe shopping and searched the whole day for some winter shoes. I left every store empty handed. I wear a size 10 shoe and with my pregnant feet, the size 10 shoes were all too snug :( This was disheartening. I was blaming the shoe brands, even though in the back of my head I knew it was because my feet are fatter, wider, bigger, whatever. I just didnt want to face that fact.

So the next day, Noel got an email update from whattoexpect.com. They send out emails to expecting parents about pregnancy- facts and tips and things. Well I'm just sitting there happily working on our wedding photo book on Shutterfly.com, and he starts reading me this email from them that he found really interesting... about pregnant feet. It said something like, "Your feet will get bigger while pregnant..." and here's what brought the flood of tears... "and they won't go back after."

I totally lost it! I'm already a size 10! Most stores don't sell any bigger than that! I'll never be able to find cute shoes anywhere, I thought. I will have big huge clown feet forever! :'(

I immediately dial my mom for some consolation. She swore that her feet were the same size after pregnancy as before. That helped a little. She also said they are probably just fatter, not longer. But the "fatter"part got us to talking about nutrition and how I should be eating. I am not fond of these talks, because I wish I could eat hamburgers and pizza and ice cream all the time. But it's good I have someone that so candidly talks with me and keeps reminding me about the importance of nutrition. I'm trying my hardest to make good decisions, no bingeing, lots of protein and veggies, yada yada. Thanks mom!

Now don't get me wrong, I still look for a little ice cream therapy here and there. Sometimes it feels essential. So last night when I went to the freezer to get the Ben & Jerry's Fro-Yo I had been saving, I picked it up and it felt lighter than I had remember it being when I last touched it. He didn't!!!! I thought to myself. I asked him... and he did. Now I know this is not the kind of thing that should really be that big of a deal. And pre pregnancy I wouldn't have hardly whined about it at all. But last night, the fact that I only had a few bites of fro yo left because he had some of it, felt like the end of the world to me. I know it's totally crazy, but I cried harder than I have in years over the loss of a few bites of ice cream. Ridiculous!

Sometimes it seems as though I just need to cry like a crazy blubbering hysterical fool just to feel better and like a normal person again. And it's like I am just on the edge waiting for that one tiny thing that goes wrong to set me off so I can get it out.

Oh man. Like my mom told me, "Good news is... it doesn't last forever, Amy."

"What?" I asked.

"Pregnancy."

LoL. Some days it feels like that. Like you have to remind yourself that this is only temporary. And Little Bubba, if you read this one day... I don't want you to feel like I was miserable the entire time you were in utero with me. I'm really pretty good most of the time... I just like to share these sob stories because I think they are funny. The comical side of being preggers. It feels nice laughing at myself about it.

In other news...

Tomorrow I go to my Bradley Childbirth class for the 3rd time. *sigh* I'm really regretting signing up for this... only because my teacher is so disorganized and not really teaching us. We paid her $400 to be in this class and learn and she is so lax and chatty about unimportant stuff and not covering the stuff I want to be learning that I see in the book. Boo! I cried about this too one morning this week. It always sucks when you feel like you've wasted your money, right? I was considering writing her and trying to get a refund. But I think I've decided instead just to keep going and see what I can get out of it. Whatever that may be, big or small. Maybe in the end I will have gotten more out of it than I thought I would.

We went to the zoo today! It was A LOT of walking and completely exhausting, but totally worth it! I never thought about it, but the only zoo I'd ever been to in my life is the Houston zoo I think. It was fun to be a nice new zoo. And it's in DC so it was a Smithsonian thing and free! My favorites were the otters, the cute eating Panda bear, and the Sea Lion that beautifully glided past us over and over while we sat in front of his tank. What a nice way to spend our Saturday! It's fun having Lina on the weekend. We haven't had a weekend together in DC since we got here because she usually goes to her mom's. But her mom is out of town this weekend, so lucky for us we get to go to fun stuff together for once! Instead of just toting her around to school and after school activities. It's nice.

Happy at the zoo!

Lina takes pretty good pictures!

Pickles and Elephants, what a wonderful day!

I get a little scared on the huge long steep escalators in the subway. I'm def not used to them! So I hold on tight and try not to look up or down. Lina seems to find it hilarious.

I got my new Ugg Boots last week! Love them! I just wish it would get colder again here so I can wear them all the time. It's been kinda warm here the last few weeks. But I shouldn't complain about that. Soon is will be really cold and I'll be freezing and wishing it was warm again.

I saw this article about why Diet Coke is bad for you online today. I always heard people say it's bad for me, but I wasn't sure why. I was sad to see this because I love my Diet Coke. Of course, I don't hardly ever drink it anymore now that I'm pregnant. But before, I had probably 2 Diet Cokes a day at least. Probably not so good, I know. But I loved my sodas! So reading this article made me sad. It got me wondering if I should kick the can for good. If I'm gonna, it'd be easier to just not go back to my pre pregnancy habit once baby is here. So that's a great positive thing about having a baby. It's cleaned me up a lot. I eat better. I don't guzzle cokes and alcohol. Maybe it's really helping me clean up my act in the long run. Thanks baby!

Anyway, that's about all I've got for today. That... and all these pictures!