A Look at What's to Come

Last night Aaron and I did something new: we had the pleasure of babysitting a friend's (nearly) 3 month old son! Aaron was fairly terrified and stuck to his whole, "I don't hold other peoples' babies" rule. Wuss. He did, however, do plenty of cooing at him while he was laying on a blanket on the floor, warmed a bottle for the baby when he was crying and I was trying to comfort him, and was generally amazed at anything he did.

This is the first time we've (together) been around a baby without a ton of other people around. I babysat for a neighbors' two daughters starting when they were each pretty young so I have some baby experience, but that was also over 1o years ago. Cuddling with the baby was fun and he was so sweet most of the time, save for a few minutes of truly pitiful crying, and even that was cute. He slept on my lap in my recliner (that rocks) for about 45 minutes and that was my favorite part. I think it made us both look forward to our baby a little more, even though Aaron did ask at one point (during the longest crying spell), "what did you sucker me into?"

I distinctly remember him being a willing participant in the whole baby making process, so I don't think I suckered him into doing anything.

I think that I've been feeling the baby move since Saturday, but it's so slight and intermittent that I'm not quite sure. The feeling I've been having happens more reliably after I drink orange juice, what I've heard is a trick to get the baby to move, so I'm about 85% sure that this is the baby moving. The books all say I should feel definite movement soon, and I'm looking forward to that reassurance.

My hips have been killing me lately, mostly when I sleep but they've also started hurting during the day lately which is fairly annoying. I went to the chiropractor yesterday, the first time since I found out I was pregnant, and while it seems to have helped with some of the daytime pain, it didn't lessen the stress and worry. It increased it, of course, as do most things that may in any way affect the baby and I cried the whole way to a meeting I had, stopping just in time to dry my tears and have the redness fade away before I had to go in from the parking garage.

I don't think I've posted this here yet, and I don't know why I haven't talked about the baby more since it's pretty much the thing that's happening in my life right now besides some interesting things at work, but our "big" ultrasound, where we get to find out the baby's sex, is scheduled for the day after Christmas. Since we're not really buying each other anything besides a few stocking stuffers, this is quite the Christmas present. Of course I'll be a nervous wreck that day leading up to the appointment, and there's the whole having to drink 32 ounces of water and holding it until the ultrasound is over that I'm already worried about.

Overall I'm so thoroughly excited about the baby that I can hardly stand it. This whole thing is very cool, if not the most comfortable thing I've ever done. We're nearing the half-way point of the pregnancy and I can't believe how fast it has gone so far. While I can't wait for the baby to be here I'm having fun enjoying the ride.

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Today's 12 DAYS OF COOKIES recipe is for the cookies I've made for our office decorating party today (which - I was supposed to make the mint chocolate cookies, but I had a baby to cuddle and those took too much time). I made super-easy "Those Pretzel Things", which are basically rolos on pretzels, melted slightly in a warm oven and topped with a pecan. Yum!