--Michaela is doing great on the food front. She's eating solids and loving them. She has had avocado, eggs, cottage cheese, oatmeal, green beans, carrots, bananas, butternut squash, watermelon, and peas. Her favorites are squash, peas, carrots and bananas. Anything sweet, basically.

--She has taken two baths in the real bath tub. She loves the water. Very unlike her mommy. Her grandma (Mike's mom) is visiting, and gave Michaela her first bath in the bath tub. Michaela splashed and screamed with joy and was really upset when it was time to get out. I was actually disappointed (though I didn't say anything), because I'd been looking forward to giving her her first bath in the tub. I almost did last week, but ended up doing something else, and just like that, the first time was gone. I did give Michaela a bath tonight, and it was nice.

--Grandma also put Michaela on the swing for the first time (another thing I was looking forward to doing). I also didn't say anything about being disappointed about that. It wouldn't have helped.

--Michaela bit the crap out of my nose the other day, and then poked me in the left eye. Later, she poked me in the right eye. Being a mom is hard!

--Mike continues to drive me crazy, off and on. But I have tried to seem excited when he wants to have sex, and when we do, it puts him in a better mood, which is good. I'm still not much in the mood for sex, but it is hurting a little bit less now, at least.

--Today I went and got a new bra. A real, non-nursing bra. It's sort of weird! 1) It feels so constricting, after wearing a nursing bra. This has underwire and a real hook and all that jazz. The nursing bra is just a cotton thing that barely holds up my boobs.

--Speaking of, my boobs are smaller (yeah!), but saggier. The density has changed. They're less full now. It's weird. So the bra I was wearing before was an H cup, and the one I bought today is a DD. Also, my ribs seem to have expanded slightly, and I'm fleshier than I was before. I stood in the fitting room today, looking at myself in only my bra, and I was disgusted. I need to do something to try to tone up some. I'm giggly and loose and flabby, and I don't like it.

--Also, as I pump less, I'm going to burn fewer calories, so all my eating is going to make me fat(ter). I don't want that!

--My boss is pregnant. I'm so happy for her! She's had a lot of issues and I'm just hoping she can keep this baby. I wish there was something I could do to make that happen, but of course there isn't.

--Speaking of new babies. When I told him my boss is pregnant, he said, "I was thinking we should get started on number two." I wanted to kill him. At the time, Michaela was fussing. Who wants to have another kid when I already have one who cries? Also, it's easy for him to say that. He's not the one who would have to carry and then push out the second kid!

--Though I do want to give Michaela a sibling. I love my brother, and our relationship, and I want her to enjoy that type of relationship, too. But I would like to have my body back to myself for just a little while. Like, to stop pumping and to be able to enjoy that for a bit before having to worry about becoming the host for another being.

--Now that Michaela is eating solids, she's having real poop. Have I mentioned I don't like cloth diapers?

--I booked tickets to go see my best friend in Chicago in September. Michaela and I are going to go and Mike is going to stay home. I'm nervous to travel on a plane without Mike, especially since Michaela will be too big to put in the Baby Bjorn. How am I going to carry her and all our stuff? Oy. I guess that's what curbside check in is for. My BFF had twin girls a few months ago, so it will be the first chance for our daughters to meet. I can't wait.

--One more complaint? Mike's mom helped us get Michaela's room ready before she was born. And she did an amazing job. The room only got done because of her help, and I am so thankful for her. But I guess she and Mike decided they wanted to do some additional painting in there and have planned to do so tomorrow. I don't want them to do anything to the room! It's perfect the way it is, and I don't think trying to do more is going to work out well. But I guess we'll see.

Latest and greatest

Another round up post!

Michaela has started cooing! It's so cute. She is awake a lot more and is bright eyed and bushy tailed.

She's grown a lot. She is already outgrowing some of her 3 month clothes. It turns out that Carter's clothes run small.

We have been taking a lot of walks. Well, we've walked the last three days. Monday, we walked to the dog park. Tuesday, we walked to the post office. Today, we walked to Seaport Village. It's nice for all of us to go on little trips like that, not to mention that it's good for mommy's weight loss!

I am getting tired of pumping. It's scary to think that I have 9 more months to go, if I'm going to make it a full year. My boobs are tired, I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night. Oy!

Mike's grandpa died. We Skyped with him the day before he (unexpectedly) died, which I'm very thankful for. As much as I am sad about Mike's grandpa passing-- and I really, really am-- I am more sad that it makes me think about my parents, or Mike's parents, dying. It's also now taken on a whole new dimension, which is it makes me really sad to think about Michaela having to lose her grandparents.

The other night, we stopped by my dad's house, and it was so cute to see my dad with the baby. He just loves her SO MUCH! He was making all these silly noises and faces to make Michaela smile. We finally had to tell him we needed to leave; I swear, he could have done that all day.

Reflecting on showers

Friday was my last day at work. Thursday, the people there threw me a shower. I was totally surprised and absolutely blown away by their generosity. Poppy came out of the shower with A TON of clothes and with some blankets, toys, bath products, etc. It was really amazing. I'm going to miss that place (and those people) very much, but I'm excited to not have to do the drive anymore and to start settling into the new routine.

Went to a baby shower yesterday for a friend I've known since junior high. It was lovely. Wonderful decorations and food and company. It made me excited for my shower (which is coming up!), but also allowed me to reflect on how cool it is that my kid and her kids (she's having twins) are going to be friends. My parents don't have couple friends, and even individually, neither of them had friends from longstanding relationships like that, so I never got to have "play cousins" or whatever you want to call them.

I am feeling surprisingly calm about the birthing process itself, and mainly full of excitement about the time that Poppy is actually here and all of the great things that are ahead of us.

The latest

Wow, it's been more than a week since I last wrote. Where does the time go? The scary thing is that it's going to go even faster once I have the baby!

I've noticed lately that my feet swell-- A LOT -- if I stand too much. At the end of the day, a couple of days ago, I looked down and my feet looked like sausages. Gross! I showed them to Mike, who commented on my cankles. Yup, I'd swollen p so much that my ankles had disappeared and started to blend into my calves. I'm trying to do a better job now of sitting more often and of elevating my feet.

One good thing that's come of all of this is that I feel pretty good about being bigger. I definitely am getting bigger and heavier, and sometimes I get a little down about it, but I also am happy and proud of my pregnant belly, which is home to a little person. I am surprised by it, actually. I have a maternity camisole and I feel pretty comfortable just wearing it around, even though it is form fitting and shows off my belly. Actually, I like it because it is form fitting and shows off my belly!

Sleep has gone by the wayside. Well, good sleep has, anyway. I get up frequently and get up a lot each night. Sometimes I feel exhausted but can't quite get to sleep, or I finally get to sleep but wake up a little bit later and can't go back to sleep. I took a nap at work the other day; balled up my jacket, laid on the floor under my desk, and woke up 25 minutes later when my phone started ringing. God, it was great.

I'm trying to stay hydrated but not doing that great of a job. I am procrastinating on starting to take my prenatal vitamins again, and instead keep taking my adult gummy vitamins. I haven't been eating particularly well, either. But I'm chugging along, and so is Poppy.

Belly

I am starting to get wider, as I've mentioned, and I'm starting to get a little bit of a belly. Since I'm relatively early in the process, I tend to think, though, that it's my intestines and bowels being shifted around by my growing uterus, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, I'm having a really hard time finding clothes to wear to work!

None of my pants close around my waist, but that's what belly bands are for. I'm having more difficulty on top. None of my button up shirts go around me anymore. None of my tanktops are big enough, and they're all on the shorter side, so they ride up and expose my stomach. Today I needed to look nice for work and I picked out a wrap dress that I thought would accommodate me, but when I put it on this morning, it looked really stupid. Too small. I tried on a few other things and none of them fit, so I ended up going with my only sheath dress that still fits (but only barely) and a loose cardigan on top.

On my way home today, I stopped at the Motherhood Maternity outlet to see if I could find a few pieces that would get me through this awkward stage. Once I tell my work, I will feel better about wearing maternity clothes (e.g., smocky, empire waisted tops and rotating through only a few pairs of pants), but at this point, since I haven't told them, I'm trying to keep my wardrobe as close to my normal clothes as possible. Plus I'm conscious of that fact that I'm only going to get bigger and I don't want to buy a bunch of stuff that's just going to be too small in a week or two (although I think that's probably part of the process of being pregnant and wearing clothes).

I ended up getting 2 sweaters-- an oatmeal-colored short-sleeved cardigan and an open sort of duster in a pretty teal color-- a button up shirt that has room in it for my boobs and belly, and three pair of capri pants with elastic waistbands. I got a brown pair, a black pair, and a white pair, and my plan is to wear those all summer. I also got a pair of gray pants that have an elastic band. All that for $150, which doesn't seem too bad to me considering I tried to buy things in sizes such that I'd be able to wear them for a while (for example, I bought large pants, not medium).

I also saw a denim skirt that I liked, but it was $35 and I couldn't bring myself to spend the extra money.

I'm so excited to be able to get up tomorrow morning and put on my clothes and not be uncomfortable or worry about a wardrobe malfunction!

In front of a studio audience

I came up with a good analogy today as I was dressing for work. Each morning, I have a more and more difficult time getting ready, as my clothes get smaller and smaller. I've been wearing my belly band to make up for my pants not closing anymore, but my shirts are getting small, too, so it's hard to find things that 1) go around my top half and 2) don't cling too closely to my belly. Anyway... so it dawned on me this morning that I feel like a pregnant actress on a sitcom that has decided not to incorporate the pregnancy into the storyline. Like what they did with the Daphne character on friends. In the show, they gave her a huge appetite and made all these jokes about her binging all the time. I feel like that when I go to work! Like I'm getting bigger and bigger and no one is supposed to notice, or like my coworkers are supposed to think that I'm just getting fat. Not that it matters, really; who cares why my colleagues think I'm getting bigger? But it's like a comedy that only I am privy to. Me and the studio audience, that is.