Ongoing Nursery Project: Painting Stripes!

HY and I are on the way to the US! Right now, we're sitting in the JAL Lounge for one of those blah layovers that are too short to do anything interesting, yet they still make you get off the plane just to go through security. So I thought I'd update my blog about something I've been meaning to write about. 

I've had my heart set on big, horizontal, light grey and white stripes for the nursery since about Week 4 of the pregnancy. After getting a price quote from the painter (which was a reasonable quote), HY and I thought about it for a while, and after the painter left, we both looked at each other and said, "It'd be kind of fun to do it ourselves!" We were just waiting for the painter to leave to tell each other. I painted most of my last house myself, so I know I can paint, but I have never tackled stripes before. We made a trip to the hardware store to pick a paint color, brushes, a laser leveler, and lots of painter's tape. This is how the room looked after we finished taping it up, which we worked on for a night, and then I finished the next day when HY was at work. It would've gone by a LOT faster but there were two big problems. The first is that we had no tripod, so I had to use some creative vertical stacking of a lot of our living room furniture to put the laser leveler on. Then I'd fine tune it using thin books, magazines, floor pads, whatever got it JUST right. It was probably not the safest way to do it. The other thing that absolutely sucked was the laser leveler we got (and spent about 100+ bucks on, or 3000+ TWD). It was not level at all, so I ended up using a ruler to do most of the stripes, otherwise the baby would have serious vertigo issues with wonky stripes throwing his equilibrium off.

Another big setback was after test painting a spot on the wall, I realized the paint color we chose was very different color from the paper swatches in the hardware store. Once painted, it was not a soft grey, but more like a soft pink. We had to go back to the store to pick up a pot of grey paint to mix with it. While HY was at work, I started mixing grey paint in, which made the hue better but the paint ended up being WAY too dark. Luckily I had a big can of white paint left from our previous renovations, so after throwing in the whole can of white paint, it was a nice light soft grey. It took me a whole morning just to mix the paint just right. It still has a hint of purple grey, but we're both ok with that. The plus is after all that mixing, we have 3 big cans of paint to use for the nursery, so we can get plenty of coats out of that. Here's hub HY painting (I wouldn't let him take a pic of me bc I looked like a crazy hot mess after all that paint drama):

Below is the nursery after its first coat of paint. We'll probably do another coat or two, which will saturate the color a little more. After painting, I had a terrible bout of carpal tunnel syndrome, which scared me from painting any more, so the rest of the nursery will have to wait until HY has time to finish the painting. 

 

 Anyways, about time to get back on the plane...happy flying to us! Next time I'll be blogging from the US!

Nursery Project: Knitted Mobile

So I thought I'd share the very first thing I made for the nursery. I finished this knitted and crocheted mobile about a month ago actually, just never got around to taking pics. After playing around with different ideas and trying out animals in various colors (I considered owls, elephants, birds), I decided to go sweet and simple with basic colors. When I started the mobile, we hadn't started painting the nursery yet, but I already knew the basic feel and color scheme I wanted. Back then, I didn't know if we were having a boy or girl yet, so I kept the colors mostly gender neutral. I figured I could get away with a hint of lavender-grey here and there. Good thing I didn't make it too girly, because our boy might not like that much!   

I crocheted the clouds in white yarn, the stars I did in either lavender and white or dusty blue and white, and the moon I decided to do with this bit of leftover grey and white swirled yarn that I never got around to using. I didn't have any patterns, so it took a bit of trial and error, especially for the moon. I'm actually not sure if I'd be able to replicate it if I wanted to haha.

 

After knitting and crocheting all the pieces, I stitched them together and stuffed them with the stuffing from a cheap Ikea pillow that I ripped open. What was actually quite time consuming was getting the hoop at the top ready. I rummaged around the hardware store and ended up buying a cheap underwear hanger that you dry clothes with. I had hub HY rip out the plastic lining inside of the metal, which was quite difficult and took him a long time. It was a bit warped by the time he finished, but we got it back into shape. Hanging each of the stuffed pieces was also a challenge, since I really wanted different heights to show fluffy layers just like cumulus clouds have. So after sewing long invisible fishing line onto each one, it took me quite a bit of time to balance out the mobile and play around with placement. Overall, for my first mobile, I'm happy with it, and hopefully the baby loves staring at it!

19 weeks, and very active!

Happy 19 weeks to our baby boy! We're actually nearer to 20 weeks now, but I've been a lazy blogger and haven't gotten a chance to post until today.

You can definitely see the bump has gotten bigger, and I think baby's starting to move up a little bit. A lot of friends say you can still see abs, but I have an feeling that those are going to disappear in the next few weeks. I've still been staying active, which is usually consists of dogwalking, housework, work (which usually keeps me busy and on my feet), and stretching and crunches every night. I do a few hundred crunches (upper, middle, lower, obliques) and pelvic lift thingies, which I'm hoping helps keep everything perky lol. I hear a lot of friends say pregnancy makes your butt wider, so I'm trying to do all I can to avoid that...we'll see if it works! My belly's still on the smaller side, so regular floor crunches haven't been an issue, but once I get bigger I'll probably have to get a big stability ball to do exercises on. 

As you can see, I'm not the only one that's been staying active. The baby has become quite the tumbler in my belly. He's kicking me harder and harder everyday, to the point where just by looking at my tummy I can see the belly jump when he kicks. I also feel him doing flips and turns in my lower belly, which feels strange to say the least. It feels like he's using my organs as a playground basically. I have a feeling he's going to be a handful.

Looking forward to our upcoming trip back home for the Chinese New Year!

...and it's a.....

Been really busy this week! Undertaking a new big nursery project, so y'all will be hearing about that one soon enough once I've made some visible progress. Right now it's in the trial-and-error phase, so just figuring everything out. 

Other big news, we went to the OB a few days ago, and we found out:

As you can see, it's a BOY! I knew it! I had been telling everyone since week 7 that I had a dream that I gave birth to a baby boy and it came out with a huge smile and looked just like HY's dad lol. The funny thing is, even in the 3D ultrasound, we could see the baby had a huge smile on his face. Maybe my dreams are just very very accurate lol. Must be a happy baby! He's huge (at 17w he was measuring 6in and 6.6oz) a little bigger than we see average sizes are, which is good since up until week 14 he was measuring a little below average size. That must explain why all of a sudden in the past week, I really really popped out. You can't tell too much from this pic, but after I drink some milk or eat a little, the belly pops out even more haha. 

Ok, on to less happy news. I've been feeling pretty down lately. The last 4 days I have cried every day, and it's mostly because of my changing body. I see myself getting fuller in the tummy, and I get comments about how I've gotten "meatier". I know pregnancy is definitely not the best time to be obsessed about your looks, but after spending the last decade plus dieting down to my pre-pregnancy size, it's hard to see yourself changing. It's especially hard to endure all the comments. I don't think people realize how cruel it can be to make fat comments to pregnant women. First of all, every woman gains at different rates and carries the weight differently. It's not like it is when you're not pregnant. Basically you have very little control as to where you gain and how much. I've been watching what I eat and making sure I eat nutritious and healthy yet not high calorie, but I've still been gaining at a steady rate. To put that kind of pressure with those snide "meaty" comments or constant warnings about "not eating too much and getting all fat" on a self-conscious vulnerable pregnant woman is really not cool. It's like when your pregnant all social boundaries go out the window and your body is viewed as public property. Everyone's poking around your body, comments that usually wouldn't be ok are suddenly "normal", and everyone feels like it's normal to put their hands all over a stranger's belly. It's gotten to the point where there are a lot of times I can't look in the mirror, and when I do, I cry. Crying doesn't do well for my face either, making it all puffy and splotchy. Have not been feeling very pretty. HY tries to always make me feel beautiful, but it isn't that easy. I know the changes taking place in my body and appearance, and it's tough to accept. I was really happy though, to find out the baby grew so much since our last appointment at 14 weeks. It would've been terrible to have the belly pop so much and gain weight to find out the baby stayed the same size haha. I was happy to see a really big active baby boy in there. I've even started feeling him kicking and poking me at night, so I know he's a strong baby. 

Ok going to go work on painting the nursery again!

Beginning of a baby blog!

 Ok, after keeping a pregnancy journal for the first 4 months, I've decided to start an actual blog to share our bellybean's progress, DIY projects we've been working on for the baby, random musings, and baby paranoia. So up until about 15 weeks, I had been taking weekly belly photos, but those are pretty much me in front of the mirror in my undies, taking pics with my cell phone. After getting some inspiration from other mommies-to-be, I decided that it's too special of a time to take such blah pictures. I mean, I'm only going to be pregnant a few times (max!) right? 

 

 

 These are the pics from the last two belly check-ins:  Can see the beginnings of a bump! My tummy is all poofed out where it used to be flat. 

 And here is my 17 week belly check-in pic that I took last night! 

Definitely starting to feel a round hard bump. Everyone says my bump seems kind of low, because I haven't gotten much thicker around the waist or tummy area yet, and my bump seems situated right in my belly pooch under the belly button. It's definitely a bump and not bloat, because I can feel the hardness. Also, in the morning my top tummy area is completely flat/concave, but the bump never goes away!  

Anyways, this is the start of a new baby blog for us, and over the next few entries will be playing catch-up and posting some stuff I haven't shared yet. Enjoy!