Feeling the need to immerse myself in baby stuff, I took a trip out to Roncesvalles to go to Macklem's yesterday morning.
Even though we are getting a lot of things from our incredibly generous friends and relatives (we have been offered a bassinet, a baby bjorn, and multiple strollers in addition to the crib, bouncy chair and diaper genie that are already in our possession) and don't need a lot of the big ticket stuff, I wanted to go and see what was out there.
It was great walking around there and having an upclose look at all the different car seats, cribs, strollers, and all the other things that a new mother apparently can't do without. It was also nice talking to the sales people about the benefits of the various brands and styles. Much better than at Babies R Us where, if you can find a salesperson, they barely know the stock. The store was pretty expensive, and I don't know if I would buy anything from there, but I won't hesitate to use their knowledge.
I checked out the stroller that my friend Mel just bought and suffered some serious envy. I had to agree with my friend Stef though when she pointed out that while that particular stroller was really good for 2 kids, since we only plan on having one, it might not be the best choice for us.
But now, I am obsessed with strollers. Even though we have been offered three strollers from various people, and we will most likely not be getting a new one, every time I see a stroller on the street I stare at it fixedly, trying to see how well it maneuvers and how comfortable the kid seems.
I would probably be doing this with car seats as well, but it's a bit more difficult to check those out without looking like a total psycho.

After a bit of a bad week last week, I realized that it had been a very long time since I had just been by myself, doing whatever I wanted to. So on Friday night after work I took off to the Eaton Center to just wander around. Wow did I need that. I came back home totally revitalized. I keep forgetting I need me time every once in a while.

While I was out wandering, I did make one purchase. Long ago, when we first started talking about having a kid, I promised Joe that when I got pregnant, I would get him the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad Collection of DVD's. He saw them when he was really young and he really wanted to share them with any kid he had. (get them young with the stop motion animation we say!) As one of my friends at work says, with the two of us as its parents, this poor child probably won't be aware of any current entertainment for years! (except for Dr.Who of course)
I'd actually love it if my kid was like Mel's two year old that loves Miyazaki movies and Warner Bros. superhero cartoons. I would do the entire Warner's cartoon canon personally, I love me some Animaniacs.

After a month or so of not really believing I was pregnant, my body seems to have taken over, leaving me in no doubt of what is going on. In the last week or so, my symptoms have really ramped up. The nausea that seemed to go away for a bit has come back, I'm really tired all the time but when I go to sleep, I just can't seem to get comfortable, when I do get to sleep, I wake up way too early, and my moods are all over the place. I've been crying at the drop of a hat lately.
Not to mention the physical changes that my body is going through.

Even though I am only nearing the end of 11 weeks and not really showing, I had to go and buy some maternity jeans at Old Navy last night. My sister says it's because everything is moving around. But I had an appointment with my dietician this morning and it seems that I've gained four and a half pounds. That's about 2lbs more than I expected. I've been kinda beating myself up about this all day even though everyone says I should just relax and that as long as I'm eating well and not too much, it should all work out. But I can't help myself. In a weird way, I feel like I've failed myself or something. My goal is to stay on the lighter side of the weight gain curve, which in the first trimester is 1/2 lb a week and I blew it for the month. I started out almost 40lbs overweight and I don't want to use this as an excuse to balloon even more.

On the plus side, the maternity jeans are wonderful. There is no constriction whatsoever. I keep worrying that they are going to fall off!