But before I start dinner, I thought I'd jot down a few things that have been floating around in my head. This may be sort of an unorganized blog, but follow me here. (I can use the excuse of "baby brain" – not alcohol! - if my thoughts are incoherent).
First of all, let me touch on the vacay, but I won't dwell on it too long for I fear that reading it may turn into watching Aunt Mildred's slideshow of her trip to Florida. I had that thought after I wrote my last cruise blog and no one commented on it!
It was great. We had excellent weather for the most part. Steve and I took a 5 day Carnival cruise from New Orleans to the ports of Progresso and Cozumel, Mexico. We had our friends Rick & Tina with us… which I now highly recommend cruising with friends. While the guys watched football on Sunday on our first day at sea, Tina and I booked a relaxing massage and facial at the spa. I highly doubt Steve would have wanted to do that!
The ports were interesting…we visited Mayan ruins in Progresso and learned a lot about the culture, which was fascinating. Cozumel resulted in a day of shopping for me and Steve because there wasn't much I could do (aka – PREGNANT). I wanted to swim with dolphins, or ride horses or do a zipline through the jungle. Yeah, it didn't happen. Lots of good shops in Cozumel, but lots of scary aggressive people wanting to be your amigo. I held my purse tightly to my side. I did manage to buy a beautiful sapphire ring, though, that matched the sapphire necklace I got in Jamaica.
Best part of the cruise had to be dinner of course. Warm chocolate melting cake is a must for anyone who takes a Carnival cruise. Our waiter gave me the recipe. Pure heaven. The only problem was that dinner was so late (8:30 seating) and my body didn't want to stay up that late so plenty of naps were in order during the day to get through. Worst part of the cruise? Pregnancy meant no alcohol…yeah, it sucked. Every 5 minutes a waiter seemed to walk past asking if I wanted to buy the drink of the day. Trust me, I WANTED to. (I kept joking that I needed to wear a t-shirt that said "I'm pregnant"). I haven't missed alcohol a lot, but this was really hard for me. Drinking is kind of expected on a cruise.
And, that parlays to the second part of my blog, pregnancy. I'm now 11 weeks along, and last week, my belly decided to pop out a little bit (which was kind of a relief… I'd just been looking "fat" without really looking pregnant, now I think I'm beginning to look believable). This wasn't much of a problem on the ship because I had purchased larger sized capris and tops, so they fit pretty well. Flash forward to Friday, when we were home… somehow the weather went from 90 degrees the day we left to 60. Yeah, it was chilly, and yeah, I didn't have a single pair of jeans that fit.
Gathering up my pride, I put on a pair of tight sweatpants and went to the store where I forayed the maternity section for the first time. I needed jeans and I had to face reality. What I encountered were "okay" jeans…(I was hoping for bootcut, these were a little more on the "mom jeans" order, but not too bad), but they had these crazy cloth elastic waistbands. I tried a few pairs on and found one that I could kind of grow into. They look slightly hideous, but man are they comfortable! The tops weren't too bad, pretty basic empire waist styles are okay with me. I also broke down and got some other necessary maternity attire. I hated shelling out the money, but I had to. My clothes are not fitting! It's hard to realize that I'm not getting "fat", I'm just pregnant.
Anyway, now that I am just beginning to "show", I am carrying high. According to my mom again (who is a pretty accurate judge of what people have), it looks like I'm having a girl. That combined with the high heartbeat, plus I feel like I am having a girl, makes me think we are pregnant with a girl. (Also, there are other things like this Chinese chart I found online, and other old wives tales that point toward a girl). So, because of all of this mounting evidence, Steve is firmly convinced we are having a boy. I don't know if it is because he wants someone to throw the football with and teach about the Packers (which he swears he will do even if we have a girl – groan), or if he really thinks that we are having a boy. Either way I'm happy. Just as long as it's healthy (and I'm disheartened and frightened as I write this because someone Steve and I know who was pregnant and due almost exactly the same time we are just found out that they lost their baby. Even though I'm almost out of my 1st trimester, this grounds me and lets me know I'm not out of the woods yet.) I'm almost inclined to take a belly picture to see what the consensus is among everyone. Maybe next time.
That's all for now. Tomorrow - back to work .
