Heartburn - Oh, the Humanity!

Most days I don't have much time to think about being pregnant. I get tired easier than before, but I feel great for the most part. Days like today though, it's right front and center. Quite literally. Ladies and gentlemen, there is now a baby bump. I'm not sure when this happened, but I think it just appeared one night. POP! and there it was. I think it's kind of a big bump for approaching 22 weeks if I do say so myself. And I do say so; I'm the one who's lugging it around.

While the bump isn't really an issue (well, I haven't knocked anyone over yet anyway), the heartburn that ensues sure is. All day today I fought horrendous heartburn. I'm quite sure it's eroding my brain stem as it swirls around in there; it already claimed my tonsils. It doesn't seem to matter how many Gaviscons I take, I don't get any relief.

What's a girl to do when she has the fire of Hades in her throat? Why, she serves pizza for dinner, complete with fire-fueling tomato sauce of course! And now I'm really suffering. Cailin loved every single cheesy piece though, so it was worth it. If I start breathing fire though? Somebody please club me.

Today was one of those super frustrating days where I spun my wheels and turned circles trying to get a lot accomplished. If I had a tail I would have been chasing it. Since we moved our room downstairs, it's been a real pain to have my clothes remain upstairs in the dresser and closet. Not to mention the show the neighbors have been getting each morning. Yeesh.

So today, while a cranky teething Cailin was napping, I put together wire shelves from mom's and cleaned out the laundry room. I put the shelves under the stairs and began the arduous task of cleaning out the dresser and closet upstairs. I wasn't keen on keeping my clothes in the laundry room, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of efficiency. The clothes go in the washer, then dryer, get folded and put back on the handy shelf. That's not so bad. I'm still absolutely giddy about the fact that we have same-level laundry.

Cleaning out the remainder of Jellybean's room took a lot longer than I thought it would. I sorted out clothes to keep for after pregnancy, clothes to wear during and some to donate. I got rid of absolutely anything that didn't fit properly or that I don't like wearing etc.

The closet was a bigger issue since it didn't just contain clothes - it was full of trinkets, GameBoy stuff and empty jewelry boxes to say the least. Once Cailin got up, she was enthralled by all the little ring boxes and such and played with them for the longest time.

I have tons of little knick knacks that I have no idea what to do with. I know they could be treasures for someone else, so I'm thinking of donating things I don't use or display anymore. There was so much crammed in that closet that I got very frustrated trying to think of things to do with it all. Hence the spinning of the wheels. It all got relegated to the kitchen counter while I thought of where to stuff everything.

Oh! And who could forget my super helpy helperton? She helped combine her clothes, my clothes, donation clothes and junk into one big happy pile:
I didn't know which way was up. I was beginning to think we'd be lost in that pile of textiles forever. However. The mood in that room quickly disintegrated into massive crank-ola and I magically regained the knowledge to finding the door. We took a break for the above mentioned pizza.

After dinner we tackled the mess again. Slowly yet surely it got better until... I turned around and the room was devoid of trinkets, clothes and artwork. Cailin's toys have kind of snuck in there though. She loves having a play room. I wonder what she'll think of the new 'toy' she'll be getting in a few months.

Once all the junk - er, stuff - was removed from Jellybean's room, the only place for it to go was down. Ryan was home from work by then, so he helped carry all the clothes etc. downstairs. I put my clothes on the racks in the laundry room, and Ryan was gracious enough to clean out a few drawers in the dresser in our new room for me to use. The clothes tornado that ensued at this point would scare a blind beaver so I'll refrain from describing it. Let me just say that Ryan has more clothes than any man should ever be allowed to have. Ahem. Moving on.

Which brings me to the storage room. It has been upgraded lately from 'Pit of Doom' to 'Pit of Despair', which I'm sure is better than 'Pit of Certain Death', but only marginally. I had a bad time fitting yet more junk into that place, but once it was finished I breathed a huge sigh of relief. And shut the bulging door and ran for my life.

During the course of the day, I managed to go through oodles of boxes of Cailin's old clothes. Not surprisingly, there wasn't a whole lot of gender neutral attire to be had, but I did manage to find several sleepers, socks and diaper shirts in yellow, and some bibs. I know there are still more boxes of clothes to sort in the storage room and I'll likely find a few more items for our son to use.

Of course, on the slight chance that someone made a mistake and we have a girl, I'm not donating any of Cailin's old clothes until Jellybean is born. If Jellybean does turn out to be a girl (and that's highly unlikely) we won't have to buy a single item of clothing for at least a year. What can I say? Cailin loves clothes, just like her daddy.

I put Jellybean's blue receiving blankets in his 'new' dresser today (thanks Auntie Hedder and Odin!), along with some crib bedding and the beige curtains that were in that room prior. I hung his first diaper shirts from Nana in the closet. And my old hockey jersey - Pittsburg Penguins. Every little boy needs a hockey jersey to grow into. What? They had Super Mario on the team way back when I got it okay? What I'm saying is, we're almost ready.

I'm not sure if we're going to paint his room or not. The color is picked out (sage green) but I don't know if it will get done before we paint the rest of the house. We might be so sick of painting by then that the beige color currently in there might suddenly be perfect.

We are currently mulling a few baby names around in our heads. We have a few that we like and agree on, but we haven't come up with THE ONE just yet. Stay tuned.

You're probably wondering what Cailin has been up to lately. No good, I can tell you.
We went for a walk today that started out quite enthusiastically but turned into a carry-me-home kinda thing. It was breezy and chilly out and you know who refuses to keep her hood or hat on for any length of time. There was a lot of, "What's that?" going on. Once in a while she would demand to be put down so she could inspect the water flowing into the sporadic drains along the street. I'm not sure why drains are so interesting, but we stopped at nearly all of them to watch the water. Then we'd walk a few steps before the inevitable pick-me-up-now-thanks. Next time we're bringing the stroller.

One of Cailin's pet peeves (and mine too) is when her bowl won't sit still on the table while she's trying to spear the goods inside of it with her fork. I've been trying to find bowls/plates that suction cup to the table but have come up empty handed every time.

When Cailin was eating macaroni the other day, inspiration struck. I took a piece of scotch tape, rolled it in a large loop and taped her bowl to the table with it. Giving it a test wiggle, it held. Not the best, but certainly better than chasing the slippery bowl around the table with one's fork. Congratulating myself on being such a smart mommy, I turned around just in time to see Cailin flip the bowl over (spilling all its contents) and remove the piece of tape. She gave the tape an experimental pinch between her fingers and then dipped it in her macaroni. At that moment, Bailey's head popped up beside Cailin and it took her a less than a second to put the tape on Bailey's ear. And laugh hysterically.

Last night I pointed to my tummy and asked Cailin if her baby brother was in there. She chirped back a very enthusiastic, "Yes!" Later I asked her where baby brother was. Cailin patted my tummy and said, "Right there."