I swear, the baby moved all day today. This was definitely the most movement I have felt in a single day. There haven’t been any really strong kicks yet today, but he/she certainly has been active. I have felt movement up high, down low, and everywhere in between.

For a few weeks now we’ve been calling him/her Baby Jerk. I’ve felt lots of kicks and movement, sometimes even felt them externally and seen my belly move. Every time Aaron put his hand on my belly, the little sucker will quit. Hence the name “Baby Jerk”.

The kicks have become stronger as time goes on. Thursday, Maisie Cat was sitting on my stomach purring contently for quite some time, then I felt the baby kick a bit, and Maisie took off. I guess she felt it too, hehe. Yesterday I was taking a bath and actually saw my stomach move. The movement even made the water ripple a bit. Of course, when Aaron comes home the baby doesn’t cooperate. Dumb Baby Jerk…

So last night we make it home from Carreta’s and I decided to relax on the couch. Usually this makes the baby active, so Aaron put his hand on my belly. Well Baby Jerk decided to cooperate and gave him a pretty good kick to the hand. Just one, but that was better than nothing

I had to go back to the doctor’s office this morning for my second round of prenatal blood tests and for the 1 hour fasting glucose test. I couldn’t eat or drink anything after 8pm last night.

To make it even more difficult on myself, Aaron and I decided to bake a Tres Leches cake last night. Complete with home-made Dulce de Leche. I couldn’t even taste it – just had to smell it…. And this morning I made home-made whipped cream topping. It was tough…

I went to the doctor this morning and they took my blood, then made me drink the super-sugar gator-aid stuff. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – its pretty tasty. It does make you a little nauseous though – quite a rush of sugar. Then I had to sit there for an hour so they could take my blood again. After that I drove home really fast so I could have a piece of cake and some breakfast, heh.

The cake is really awesome, but I didn’t spread the batter flat enough before I baked it, so the cake baked taller in the middle. This means that the middle of the cake is drier than the outside edges. Still tasty, but I would rather that it all have the same moisture content. Oh well…. it was a pretty good first try.

Week 6 compared to today, 23 weeks 2 days

And here’s week 6, week 21, and week 23.

I had a doctor appointment today. I’ve gained 14 lbs total, which is good – not too much and not too little. Everything is measuring on target and my blood pressure is good. I have to go back tomorrow morning to have my fasting glucose test and other bloodwork. I have another appointment in 2 weeks, right before I leave to work in Memphis for a month. I’ll get the Rhogam injection then. After that, I won’t have another appointment until I’m 30 weeks along, which is right after Labor Day. I’ll have another ultrasound at that appointment.

Here’s a great NY Times article on the subject:
Chicken of the Sea
FYI – I have been eating sushi, even raw stuff, for months now. Aaron and I agreed that I wouldn’t be putting our child at risk to eat sushi – why listen to the popular and fanatical opinion that I would certainly be killing our child by eating raw fish. I’m glad that there is finally a good article to back up our feelings on the matter.

I am making an effort to limit my intake of fish which contain higher mercury levels, but other than that, if it tastes good, I eat it!!

The evil preggosaurus has emerged today and is demanding BEER! I think this is my first official craving. Unfortunately, I really can’t satisfy that craving.

I made fish n chips for dinner using a wonderful amber beer to make the batter. When I went to the store to buy the beer, the craving started. When I opened the beer and smelled its wonderful aroma as I made the batter, the craving got stronger. When I ate the fish n chips and tasted the tasty beer batter flavor, I nearly lost my mind. I started to cry because I couldn’t drink the beer.

Aaron is currently on his way to the store to buy me some O’Douls… How sad is that? Can you believe I actually want an O’douls??? Hopefully it tastes close enough to beer that it solves my little dilemma.

I took the picture with my new lens because I was too lazy to put the wide angle lens back on the camera. Its a little more zoomed in than usual, so I cropped the old pictures for more accurate comparison.

Week 6 compared to today, 21 weeks 3 days

And here’s week 6, week 19, and week 21. I really grew in the last 2 weeks!

And here are a few other pictures from today:

I have had more baby dreams recently, but not quite as strange as the iguana baby dream.

Sunday night I had a dream about the baby. It was a boy, and a real baby this time. The weirdness is that I couldn’t figure out how to dress the child or put a diaper on it. I carried it around and it peed and pooped and spit up on me and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t even figure out how to carry around a diaper bag. My mom would ask “Aren’t you going to dress the baby?” and I would reply “I don’t know how!”. She would offer to show me how to dress the baby and put a diaper on it, and I would then realize that I had no diaper bag or any diapers or clothes at all. I could feed the baby – it didn’t go hungry. And it was clean, somehow managing to have all the pee and spit up end up solely on my clothing.

I had another dream last night, but I don’t remember as much from that one. In the dream last night, the baby was a girl. And I think it was clothed this time, ha. The dream had something to do with me pushing the baby in the stroller. That’s about all I can remember. I was so dead tired after the 4th that I don’t think I even got up to pee last night. I slept like a rock.

Speaking of the 4th – we had a lot of fun. We went to the Balcony Bar on Tuesday night for Mike’s birthday. It was a lot of fun although I couldn’t drink. We sat outside and I drank water and laughed at everyone while they became silly drunk. On the 4th, we hung out at Mike and Marissa’s for their 4th of July/ Housewarming party. We prepared a LOT of food. I still was not hungry this morning, heh.