Sprouting a Sweet Potato...18 weeks

This week our baby is approximately the size of a sweet potato, about 5.5 to 6 inches long and about 6.7 ounces. This is what Baby P is busy doing this week, passing the hours yawning, hiccuping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching, sucking and swallowing. The baby can now hear external sounds, especially mama's voice and may even be stimulated or respond to certain voices that are familiar. Wonder if this will make Adam start talking to my belly, or maybe I will start requiring it so his voice will also soothe the baby at 2 a.m.!! Everything I read says I may start to feel movement. I have occasionally felt "something" but when you don't really know what you are supposed to be feeling its hard to identify what is what. I read something that said the baby's feet are about 1 inch long, so they are definitely not real identifiable kicks yet.

At the Phillips home we are also sprouting zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and green beans. Our garden has really taken off the last few weeks and we should actually have edible food here in a couple of weeks.

Last but not least, we have made some substantial headway on the laundry room and 2nd bathroom area. We nearly have everything painted and Adam plans to start tiling in the next few days. Thanks to Mom and Dad and Michelle and Steve for their help painting this weekend, I was feeling a little useless because I was banished from the area, but we couldn't have gotten it all done so quickly without them. Adam also got one window replaced in the nursery so there is one more to go and we will have replaced every single window in our house. Our remaining items are to get the fixtures into the 2nd bathroom once the tiling is finished, finish drywalling the closet in the nursery, blow insulation into the walls in the nursery, some finishing things on the cabinets in the kitchen (mouldings and such) and installing the hardwoods in the kitchen and dining room. That might seem like a bit of stuff, but compared to the list I made at the beginning of this year, seeing less then 10 items left on the list for the interior of the house to be finished makes for a very happy me!!

The Pop @ 15 weeks

I really don't particularly like this phrase but I guess you can say I have popped. Here is a belly picture at 15 weeks. I'm hoping the popping slows down a bit from here on out or you are going to be able to roll me to the hospital at 40 weeks. The one part that makes me feel good is that I've only gained between 4-5 pounds so that assures me that this is more baby than french fries and frostys :)

One of many parental decisions made

We made our first of I know many more parental decisions by choosing a daycare center to take Baby Phillips to after I come back to work. We toured 3 centers last week and the final decision came down to between a great place called Small Blessings at 96th and Zionsville Road and an equally great place called Heartland Hall at 116th and Meridian. Initially we were probably leaning more towards Small Blessings, in that we liked some of the things that applied more to older kids (like not until they were at least 2 maybe even 3), but after discussing our options it just made more sense for us right now to enroll with Heartland. Some benefits of Heartland are that it is literally right across the street from my work which means not only convenient drop-off and pick-up but also the ability to go visit the baby once I'm back to work full-time. Another benefit, obviously not what we based our decision completely on but a nice benefit, is it is at least $2000 cheaper a year plus add in the additional gas of getting to over to Small Blessings and we can all go on a nice family vacation for the difference.

We are excited that this decision is out of the way and as of last week they had openings in March when we needed to start, so hopefully I get a call soon to confirm our spot. If you can't tell I'm just a bit of a planner, so knowing that something is taken care of and moving on to the next thing makes me feel much more comfortable then having something up in the air.

Now it will be moving on to finding a pediatrician. I don't think I was realizing that I needed to start looking quite this early but after talking to a few other moms they said they looked for a pedi about the same time as daycare.

Its crazy how much planning there is for a little person that isn't even born yet :)

Next post: I'm going to try and take a 15 week belly shot to insure you all I'm starting to look pregnant and not just fat!