18 Weeks

Head to rump, your baby is approximately 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and weighs almost 7 ounces. He's busy flexing his arms and legs — movements that you'll start noticing more and more in the weeks ahead. If you're having a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If you're having a boy, his genitals are noticeable now, although he may hide them from you during an ultrasound.
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T has told me that I can no longer refer to the baby as a "blob" (although that's what he/she resembles in our pictures!). So we have instead decided to call him/her "fuzz", since the pics also make it look like a fuzzball. Better than "lint". :)

Oh let's see... last week was pretty much wrapped up in the excitement of the pending ultrasound. This week I need to call my doctor, because I realized that I left my last appt. without waiting for them to give me my triple test. Whoops! Not that I enjoy having more needles poked into me, I just need to go have that done. While I'm at it, I can probably get another allergy shot as well. Why have only one needle?!? How about 3 more?!? :) Then, I can also discuss when I can schedule the NEXT ultrasound and then the excitement can grow from there.

Other news this week... school is back in full swing. I actually completed 5 full days of teaching - first time since sometime last May - back before I was pregnant. Most days I felt pretty good, a couple I was totally exhausted when I got home. So far, I seem to have a very nice class. After last year's challenges, this is a welcome change. :) I have a few tricky ones, but every class has those. I do have two students who seem to get a lot of my attention because of talking, etc. One's a boy and the other's a girl. I find myself saying their names most often. I was telling that fact at lunch the other day, and our first grade teacher said that my baby is going to think their name is one of those because I say it so often. That's also another sticky point. How in the world are we going to come up with a name for this child when I have a certain memory of a lot of names because of all the children I come in contact with on a daily basis, and have for the last 10+ years?!? We do have a few name books, and right now we just look through them and laugh at the funny/bizarre names. I think that when we can narrow down boy/girl, then it will become a little more serious. :)

Last night we attending the Pheasants Forever banquet supporting the local chapter than T is very involved with. I must say, it's usually an incredibly boring night. Very long. However, last night, my mom and I ran one of the games and it made the night go by much faster- and funner! I also got a steal on a very cool framed print during the live auction (I've never bid/won anything at an auction before) - and it's now hanging above our fireplace! I also won ANOTHER print from playing a plinko type game. Most of the games work like this - you pay like $10 and play and get so many tickets for how well you did. At each station, there's usually 2 prizes - a gun and a print. Of course, the banquet is filled with mostly men and what do they want? Guns! What did I want? It sure wasn't a gun! When it came time to announce the plinko winners, they drew the first ticket (who gets first choice) and it was a guy who took the gun. I still had a chance! The second ticket was mine!!! I was thrilled! T also won a gun during one of the quick raffle drawings that go on during the evening. You can also buy sheets of tickets to put in for drawings for different tables full of stuff. At one of the tables they had a kayak! How fun would that be for our lake?!? So I bought a sheet of tickets and put them all in that bucket. Unfortunately, I did not get pulled first. I did get pulled near the end of that table and took home a gift certificate for a local restaurant that I like. All in all it was a very successful evening!! :) And not boring at all. :) It also helps to have fun people at your table and we had a really great group with us. Although I wasn't at our table most of the night - I was manning our game at a table across the room. T didn't even know it was me who was the high bidder for my print. I caught his attention after I won it and he was a little surprised! There are always quite a few prints that are auctioned off, and they usually don't do very well at our banquets. A lot of the people that go, have been for a lot of years and already have prints, or they're just not into wall art. So, you can get hella deals on nice, framed prints. T and I went to the state banquet a few years ago, and the prints there went for well over $400. At ours, the same ones usually go for under $200 (I only paid $100 for mine!). A steal.

This next week looks pretty uneventful, I think. I like uneventful. It's lovely. :) New tv will be starting soon, and that always makes me happy. The Office starts again in less than 2 weeks and we're counting down the days around our house! Have a good week!