The Grays

Una Zanahoria

I weigh 3/4 of a pound and am about the length of a full-sized carrot (una zanahoria).  I have been kicking and punching like crazy!  Mom felt me moving at work this week for the first time (usually it was just in the evening).  My eyebrows and lids are present and buds are forming for permanent teeth.

Mom noticed more weight gain than usual this week.  She has lots of energy during the day and is sleeping well at night – for now (ha ha ha)!

This photo was taking on Christmas Day, 2008.

Baby has been kicking like crazy over the last couple days. Kristy is now in the habit of yelling across the house “come quick, baby’s kicking”. I’ve been pretty good at hustling along and arriving in time for the tail end of a good kick session.

Our friends recently found out that they were feeling punches rather than kicks. We shall find out ourselves in just over a week.

Kristy wanted me to add that she felt three especially strong kicks. Oh, and baby prefers reading to the Oscars.

Bill felt the baby kick last night for the first time!!  This past week and a half I have been feeling the kicking regularly.  Usually I feel it at night when I am lying in bed – sometimes in the morning as well.  Last night we were watching the movie August Rush together when the baby started kicking.  I put Bill’s hand on my belly and waited, but nothing happened.  A minute later Bill felt something but I had to explain that it wasn’t the baby (there’s lots of stuff going on down there!).  He was disappointed and pulled his hand away.

Later we were reading in bed when I felt the kicks again, and this time Bill could feel the baby right away!  I’m not quite sure how I know when it’s the baby and when it’s not because the feeling is still quite faint, but I guess mom’s just know this kind of thing!

Last Sunday we had 30 friends over for a small celebration in honor of Kristy and Baby Gray.  It was a great excuse to get our friends together to meet Todd, who was in town visiting during his mid-winter break from school.  We held an open house from 2-5 and enjoyed chatting with friends over mimosas, carrot cake, brownies and lemon bars.

Our group of friends is growing quickly as three babies, all one year old or less, joined in on the celebration (and they certainly seemed to get a lot of attention from the ladies!).  We have had several parties at our townhouse in Charlottesville and hope to continue similar festivities when we move back to Michigan in May – after the baby arrives, of course  🙂

Here is a link to photos from the party, taken by our friend Christof Meyer.  Bill was busy pouring mimosas!

http://gallery.me.com/christof_meyer#100193&sel=50&view=carouseljs&bgcolor=white

I want to wish my cousin Leela a very Happy 1st Birthday!

I can’t wait to play with her soon!

Banana

I’m a banana (un plátano)! I weigh approximately 10 1/2 ounces and measure 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom and about 10 inches from head to heel.

These days I’m swallowing more, which is good practice for my digestive system.

The most exciting part is that two weeks from today I’ll reveal my sex to mom and dad.

Below is our 20 week photo. There was a comment about a lack of Bill photos, so I posed with Kristy this time around.

Kristy and Bill at 20 Weeks

So Monday marked the first day when my belly ‘just said no’ to my pants.  Bill was driving me to work and I did not have time to change – I had to wear my winter jacket around all day because I could neither button nor zip up my pants.  The belly bands are great but most certainly do not work with short sweaters!

There are only two stores in Charlottesville that sell maternity clothes.  One is an ultra-trendy, super expensive botique and the other is Target (which has the BEST tank tops but the rest of the stuff is unforgiveable), so I have been ordering the majority of my clothes on-line.  Gap Maternity seems to have decent clothing items at reasonable prices but of course I have to pay for shipping, wait for the clothes to arrive, and in many cases exchange the clothes for different sizes.  Today I received several pairs of much needed pants and sweaters, all of which I will have to exchange!  In the meantime I will have to make due with belly bands and over-sized sweaters.  Let’s hope we don’t get any last-minute invitations for a formal get together this weekend!