Snow Day!

Like most places on the east coast, we got a ton of snow this weekend! Miraculously, Anil is off work for four days in a row, and so am I, so we're taking advantage of the time we still have to lounge around together. We made a big breakfast this morning and started in on our DVDs of "Mad Men." I did some Thanksgiving weekend sale shopping at Best Buy for TV-on-DVD sets for when we're hunkering down with the baby, but I gave all but this one set to my friend who recently had a baby so her and her husband could watch them and prevent us from diving in too early. We've never been on the Mad Men train though, so I thought we could get a head start and get into it now while we can still focus and watch one entire episode straight through. In the afternoon we took Bailey out to play in the snow and took a bunch of pictures with our fabulous new camera (the difference from our old one is amazing--totally worth splurging on a new one). Tonight we're making chili and reinforcing the dents our butts (mine particularly these days) are making in the couch. Tomorrow we're going to venture downtown and walk through Boston Common as we do a few last-minute holiday errands. I figure we should take advantage of this snow fall now since even though it'll continue to snow through March up here, it's not likely that we'll be able to be out in it as freely as we are now. And there are lots of lights and decorations up in the Commons and downtown--part of what I love about being in the city for the holidays.

Here are Anil and Bailey, on our way to the park.

Me, again being thankful for my warm coat that zips over my belly, maternity jeans, and boots that still fit my 1/2 size larger feet.

This picture is hilarious--it's Bailey mid-roll over. He loves playing frisbee in the show and we got some great shots of that too, but this is my favorite. Check out his winter boots! Anil found them for him last year when we realized the havoc that the salt on the snowy/icy sidewalks was doing to the pads on his paws. He looks so adorable with his winter boots, and his feet stay protected and warm.

One reason we got this new camera is for the shutter/release time (or something that sounds like that!)--the interval between clicking the button and image being captured. It was a bit long on my old camera, as observed by Caitlin, my photographer extraordinaire friend who I put in charge of my camera at our Charlottesville baby shower. When I wrote before that I was thinking about whether we should splurge on a new camera, she served up a big affirmative, largely for that reason of photo lag time. She has a young cousin and made the excellent point that when you're trying to capture the movements or facial expressions of a squirrely and mercurial baby, seconds matter. This new camera (on Caitlin's recommendation: Sony CyberShot W290) makes a world of difference, as you can see here. It got a clear and focused shot of our crazy dog mid rollover in the snow! If it can do that for Bailey, we'll be all set for the baby.

holiday photo montage, part 1

Life has continued to stay busy in our neck of the woods these past two weeks. In lieu of taking the countless hours it would take my almost-8-months-pregnant brain to form sentences of satisfying wit and coherence, I'm going to post a bunch of photos. Enjoy!

Last Thursday was Anil's residency department's holiday party, so I finally got to wear the one maternity dress that I bought back in August. Paired with my panel-over-the-belly leggings and extendable calf boots (thank you Steve Madden), and made shiny with a scarf my mother-in-law gave me last Christmas and a necklace my sister-in-law gave me a few years ago (thank goodness for my in-laws or I might have nothing to snazz up my perpetually casual wardrobe when I need it!), I think I pulled the look of a Merry Pregnant Christmas off pretty well.

Here is Anil and me at the party. He cleans up pretty well too!

Here is the belly at 34 (34!!!) weeks. Anil said I looked like a pirate in my striped shirt and black cap. I was wearing the hat and boots because we were headed out to Starbucks. The photo below is of me near our destination in my awesome size large Patagonia down sweater jacket (women's) that zips fabulously over my belly and doesn't make me look like I'm wearing my husband's clothes. Thank goodness my boots from last year still fit--they're the best winter boots ever. They're by Ugg but are waterproof and super sturdy (while still being warm and fuzzy on the inside).

big weekend for a big Sara

Internet, I have a very exciting announcement. I stayed out till midnight last Friday. MIDNIGHT! I haven’t done that in months, no exaggeration. Somehow the stars aligned and I kind of felt like my normal self again; more tired, more sober, but not so excessively pregnant for the first time in recent memory. We met our college friend Andrew in Harvard Square for his birthday, and for all the sense I can make of it, the combination of a quiet restaurant, a great bar table by the window, good service and water refills, awesome food, and great company made the hours fly by. All of those perks translate into the following for my current experience: no yelling, no overheating, no dehydrated wait for refills because the server doesn’t know how to replenish anything but beer, and no dismay and discomfort at greasy food that seemed like a good idea at the time because Daedalus has nightly risotto specials—Friday’s being so temping that we each ordered it. And hanging out with someone that we’ve known for so long made the evening comfortable and fun, I think because I wasn’t expending any extra energy on ignoring physical discomfort (see above) or trying to play off social shortcomings without any social lubricant. These days I don’t have that extra reserve of energy, and it was refreshing to not even need it.

The next day, however, Anil and I had a “newborn essentials” class that I wanted to sleep through after coming home so late. I wanted someone to swaddle me and put me in a crib. But I stayed awake and alert for the most part. We had our own baby doll to practice with for the entire class, and I had Anil hold her since I currently don’t have a lap (when I sat her on my belly she interfered with my line of vision). I’ve now diapered a doll, though I have yet to diaper an actual squirming baby; same for swaddling. This week we have infant CPR and a breastfeeding class. I scheduled all of our classes in a four-week chunk because we knew what Anil’s schedule would be and that he’d consistently have Saturdays off, which hasn’t ever been the case for two and half years of residency thus far. It’s been predictably overwhelming to have so many classes all at once, and I think we’re both starting to feel daunted with all that we have to do on the baby frontier. But Anil is almost done with his current rotation for which he's had to commute an hour south, and with a better schedule just a week away we're hopeful about getting a lot done in the near future.

That said, I don’t know if “nesting” is supposed to be so all-encompassing, as it feels to us right now. We’re not making a nursery per se since we’ll move from our apartment five to six months after the baby is born. We’re starting with the crib in our room, and we’re clearing out a side of our loft-style apartment for the changing table, La-Z-Boy-turned-rocking chair, and bookshelves-turned-dresser area. But it’s all a huge mess right now and has been for at least a month, because we have all the baby gear that we’ve received as gifts piled on top of "life before baby" things that need to get boxed up and put into storage—basically we have two “rooms” piled on top of each other. Nesting for us has also come to include these training classes we started with Bailey, each of which just seems to bring up another issue that we hadn’t even thought about working on. Add to all that the fact that the one of us who is still mobile in all senses of the word is also working 14 hour days, and it’s slow going around here. We really didn’t plan on doing all that much to “nest,” but it seems like there are more and more things that are coming up, in the aim of achieving more simplicity once the baby comes, that are anything but simple in the short term.

Speaking of simple, I think the simplest pleasure up here in New England is the first real snow fall, and we had that on Saturday. Anil, my friend Katie, and I went down the street to one of our favorite neighborhood haunts, the Publick House, to eat their renown mac & cheese and watch the snow fall onto Beacon Street, recently anointed in holiday lights. While I didn’t make it very late this second night in a row, it was the perfect way to celebrate the snow and to cozy up to the winter. And for the first time, I wore long sleeves in a restaurant without being miserably hot. Thank you winter!

That's Katie and me from our table. It's a bit blurry because we took it sans flash to show the show outside. We took what look to be great shots outside too, in the snow, but my camera must have been on the wrong setting because I can't get them to upload. I'm having panicked thoughts about my camera these days too. (Is that considered nesting? feeling like everything must be in place before baby arrives or else?!) It's been taking blurry pictures for reasons I can't discern, and now these perfect snow pictures are defective. I keep thinking, "What if that was a baby picture? What if that was the baby picture?!" Part of me wants to buy a new camera just to make sure we're covered.

Also, here is a shot of me and the belly last weekend at 32 weeks. Not the best in terms of contrast; I feel like the belly is much more dramatic in real life. (Again--is it the camera? Should I get a new one?) Or maybe it's too big to be accurately captured on film. (Scratch that--I hit "enhance" in iPhoto to lighten it and now it looks bigger!) I don't think I look nearly as big facing forward, either, but you can be the judge. I'm so happy that it's cold enough for me to wear this sweater now, and I am obsessed to an embarrassing degree with the maternity leggings that I wear with Ugg boots for part of every week.