Staying inside, dreaming, and collecting baby items

Since Sunday, I’ve only left the house once. I had a fall walking – or attempting to walk, rather – to the mailbox a couple of weeks ago, and even though I only suffered a mild concussion, I’ve been wary of going out in this cold, icy weather at all. There was a time when being cooped up indoors for this long would have suffocated me, but maybe due to the pregnancy, I’ve just been thankful for the consistent temperature in our home. I’ve been really trying to take it one day at a time and not make many plans, since they have a tendency to stress me out when I’m looking ahead at them, especially since I never know when I’ll have a sudden spell of nausea or just want to go into hibernation.

Speaking of hibernation, I dreamed I was a bear last night, and I curled up for a six month nap to wait for Baby to arrive. I also had several less cozy dreams, but I won’t go into those – vivid dreaming is definitely one of my prominent symptoms, and it started a few days before I even took the pregnancy test.

We haven’t bought much for Baby yet, but I thought I’d mention the fun items we have purchased/received so far:

1. Love You Forever was a very special Christmas gift from my cousin Nicole and her boyfriend, Matt, as her mom read it to her every night when she was a child.

2. No picture to illustrate, but my mother-in-law and sister-in-law sewed us three beautiful burp cloths with fabric cut outs of elephants, since we've chosen elephants to be our child's favorite animal. (Or at least the theme of their first bedroom.)

3. The Vera Bradley Happy Snails Baby Bag, which I bought with gift money from my in laws after Christmas. I love it! A little on the "girly" side, but I'm sure if we have a baby boy, he won't notice/mind. I watched several reviews of it before purchasing, and I saw several positive ones with mothers who cloth diaper, showing how many stuffed all-in-ones they could shove in there with cloth wipes and homemade wipe spray. It just seemed like the perfect choice, so now it's sitting atop the china cabinet, waiting to be used.

 

4. Another Vera Bradley item, my mother-in-law put this adorable bunny blanket friend in my stocking for Christmas. It's anxious to be covered in Baby's spit up!

5. A few onesies and newborn outfits from Goodwill, where I discovered people discard their never-worn newborn clothes (a common phenomenon, I'm realizing!) for thrifty people to scoop them up for spare change. I shared this with my mom, and she has her own stash of freshly washed, like-new clothes waiting for Baby to stain up upon arrival.

 6. Though not intended for this particular baby, Felipe gave me this Little Miss Austen version of Pride and Prejudice before our wedding, because I'd seen it at Barnes & Noble and fallen in love. I'd stashed it away thinking it would be several years before anyone could chew on its pages, but turns out we'll have a use for it soon enough!