Our Mini Vacation

Work, preparing for baby, and well life in general have us worn out!  Time to take a break!  And that's what we did this weekend...well a mini break at least.  More like a long weekend, but it's felt great!  Sleeping in, going out, celebrating w/friends and family and just being Ricky and Tina...not thinking about work, not cleaning the house (other than very minor stuff...which when you're "staycationing" at home this is a challenge but I have refused!)  There will be plenty of time for me to run myself stupid the other 300 some odd days of the year...we needed a REAL break!

Thursday night we went out dancing with some friends we haven't seen in a while!  My back wasn't in all that great shape so I didn't do much dancing, but Ricky held down the Hicks family name lol;)  And Xavier tried desparately to dance his way out of my stomach for about 3 hours!  (Maybe if I have them play breaks and funk in the delivery room, he'll just dance right out!?!!)  What can I say, our son adores music already!  Especially ANY thing with a strong drum or bass line!  It's adorable!

Friday we had a maternity appointment down in Northeast...it was fairly uneventful...I'm up to 117 pnds:) Gained 4 pnds since my last appointment which is right on target for weight gain...and Xavier gave the doc hell trying to get his little heartbeat AS USUAL lol...as the one doc put it, "wow you have a very active little one don't you?!"  So at this point I know a simple sonogram is not going to be as easy as they think...he likes to fight them and "hide" not that there's hardly any room at this point!  After the doc, we stopped by my sister-in-laws to drop off baby shower stuff since they were setting up that night for the next day.  We ended up spending a while there, we girls were chitchatting while Ricky slept: P  He's not a morning person and vacation usually means we sleep in...our tummys eventually drove us out the door to Checkers (a trip to Northeast usually can't go by w/o a Checker's stop!) and Chic-Fil-A (since I can't eat Checkers).  Another couple of stops and then back to the house where we crashed.  Ricky has always been a good "napper", I on the other hand was NEVER good at day time naps...my mom used to have to bribe me to get me to take naps!  But being pregnant has magically transformed me into a sensational napper!  This is extremely convenient since I still like to go out with our friends but have a much lower tolerance for late nights than I used to!

Ricky's best friend Vince (friends since middle school!) just announced he's leaving to take a job in Pittsburgh...we're sad to see him go, but happy for him since he's been wanting a change...Friday night found us out celebrating his send off in style...well, as stylist as a pregnant woman can be sticking out like a sore thumb in a bar lol!  Yes, I'll take a tequila shot, lime and salt please, hold the tequila... : P The good thing about bringing a pregnant woman is you're guaranteed a designated driver *raspberries*  But we did have a great time and I had fun watching peoples' faces when they realized I was pregnant and then sat there trying to figure out what I was drinking lol!  Also watching drunk people try to dance is VERY funny... especially to crappy music... even better... though the one guy took the cake and I wish that my camera phone had more memory and a higher quality so I could've taped that!!!  We finally had enough of the crappy very loud music and headed back to our house.  Everyone was hungry again so we hit up Wawa to grab snack food and munch out...yes, I did have a chocolate shake at 1am in the morning...which is probably why I woke up at 6:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep!

Saturday morning obviously came really early for me, but the rest of the dirty stay ups didn't even flinch til I woke them!  By this point I had already eaten, gone grocery shopping and baked cinnamon muffins!  I had to wake Ricky up so we could go get our nursery glider that I found on craigslist!  It was even prettier than I hoped! See for yourself! Excellent condition and so comfortable! The lady also had an infant carrier so we got that too!  It's such a satisfying feeling each time we get another thing in the house for the baby... And maybe it's silly but I was so thrilled that the glider is green to go with the nursery... :) 

By the time we got back to the house, we had just enough time to get the glider in the house, me to fawn and sigh over it, wrap the presents for the shower and then run!  We loaded the cars up with food, presents and people and headed for NJ...  The shower turned out beautifully!  The weather was perfect, the food was great and it was so nice to see Ricky's family!  My mom and sister got to meet some of Ricky's (and my) relatives who didn't make it to the wedding and the day flew by... My sister-in-law got some really great stuff for my little niece!  Only 2 more weeks until D-Day for her!!!  I can't wait to meet my little niece! 

Finally back home, the party apparently did me in... I showered and crashed really early... Ricky and I decided to sleep in on Sunday because we had to get up early the last two days of vacation and we were wiped... We woke around noon when Xavier's insistent little kicks drove me from the covers in search of food...Ricky actually woke up before me which is a RARE occasion!  But we had a nice breakfast and relaxed in our pj's til it was time to go to Rel and Lex's house.  It was great to see Rel and Lex, even though we're practically backdoor neighbors we still don't get to see them as much as we would like to with our crazy schedules!  Rel proved that he can cook...and quite well at that!  We had a delicious meal, fellowship and some great stand-up comedy!  It rained off and on all day so I was hoping the humidity would fade...but alas...no dice!  Ricky has taken up the "cravings" for me the last few weeks...not that I'm w/o them, but he's been having them with increasing regularity!  To the point where I'm beginning to wonder just exactly what having a pregnant wife does to a man?!!  Well, cravings are no cause to panic in my book because they usually mean you're going to go out and get a treat that normally you would frown upon due to the nature or timing of said craving...in this case it landed both of us with mindblowingly calorie filled ice cream sundaes which we shared in silence other than our satisfied sighs and conspiratol glances ;) Yes, we were being bad and loving every minute of it! The day ended with Ricky reading to X and me and then the three of us curling up in a cuddle bunch (as I like to call it lol) to drift off to sleep...

Monday came in nice and slow...no alarm clocks, no sirens, no nothing...just one eye opening at a time, blinking and realizing it's time to move...or in my case pee lol!  Over cereal, Ricky came up with the brillant idea to walk around town and visit the shops...we could also drop off the pile of giveaway stuff at the thrift shop!  I thought it would be a great idea to go through the few boxes left to get the rest of the giveaway together and make one trip...only problem is that a few boxes to go through is not that simple...it turned into a trip down memory lane, but we got through the majority, showered, ate, put laundry on, and headed out...that's when we realized it was really HOT outside!  Ok, we're going straight to the second part of this plan...drop the stuff off at the thrift shop and had to Franklin Mills Mall!  Ricky knows I've been dying to get this bathrobe for X ever since I saw it at the mall when Auntie Lex and I went "browsing" there about a month ago!  Plus he knows how much I like to drool over baby clothes in general at this time and the mall has GREAT baby outlet stores!  Then we figured we'd grab food and catch a movie...all w/o leaving the A/C!!!

Well, I ran into the Carter's outlet as soon as we got to that store...I went right over to where the display had been and it was GONE!!! The little bathrobe was no where to be found...Ricky took one look at my face and went into "fix it" mode...one thing I will say, he's the man with the plan when it comes to keeping a pregnant woman happy!  He immediately started looking for the little bathrobe on his phone...meanwhile I meandered through the rest of the store, cooing over the adorable outfits and browsing through seeing what might look good on our little man...in the clearance section I found some really cute Christmas onesies that I was tempted to get since that will most likely be his 1st holiday celebration with us...but they only had newborn and since I'm not sure he'll be able to fit newborn when he's born I figured I'd skip it...then I saw it!

There hidden in the clearance was the ducky bathrobe!!!  It didn't have a clearance tag so I thought maybe someone had hidden it there since it was the very last one, but I didn't care how it got there I was immediately dancing about like the fairy I am! :)  Ricky was extremely happy to see that I found it...(at this point he had thought I would have to go on and on about this robe for another couple days/weeks til he could find, buy and ship one to us from off the internet!)  Personally, I thought $17 was a little high for a miniature bathrobe which is why I didn't buy it the first time I saw it, but at this point I had to have it!  I had spent weeks imagining it hanging next to mine and Ricky's robes on the hooks in the bathroom...

Low and behold, the bathrobe rung up for $3.99!!!  So in this case it definitely paid to wait!

After some more walking and browsing, our stomachs drove us to the salad bar to get some "all you can eat"!  Which if we hadn't eaten lunch would be a bad situation for the restaurant with me and all!  Two trips did the trick for me oh and some strawberry lemonades too :)  Then off to the theater to see Inception!  Which turned out to be a very long movie...so Ricky got to use his "Run Pee" app lol!  This nifty little thing set alarms for you so it vibrates at time in the movie where you have 4 minutes to "go pee" w/o missing anything major...plus it gives you a brief description of what you missed...for those of you who are pregnant, GET THIS APP!!!  We enjoyed the movie and I didn't miss a thing!  Both of us thought the ending was rather weak after such great development with the rest of the movie, but it's one of the better ones we've seen recently!  Nice to see an original idea for once!

Back home, I ran up the stairs (which these days is more of a galloping cow movement), ripped the bathrobe out of the bag and put it in it's little place of honor to wait for X's arrival!  It looked just as amazing as I knew it would!

There they were... Daddy, Mommy and Baby bathrobes...

I probably would've stayed there staring all night except for the fact that I wanted to get dinner on so it would be ready once we got hungry! What an awesome day...what a great vacation this has been...so relaxing...and now I'm signing off to go clean the few dishes, wait for Ricky to get back from the store and then it's off to read to Xavier and fall asleep in the "cuddle bunch" til tomorrow morning when "normal" life kicks back in!

Ah what a weekend! :)

This weekend is a Ricky's work weekend which many times means I'm stuck in the house by myself and no car to go anywhere...the housework gets done lol but I usually wear myself out trying not to have the walls close in around me!  I'm not a "I like to be by myself for hours person"!  Most times I dread every other weekend - mostly the ones where he works night shift because then when I want to go out and do stuff the most or just hang out with Ricky doing nothing of consequence...he's not here and neither is the car...But some weekends I bum a ride to my parents, crash on their futon and make plans to do something...this weekend is one of those.

Saturday, OnQ, the drama team I'm part of started filming for a project that's been in the works a few months...thankfully my character can be as pregnant as she wants lol!  (though most of my costumes ala 50's style really hide most of the belly).  I was looking forward to this project but had no idea how I was going to get to Bethlehem to shoot!  Enter the "teletextmailbumaride"...Ricky dropped me at my parents late Friday after we went to see Despicable Me with Maria and Meena (Awesome adorable movie btw!)...Mom brought me to Quakertown Sat. morning...where Rashada took me the rest of the way to Bethlehem lol!  Have thumb will travel!  But hey, I got there right!  Thanks to a lovely little chain...though I was a little sketchy on the return trip...oh well, worry about that later!

Things went amazingly smooth for a project that had some many delays and issues early on, but thank God...I think we got everything we need?! (Hopefully)  Xavier apparently enjoys being on camera because every time the clap board and "Action" sounded, he was leaping around like someone would actually see him in the shot!  He's quite the ham...but hey I have NO IDEA where he gets THAT from!!!  I think I see commercials in his future...little caramel babies are too cute and can you just see one with Ricky's dimples and sharp wit lol!  It was all I could do not to crack up thinking about it while we were shooting scenes!  After we wrapped for the day, Dan (who's an old friend and playing my infuriating husband lol) drove me back to Quakertown, where my mom got me and brought me back to her house.

Still wasn't sure how I was getting back to Hatboro, but Marissa and Maria were going shopping and I was like "Wait for me!!!"  We had a blast...they in the clearance juniors (this was the part where I tried not to cry remembering what my waist USED to look like) and then on to the baby sections!!!  I was good and only bought 2 things for Xavier and 3 things for his cousin lol!  Trust me, I had about 35 items in my hand over a 2 hour period...oh yes, and I have a major gripe about the mall...how can the McD's in the mall food court NOT CARRY MOCHA FRAPPES?!!!  This is a travesty!  I almost had a prego woman meltdown on this poor 16/17 year old girl who looked like a deer in the headlights...Marissa and Maria were nice enough to stop at another one on the way to the next store...though I think this was out of self-defense because I was steaming around the edges with angst...Prego woman meltdowns are NOT PRETTY...but I'm usually reasonable and most people have not had to see me like that...actually most times I have a craving I just go get it myself as not to bother anyone...

This lovely shopping trip was topped off with a meal made by my sister Maria of stuffed shells, macaroni, salad and garlic bread...Oooo I love good food!  I tried to bribe Ricky to come get me after work with the stuffed shells, but he told me he had to work overtime because someone got sick :(  I was bummed cause I really wanted to go home and see him but didn't have a way there and would prob spend another night on my parent's futon...which is great, but sadly missing Ricky!  Marissa had a great solution!  She was going to go to the shore and her car would be sitting...so that's how I ended up driving home in Marissa's awesome car! (Btw, 4-door Honda Civic manual is now on the top of my list when we go car shopping this fall before the baby comes!)  I called Ricky to tell him he didn't have to pick me up and was going to try to trick him but he could tell I was in the car.  He also revealed that he was home and NOT working overtime (little liar tsk tsk) and I was annoyed because I would've come home hours ago and made him dinner then if I had known...but he claimed it was a rough day and he needed some "chill out" time.

I was so happy to see him when I walked in, I didn't even care that he was a brat!  I tackled him with kisses :)  Then went to unpack my stuff...Ricky had every light in the house on so he asked me to turn off the lights and stuff in the bedroom because he forgot...  I walked in to the room and there it was... OUR CRIB all set up and beautiful!  I don't even know what I said first but I was so thrilled I wanted to laugh, cry, jump up and down and just touch it to make sure it was real!  For weeks I've been waiting for the replacement pieces to come in so we could put it together and they finally did on a weekend Ricky had to work, then we discovered we forgot 2 pieces at my friends house who gave it to us so I was beside myself that it would NEVER be put together!  I have never in my life felt more driven to have everything in my house in order then I do now...and the crib was the first large piece of the nursery furniture that we had just sitting there tormenting me!  Ricky will tell you, it had me a pouty crying ridiculous mess each time we had a set back!

What can I say, he's amazing and I love him...That was the best surprise I've had in a while!!!  And of course I thought Marissa and Maria must have been in on it, but they weren't lol!  It just all happened to work out perfectly!  And now today, I'm going to go out with a huge smile on my face to visit my friend Smiles and my sister-in-law who was having contractions all night :( No baby yet, but by the time the baby comes it should be a cake walk with all the contractions leading up to the grand day!  And of course a stop at the baby clothes outlet at the mall just because I love looking at and touching the clothes imagining my little boy in them! :) 

P.S. Xavier says hi to everyone, his insistant little kicks keep reminding me to add this note!

Saviero incontra la sua Nonna! (Xavier meets his Grandma)

After our last ultrasound, they found that my little boy has decided to take after his cousin and have slightly dialated kidneys which meant a 2nd ultrasound to verify that they were indeed dialated and find out from the doctor what the next step was.  Now, I knew that it wasn't cause for all out panic but the mother in me was still concerned of course.  Ricky wasn't able to switch his schedule around in time so my mom was kind enough (and jumping out of her skin excited :) to help us out!

I was glad that she could come because she's good at grilling doctor's and my prego brain can barely form logical questions most days!  But I knew having her along, we would get all of the details and information that we needed!  The moment after I got off the phone asking her, I just sat back and imagined her running around to all her co-workers telling them that she was gonna get to "meet" her grandson :) My mom has never lost that "kid at Christmas" excitement...and it's always fun to tell her stuff you know will get her flying around in a twitter lol!  You don't even have to be there to enjoy it, you can just see it!  (From what I hear, this was a dead-on scenario lol!)

Anyway, ultrasound day came and I was craving peanut m&m's as usual...bad combo when you're having an ultrasound for them to do measurements, but what can I say...I'm a slave to my cravings these days!  Well, Xavier was still sleeping when we got in there and so the girl starting poking around to get his measurements...he doesn't like this...at all...so he starts squirming and roaming around to find any space in my ever smaller uterus to hide...it was adorable :)  Nonna was estatic to see and feel him and watch my belly move... I was telling the tech how relieved I was that he's not a thumb-sucker so far and just like that the little scamp lifts his little fist up to his mouth with his thumb out and holds it there for a second.  There was a collective sharp intake as we all thought he was gonna stick it in his mouth but apparently he was being a smart aleck like his daddy already lol! Little stinker pot!

After the appointment, Nonna and Mommy were hungry so we got Chic-fil-a at the mall and walked around to all the stores with baby clothes!  It's so much fun to browse and imagine my little boy in the tiny jeans, hoodies, hats, sneakers, etc.  We oo'ed and ah'ed until we passed by a cookie shop...the little devil on the shoulder won out and we left with 1,000 calorie treats and huge smiles!  Amazingly we finished everything... I was really surprised by Nonna polishing off a 3 scoop ice cream cookie sundae!  Of course this left us both feeling like slugs so we ended up on my bed and napped...for I have no idea how long but by the time we woke up, Nonna had to head home before Nonno sent out the search committee :)

So the doc found that the baby's kidneys are indeed dilated which means I will have to go every 4 weeks to have them re-measured, but they won't make a final determination if there is an actual issue or not until 32 weeks.  Please say a prayer that everything develops the way it should and our little boy continues to be healthy and strong!

Finally, in other news, I'm getting huge...as per requests here is the 6 month or 24 weeks belly shot!