7 Quick Takes

Once again linking up with Jennifer and this time I'm almost on the right day!

1. We had our 16 week appointment on Friday and we heard the heartbeat for the first time! It still seems surreal that we're having a baby but hearing the heartbeat makes it more real :)

2. We are scheduled to have our next (and last) ultrasound on Feb.22 to find out the gender. I can't wait, I hope the next three weeks fly by!

3. One of the perks of working for a newspaper is free tickets to local events. Tom and I went to see Capitol Steps on Friday and it was an awesome show! They mock politics through song and it was actually hilarious - I was a little skeptical before we went. If they are ever near you, I would totally suggest you go check them out.

4. I'm currently cleaning out my office for the soon to be nursery. We have three bedrooms but the third bedroom is our guest room and due to its small size there's no room for my office stuff in it. So I have to clean out the nursery and put most of my things in the basement although I'm going to have to keep one shelf of office things in the nursery since I use it on a fairly regular basis and don't want to go into the basement every time I need something. Here is the before of the office/nursery, also showing the new color of the nursery :)

5. So now I need to start figuring out maternity leave. I know I'm going to take 12 weeks, but after that I'm not sure. I would love to just go back part-time until the baby is 6 months but we can't really afford that. Our office is very family friendly and in the past they allowed one of the women to bring her baby into work since she wouldn't take a bottle at all and was exclusively breast feeding. It would be impossible for me to bring the baby into work on Mondays and Tuesdays since I work on the paper those days so I'm hoping to ask to bring the baby into the office Wednesday-Friday until they are at least 6 months. I would love to stay home for the first full year but school loans aren't going to pay themselves!

6. Tom and I have been trying to figure out what we do and don't need for the baby and the nursery and Tom has decided to make some of the furniture. He's going to be making the co-sleeper, the changing table and a sort of armoire. We need an armoire since there are no closets in our house because it was built in 1900 when closets didn't exist.
Here's what the co-sleeper will look like: [ its instead of a bassinet and I'm not comfortable co-sleeping in our bed since I move around A LOT ]

7. Tom has to work 1 weekend every 6 weeks at the hospital which means I'm home by myself working on freelance work. I'm also "cleaning" the office/nursery which is proving to be harder than I thought. Instead of cleaning though I'm writing this - cleaning may be postponed until the next time Tom has to work a weekend :)