24 and 25 Weeks Pregnant

This weekend was one of those perfect weekends. You know the ones where you don't have anything that HAS to be accomplished, the weather is beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, a slight breeze in the air, and you find things to entertain you all day long. That was this past weekend. It made me realize how much I love our little life here in Athens. I miss all things Alabama and one day I'll probably do a post about that, but I do love our quiet little weekends here, just hanging out and living life. Here are the 24 weeks (6 months pregnant? What?!?! How did that happen?) and 25 weeks pregnant pictures. I'm ashamed to admit that yes I have on basically the same outfit in both pictures, but I am proud to admit those are not maternity shorts and I'm pretty impressed I'm still wearing them comfortably even with a rubber band to help just a bit. :) 

Not much of a difference, but as Ryan says and I tend to agree, I think I grow more and more each day. 

Symptoms: I've officially entered the days of swollen feet and leg cramps. If I drink enough water at school each day then they're not super swollen, but its enough that Ryan calls them little sausages each afternoon. So I've started drinking more water at school and coming home and putting my feet up for at least 20 minutes before I start piddling around the house. This of course is just fine by me, remember, Hi I'm Ashley Crowe and I'm an official couch potato...As far as the leg cramps go I can laugh about it now, but it was not funny at the time. This story goes along with my theory that everything awful happens in the middle of the night. When have you ever heard your fire alarm go off in waking hours? No way it always happens in the middle of the night scaring the bejesus of out you, along with things spontaneously falling off walls, children getting profusely sick, animals to loose their minds and start barking crazy. I could go on, but I digress. 

So the other night around 3 am I wake up with the worst leg cramp I have ever had in my life. This is a good time to mention that I've never in my life had a leg cramp before. I wake Ryan up by repeatedly beating him and demand he rub my leg. Only problem is, Ryan can't find my leg under the covers because I'm shoving it in his face, but its pitch black dark and he can't see this. So then we're trying to communicate to each other how to get my leg to him, but in incoherent sentences and moans and cries from me. This goes on for at least a minute until finally he realizes that is my leg hitting him in the head and finally starts rubbing out the cramp. Needless to say it took both of us quite a while to go back to sleep. This taught us a very valuable lesson. Ryan now sees the importance of rubbing his precious wife's legs before going to bed each night so we can avoid these kinds of misadventures. 

Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good these days. 

Maternity Clothes: Did I tell the story of popping the rubber band at school? No you say? Well let me enlighten you. I had on a pair of my regular-not maternity pants at school one day recently and was really enjoying the fact that I could still use a rubber band and get away with it. Nevermind the fact that either side of my pants was a good 3 inches apart. So I'm sitting at my desk with a couple of my co-workers close by and all of a sudden I feel the rubber band give way and realize I have officially popped the rubber band holding my pants together. After laughing hysterically at my wardrobe malfunction, Amy, one of my wonderful friends who got to experience this with me, tells me in her most gentle voice that perhaps its time for me to hang up the non-maternity clothes for a while and go just to solely maternity clothes. I've taken up that great piece of advice for the most part. There are some dresses and blousey shirts I can still get away with. Ah the joys of getting plumper. 

Sleep: Just last night I had the conversation with myself about the many mid-night visits to the bathroom. I'm not typically a middle of the night visitor to the bathroom, but last night as I laid there debating this issue for at least 30 minutes I realized I could have just gone ahead and gotten up and gone to the bathroom and gone back to sleep by the time I had convinced myself I didn't actually have to go to the bathroom and talking myself into going back to sleep. Does this even make sense? Most of the conversations I have with myself in the middle of the night don't make sense in the morning. Suffice to say, I'm not a fan of getting up for middle of the night bathroom visits, but I'm starting to see the light that maybe this needs to be something I start getting used to experiencing. 

Cravings: Still nothing crazy. I have started to get more and more serious about my food. Like don't get in the way of the pregnant lady and her food type reaction to meal time. But then again, I've always taken my food pretty seriously. I'm still a really big fan of the all fruit popsicles and could eat three in one sitting. There's not a whole lot I'll pass up these days...all food in general. 

Baby Size: I don't know what I was reading last week that said Cullum was 11 1/2 inches long, because everything that I've read this week has him at only 9 inches long. Then I've read other things that have him at 13 inches long. Let's just say he's growing and he's bigger than what he was yesterday. I need to get one of those handy gadgets on here that shows the baby's size and compares them to a fruit or vegetable or something. I just haven't gotten that crafty with this whole blog thing yet. I'm still trying to fix the ticker that says Ryan and I have only been married for a year. 

Movement: Cullum is a mover and a shaker wen he wants to be, and only then. Ryan finally told him the other night that he wasn't playing his games anymore and would try to feel him when he got a little older. In other words, Cullum usually only kicks up a storm at night right when I climb into bed. I feel him throughout the day and every once in a while I'll get a big kick or a punch, but other than that, not a whole lot of movement. I'm trying not to over analyze this and freak out every time I don't feel him move when I think I should, but let him just do his thing. Maybe he'll be a really chill baby who just hangs out, or maybe he's still in a place where I can't feel all his movement...who knows. But just to make a liar out of me, Cullum has kicked me the entire time I've typed this paragraph...stinker.

Looking Forward To: We're going home this weekend for my birthday, to see some old friends, and to of course see family. My sister-in-law is also pregnant and is due any day now. I told Ryan if we wanted to see them one more time before our precious neice is born, we might better go home soon. I am also looking forward to the Birmingham shower in the next couple of weeks too. I can't wait to start filling up his room with all the precious little boy things we'll be getting.