Vickie's Voodoo worked!

I mentioned in my last post that a friend of mine tried a trick with my wrist that will supposedly tell you the sex of your child(ren). Well, after finding out this morning that we're having a girl for baby numero dos, I must say that "Vickie's Voodoo Trick" (surprisingly named by Vickie herself) seems to have some merit to it...at least in my case! I guess that still makes it very anecdotal, as with all the tricks to determine baby gender, but fun to try!

Anyway, the more this news has sunk in, the more excited I've become about it. For a long time I didn't have strong feelings either way about whether I wanted a girl or boy, but when I really started to think about it, I was quickly going to be outnumbered by three Looney men if this baby ended up as a boy. I already struggle enough now to get to see anything on television that ISN'T sports related between the hours of 5pm and 11pm, so it was really going to be tough once Jack and a little brother started vying for control as well. Phew, at least there is still hope for HGTV and occasional Weather Channel viewing (though I refuse to watch Abrams and Bettes...a subject for another post).

I was amazed at how many pictures the ultrasound tech took this morning. With Jack, we were in and out in about 10-15 minutes, but this one took about 30 minutes. Of course the only not so pleasant thing about an ultrasound is having to drink a bunch of water an hour before hand. The woman scheduling the appointment told me 32 ounces....HA! I maybe drank half that amount and was miserable. That's about as near to cruel and unusual punishment for a pregnant woman as you can get! Anyway, the baby looked great and we even got to see her with her hand up to her mouth, perhaps starting that thumb-sucking habit early on! She was very busy in there as well, which I think means my limit of calm children has been hit with Jack :)

My favorite response to this news was from a friend of ours in Austin who wrote Bob and I some notes now that he has a little daughter of his own:

"Note to Bob: That little girl will have you wrapped around her finger before you know it. Believe me...I know.

Note to Kate: When Bob says, "There is no need to buy yet another outfit for her," he is doing so because he doesn't understand that once she wears something once it can never be worn again due to the acidic qualities of female baby skin. At least that is what Erin tells me..."

I knew a clothing fund was a good idea to start now.....I wonder if Bob would believe me if I told him my skin never stopped being "acidic" as an excuse to shop for clothes?

Let the baby gymnastics begin...

I was just sitting here at the computer finishing up some work and realized my lower abdomen was twitching an awful lot this afternoon...guess baby Looney number two is getting big enough to make those internal gymnastic sessions every baby engages in known now! How exciting!

I first started noticing those light sensations about a week ago, which was right about when I first noticed them with Jack (14 weeks) as well, though I would classify Jack's movement as feeling more like little flutters than this baby's. Either way though, it's always reassuring to begin to feel movement, especially now that the belly has popped out! I'm not sure how everyone else progressed in their tummy poppage, but mine sure seemed to go from just a thickening to noticeable little bump in just a few days. With Jack it seemed to be a steadier progression, but the details are a little fuzzy now!

Many people have asked the standard "Do you want a boy or a girl" question and I really never had a good answer with this baby like I did with Jack. With him I just really wanted a boy first, and that worked out great for us! I often joke that I've been hesitant to have a girl knowing what many little girls turn into during the teenage years (having gone through it myself), but after attending a few baby showers of friends having girls this go around, I'm kind of leaning that way! Besides, they get all the cute clothes right? Of course though a boy would be fabulous too.

I'm not much into all the old wives tales about how to tell the sex of the baby, but a friend of mine did show me this unusual trick the other day: She turned my left hand over so the palm was facing up and pressed on the lower part of my hand towards my arm to see if a little bump appeared on my wrist (I guess from a little extra skin there?). Sure enough it did (actually two small bumps appeared), so she tried the other wrist (my right hand) and a bump popped up there too. Apparently the left hand is the "girl" hand and if a bump (or more) pops up, that means one or more of your children will be a girl, and the right hand is the "boy" hand, and if one or more bumps pop there, one of more of your children will be a boy. Well, I've got one boy with Jack so that covers the right hand, so the two bumps on my left hand apparently mean that a girl (or two?) is/are next in line depending on how many kids we end up having. I'm sticking with two for now!

Less than two weeks until the next ultrasound to determine baby gender, whohoo!