back, more or less

We are back in our time-zone of residence, but you wouldn't know it from the way I've been dragging around the last couple of days. I am so exhausted! I'm counting down the minutes to the weekend so I can take a break. I'm off work on Monday so I'll have three whole days to recharge my batteries. Our 11 days o' parents was fun. And busy, and sleepless, and I-can't-believe-I-ate-the-whole-thing-ish. As a result, we are completely behind on our normal life responsibilities - bills, grocery shopping, dog and cat snuggling, laundry, belly shots... speaking of which:

That would be my mega-belly. That would also be our twenty-one week belly shot. Yeah, we were doing them every four weeks and the last one was at 16 so this one should have been at 20 but I'm impressed we took one at all at the rate we've been going. One week overdue? You should see some of the dates in our refrigerator.

And while I'm posting pics, here are a few of someone waaaaay cuter than me:

I can't wait to tickle those little toes.

The baby had one arm tucked up alongside its head and refused to move it until the very end of the ultrasound, no matter how hard the tech poked and prodded. It appears we've got a stubborn one on our hands already. I'm now sure we're going to have one of those babies that takes forever to move down the birth canal because their darn arm is up alongside their head the whole time. The funny thing is that I sleep with one or both arms over my head nearly every night and I have since the day I was born. Guess that really is my baby in there.

He or she is head-down and all the way over on the right side of my body, so it seems all those "kicks" I've been claiming in the lower right part of my abdomen are actually punches and elbows. I'm starting to feel stronger sensations in the center now, below my belly button, so maybe those are from little legs that are folded up funny. We didn't get a good view of how the legs are positioned because the sonographer was avoiding everything below the baby's waist as much as possible. M felt a kick for the first time last night. Two, actually. I'm excited to finally be able to share that with her.

I think we're going to try to register on Sunday, or at least get started. We've looked at the calendar and we don't have another free weekend until after Thanksgiving, by which point I suspect we'll be overcome by holiday madness and it'll be a chore we'll be glad to have behind us. I'm feeling nesting urges and I'm hoping making a list of everything we need will feel like a step in the right direction.

The washer is buzzing at me which means I can move the laundry into the dryer and go to bed. One more day of work. I think I can! I think I can!