Today was our 27 week checkup and it was with NP, Stephanie who is probably the nicest medical professional I’ve ever met (excluding the Q’s, of course).   The appointment consistented of the usual questions “how are you feeling”  ”do you have any questions” and a review of what is to come in the next few weeks.

My favorite part of each of these appointments is when the doppler instrument is brought out and we get to hear BP’s heartbeat motoring away at 140 bpm.  For some reason, this is always much more “real” to me than a picture on the ultrasound.  The past two visits we’ve had in the office, it took some time to locate the heartbeat because evidently BP was tucked away somewhere.  Today, however, as soon as Stephanie set the doppler on my lower right abdomen we could hear the heartbeat.  What made it even better was that right away, Stephanie also pointed out a faint whooshing sound which she said was BP moving around.  She looked at me and said “can you feel that?”  After focusing for a moment, I could.  Then she looked at Justin, who was sitting next to me at the table, but in plain view of my bare belly and said “can you see that?”  And he could!!  It was just pretty damn awesome for us to be able to hear the little heartbeat and see/feel the movements happening along with the sound.  I think we reached a new level of yearning to meet BP today.

This is great timing because the “nesting” phase seems to have kicked in now that I’m in my 3rd trimester.  We spent this past weekend purging 3rd floor of the house of all the “extra’s” (books, clothes, files, etc) and moving furniture around to make space for BP’s accommodations.  While I’m sure this was absolute torture for Justin, I was thrilled!  Hopefully in a few weeks we can tackle the basement and then we should be all set after a few runs to Goodwill to make donations.  Hooray!

BP on 4/16/2010 (18 weeks)

Tomorrow we will be 25 weeks into this adventure.  Wow.  So much has happened in these weeks and yet, relative to what will happen within the next 25, the past seems so benign.  And beyond that stretch of time… I just can’t even think that far right now.

So far, I’m pretty proud of what  ”Keeper Team” Parmelee has accomplished.  After surviving a tumultuous first trimester of crazy eating habits and sleeping schedules, I finally crawled out of the pregnancy rock I’d been hiding under and we shared the news with colleagues and extended friends around 18 weeks.  Think back to what you were doing 7 weeks ago (Easter weekend).   Does it seem like a long time ago to you?  It does to me…

Once the news had been shared,  we received more than one request for our gift registry information, so we began to sift through the millions of articles, books, listservs and the inter-webs to determine which products we needed/didn’t need.  Ironically, some of the more obvious gear had some clear front runners.  Consumer Reports has been and continues to be an immense resource, used in collaboration a two new local favorite stores:  Magic Beans and Isis Parenting.  Justin used his well honed researching skills to determine which products would be the safest, most environmentally friendly and sustainable for us.   This left me with some of the more fun aspects of registering… like finding really adorable sheets and toys.  Yay!  While our lists will never be complete; we are well on our way to feeling much more prepared, knowing that the basics have been accounted for.

The second biggest task has been to locate and enroll in some of the key parenting classes that are offered.  Cost dictated many of our choices, particularly because   the hospital where BP will be delivered doesn’t offer classes. Fortunately, our primary care provider does offer classes and we’re signed up to take a plethora of them during July – August.

Of the many things that remain on our to do list before September, here are some of the highlights:

- Enroll in day care for January, 2011 (we’ve been working on this since March, but have been told that we’re WAY ahead of ourselves and plan to revisit this in August).

- Sign a new lease and then prepare the house.  (i.e. clean, organize, purge… fun for me, not so much for him)

-  Spend time with each other, family and good friends NOT talking about September and BP.  Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we have a life outside of being expectant  parents… but we do and it’s a damn good one.  :)

- And lastly – -go to as many Sox games as we can!  The Sox need our support and  I felt BP’s first kicks during a game versus the Yankees in April.

Future Sox Fan!

My first trimester was spent primarily in two locations: at work and in bed.  When I wasn’t sleeping or attempting to read through the multiple pregnancy books, I passed the time (and fought the nausea) by watching an alarming amount of television.  Here are some of my favorite shows that helped to distract me:

- Brothers and Sisters:  A family drama with Sally Field.  I watched all of the past seasons and then got caught up to current episodes.  Favorite Character = Scotty played by Luke MacFarlane (partner of Kevin, the middle brother)

Luke MacFarlane

- The Good Wife:  Legal and family drama.  New to CBS on Tuesdays at 10PM.  I was originally drawn to this show because of the casting: Julianna Margulies, Josh Charles, Matt Czuchry and Chris Noth.  It has become one of my all time favorite shows because of the excellent writing and balance between interesting legal cases and ongoing family “drama.”  Most importantly, I have been intrigued by the thread that has been created by  my favorite character, Kalinda Sharma, played by Archie Panjabi (investigator and character with some very deep layers)

Archie Panjabi

- Life Unexpected:  Family drama with a twist.  New show on the CW this year which claims to be an amalgamation of Gilmore Girls and Everwood (not sure I agree with that).  Favorite Character = Ryan, played by Kerr Smith (fiance of Kate, the mother).

Kerr Smith

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It has taken me years to beat my hair into submission, particularly the area around my forehead where two arch shaped cowlicks insisted on sticking up throughout much of my adolescence.  Thinking I had conquered this frustrating genetic trait, for the first few weeks of pregnancy, I continued with my normal hair styling routine.  6 weeks into pregnancy, it became obvious that the hormones had found their way to my hair follicles and the cowlicks returned, perhaps worse than during my teen years!  Horrified, I desperately tried to flatten and straighten them using every method I have learned over the past 15 years.  The result – - I now look like I have a set of blonde antennae growing out of my forehead.  This has been the source of great amusement for my husband, who has several “swirly shaped” cowlicks himself.  I can only hope that the hair goddesses (wherever they are) have mercy on our child in the cowlick department!

On a more positive note, last Sunday I purchased my very first pair of maternity jeans from A Pea In the Pod on Newbury Street.   These have provided a welcome relief after months of fighting with a “belly band”  — a very wide piece of stretchy fabric designed to cover up the fact that you can no longer button your pants.  (oye!)  I’m not exactly sure why the fashion world has not yet found a way to rebrand maternity pants and sell them to all women all the time, but I feel certain that there is a missed opportunity there.  For those of you who have ever worn maternity pants, you know what I’m talking about.  For those of you who haven’t or won’t ever wear them… bummer for you.  Maternity pants truly live up to all the hype in the comfort department, and according to my husband, they are flattering as well (though he knows better than to provide any other type of critique at this point).  I’m not sure that they cancel out the antennae resting atop my head, but at least I finally have a piece of clothing that I can actually look forward to wearing for the next 5.5 months.  :)

Just for fun: Justin & his cousins being goofy.

This is probably the raging pregnancy hormones, but this latest You Tube video craze, definitley makes me tear up. We have ALL been the kid and the dad at least once in our lives:

You’re Not a Single Lady.

The time has come for us to expand our little world to include the phrase “Parmelee, party of 3. ”  To that end, I am pleased to introduce you to our Baby Parmelee (BP), who on March 1, 2010 was 11 weeks, 5 days,  1.8 inches and be-bopping all over the place.

At present, only a handful of people actually know of BP’s existence, but we’re hoping to change that this week.  A few FAQ’s for those of you who are reading:

1) Our due date is September 15, 2010.

2) No, we do not know the baby’s sex.

3) No, we are not planning to learn the baby’s sex prior to birth. (and yes… we know it will take a lot of willpower to do this)

4) Yes, we plan to stay in Boston and hopefully, in our current home, barring any strong objections from our landlord.

5) And finally… no, this was not a surprise.

To say that BP’s existence has been the main focus of our lives since early January would be an understatement.  For those of you whose friendships we have neglected over the past 3 months, I sincerely apologize.  I can assure you that I have truly not been myself; navigating through pregnancy like a freshman on the first day of college – - a bit lost, dazed, overwhelmed… and very,very nauseous.  Other than Justin, my closest companions have been a bottle of B6 (it’s a vitamin!) and the television.  By the way – has anyone ever noticed how often bad things happen to pregnant people on TV!?!?  After 16 weeks of fairly close observation, I feel certain that TV and movie writers are among the most pessimistic creatures on this earth.  If life truly mimicked “art” as it were, we humans would be in serious danger of extinction.

So, here we are – well on our way to being a “party of 3″ and doing our very best to take things one day at a time.  Over the next few months, my hope is to continue to provide a balanced blog about our lives, though I cannot promise that BP won’t dominate the majority of my posts.  :)

Those of you who know my husband know that he is a “jack of all trades” kind of guy.  He does a lot of things really, really well and is quite possibly the most brilliant person I know.  And I’m not sucking up for something shiny here; he knows that I think the world of him.  :)  Among his many talents and interests there are:

• Homebrewing (have you taken the “brewery tour” at our home?)
• Cycling
• Guitar playing
• Cooking/learning about food
• Photography

And folks… these are just the things that he dabbles in on a daily basis.  I’m not going to venture into the hobbies and interests that are less often a part of our lives.  We recently  took a trip to Florida to celebrate his grandmother’s 90th birthday.  During our visit, his grandmother was describing her most recent art projects while I was thumbing through one of many photo albums she had assembled and it hit me… it is truly in my husband’s genes to stay busy, stay moving and keep his mind/body active.

So all of this is truly admirable but sometimes it leaves me feeling “what the hell are my hobbies?”  Working? Talking with people on Facebook? Going out to dinner? Hmmmmm.  For months I have wrestled with this question.  I am finally at a place in my life where (gasp!) there is time for a legitimate hobby and I find myself at a loss.  That is… until spring began to reveal itself a bit here in New England.

With spring comes the annual Boston Flower Show.    Fortunately for me, my friend Elizabeth brought this to my attention several weeks ago and we promptly planned a girls day out to attend this event.  The flower show was sponsored by the MA Horticultural Society and thank goodness for their hard work!  As Elizabeth and I made our way through the event, “oohing and ahhing” over the impressive displays, it slowly dawned on me that gardening is something I truly enjoy doing.  Upon further “dissection” of this discovery, I realized that for as long as I can remember, I’ve pretty successfully grown indoor plans.  And, for the past 4-5 years, my outdoor plants have been pretty consistent as well.  Huh.  Who knew?

What will I do with this newfound awareness?  I’m not sure.  I already had plans for our little backyard garden, and now I’m thinking that I might expand my gardening horizons by planting some new types of flowers and some vegetables.  Suggestions anyone?  Fortunately, I have a few weeks to plan and research all of this.  And in the meantime, I can draw upon my healthy dose of inspiration from the flower show.

In 1982, I was 5 years old and barely aware that a fabulous new world called “Epcot Center” had opened its doors to millions of theme park enthusiasts and Walt Disney fans.  In my world,  I  was riding my very first school bus to Germantown Elementary where I  had extraordinary kindergarten teacher and BFF named Veronica.  On the home-front, was adjusting to life in a new home with a new baby sister.  It would be years before I became aware of Epcot…

Fast forward to 2010… specifically March 14th and I find myself standing at the entrance to the park, hand in hand with the love of my life.

Hooray, we're here!! (Spaceship Earth)

By now, I had been anticipating this moment for years… decades.  Okay, only 2 decades… but that is a really long time to wait for something that is, quite frankly, not that difficult to obtain.  Fortunately for me, the Epcot experience was exactly what I had hoped:

1) It was not scary (albeit, we did see 2-3 costumed characters)

2) The rides were not stomach churning

3) It was appropriately “cheesy”

4)  In the evening hours… it really did feel magical

5) There was a fireworks show!

6) Bonus:  the annual flower show was taking place during our visit

Fleur de Mouse!

We were both pretty excited to be spending the last day of our vacation together outside in the sun, soaking up all of the childhood cheer that only a Disney theme park can conjure up.  As an Epcot veteran, Justin was able expertly navigate through the park and we were fortunate to experience minimal wait times for all of the attractions with one notable exception.  Epcot’s newest attraction, “Soarin‘” was our last stop of the day… and cost us 75 precious minutes in line for the 8 minute “multi-sensory” experience.  It was a pretty incredible attraction, but seriously folks… think about what you can do with 75 minutes of your life other than wait in line.

We could have predicted that 1 day would be just shy of enough time to cover all of the park, and our greatest sacrifice was time in the “World Showcase” At 8:25 we found ourselves briskly walking through this area of the park, desperate to stop and admire the views but knowing we had very little time remaining to enjoy dinner and catch the 9PM fireworks display.  “Another reason to come back someday…” we rationalized over our wonton soup appetizer in “China.”

Let’s just hope someday comes a lot sooner than 2038!

Our day at Epcot and vacation end on a beautiful note.

As 2009 comes to a close along with the decade, a number of “Top 10″ lists are popping up.  Most of the one’s I’ve read focus on pop culture and the media.  Since this blog is about us, I’m going create my own list… “top 10″ moments of our lives together. Here the are, in chronological order:

1) January 11, 2003 – our skiing “date” at Whitetail Resort.  After much discussion, I agreed to go with Justin and Jingles for night skiing.  Not having ever successfully skied before, I really had no appropriate attire, so everything was borrowed from his sister.  While I waited in the Parmelee’s living room, I expressed my fears about getting off the chair lift to his father, who, reassuringly replied “as long as the chair doesn’t hit you in the back of the head, you’ll be fine!”    (thanks Les!)  As it turns out, I only had one attempt at this, after which we skied down and then back up hill in order to avoid the lift completely.

2) February 14, 2003:  As detailed in an earlier post, this was a significant date turned weekend adventure for us.  Snowed into my apartment in Frostburg, this weekend changed the course of our relationship.

3) Multiple Dates between January 2004- August 2005 – hosting parties/cookouts, etc. with our friends at Syracuse.  In spite of a rocky beginning and end of our time in Syracuse, we developed several strong friendships that have, to this day, endured time and distance.  My favorite memories of Syracuse involve our almost frequent get tog-ethers with our friends, usually at our apartment.  It was during that period of time that I realized how similar Justin and I are – we love to host a party, break out the grill, guacamole, some drinks and just enjoy the company of friends.

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It’s hard to believe that it’s December and we’re all gearing up for Christmas again!   We spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Merry-land with both families.  Our return on Boston on the 29th signaled the start to a busy month ahead.  Our flight left the BWI airport at 9:50PM and in the hours before our departure, we found ourselves in a not so random Columbia, MD bar with one of our favorite people Jim Ingles, also known as Jimmy James and Jingles.  We could not have ended our visit to Maryland on a better note; boarding the plane  full of good food, plenty of beer and still ripe with the giggles leftover from hysterically laughing our way through dinner.

For those of you who don’t know, “Jingles” was the person who encouraged Justin on to introduce himself to me.  He kept a watchful eye as our relationship progressed, smoothing over bumps in the road and steering my future husband in the right direction with his  relationship wisdom.  As we laughed away the last few hours of our Thanksgiving with Jim, I was reminded again, just how much his friendship means to us.  It’s funny how life hands us these little jolts of awareness occassionally.

Speaking of jolts – - shortly after our return to Boston, we packed our bags and headed to New York with Jon and Elizabeth to see the Radio City Rockettes!  It’s probably not hard to believe that seeing this production has been a lifelong dream of mine and so I was thrilled to be finally making the trip.  We left on Friday and spent the night in Stanford, CT where we found our hotel littered with college freshman who were attending some sort of holiday dance.  The four of us grabbed front row seats at the bar and watched in amazement as one teen after another paraded around the hotel lobby in 4 inch heels, mini dresses and bizarre top hats.  The sight was something akin to a Miss America pageant gone awry… and we were the judges, full of snarkey comments.    Much to the dismay of the other bar patrons, we stopped short of holding up signs that published our opinions.

The following morning we finished the drive to NY just in time for me to attend a baby shower for one of my good friends and her husband.  Folks, I learned a very important lesson that weekend – - surprise baby showers aren’t a good idea.  For one thing, women who are 9 months pregnant shouldn’t have to do anything that they don’t want to do… like wake up early on a Saturday and head to a surprise party in their pajamas.  And secondly… they deserve to eat whatever they want.

Despite all of the above, by the time 10PM rolled around that day, we were happily seated in our second balcony seats at Radio City Music Hall with 3-D glasses in place, ready to enjoy the show.  And, I was not disappointed. From beginning to end, the Rockettes appeared, completed their various dances in unison and belted out the most Christmas-y tunes you can imagine.  The 3-D portion of the evening was just a bonus.  :)

Sunday found we found ourselves gobbling up Dim Sum with Gary and touring what we hope is our future neighborhood… Park Slope, NY (Brooklyn).  Note to readers: Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donus have NOTHING on Gorilla Coffee. I enjoyed the best cup of coffee I’ve had since visiting a coffee plantation in Costa Rica.  Seriously folks, once they are a more commercial business, coffee competitors better get nervous.

We rounded out our time in NY with a final look at THE TREE and headed home feeling as though the season had been appropriately “kicked off.”  Now… on to the rest of the month!

A few pictures from the weekend in NY.