20 Weeks

I'm at 20 weeks now.  Last night, I went to bed very late because we were planning our vacation for next month.  I decided to skip my morning swim in favor of getting a little extra sleep, which was a hard decision for me since I haven't missed any days in the past few months.  I love my routine and hate to mess it up!  However, I've learned to accept that I need to slow down and not be too hard on myself for it.

A few weeks ago, I'd slept horribly but decided to do my regular 32 laps anyway.  Throughout the rest of that day, I kept feeling contractions - not a good feeling since I was only 14 or 15 weeks along.  I realized then that pushing myself so hard was not the best thing to do.

Learning accept that I can't be all and do all has been a lesson that I'm sure I'll still struggle with for the rest of my life.  I think it's just the nature of women to want to do more and more.  It doesn't help when you have things like Pinterest, other websites, and media out there seemingly telling us what we should do or be.  A few weeks ago, I read a couple of things that have brought home to me the falsity of these ideas.  Comparing myself to what I perceive to be the image of perfection is destructive and unfair to myself.  It's much more constructive to focus on what's important to me and my family than to chase after moving targets of what might be considered the ultimate thing of the moment.

In the spirit of doing it my way and ignoring Pinterest, I'm throwing an old-fashioned birthday party for Charlie.  It's going to be at the park, so I don't feel like I have to make my home look perfect for anybody.  We're just going to have pizza, pop, and cake.  Last Saturday, we went to a birthday where one of the moms made rainbow cupcakes.  It looked really neat!  IF I have time, I might do that.  I'm not going to come up with any fancy games or elaborate activities.  We're going to let the kids eat, play, and have fun.  We might fly kites, play tag, swing, etc.  We're going back to simple and old-fashioned.  Oh, and, I'm not doing any special treat bags.  I think it'll be fun!

(By the way, I did have an ultrasound today.  I was leaning toward not finding out the baby's gender but my husband thought it'd been good to find out so I did.  But, since I won't be talking to him until tonight, I will announce the result after I've told him.  Sorry for the suspense!  ;-) )