Baby Talk: Random Thoughts & Nursery

Four weeks left to Due Date! I can't believe time has flown by this quickly. It feels like I found out I was pregnant yesterday and now we are trying to keep ourselves entertained as we await Catarina's arrival. It still amazes me that we are going to have a daughter and that the hospital is going to let us bring her home. When did we become responsible enough to take care of another life?! I move between feeling confident about parenting to feeling scared that I will somehow screw up this little person. We are both curious as to who the little one is going to look like. What do you think? (Try squinting if you can't see her little face and arm)
Obviously, the ultrasound isn't the best indication as to looks but I swear Cati looks like Alex. I was watching him sleep one night (not in a creepy way, but in a "I can't wait to see this man become a father" way) and his face made me think so much of the ultrasound picture. All I hope for is that she has a little bit of me in her; it will make all the months dedicated to growing her feel even more worth it.
When they say pregnancy gets more and more uncomfortable as time passes, they aren't lying. I was doing really well up until a week ago. I was tired and my back hurt at the end of the day, but I felt great. I wasn't getting up at all hours of the night to go to the bathroom, I was sleeping heavily through the night, and I didn't feel particularly big. Now I wake up several times at night, I sleep lightly (every position change wakes me up), my back hurts all day long, and my belly feels harder than a basketball. My hands and feet are so swollen they hurt, which leads me to another thing: Waddling. I don't think I've been waddling but I now understand why a pregnant woman would waddle. She waddles for one of following reasons or maybe even a combination: (1) lower back pain so bad that you don't know if you should walk with your back arched in either direction or stick straight, (2) baby's head is pushing really hard down in your pelvis and you try to move your hips to get the baby to move to a more comfortable position, (3) feet so swollen it hurts to step down.
I've also been extra irritable. I hate that the first thing anyone asks me is how I feel. I hate that people actually think we won't tell them when I'm in labor. I hate the unsolicited advice. I think, in general, I just hate the increased concern. No one cared what I ate or what I wore before. Now, everyone is concerned and has opinion. I'm snappy (I can go to the bathroom without an entourage waiting for my outside) and most of the time I want to yell "Leave me alone!" Why is it that having a baby brings out the crazy in people?? Or is it just me?

We are officially prepared for Cati's arrival. The car seat has been installed and her pediatrician has been selected. Her nursery is complete (minus a table) and all her stuff has been washed, folded, and put away. When I first started thinking about her nursery I knew I wanted a vintage Paris poodle theme. I had a lot of ideas, but with a tight budget, I also had to get very creative. Wal-Mart and Marshall's were my best friends. We saved a lot of money by refinishing our old dresser, stalking the clearance section of furniture stores, and jumping on online specials. I also had a lot of fun incorporating things from our childhoods into the room. Here are some pictures of her finished room:

This is her dresser (refinished by me!). It's topped with the changing pad, a basket for her diaper things (Marshall's), a lamp (Target), monitor, sound spa (I love this thing!), and a few of her stuffed friends. The artwork is a large framed damask print (Marshall's and Michael's) in the middle surrounded by smaller framed pictures of vintage Paris (Etsy and Michael's). This is a side view of the room. See that book case? It cost us $56 and it's solid mahogany. No assembly required :)

This is her crib (Wal-Mart). I didn't want a set for the bedding so I combined pieces that I found. You can't really tell from this picture but the crib skirt is damask print. The flower holders on the crib are from our wedding and I was really happy about including this memento into Cati's room. This is the view of the room from the door. We loved the look of a chandelier for the room so I searched high and low to find this one. This was the splurge in the room and it's not that bad of a splurge at $78. I wanted a rug for the floor but couldn't swallow the prices so instead we bought a large, black damask print throw/blanket and lined it with a rug saver (Marshall's). I posted about the artwork above her crib here. The shadow boxes (Marshall's) will be filled with mementos of Cati's childhood but for now they contain my baby shoes. This is my favorite spot in the room. I absolutely adore it. The glider (Wal-Mart) is extremely comfortable. We like to hang out in the room just to sit on the glider because it's so comfortable. Above the glider is an area for prints. The top frame will contain Cati's prints (right now it's just a picture of us). Under that is the mold of Alex's hand at four years old and under his mold is the mold of my hand at four years old. Last, but not least, is the clothes. Cati has gotten a lot of clothes as gifts and she has also inherited a lot of my baby clothes. Four out of the seven drawers in the dresser are full of clothes for her. Drawer organizers (Ikea) are the best way to go for organizing the clothes (I organized according to age).

Poor girl can't have it all though. She has to share the closet with her dad. I'm impressed she was able to take up half the space in the closet. She isn't here yet and she's already putting our wardrobe to shame.

There are so many more details and thoughts I want to share, but if I do, this will go down in blog history as the longest post ever. If you made it to the end of this post, thank you for sharing my excitement! I can't wait for Baby Girl to be here and to finally see her sweet face.