18 weeks old - Orange Seed, you are growing so fast! Only two weeks now until we will find out if you are a boy or a girl. We can't wait! Our hunch (yep, we are unanimous) is still boy. We will apologize profusely if, in fact, you turn out to be a girl!

18 Weeks - 5 1/2 inches long and about 5 ounces in weight. The "Fruit of the Day" update now compares Orange Seed to a large mango. For the meat lovers out there, What to Expect is now comparing baby to a chicken breast (though it does emphasize that the baby is FAR cuter). I won't update you on how much it verifies my boobs have grown (sorry for even bringing it up, male readers). That statistic is too frightening to say out loud.

This past week has been wonderful. The Maternity Sale turned out to be a huge success. Way too successful actually. This may be one of those "lessons learned" that I note post-pregnancy. But for now, I am just trying to let go of my buyer's remorse and to tell myself that I really will need all these things in the coming months. I think the problem was that the sale was equivalent to a trip to Target. Everything seems so comparatively cheap that you wind up buying twice as much and totally negating the savings. Ah well...let's blame it on the hormones, shall we?

The BigCityMoms event was likewise super successful. They have a really great set-up and everything is done in such a way as to make you feel comfortable, even if you have come completely alone. They seat you at a table with other women who are due in the same month/couple of months as you, which is great, because it gives you a chance to meet other women who are sharing your immediate experiences/feelings/concerns/etc. Everyone was extremely friendly and I even left with one e-mail address, so maybe this will be a friend-making endeavor after all! It is strange to be trying to "pick up" other women, but hey, when you move to a new city and are lacking an immediate social outlet, you have to put yourself out there. It was actually a real relief to talk to the other women. So many of them also expressed that they were attending these events primarily to meet other moms-to-be and to make social connections. I know the fact that there might be other lonely girls in Manhattan is a shock only to me, but still...it was nice to know that I'm not really alone.

The other wonderful part of last week was that Chris and I FINALLY got to take our surprise trip out to Chicago for Miss Anna Sharp's 30th birthday party. We've been anticipating the trip for months now and especially since Anna accidentally found out about Orange Seed before we got a chance to tell her! Not being able to explain to her why she wasn't one of the first people we called (which she normally would have been) was torturous! It was so nice to finally surprise her and explain "We really do still love you, we just wanted to tell you in person and that is why we were waiting and we couldn't tell you because we couldn't tell you about our surprise visit and....". The explanation went pretty much like that. I think I babbled for a solid 5 minutes just trying to get the whole apologetic story out. Needless to say, the trip was a huge success. It was so nice to finally see the Sharp family again - Anna, Brad, and little adorable Allie. Even Orange Seed was excited and kicked around in my belly all weekend.



Thank you Sharp Family for a wonderful wonderful weekend!! Hopefully we will all be able to be together again soon.

Orange Seed and I head down to DC again this Wednesday. I think I'm going to beg my way out of a December visit. Too many things going on between now and the holidays. We have Grandma and Grandpa Duck coming into town for Thanksgiving next weekend, then visitors a couple of weekends in December, our trip down to Williamsburg for Christmas and a big ski trip with Suzanne and Tim over New Years. No, I will not be skiing, at least not downhill, but I'm hoping rather to get in some good spa time, relaxation time, and maybe some cross country skiing if I can still fit into my ski pants at that point. In the meantime, we're just enjoying the fact that it is now mid-November in NYC and it is still 50-60 degrees outside. I think the city is just faking us out, but I'll take it for now. As long as I can keep running along the water, NYC fall/winter is alright by me.