Corn Maze & 16 Week Update

Fall is coming to Kansas. Having lived in Houston and Dallas for the last 9 years, I have no memory of fall. The changing of the leaves is something that only happens in far away place. But, now, there is a sign of fall just outside my window. Not having a dishwasher, I stand at my kitchen sink a lot and discovered I have quite a lovely view. This picture is what I see looking out the window towards the neighbor's house. Isn't it great!
We also tried another Kansas thing. Remember, our first was the volleyball game where we totally wore the wrong color. I saw a commercial for a corn maze and just had to look into it. We went to a corn maze about 30 minutes south of Wichita. I really didn't know what to expect and must admit I was a little hesitant when we drove up to it. It is a 'mom and pop' type place. The people were thrilled that this was our first time there. I guess they get a lot of regulars. This aerial shot and lights in the dark are things I stole from their website. Cool, huh. This picture of us is very unflattering, but it was a good idea, so I thought I would share it anyway. The corn was about two feet taller than us, so once you were in, you really couldn't see much. They did give us a map and there were 150 trivia questions on posters throughout the maze. We used to map (well, Ryan used the map) to get us from trivia to trivia. We had a fun time laughing at the questions and trying to figure them out. If you get 2/3 of the questions right, you win a pumpkin. So, we worked really hard and only missed 29 questions, so we won these two little pumpkins. Ahhh. We went before the sun went down. Apparently, the trend is to go in the dark and maneuver the maze with a flashlight. The whole maze took us about two hours, so it was pretty dark by the time we finished. It seemed like screaming 12-15 year olds came out of the corn in the dark! Quite literally at times. So, we were happy with our choice to be boring, old people and come early. We were just finishing when they were all arriving. And, the dark freaked me out a little. I am not a big fan of scary stuff, so I was more than ready to go once it got dark. But, if we live in Kansas for a while, I will definitely try new mazes every year! This last picture is a little better. Ah, baby's first field trip to a corn maze. I think he/she had a fabulous time.


OK - now for the stuff many of you really want to know. The 16 week check-up!
Mom and baby are doing great. Remember, at the last check-up they couldn't find the heartbeat and the doctor had to do a sonogram and I was completely freaked out. This time, the nurse prodded on my tummy a couple of second, put the doppler down and immediately we heard the heartbeat. It was great. The heartrate was 147 bpm. That is much lower than the previous times and I think that is all attributed to me being calm this time around so that my heart rate was normal. Weight gain is going great. I never can remember what I weigh (or maybe I subconsciously try to forget), so I asked the nurse how I was doing. She looked at the computer screen and said, "Oh WOW!" Now, normally, when I hear a reaction like that, I think negative things. I said, "WHAT?" and she immediately said, "Oh no, that was a good wow." But then she left it at that. So, when the doctor came into the room, I asked again about the weight gain and she said I actually haven't gained anything since my 12 week appointment and have only gained 9 pounds total. Yeah. I really feel like I eat just like I did before getting pregnant with the absence of guilt if I do splurge for an ice cream or other wonderful treat. But, really I am just trying to keep doing what I was doing.
I am scheduled for the gender-telling sonogram in two weeks - mark your calendars - Oct 20th. The doctor said I could have done it next Monday because I am already 16 1/2 weeks, but I wanted to wait just to give it that extra bit of time to prepare the baby to participate and show us everything we need to see! Ryan and I will begin our parenting techniques now in telling the baby just how we expect him or her to behave in the sono room :) We will let you know how that works out for us!