My postal baby shower

A couple of Wednesdays ago, I received a baby gift from one of my good friends through the post. I love getting post addressed to me and even more so when it's presents! Seth always laughs at me as I never open the boring looking letters that could be bills or bank statements but as soon as it looks interesting, I'll open it straight away. I don't think I'm the only person in the world who does this though, surely?! So I was really happy to receive this lovely gift.
On Thursday, I got three more gifts through the post! Once again, it was such a lovely surprise. Although maybe I should have rephrased the last sentence, as technically the gifts were for the baby and not for me, but as the parcels were addressed to me and the baby can't open the presents for him / herself, I still think it counts. As lovely as it was to obviously receive the presents, I started to get a tiny little bit suspicious, especially as they had arrived at around the same time and the cards on two of them said "Happy Postal Baby Shower"! After a little investigation (which involved calling my Mum, so not that much investigation really!) I found out that my sister Lin had arranged a postal baby shower for me, being as though I wasn't there for her to throw me one. How lovely is that?! As one of my friends said, I got all of the benefits of a baby shower without having to play the games that involve eating baby food, etc, ha ha!

I had three days off work the week before last. I'm not ill or anything (although starting to feel pregnant and extremely tired! I don't know how people who already have children manage when they are pregnant again!) but I just have some holiday days to take before I go off on maternity leave, and given that I have been pretty tired of late, I thought it would be a good idea to take some days off each week so I don't have to work full weeks. So, aside for two weeks in June where I am working full weeks and my final week of work in July, that is what I am doing. On Friday of last week, I met up with Mum at Westfield in Stratford. We spent a lovely day together looking around the shops, eating banana filled crepes and drinking creamy coolers from Costa Coffee (okay, the creamy cooler was just me. I am slightly obsessed with them at the moment) and just enjoying our time together. On the way home I met Seth at the train station and we travelled home together. As we walked up the steps to our house, there was a massive pile of parcels on the doorstep! We could not believe it, our poor postman must have wondered what in the world was going on! It felt like Christmas as they were all addressed to me and they were all postal baby shower gifts! Obviously we had our priorities in order and before we did anything else, we set about opening them. Well I did, Seth dutifully took photos of me opening the lovely presents. Just so you know, I had been out  all day and I was eager to open the parcels, hence me not having time to brush my hair and looking a complete mess :). There aren't photos of me opening all of the presents we got as Seth wasn't home when I got the other ones to take pictures!
So, a big thank you to Lins for organising my postal baby shower, it's such a brilliant idea and something I never in a million years would have thought of, she's so kind for arranging it all. And another massive thank you to my lovely friends who participated in it, I was and am really quite touched to know that even though I may not live close by anymore, you would still be involved and send something for our baby. You are all WONDERFUL!

Baby update: we are both growing. More and more each day it would seem. Breathing is getting that little bit harder, as is everything really and my stomach feels like it's going to explode, which hopefully it won't, especially as I have 8 weeks left! Feeling the baby move around and kick is still a novelty for me, even though I have been feeling that since around 17 weeks. I think I annoy it quite a lot because I will have my arms folded and resting on my stomach and it feels like it's trying to kick my arms away, it's pretty funny. Watching my entire stomach change shapes as it moves around is quite fun as well. I think I am probably just going through the usual thing that every pregnant woman experiences right now - heartburn, not being able to do things quite as fast, struggling to put shoes on and even to roll over in bed at night, the general aches and pains. And I can still honestly say that I am enjoying pregnancy and all that comes with it!