The Waiting Game

Just for comparison's sake I've posted a picture of me now to contrast with the one at the start of the third trimester. You may have noticed that my tummy's slightly larger now. My 1-year-old nephew definitely noticed when I saw him this week as he excitedly jabbed his little finger into my belly and exclaimed, "Ball, ball!" In fact everything's larger now that I've started to retain fluids. Most pregnant women complain about swelling in their feet the most and while virtually all of my shoes are now to tight for comfort, the worst for me has been my hands. The swelling has extended to the joints in my fingers making even simple activities like turning a doorknob, unscrewing a lid, writing, and pumping up a blood pressure cuff painful. To some extent I have joint swelling and pain all over my body, but the hands are definitely the worst. Unfortunately my job requires almost constant use of my hands, but this is my last week before starting my maternity leave. I guess this should come as a relief as working definitely isn't easy at this point, but if I go past my due date I suspect I may be even more miserable just sitting around the house by myself with nothing to do but wait.

Up until now my doctor had thought there was a good chance I'd deliver early considering the size of the baby and the fact that his head started to drop several weeks ago, but I guess no one got the message to my cervix which hasn't been cooperative. If it had my doctor would have been willing to induce me over a week ago, an issue it seems that nearly everyone has a strong opinion about. I've heard horror stories about inductions that include painful labors and traumatic deliveries that can end in birth defects or C-Section. Then again I've heard mom's who opted out of induction tell about meconium in the lungs and babies that are too big which result in traumatic birth or C-Section. I guess the silver lining is that no matter what the outcome, I haven't really been given a choice so I can't really beat myself up over making the wrong decision. My only option at this point is to wait, and wait, and wait.

Jonesing For A Fix

A sugar fix that is. For some reason I've been craving sweets these past couple of months, especially milkshakes and cheesecake. Part of the reason is because they don't seem to give me heartburn as much as other foods do and milkshakes actually seem to help, but I've been really bad the past few weeks. Our baby could be coming anytime now though and once he does I'm giving up sugar cold turkey. Not only would it be good for me, it will be good for the baby too. I've heard that what Mom eats changes the taste of breastmilk and that eating a lot of sugar while breastfeeding can predispose a baby for a sweet tooth. Even if this isn't true, I should get back into better eating habits before he's old enough to realize what's going on to set a better example.

By sugar I mean all candy, desserts, sodas, and and sweets in general. Foods that naturally have sugar like fruits and honey don't count and neither do foods that have sugar, but also have a lot of nutritional value like whole wheat pancakes with syrup. Plus I figure I need to make allowances for the holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years get one exception each. The same applies for when I am company at someone else's home or at a party. I've used this plan before and found that after about 4 weeks my body adjusts and the cravings subside.

I figure that by publicly posting my intentions I'll be more likely to follow through. Once my baby turns a month old I'll post again on how successful it was so there's a little accountability too. Also I wondered if anyone wanted to join me or could at least support me by not bombarding me with sweets this holiday.

Yummy Vegetable Soup

I've decided to make some recipes that can be frozen and then reheated after our baby's born to save us the trouble of cooking for awhile. The first one is this tasty vegetable soup. It doesn't taste exactly like the minestrone at Olive Garden like it's supposed to, but it is yummy and not to mention very healthy. Don't be intimidated by the long list of ingredients. It doesn't call for anything unusual or exotic and most of them are fairly inexpensive. Also most of the chopping can be done with a food processor or chopper so prep time isn't too bad either. It will make an entire stockpot full of soup so you probably will want to freeze some of it. the best way I've found is to ladle the leftovers into ziplock freezer bags and freeze them. Then to reheat just soak in warm water until bag can be poured into a pan.

3 T olive oil
1 minced white onion
1/2 C chopped zucchini
1/2 C Italian cut frozen green beans
1/4 C minced celery
1/2 C carrots minced or shredded
4 t minced garlic
2 14 oz cans vegetable broth
1 14 oz can tomato sauce
2 15 oz cans red kidney beans
2 15 oz cans small white beans
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
2 t minced fresh parsley
1 1/2 t oregano
1 1/2 t basil
1 1/2 t salt
1/4 t thyme
3 C hot water
1/2 C red or white cooking wine
4 C baby spinach
1/2 C small shell pasta

1. Saute onion, celery, garlic, green beans and zucchini with oil in large stockpot.
2. Add all other ingredients except spinach and pasta. Bring to boil and simmer 20 min.
3. Add spinach and pasta and simmer for 20 more minutes before serving.

Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford

Most of you have probably already seen this SNL skit (I'm usually the last to know what's on TV), but if you haven't you can view it here. It's still hard for me to believe that our economy is in the mess that it is because so many Americans fail to grasp this concept. If I'm starting to sound too smug, please know that I am not speaking of instances like the single mom who buys a house out of her price range to get her children out of the ghetto and runs up credit cards to pay the grocery bills. Nor do I mean those who encountered catastrophic unforeseen circumstances, but I personally know of plenty individuals who simply wanted a bigger house, fancier car, and exciting toys so much that what they could actually afford seemed irrelevant. I feel bad that many of them are now facing foreclosure and bankruptcy (I do have a heart), but I feel even worse for our responsible friends, family, and neighbors who have lost their jobs and/or retirement savings because of it.

Nesting

Last weekend I got up early to clean out the fridge, scrub the baseboards, and organize our pantry. I also moved our rocker/glider into the baby's room, assembled a little nightstand to place next to it, and washed and put away all of our bambino's little clothes and blankies. Yesterday, much to Derek's dismay, I tackled our basement.

When we moved in all of the boxes of random junk were indiscriminately thrown onto the shelves in our basement. In the 2 years that followed the basement became a black hole for everything we didn't have room for. The shelves quickly filled up and huge piles amassed on the floor. Sifting through all of the boxes and piles was no minor undertaking, especially at 35 weeks pregnant. I probably did more lifting and bending over than is good for me and I had very little sympathy for Derek's complaints about his low energy levels and wanting to stop. He didn't stop though and we both worked really hard until everything had been sorted through and the stuff to throw away or donate were organized into piles and the items to keep were organized, consolidated, labeled and shelved appropriately. I'm amazed at how much space we were able to free up.

I guess this means I'm in the nesting phase where I'm racing through projects to get ready for baby. While it may appear that some of these projects have little to do with preparing for our little one they all are at least loosely related. For example, the room that is now the nursery used to be a place where we stored various items and since we've already maxed out our storage space upstairs, the only way to increase storage was to clean the basement. Now we not only have room to store what once belonged in the baby's room, but shelves to hold old clothes and toys as he outgrows them. And by reorganizing our pantry I've cleared off a shelf to make room for bottles, baby food and other baby necessities. Next on the list is to ready our guest room and downstairs bathroom so that my mom, and later Derek's mom, will have decent accomodations when they come to stay. I may be on my own for this one though. I think Derek's about ready to go into hiding until the baby's born.

Tagged Again

I've been tagged again by Auburn so here goes:

8 TV Shows I Love To Watch
I'm actually embarrassed to admit that I couldn't even list 8 TV shows that are on right now. As I tried to think back to when I watched more TV (college) I realized that even then I generally only watched whatever my roommates happened to be watching, so instead I'll list some of my favorite TV shows as a kid.

1. She-Ra
2. He-man
3. My Little Ponies
4. Care Bears
5. Full House
6. Scooby Doo
7. Brady Bunch
8. Bewitched

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Akbar Palace
2. Thai Ruby
3. Cheesecake Factory
4. San Fransisco Sourdough Pizza
5. Ottavios
6. Tucanos
7. Cafe Rio

8 Things I Did Yesterday
1. Handed out thank you notes to people at work for my baby shower
2. Worked for 11 hours on my feet
3. Came home with a seriously sore back
4. Discussed health insurance with Derek
5. Went out to dinner
6. Took a nice warm bath
7. Couldn't get out of tub by myself (I'm too big and the tub's too slippery) and yelled for Derek to help
8. Folded and put away laundry

8 Things I Look Forward To
1. Finally meeting our baby
2. Not being pregnant anymore
3. Derek finishing school
4. The weekend
5. Seeing Michelle and family for Thanksgiving
6. Celebrating our first Christmas as parents
7. Being able to take ibuprofen and other assorted medicines again
8. Sleep

8 Things I Love About Fall
1. Bright colored leaves
2. Blue October skies
3. Cooler weather
4. Pumpkin (pie, pancakes, cookies, whatever)
5. Apple Cider
6. Seeing cute little trick-or-treaters
7. Thanksgiving Dinner
8. Getting to sleep an extra hour after daylight savings

8 Things On My Wishlist
1. A healthy, happy baby
2. A good night's sleep (unlikely for awhile I know)
3. That I'll lose the pregnancy weight (plus a little more) in a reasonable time
4. That Derek will like whatever job he gets
5. A maid
6. A bigger bathtub with jets
7. A massage
8. Did I mention sleep

Auburn already tagged most of the people I know with blogs anyway so I'm going to have to pass on tagging 8 more people.

Pumpkin Banana Muffins

This is one of my favorite fall recipes. It's what I would call moderately healthy. They're 100% whole wheat and don't have any oil, but they do contain a fair amount of sugar. However, they definitely are tasty. For my last batch I tried a tip that worked out pretty well so I thought I'd pass it along. If you have bananas that are starting to go bad just stick them in the freezer until you are ready for them, peel and all. Then when you want to use them just take them out to defrost, cut off the top of the peel and squeeze the banana into the bowl. I was a little skeptical when I tried it because the peels all turned dark black in the freezer, but the muffins tasted great.

Ingredients

4 C whole wheat flour
4 t baking powder
4 t cinnamon
2 t ginger
2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
15 oz canned pumpkin
4 large eggs
1 C granulated sugar
1 C packed brown sugar
5 mashed bananas
3/4 C unsweetened applesauce

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, spray muffin tins or liners with cooking spray.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, cinamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
Combine pumpkin, eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, bananas, and applesauce into a larger bowl and beat until smooth.
3. Gradually beat in dry ingredients until just combined.
4. Spoon into prepared tins (makes 36 medium or 24 large muffins)
5. Bake 20-25 minutes until toothpick inserted to the middle of a muffin comes out clean.