Thursday, January 28, 2010

17 weeks pregnant

First off, Id like to say this is my 101 blog post since I started this blog for my mum and sister last winter.

At 17 weeks pregnant, you are in your 18th week of pregnancy. Confusing.

The size of the baby at this point is totally different depending upon which book or website you read (probably around 5.5-6 inches though).

Scary fact (according to this website): your uterus is approximately the size of a cantaloupe. What is scarier than that, is that at not even half way, its going to get much much larger!

Cute fact (same website): around this time your baby becomes more sensitive to the outside world and shows it presence through powerful kicks and prods. I have begun to feel these, but they are very irregular. At first it felt like someone had opened a soda can in my lower abdomen and all the little tiny bubbles were fizzing up. Now it just feels like there is an angry little alien in there which responds to being prodded by pushing back. Cruel mother that I am, I do like to prod Munch and see if anything happens and Danny had a go last night. Mean parents. More often than not though, nothing happens! Guess its not a one trick pony just yet.

Along with the ever expanding uterus, comes very disconcerting Round Ligament Pains. I wouldn't exactly call them 'pains', but they are not especially comfortable. It is everything moving around, making room and stretching in there and feels like period pains. In your logical calm head, you know that its just 'relocation' (ugh) but in your frantic panicking head something is wrong. Oh well, here's to staying calm.

Another odd thing that I didnt expect to feel was a complete lack of appetite. There is nothing I want to eat and I dont ever seem to want to eat. I get a headache if I haven't eaten in a while, so I know its time, but still not feeling like eating. How strange. Or Ill start eating something and not want any more. I thought Id be eating everything in sight! The 20 lbs Ive already put on says that I am eating everything in sight but I tell you, I dont eat any more than I did 6 months ago. I find the weight gain thing funny too. I weighed myself sunday and had put on 1 lb in 3 weeks. Weighed myself wednesday and I had put on 5 lbs since sunday! How does that work!? Ive had to drop the weight fascination because I dont want to become obsessed. Im just eating when I want to eat, and not when I dont. Phew.

Enough pregnancy information for one day?

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Funny!

I find it funny how people ask pregnant women, "How are you feeling?", with that Im-sorry-you-are-so-ill look. I do find it really funny. Im not moaning at all, coz I hate reading moany blogs, its just not fun and because people are just showing concern for you and your little one, which is considerate. I just find it amusing. A small number of people (usually women who remember their pregnancy) ask you how you are with a smile on their face like its not big deal, but then there are those (mostly men) that act like something is wrong with you.

To all those who want to know how Im feeling, I feel great. A little tired of course, but generally, great. Last night I jogged to the tennis courts and (sort of) played tennis with my husband for an hour. I did have to hide in the bushes on the bike track to pee, but that cant be helped. We are terrible terrible tennis players but we had so much fun. Danny insisted he got to play to the doubles lines because there were two on my side of the court, but I had to play to the singles lines - not fair!

Today I have to go get the flu and H1N1 vaccinations, and I have to say, Im tremendously anxious. More so about the aftermath, because I have no problem giving blood; but they are taking something out, not putting something in. I was not going to get the vaccinations, because I can handle getting ill. My doctor thinks that I may even have had H1N1 when I was horribly sick in November, but who knows now. Its just that if you have the vaccination while pregnant, your baby gets it too, where as Munch cant have its own shots for these things until at least 6 months. So being born in a college town when school is about to start back up, makes Munch vulnerable. Suppose this is a good a time as any to start playing the responsible parent. I have already prepared for a rough evening - Danny is cooking dinner while I take a nap.

Wish me luck!

Monday, January 25, 2010

One down!

Months and months ago, I begun making a pair of slipper socks for Dave, with the intention of making some for myself also, hopefully before the end of the winter. Yeah right. What with my evening morning sickness (odd), and the extreme tiredness, I had absolutely no interest in knitting at all. Socks are one of those things, I have come to discover, that are a pain in the butt to knit, because of the double pointed needle action. Enough of the moaning, I finally finished one of Dave's socks this weekend and got started on the next!

Modelled here by my own chicken-like legs!
Awesome photography by CPDK.



Just one more to go, then I can make something for the Munch!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

New Hampshire pics

In Munch's (short for Munchkin, I know, Im crazy) short life, its already been to Portland, OR, England, Scotland and New Hampshire. That's one well travelled fetus, taking in its parents footsteps already.






Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Good Dieting Technique

Eat Tangelos.

Im serious. It just took me about 30 minutes to peel, separate the segments, chew out all of the pips and get any nutrition at all from a single tangelo and I have three to eat this morning. I will have 'eaten' for an hour and a half straight and consumed a tiny number of calories by the time Im done with this snack. At this rate, I can eat continuously all day long. Every pregnant woman's dream!

Oh, I know... Im a little late on this news, but Im 16 weeks pregnant!

You can scream with joy now! Give someone close to you a little hug! Its ok, we did it when we found out! Im due July 8th but I have an ultrasound at week 22 where they give more accurate information, I believe.

We are not finding out the gender, well, not until its born as Im sure it will become evident then! There are so few true surprises left in life. We are looking forward to the one where after 40 weeks of discomfort and hours and hours of excruciating pain (Im going to make sure Danny is in pain too, dont you worry!) the doctor announces, "It's a ..."

So exciting!

I didn't really get morning sickness in the first trimester. Though the only point in the day that I felt truly 'good' was the time between first waking up and about lunchtime. From 4pm onwards I felt pretty awful and nauseas. I was always tired and often either took naps and/or went to bed by 730pm. There was nothing I wanted to eat, especially unusual for me, apart from fresh pineapple, red grapes, olives and tiny crunchy pickles. None of which goes down well for a locavore whose eating with the seasons. But that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess. Danny and I had many, many fights because he insisted on passing wind in my presence and was surprised when the smell made me want to vomit and brought out a rage from the depths that he never knew I possessed at such short notice. But if farting is all you have to fight over, life is pretty darn good. I was no longer able to wear my own trousers after about 10 weeks, though I didnt start showing really until about 15 weeks. Strange, I know, but my hips just got so wide, none of my trousers would come even close to buttoning and my butt is the size of an elephants. Not to mention that my little A-cups are already Cs and we arent even half way!

Into the second trimester whole heartedly now and I feel great. About once a week I have an off day and its usually Sunday or Monday so it must just be general tiredness. I mostly eat everything again now (except just a few things) and am able to jog, do my prenatal yoga dvd and walk my dogs. We think they are aware of the situation as they take turns falling asleep with their heads on my belly.

We will probably start a gambling poll of when you think the baby will be born, gender, weight and just how big (circumference-wise) my stomach will actually get. Danny has a goal of losing enough weight that by July, he weighs less than me. Good luck with that pal. You are going to have to take up some form of exercise and quit the ice cream for that to happen!

New Hampshire for the weekend

Our long weekend in New Hampshire was an absolute blast. Its always great to see friends you love so much but live so far from. I am thoroughly exhausted though and not relishing the dog bathing and house tidying that must occur tonight to make my next two weeks alone (Husband travelling) an enjoyable one; but needs must. I only have a few photos of Helen and I sliding down a hill slope on our butts, but I will attempt to post these here as soon as Mojo is clean and no longer scratching himself raw from allergies.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Moan moan moan moan moan

Why do I continue to think, with this job, and this boss, that I can leave my jogging til the end of the day? Now its 6pm and Im still at work, its dark out, I feel like a slug and my poor dogs have not been for a walk/jog today.

On the bright-side, tomorrow we fly to New Hampshire for a ski trip! I will not be skiing, of course, because it sucks (read: too fast for me) but will be snow shoeing on long hikes, enjoying time with my buddies, eating and drinking lots of good food and hopefully making some progress on my reading and knitting.

Have a great holiday all, Im so excited to not be coming to the hell hole until Tuesday.

Yes, I had a rough day it seems!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I washed!

Since the water came back on yesterday while we were at work (who knows how much water we have wasted leaving the taps on, shame) I was able to shower this morning and no longer have the potential to smell of anything but soap!

Getting ready for our New Hampshire trip. How exciting! A ski trip with no skiing, for me at least! I already have a plan... get up in my own time, go for a two hour snow shoe hike in the national forest, come home for lunch, go to town, peruse shops and settle down in a coffee shop with my knitting for a few hours, go home and get dinner ready for my chums who will be tired from skiing!

Its going to be great!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Stay away... I smell

Well, our water went out again sometime during the night Saturday. Thankfully we had a saucepan of water from Saturday evening which Danny collected before cleaning the carpets. This was very useful as we had about ten people for roast dinner and games Sunday night. The saucepan of water was enough to par-boil my potatoes, boil my carrots and steam my broccoli. I carefully drained the potato water into another saucepan and re-used this water to cook the cabbage. I have kept this water again and will use it to boil my turkey left-overs this evening to make a stock. Now that's resourceful!

I have to say, the turkey was delicious! Thanks Mr Brandon at Zion Farms, Pontotoc, for the free-range beauty! And thanks mum for the Delia Smith baking directions. Oh and thanks Danny for the meat thermometer I got for Christmas. You all helped me bake the most delicious, moist turkey I have ever eaten! I was quite chuffed with myself actually (seriously, who says chuffed in this day and age!), because other than the turkey and the gravy, everything else in my meal was vegan. We had roasted potatoes and parsnips, carrots and broccoli, cabbage, stuffing and Hubbard squash bake. mmmmmm! Thanks to Kevser and Megan for bringing a dessert, I just didnt have that in me! The only hard thing about not having water, was that when I took the turkey out of its bag I got raw poultry juices all over my hands; so I had to use drinking water in a little bowl to clean my hands. Oh and shaping the stuffing balls left my hands kinda sticky too! Thanks also to those that brought water over. Its funny the little things that you dont think about, like drinking water for the dogs; those guys went through almost two of the soda sized bottles of water that Megan brought over. And then there is water for after dinner tea. All in all, we have done well though, to have survived pretty well on just a few gallons of water since saturday!

Today it should get up to 43F, so hopefully there will be water dripping out of our taps when we go home for lunch! With temperatures that warm, I was even able to put the dogs outside as they were getting pretty stir crazy sitting in the house.

Mr Mojo is feeling a little better. Enough to play and use his leg, unless he feels that Tux is getting more attention than him, then he comes hobbling over to me. Seriously, how do dogs learn to play up to their mummy like that!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Don't Panic Mr Mannering

Water now comes out of our pipes and the heating is working, for the time being!

Went for a beautiful walk in the sun with my good buddy Meg at lunchtime. Thank goodness there was some respite in this otherwise awful day! I have been in a meeting since 10am this morning, going round and round in circles. Ugh. Why can't some people just give straight answers? It would make things less painful to endure!

Got to frost my cake when I get home as I chose to enjoy the last 'warm' day in a while at lunchtime instead ...

Birthday Disaster!!!

My birthday started with a bit of a bang this morning!

Our pipes froze over night, so no shower for me!

We thought our heating was broken but have finally worked out that it just gets so cold at night that it takes the system too long to heat up. We are going to have to keep it at a much warmer temperature for the next week, since the high will be 21F for the next few days. Hopefully today's high of 40F will thaw the pipes, because if not, they will be that way for the next week! Thankfully they didnt burst everywhere, but Im not counting my chickens yet, it could still get ugly.

The dogs probably dont know what's going on as they were allowed to stay inside this morning! I should actually be allowed to go home, my office is a chilly 58F and shows no signs of warming up. Luckily I dressed for seriously cold weather today! Just cant warm those tootsies up!

I made myself a beautiful and delicious sweet potato cake last night, which Im going to frost at lunchtime, so Ill take a picture of it then! So excited!

We bought donuts for a birthday breakfast! It was a little disappointing to wake up and want to go out for breakfast but not be able to think of anywhere in town I actually wanted to eat on my birthday. So I had oatmeal (with raspberry jam, of course) and will have donuts for my early morning snack! That works!

29!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Quick, easy and nutritious weeknight dinner

Creamy Tomato Pasta for Two

(with a portion of left overs!)

Ingredients
1 Chicken breast, slice breast in half then cut into half centimeter slices
1 half small/medium onion, cut onion in half then slices into thin pieces
1 broccoli crown, cut into small florets and stem into small cubes
sun/oven dried tomatoes packed in oil
Half small tub sour cream
Pesto
Balsamic vinegar
Mozzarella balls (optional but tasty)
Wholewheat pasta, cooked according to directions

Stir-fry sliced chicken and onion in oil from tomatoes until chicken is sealed and onion translucent.
Add broccoli and a small amount of water. Place lid on pan and steam for one minute.
Add tomatoes to pan and stir around for a minute.
Add a couple tablespoons of pesto and balsamic vinegar and mix. Cook for a minute or so.
Add in sour cream and stir until melted. Turn heat off but leave pan over stove (only works if you dont have a gas stove).
Add in mozzy balls and cooked pasta and mix it all together.

Dinner in under 30 minutes from start to finish, I guarantee!

Friday, January 1, 2010

British Antics

Our journey to England was a little manic, it has to be said. We taxied for 40 minutes on the runway in Amsterdam, so when we got off the plane we only had 30 minutes to our next flight. Instead of booking us onto the next flight, Delta chose to book us onto the one after that. Of course our cell phones didnt work in Amsterdam but they had given us phone credit so we were able to call my mum, who was picking us up; but her cell phone was dead so I had to leave her a message and hope she got it. My poor mum sat at Heathrow for 5 hours, having dropped her friend off earlier in the day. Best 1.75GBP coffee she ever bought! The parking ticket meter ate our ticket so we had to stand there in the freezing cold waiting for the attendant. Then we hopped on the motorway to sit in traffic, so we put the radio on to get the low-down, and Sally Traffic said there was stand-still traffic on the M25 (London's ring road) from junctions 12 to 22. We were at junction 13. At which point, my mum realised that the numbers were going down, not up - we were going the wrong way round! But by that stage we had skipped all of the stand-still traffic on the other side of the road, so we decided just to keep going. Then it started snowing! Eventually we got to my parents house around 9pm ish, instead of 130pm ish had we caught our intended flight - exhausted!

We visited my grandmother on the monday and it snowed again on the way home. Really heavy snow in a short amount of time. It took my mum and I six hours to get home; a 1.5 hour journey. The first 12 miles took about 5 hours! I was starting to realise that I was going to sit in a car most of my holiday!

Tuesday we drove (see, more time in a car) up to Fort William, Scotland; a 9 ish hour drive. The snow up there was much thicker and made for a pretty white christmas. We had a daily trudge through the snow and was fed abundantly by Dave's sister Lorna. We played cards every night with randomly chosen teams, and the teams I was on only lost once! My claim to Samba fame!

We flew out of Edinburgh airport Tuesday morning, probably much more efficient than leaving from Gatwick or Heathrow, where delays were much greater. We flew to Amsterdam again, where they scanned your stuff, and went through each bag individually, and patted everyone down, seriously patted you down. As a result, our plane left an hour later than scheduled and it was a close call on our third flight, but we made it with a hair to spare. We were awake 24 hours that day but unfortunately still jet lagged, so despite finally falling into bed at 1130pm, I still woke up around 430am, but managed not to wake Danny up til about 630am! Wasnt I good!?

We had the Klimetz' over for NYE last night but I got tired and so sneaked into bed when they went outside to do fireworks at 10pm. They woke me up to celebrate and drink sparkling grape juice (god that stuff is awful, tastes like a rubber ball) at 1150pm and I went back to bed at 1210am! I had cooked lots and lots of food, mostly unnecessarily as there was tons left over, and we played board games. Oh, dont ever buy Battle of the Sexes... the boy questions are easy and the girl questions are impossible. Although the boys we played with, summized that it just showed how selfish girls are that they dont learn anything about things that interest boys. Although they didnt know half the answers to our questions! I mean seriously, any ideas what the engine in a dune buggy is? Or the second longest continually running sporting event? (I have got this one now though, Kentucky Derby.) Needless to say, we lost miserably. Break out the Boggle, Ill show you a thing or two! We didnt get to eat the delicious cheesecake I made yesterday as no one had room after the baked brie, Bruce's Southern Caviar, pulled pork, wedge fries, braised cabbage, french bread and blondies, to mention just a few things that took up my day. So perhaps its cheesecake for breakfast!

Im still jet lagged so Im sneakily writing this post in bed while the sun comes up and the three young men in my life snore away happily (only one of them is in my bed, dont worry! Id never sleep with two massive dogs in the bed, there would be no room for me!). I have some sewing and knitting to do, so I suppose Ill get up and do that now, while everyone else sleeps. Excited for our typical NY day activities of a nice long walk with the dogs and afternoon trip to the cinema, perhaps Sherlock Holmes today.

I think its going to be a great year this year. No resolutions as you only end up breaking them. Instead Ill give thanks to all those that love me and are so generous with their friendships and time. I hope I do as much for you all as you do for me. I am particularly thankful for my wonderful husband (who cleaned the entire house yesterday so that I didnt have to worry about it, and the oven when my cheesecake base leaked butter that burned to the bottom of the oven and filled the kitchen with black smoke!). Im also thankful for my mummy who is always there with the perfect comforting words and a hug. Even big girls need tlc!

Now, to plan what cake I shall make myself for my birthday next week, hmmmmm! Sweet potato perhaps, with a cream cheese frosting!

Im sure Ill find some pictures to post next week.

Happy New Year!