Friday, July 31, 2009

I like to whine.

And people ask me why I never go to bed before midnight. This is why. Inevitably, either:

1) I wake up on my own between 2 and 4 and have had just enough sleep that I can't go back to sleep.

2) James wakes me when he goes to bed, and I have had just enough sleep that I can't go back to sleep.

or

3) The baby wakes up and cries for five minutes between 2 and 4, and I have had just enough sleep that I can't go back to sleep.

Today it was option 3.

And then I get on my computer in the middle of the night and whine about it. Seriously, folks. I went to sleep at TEN. Not THAT early. Daaaah.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Ten hours of sleep!

(wrote this first part about a week ago)

The Child has discovered the joys of blueberries. They were on special today, and I am helpless in the face of fresh berries. So is The Child, apparently. I put some on her high chair, she started snarfing them up like lines of cocaine, and two minutes later I heard retching. There's Grace with 47 blueberries crammed in her mouth. Way to go, kid. Now, she has learned to chew and swallow each bite before the next one comes; I guess blueberries are just so freaking amazing that clear airways suddenly become strangely unimportant.

Oh, but it is the funniest thing ever when she gets a sour one in her mouth. I wish I could get a picture of that face. It's like if a lemur ran face-first into a brick wall and then his face stuck like that, and then he ate a lemon.


People, I am already in maternity clothes. Starting at 8 weeks. This is insane. For now, it has more to do with what I eat and how much, but still. There is a pouch. I could wear normal clothing, as I don't really have a baby bump, per se, but I do have what looks like a beer gut. Or an I-eat-way-too-many-doughnuts bump. See, I still have weird postpartum stomach pouch, and even though my belly itself is not yet sticking out, I still can't suck it in anymore.

I very much want to buy a whole package of white tank tops and some cigars and cans of cheap beer and hang out on my front porch with them arranged around me. I should probably also get some aviator glasses.


We got basic cable a few months ago, and now that all my evening shows are no longer in season, I never watch TV. The only things on are soap operas (yuck), infomercials (sometimes fun, but usually too shouty), Spanish-language TV (which I love, but is strangely exhausting), and religious programming. And then! I discovered MeTV. All the Matlock and Hawaii Five-O a girl could ever want.


I am very sorry, but I completely forgot to document Grace's atrocious haircut. Now she's grown into it, and it looks pretty cute. In a few days or weeks I'm hoping to finally feel myself again, and then we'll be back to the crazed photo-snapping of yestermonths.


My sister is in the area this week, which is the best thing ever. Today they are going to a baseball game, which was not my cup of tea at the moment, so I'm staying home today. My sister is awesome, but it's nice to have a break from driving to and from the Milwaukee area to visit. I crashed last night at 10:30 and woke up around 6:30/7:00. It was GLORIOUS. I feel like a million dollars today.


I'm starving. I need to go hunt down something I can eat. Aversions and nausea have been much, much better (times a thousand), but it's still something of a quest to discover the day's Holy Food Grail. I think today it is fruit (as usual) and potatoes of any variety. We shall see.

Friday, July 17, 2009

You should see what I can do with a curling iron.

Well! 2.0 is due on March 4th. Which means I have a week and a half more of first trimester than I thought I did. Yippee!

First prenatal appointment today was rather ho-hum. Yes, I KNOW I'm supposed to get all dreamy and misty-eyed over that splotch of static on the screen, but I just can't. I doesn't look like anything to me. I know it is, but my untrained eyes can't see it. The heartbeat, though? *swoon*


The best part of today was the Chipotle. I realized a few days ago that a Chipotle barbacoa burrito with pinto beans, lettuce, cheese, and lots of sour cream was everything I ever wanted in this world. I spent every minute yearning for that stupid burrito.

I could hardly get myself away from the doctor's office fast enough. I am telling you people, that burrito could not have tasted better if had been made lovingly for me by angels and magical elves. Best day ever.


I trimmed Grace's bangs a week or two ago. All her hair is wavy, but she has a palm frond or something in front. It's all this fuzzy, stick-straight hair, like she stuck her finger in a light socket, and her head is so big that the electricity could only make it as far as the top of her forehead. It was cute but also ridiculous, and she loves to rub her face like crazy when she eats. Mama does not fancy food in the fringe. So I snipped it.

I was going for some cute angled bangs. The Child had other plans. Mainly, she planned to capture and eat the scissors. There was much head-waggling. Instead of this (um, bangs only, of course; we're going to wait 'til her third birthday for the excessive eye makeup):



We got this (complete with tooth gap):




I am counting on 2.0 looking something like this:

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Oh hah hah.

Lots of whining, very little funny in this one.

A couple days ago I started this entry and then got too tired to finish it. I'm bolding the parts that are no longer true:



So, we buy meats in bulk whenever we can. I then divide it up into bags and freeze it that way. We bought six pounds of ground beef the other day, and I put off the task for a couple days because it's really unpleasant. I hate raw meat.

Monday I finally got down to it (still well before the sell-by date): cleaned the kitchen counter, got my freezer bags out, washed my hands. Then I got the meat out. As I was setting it on the counter, it dripped all over my (clean, for once) kitchen floor. Ew. Ew times a thousand. So it went in the sink while I cleaned the floor... and the refrigerator shelf, and the vegetable compartment below it (which, thankfully, was empty), and the floor of the refrigerator, and the door seal. I have no idea how it got
everywhere just sitting there. Perhaps food has parties when the lights go out.

Cleanup done, I returned to the sink and opened the package there. And promptly threw up on the other side of the sink. Just kidding. But I really, really wanted to. Sour meat is like nothing else on this earth, people. It didn't yet smell particularly strong, but it was
foul. Something had torn through both the packaging and the plastic bag it was in, which meant happy fun bacteria time.

[However, I am so glad this happened Monday, and not, say today. Read on, friends.]


Still no stomach issues. Slight discomfort right when I wake up in the morning, but everything is more or less normal most of the time, as long as I don't let myself get too hungry.

But holy cows, the cravings. Last night I went to the grocery store because I HAD TO HAVE RAMEN RIGHT THAT MOMENT. And not just any ramen. It had to be the beef flavored Maruchan Ramen that comes in the styrofoam cup and has peas and corn and carrots and fake pieces of meat (pretty sure it's beef-flavored soy product). I've already gone through half the package. I firmly believe that cravings hit for a reason, most of the time (for both pregnant and not-pregnant people). Doesn't mean the food itself is exactly what you need (I mean, hello? ramen?), but I think it usually has something in it that you need. So I looked at the nutrition information, and ramen is made of two things, basically: starch and iron. It has tons of iron! Like, 15% of your daily values in that one little package.


I've also had a bit of restless leg problems, which I've read can be caused/exacerbated by low iron. This is strange because my iron count has always been freakishly high. But, of course, pregnancy does completely insane things to you.



Yes, the aversions have begun. The very idea of eating that ramen makes my stomach churn. Here I was, all, "Oh, this time around has been GREAT! I feel so good! Yay me!" and then the pregnancy fairy laughed in my face and kicked me in the stomach. Repeatedly.

I halfheartedly ate some crackers this morning and half a banana (The Glutton Child ate the other half). Water tastes like ashes and dead skunks. Yesterday's delicious vegetable beef soup tastes like dead skunks and rotting mushrooms.

We were watching Angel this morning, and this episodes baddie has the last name of Fries. And that's when I knew what I could eat today. Fries! Yay! I would really like the kind that is made of actual potato, not the McDonald's kind, but options are pretty limited around here. *My Perfect Husband, in response to my, "Oh! Fries!" offered to shower and go get me some. I did not turn that offer down.

*At some point or another today, he will probably be known as That Idiot because, HELLO MOOD SWINGS! Yes, I am, once again, turning into a cliché. Go me.


Yesterday we walked almost a mile to a fresh vegetable stand on the other side of town, only to realize we had no cash on us. So we went to the hardware store nearby to see if they had cash back on their machines. No such luck. Trekked back over to the bank and waited (on foot) in line for the drive-up ATM. After five minutes of standing around, we discovered the ATM was not dispensing cash. The gas station down the street didn't have cash back, either, but they DID have an ATM with a $2.50 fee. Oh, that sounds like a GREAT deal. Feh.

There are many things I miss about Madison that never even occurred to me before we moved. I was so ready to be rid of constant, pernicious road construction, idiotic pedestrian and cyclists, and busses that smelled of crazy cat ladies that I didn't even consider all the modern conveniences we'd be leaving behind.

There is no Target (sigh). No Woodman's (gasp!). Only one no-fee ATM. The farmer's market has a coffee cart (which is fantastic, actually) and a food tent (the corn on the cob and grilled chicken? TO DIE FOR, except right now thinking about it makes me want to barf) but no actual farm products. Like vegetables. Or meat (mmmm red meat is one thing that DOES sound good). Even the discount stores are grossly overpriced. It does have the best (and cheapest) bakery I have ever met in my life and an amazing hamburger stand, two good ice cream shops and two consignment shops that I would live in if I could. But stores for everyday things? HAH. And everything closes by 5. Which I do not understand. Most people who live here work outside of town. How do these stores do any business when they all close before everyone gets home from work? Does not compute.

Apologies for the whine-fest. I get like this when I'm hungry and all my favorite foods (and non-favorite foods) make me want to die. I'm going to lie here and moan while I wait for my fries.


Oh, and the best part? On top of Insane Pregnancy Fatigue, The Child has been waking up in the middle of the night every single night for the last two weeks straight. I have no idea why. I kind of want to die.

(not really. don't worry.)

She has never done this without some kind of encouragement from me (like caving and feeding her in the middle of the night). This time around, I haven't caved. Not once. She always stops within twenty minutes, just when I'm about to go in there and pat her. Last night, though, she screamed for over an hour. I went in there after twenty minutes and gave her some tylenol, thinking maybe she was teething. I can't tell if she is or not. It'll be a molar this time around, and it's hard to check back there. I hate teeth. The tylenol didn't help. Me going in there just made her mad. She cried for another 40 minutes. Yaaay.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

2.0 is nicer. So far.

Hi, yes, still here. The Child 2.0 (for lack of a better name) is not yet wreaking havoc on my stomach the way The Child did. But, oh, the fatigue! I could nap all day. In fact, that's what I did with The Child, but now The Child is on the outside and wreaking havoc on other things. So naps are out, unless she's napping. And you know what I'm going to do to the next person who tells me to sleep when the baby sleeps? Something terribly painful and very creative that I'm too tired to think of right nozzzzzzzzz

Um. Hello. Oh, yes, this problem is compounded by my crazed fits of nesting (nesting did not begin last time until I was approximately the size of Rhode Island, if I remember correctly). I get up in the morning and spend the next four hours cooking and smashing up baby food or washing and folding laundry (but not putting it away, of course, so we have gargantuan stacks of clean, folded laundry EVERYWHERE) or scrubbing the floors. Then The Child wakes up from her nap, and I fall asleep feeding her while she plays with my nose and claws my face skin to bits.


Speaking of The Child, she is a big, fat bundle of energy. My muscly little string bean. She climbs, she crawls, she speechifies, she shovels anything and everything into her mouth that she can find, and I'm not really sure I want to know what kinds of things I haven't caught her putting in her mouth. Although, if she becomes a spider- and centipede-killer the way cats are supposed to be (if someone would earn her KEEP, I wouldn't have to be training a baby to do these things, CAT), I will be very happy. Provided she does not attempt one of her charming French kisses while still eating a spider. She's very much into the French kisses these days.

Yes, the things The Child will eat:

anything orange
anything white
anything brown
anything yellow
carpet lint
dirt
Mama leg
Daddy arm
hair
Cat
pillow
couch
shoes (OH, NOM NOM SHOES OH I LOVE YOU, SHOES, THE DIRTIER THE BETTER)
dining room floor
kitchen floor
her own arm
piano bench leg
anything that tastes of dirt or varnish

The things The Child won't eat:

steamed and mashed sweet peas, prepared lovingly by me
steamed and mashed green beans, prepared lovingly by me
steamed and mashed asparagus, prepared lovingly by me

Are we seeing a pattern here? Dirty, bitter, sour, vinyl or fleshy, she's TOTALLY THERE. Green--whether it be sweet or savory--is the food of THE DEVIL, DON'T MAKE ME EAT IT. Except for avocados. Huge fan of avocados.

I do not think this is my child. I have only encountered three vegetables in my lifetime that I did not like, and one of them is not even green. She'll accept peas if they're mixed with (*huge amounts of) apples or pears. Have not yet tried that with the beans or asparagus.

*So huge that the microscopic amount of vegetable is not even worth the trouble.


Anyhow, my own stomach is, as I said, not in that delicate a condition (yet), but there are a couple things. Wheat bread. I choked two pieces down this morning on the way to church because I was starving but did not have time to get breakfast (this is what I get for putting off piano practice until the morning of). Tasted like cigarette and cat butts. And a few days ago I made a giant batch of hummus. Hummus! It's bland, full of fiber and protein! Can't go wrong! HAHAHAH. It's now sitting in my fridge, taunting me. I can hear it all the way in the living room.

Maybe if I make a giant batch of ice cream and cheeseburgers, I will develop aversions to those, too. We went on a long walk, and the first leg was to the hamburger stand here in town. This tiny little place appears to have nothing--no shops, no clothing stores, no Target, for crying out loud, but tucked away here and there are little gems. One of these is the hamburger stand. I believe I consumed around 1500 calories on our walk. This is okay because while breastfeeding AND pregnant, I get 500-700 (breastfeeding) PLUS 300 (pregnant) extra calories a day. That's 800-1000 calories a day, for free! And today I ate almost nothing until that hamburger fest. So it's all good!

This is what I tell myself.

(I might not be completely wrong, either, because I suddenly started losing weight again, despite my constant, all-consuming hunger)

I need to make a few big batches of food to freeze so James has something to eat over the next few weeks. I've already made a gallon of spaghetti sauce and a bunch of pasta. I need some more recipes that I can make in a crock pot and freeze flat in a bag (tiny freezer). Ideas?

Okay, I was going to write more, but now I'm tired. Good night.