Mostly stuff about Adam. And Thanksgiving. And Halloween.

Adam is leaving on Sunday to go back to Dirka-dirka-stan or Turkalurkadurk or wherever he is going - an undisclosed location. He is taking his replacement out to the det site to show her around and teach her what she needs to do. I'm so sad he is leaving me! It's only going to be for 2.5 weeks, but it still sucks. He promises me he will be back for Thanksgiving and I have already made it clear he is going to be divorced if he isn't.

We still haven't decided whether we are going to cook or go out for Thanksgiving dinner. Last year we went to one of the hotels downtown and sat on the veranda while enjoying the ocean views of the sunset and a nice Turkey buffet. That was great - the beach, having someone else cook and clean. But it's just not the same as making the recipes you grew up eating. Plus we have to watch the Cowboys OF COURSE and it's better to watch it at home. I don't really want to cook a turkey, but I guess we could buy one pre-roasted. The things I missed the most from dinner last year were my Nani's sweet potato casserole (made the southern TEXAS way with pecans and brown sugar on top - YUM), green bean casserole (you know, like with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and cheese and fried onions on top), and pecan pie. They had pumpkin pie which I also like, but not as much as pecan. At our house we usually have one of each. My mom's mashed potatoes are also better than the buffet ones were, but they are not the crux of the meal for me. If I cook I will do mashed and sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing and cranberry sauce. What are you all planning for Turkey Day?

We will be at home tomorrow night handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters and enjoying all the cute costumes! I think we are going to watch The Shining tonight. It is pretty much the only scary movie I will watch and that's only because I watched it about a million times in college so it doesn't scare me anymore. REDRUM!

Adam also found out where his new assignment is going to be: in the Southeast Asia division at the JIOC. That's the Joint Intelligence Operations Center. And major bummer, he is going to be on the watch floor for at least a year. I nearly sunk into a major depression just thinking about it last night. Hopefully it will only be a year, so it would really only be 6 months with a baby. He was on the watch floor when we lived in DC and I hated it with a firey passion.

The schedule here sounds better though. He will be on 12 hour shifts from 5-5 and he will work a month on days then a month on nights, rinse and repeat. Every other week he will only work on Thursday and Friday. The in-between weeks he will work every day but Thursday/Friday. The only bad part about it really is the night shift stuff. Because he will be rattling around the house in the middle of the night on his days off, while I and the baby are trying to sleep. The big benefit to that is that he will be able to be with the baby if s/he wakes and I can keep sleeping. But I'm a light sleeper so I worry he will just be keeping me up all night. The other big benefit to this schedule will be that the months he works days, he can keep the baby at home on his days off if I decide to go back to work. Those months we would only have to put the baby in daycare for 10 days out of the month. The night-shift months that won't really work because he will need to be sleeping during the day even on his days off so his sleep schedule doesn't get too wonky.

No baby news really at the moment. I will get a picture of TEH BELLEH up this weekend. I will be 14 weeks!

For those of you who happen to care about the minute details of my life (hi Mom!)

I wish I had something fascinating to update with but seeing as how nothing (NOTHING) that would interest you has happened to me in ... days? ... weeks? I have nothing. I know it's been all Baby up in these parts lately, but I don't even have anything to report on that front. We seem to have reached a pregnancy lull where nothing much is happening. Our next exciting appointment is not for another 7 weeks - that's the ultrasound where we find out the sex of the baby. Everything is the same. Even my body doesn't seem to be changing much the last few weeks. My waistline is staying pretty much the same. The books all say I will gain a pound a week and my uterus will be growing up and up throughout the second trimester, but I haven't noticed anything particularly unusual yet.

Adam's cousin who was supposed to have her baby the same week as us had a miscarriage this week. So of course I have been worrying about our little Papoose. I assume s/he is still bouncing around in there because I'm still having bouts of nausea, but I really wish we could hear the heartbeat again, just to confirm s/he is still well.

The ticker baby is going strong though! It looks like it had another growth spurt. It got taller and skinnier again. Apparently the (real) baby is now the size of my fist and can drink and pee. Wheee! Good times.

I actually got inspired to cook this weekend. Like real food, with raw ingredients! Adam did not faint, much as I expected him to. Last night I made curry turkey burgers on sprouted grain buns. They were super yum. I also made a stew-like concoction of chicken and squash in a cream sauce. Haven't sampled it yet but it looks tasty. (ETA: I just tried it and it's kind of like a creamy chicken noodle soup. Without the noodles. It's good, but not delicious like the recipe made it sound - i.e., cheezy and thick.) I'm planning to make a few more things this week: taco salads, chili and eggplant with meat sauce. This is more than I have actually cooked since like before Adam and I got married. I should get some pictures of this stuff up to entice your taste buds.

I also want to post pics of my expanding girth of pregnant glory (aka: the belly), but ... as much as it is protruding ripely, it has not really reached the stage of looking actually honest-to-god pregnant. Instead it looks more like I-just-overate-at-Thanksgiving-dinner.

I spent a good 30 minutes this afternoon trying to explain to my colleague (the one with duct tape on his shoes) that the President is not elected by the popular vote, but rather by the electoral college. He totally didn't believe me that you could win the popular vote and lose the electoral college and therefore the election (hello! where were you in 2000??? where were you in 7th grade???), or that the electoral college members could technically vote any way they wanted and didn't HAVE to vote for the most-favored candidate in their state.

I learn so many fascinating things while I'm at work.

Baby Dancing

This is HILARIOUS. You guys have probably already seen it but in case you haven't ... ahhh. This is the kind of stuff that makes all the challenges of parenting worthwhile :)

My Cancerversary

Three years ago this week I was diagnosed with cancer. It's kind of funny because I didn't even remember this year. Adam reminded me on Tuesday it was my three year cancerversary. At that time, when I was first diagnosed, I couldn't imagine a time when I wouldn't think about having cancer every minute of every day. I knew it would come eventually, the time when my life didn't revolve around having cancer, but I couldn't picture when or how I would get there. Cancer was the first thought in my mind when I woke up in the morning and the last before I went to bed. Cancer colored my whole world for at least six months until I gradually started to feel "normal" again. Now I hardly think about it at all. Sure I still have moments when I resent having this extra thing to worry about whenever I have to go back for more bloodwork or remember to take my thyroid hormone every morning. But mostly it's a non-issue in my life these days. And I still believe - even more so as I get more hindsight - what I said before: having cancer was a blessing in disguise. Not least because it made me more aware of how precious life is and what is really important. I know that sounds cliche, but when you are confronted with your own mortality, it brings everything into sharp focus. I've lost some of that focus now that I know I'm going to go on living for quite some time, so it's nice to remember every year what it felt like then. To be alive.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of allnothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e. e. cummings

To work or not to work?

First off, can I please direct your attention over to the right and ask what the blue fuck happened to the ticker baby?! It's ... it's ... got fat? It looks like a tiny oompaloompa all of a sudden. I know I've been eating a lot of ice cream and pancakes, but seriously!

So how was your weekend? I slept through most of mine. No really. I slept about 12 hours on Friday night, then Adam took me out to breakfast and I came home and took a 3 hour nap. I think there were drugs in my pancakes. Sunday was busy. It went like this: wake up, Whole Foods, church, commissary for groceries, Marine Corps Exchange (like a Wal-Mart on base, except ghettoer -- that is totally a word), home to unload groceries, driving tour of neighborhood we hope to move to, gas, Navy Exchange, Costco, home again, nap, gym, shower, tv, bed. You may have noticed that we go to three different places to get our groceries (much to Adam's chagrin). It's because I am paranoid about dairy and meat products and will only buy/eat those mostly from Whole Foods. I buy eggs, cheese, butter, yogurt, meats, and anything else that suits my fancy. We shop at the commissary for all the other food things we need like spices, some veggies, milk (because they have the same organic whole milk as WF for less money), and other random things I will not spend $10 on a box of crackers from WF so help me god I don't care if it's made with the Queen of Sheba's tears. Then we go to Costco to get the majority of everything else: fruit, more meats, nuts, veggies, cottage cheese, Babybel's, feta, hummus, giant 5 lb bags of carrots, booze, motor oil, etc, etc, etc. Stuff is cheap at Costco and I love shopping there but you can't buy all your groceries there unless you are shopping for a big family because there is just not room in my freezer for 15 lbs of pork loin.

Sometime over the weekend Adam and I managed to have another conversation about whether I should go back to work or not. We have discussed it ad nauseum and still have yet to come to a definite conclusion. Just when I think we are pretty much leaning towards me quitting my job, Adam up and pulls a 180 (on Saturday) telling me how much money we could save for a down payment on a house in a few years if I keep working now. Leaving me like: I thought you wanted me to quit working?! And he's like: the daddy part of me does but the economist part of me doesn't! And then we have a three hour discussion about what is going to happen to our finances if I quit working (also known as: evaluating whether I will have to stop getting pedicures and dropping $100 in Target whenever I feel like it, because really I don't want to do that).

This is such a hard decision! Also because the pro's and con's aren't easily balanced out. How do you balance the extra income against the stress of being a working mom and having to hand off mah baybeeee to some stranger to care for? You can't! You can't even compare those things.

If I keep working, a big chunk of my income is going to go to day care, but a very-not-insignificant amount of money will still be left over to save for a down payment on a house and to spend on frivolous things like going to the mall and buying a shirt if I feel like it. If I keep working I will have the satisfaction of having "something for myself" and getting to leave the house and interact with adults and do non-baby-related things. And I will keep up my skills to continue to have a lucrative career later on when the kids are in school and doing their own activities.

However, if I go back to work, I will have to hand over my tiny 3 month old baby to day care to go to a job I don't really like that much = HARD. Plus, getting myself ready in the morning AND getting a newborn ready, dropped off at daycare and getting to work on time = HARD. I can hardly get myself going in the morning. Plus, lugging around a breast pump and pumping twice a day at work = HARD. Plus, will they even give your baby breastmilk at daycare?? And cloth diapers? I'm pretty sure they won't do cloth diapers at daycare, so we will have to be buying diapers. Not even mentioning the feeling of missing out on so much baby stuff = HARD. All of that = HARD.

If I quit working all those hard things go away, but we will also be cutting our family income literally in half. Right now we put all of my paycheck into savings, and that would go away. We would probably not have to make too many cuts in our current spending levels, but we wouldn't be able to save as much. Which... that is ALSO a part of providing the best for your kids: saving money and financial stability. But is it more important than being there? To me? Because there is no answer to this question. All that matters is what matters most TO ME.

At the moment, I am leaning towards quitting my job. Right now it seems like the sacrifices we would make to lose 50% of our household income are not as bad/much as the sacrifices *I* would have to make to keep working. But I still haven't decided. And I don't think I'll ever truly, finally DECIDE. I will have to just buckle down eventually and do one thing or the other and then try to find peace with that. Either way there are going to be positives and negatives - benefits and sacrifices. But I will only have one chance to stay home when they are babies. Once they are grown, it's over. Still. This decision...

HARD.

Pregnancy Food (AGAIN) and Fall

The major food-related theme of this pregnancy so far continues: I can't seem to stomach anything I prepare myself. Except eggs in the morning, and even those are iffy and I sort of have to force myself. The nausea is less in general, but I'm having real "morning" sickness these days instead of the all day nausea I was experiencing before. From the time I wake up until about 1:00, I feel sort of barfy. I manage to eat eggs and a snack during that time because if I don't eat I feel MORE pukey. Then in the afternoon I get really hungry and that continues basically all night. I ate a lot of food yesterday afternoon and I got into bed and my stomach was growling.

The staples of my diet are (as usual except for the last bullet):

- Fish oil/cod liver oil
- Butter
- Eggs
- Meats - steak, chicken, shrimp, mussels, tuna (yes I eat the skin and fatty cuts, all the minerals and fat soluable vitamins are good for me and the baby)
- Cheese
- Nuts
- Greek yogurt (FAGE - full fat version)
- Fruits
- Some veggies (they still kind of make me pukey)
- Other things I've enjoyed eating: oatmeal, sandwiches, peanut butter & jelly, pizza, ice cream, hamburgers, cookies, brownies, candy - trying to focus on all of the above FIRST!

It seems the weather is finally cooling off a bit around here (thank you JESUS). We have not been using our a/c in the living room in the evenings. I still turn it on in our bedroom before we go to bed, but it's staying cooler all night. We wake up to cool temperatures instead of the muggy inferno of the summertime. I love fall, it's my favorite season! It is one of the things I have been missing the most since we've been here. I've missed two falls so far. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving! We will probably get lots of trick-or-treaters this year since we are in a neighborhood with lots of kids instead of a high-rise apartment building. I'm going to make pumpkin muffins this weekend - yum!

What are your weekend plans?

More pregnancy nonsense and due date changes to May 3

I was planning to go to the gym an hour ago, but I realized I forgot my gym socks. I *KNEW* I was forgetting something when I packed my gym bag this morning. I stood there blinking, staring into the bag hoping the item would reveal itself to me, and finally thought, no I guess I have everything. Duhhhhhh. Can I blame it on pregnancy brain?

I thought I might find some socks across the street in the mini-mart so I went over there about 30 minutes ago. They do have athletic socks... if your feet are a men's size 8-9. They were awful and they only came in 3-packs. I opted to do my workout later after I get home instead of buying 3 awful pairs of socks. Then I saw an egg salad sandwich in the cooler and I kind of wanted to eat it for lunch. But I decided not to buy it. Even though I kind of don't want to eat the chicken wings I brought with me from home. Meh.

I'm wearing maternity pants for the first time today and I love them and hate them. They are really comfy and don't constrict my belly at all. But they also go up to my armpits (secret fit belly) and they keep falling down because my belly is not big enough yet.

I changed my tickers because when we had our ultrasound yesterday, the midwife thought I wasn't quite as far along as they first thought. I done told them when I first went in that I didn't ovulate on day 14 of my cycle and my due date was probably a little later than 4/30! But they just smiled like "poor dear thinks she knows more than us" and wrote down 4/30. So if I ovulated when I thought I did and not later (which is also possible*) then I'll be 12 weeks pregnant next Monday and not this Friday like I thought.

*I was charting and my temp shifted twice. I thought the first time was when I ovulated, but it could also be that I didn't ovulate until the second shift. Which would kind of make sense because got very faint positives on the HPT's I took exactly 14 days after the first shift, which should have been enough time fora clearpositive, BUT would have only been a week after the second shift, which would have been pretty early to get a positive HPT. WHO KNOWS. If I didn't ovulate until the later date, I'll be 11 weeks on this Friday. It's only a few days either way (but the latter scenario is still a WHOLE WEEK LESS than what I was going by before... even though I knew it was probably the wrong due date... I no longer know what I'm talking about in this sentence so I'm going to stop).

Dopplers and Ultrasounds and Babies - Oh My!

Oh my gosh, that was so cool! I've been grinning like a cheshire cat all afternoon! We ended up getting an ultrasound out of the deal (yay ultrasounds!); we were only expecting to hear the baby's heartbeat. At first the midwife couldn't find the heartbeat, and I was getting really nervous about it. But she kept saying that my uterus was probably just tilted backwards or something. So she brought in the ultrasound machine and holy cow, there's a baby in there! It was so cute, s/he was jumping all over the place, kicking his legs and punching with his arms. And we could see the tiny heart beating! After that, the midwife was able to find the heartbeat - 170 beats per minute!

I also told my boss and my coworkers, so the cat's out of the bag. I know I'm still not out of the first trimester yet, but I feel like things are going to be fine. My coworker - the one with the duct tape on his shoes :) - was really excited, it was cute.

So excited!

We get to hear the baby's heartbeat today!

I couldn't sleep at all last night! I don't know if I was nervous about today or if it was just a back-to-work-in-the-morning kind of thing. Today we get to hear the baby's heartbeat!!! At 1:00 this afternoon we are going to our first appointment with the midwife and we will get to hear the baby's heartbeat! I'm so excited, but also nervous. I'm pretty sure everything is going well and there's a strong heart beating away in there. After all, I'm still having lots of nausea (although gradually - dare I say it? - feeling a little better) and my stomach continues its outward expansion. But still. Nervous. Plus, I am nervous because after my appointment I am planning to break the news to my boss. I don't know why this has me anxious, but it does! I'm not expecting him to react badly.

So. Everyone think shiny good thoughts.

We had a fantastic holdiay weekend. I took Friday off work so I had a four day weekend. It was glorious! I made the trip over to the Motherhood maternity store on Friday and was surprised to find lots of stuff I liked. I ended up returning ALL of the maternity clothes I got from Gap and Old Navy and I'm fast approaching the time when I will *really* need them. I knew I needed to go somewhere and try stuff on, but we have exactly ONE maternity store on the island (Motherhood) and it's about 40 minutes away from our house. The girl at the Motherhood store was really nice and she let me try on basically every pair of pants in the store! They aren't designer pieces or anything but they will do for the next 6 months. I got 2 pants and a skirt for work and 3 casual capris, plus some cute tops. I am already wearing them around. They make you look more pregnant than just chubby!

The rest of the weekend was basically football, working out, going to the movies and otherwise relaxing. I'm really proud to say that I have been pretty consistent with my exercise. I've been walking 3-5 miles three or four times a week and lifting weights on an upper/lower split three times a week. I'm not making any real gains in fitness, but my plan for this pregnancy is just to stay active and keep up my basic fitness level so I have an easier labor and an easier time getting back into shape after the delivery.

I can't say I'm all that proud about my diet! I mean, I've been doing pretty well, considering the nausea and my increased appetite. But some sugar and processed foods have snuck in. Realistically, there is no way I'm going to avoid that stuff through this whole pregnancy. So I'm focusing on moderation - one or two "unhealthy" things each day, but striving for mostly nutrient-dense fare. I've done pretty well with that. But I still feel FAAAT, which makes me feel like I'm not doing a good enough job keeping my diet in check. I hate worring about it, but I started this pregnancy heavier than I would like to be, and I don't really want to weigh more than my husband, even if pregnant LOL!

As much as I've been feeling like I'm already gaining too much weight, I was, in fact, completely and utterly shocked at my weight this morning. I always get on our scale first thing in the morning before getting weighed at the doctor because you can't tell how much water weight you'll carry around during the day. Well this morning I just stood there blinking when it said I'd only gained 2 lbs. Huh? No, seriously, HUH? For the size of my stomach and the way I feel puffy, I was expecting 7-9 lbs. So that made me happy and feel like less of a cow! ;)

Regardless, I am completely and utterly in awe of my pregnant body. I still can't get my head around the idea that there is a tiny person growing inside me. The books say the baby is the size of a lemon now! And s/he will triple in size in the next 3 weeks. It's crazy and amazing and weird and scary all at the same time.

Ok, I have more to chatter on about, but I need to get some real work done before my doc's appointment. I'll be on here with news as soon as it's over!

Ramble

Ahhh, it's Monday. Again. We had a relaxing weekend spent mostly at home sitting directly in front of our window a/c unit trying to keep cool. I just cannot stand the heat lately, it makes me feel like I'm going to die, or at best, pass out cold. On Saturday we watched the Aggies get spanked by Arkansas. Man, was that depressing or what? The first quarter looked so promising and then they let it all unravel. Aggies' offense just did not look good. We're still having fun trying out various restaurants around town, which Adam loves because I normally do not like to eat out, but I can't stand the thought of cooking these days. I've pretty much lost the will to limit what I'm eating in any meaningful way. I had high hopes that I would follow a sensible, but restricted, pregnancy diet and only get bigger in my stomach, and end up with a perfect watermelon belly and lose it all right away after the birth.... hahahahaha. I'm certainly not pigging out on junk food (all the time), but there's no telling what I will feel like eating day to day, and mostly it's not grilled chicken and salads (BLEH). My new strategy is bascially do the best I can. I'm taking my fish oil & cod liver oil & vitamins. I'm eating protein with every meal. But I also have 4 flavors of ice cream in my freezer. Sometimes a peanut butter & jelly sandwich is the only acceptable thing to eat. Hey, it's whole grain German chunks-of-bark-in-it bread, all natural peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts) and organic jelly. Like I said, the best I can. I don't want to gain more than 30 lbs, but I've decided not to become too obsessive about it. If I don't do anything too crazy, it will work out ok, I have to trust that. I still haven't told work! Next Tuesday we will get to hear the baby's heartbeat! I am thinking I'm going to wait until after that to make any announcements. I feel like everything is more than likely fine, and it would probably be ok to tell work now, but it's only a week away. We had our first big rainstorm of the season last night. It was so loud it woke me up and I laid there half the night listening to the deluge. I had to call the post office this morning and they said they were closed because their roof caved in! That's all I got right now!