It's a Boy!

I tried to think of some clever way to announce it. Obviously came up empty.

So it's a boy! I'm kind of scared, you know, it's the Other (let's get all anthropological here), but mostly EXCITED! To have a baby! And not have to keep calling him "it"!!!! Now comes the choosing of a name (which might be hard), and the shopping, and the curling up in bed talking to my little boy! When I told Dh I was nervous about having a boy, he reminded me that while a boy is not a girl (stick with me), we often hear about the special relationship a mother has with her son. I'm hoping for that, especially since despite still calling Dh "mama," Baby E is shaping up into quite the Daddy's girl.

It was so obvious during the ultrasound. I could tell right away - when the tech was still just taking pictures of the legs. Thinking, "Um, that looks a lot like a baby unit...not gonna say anything because I hate being wrong..." but sure enough thirty minutes later when the tech was ready for the gender reveal, there was that baby unit! The baby was soooo active. It was really funky to feel the baby kicking around and see it on a screen at the same time. He was measuring spot on for my due date of April 18. Almost half done!!!!!!!! So excited to meet you, little one!!

Finding Out Soon!!

In a couple of hours, we are going to find out if this baby is a girl or a boy! Yay!!!

(And by extension, whether I will just buy a few things, or start scouring the sales racks like a madwoman.)

Expect a post later today.

P.S. Glad everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Mine was tons of fun, despite the illness. K was a good sport and took over the mashed potatoes. She even shared leftover turkey with us. I made turkey tetrazzini and Chunky Turkey Vegetable Soup. Dh surprised me by loving the turkey soup, which is so virtuously healthy it's not even funny.

Wah

I have a cold. Bleh! What miserable timing! I spent as much time as I could today sitting on the sofa doing Sudoku puzzles. Which wasn't enough, I tell you. That child I have? Is demanding. If she doesn't get a rather high level of attention in each hour, she starts fussing and pulling on my leg, crying, "Mama, Mama," which is certainly touching but not very conducive to me laying around feeling sorry for myself. In an effort to make myself feel better, I took a picture of my new purse, as per Isabel's request.

Hmm. Hard to get a sense of scale. It is not the smallest of this style. It easily holds my wallet, a small notepad, two lip glosses, a mascara, fruit snacks, two sets of keys, and my cell phone. Does that clarify? Ha ha

And here is Baby E, interrupted from cheerfully shoving taco meat into her mouth. Too bad you can't read her shirt - it says "My daddy can fix anything." I love it. (Yet another thing my mother bought. Trying to buy Dh's love???)

Thanksgiving Plans

My husband works every Thanksgiving. He works M-Th, every week, whether there are holidays in there or not. Granted, he gets paid extra if there are holidays in there. But it means our Thanksgivings are usually intimate little affairs. Two years ago, while 3 months pregnant with Baby E, I made Thanksgiving by myself! I spent all day cooking. It all turned out deliciously (though the turkey was kind of dry), and I was exhausted. Welcome to pregnancy, silly girl. Last year our friends the Bs had just had a baby two weeks before, so her mom was staying with them and they had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and invited Dh and me to join them. Mmm, can Mrs. B's mom cook. (Of course, it helps when you get the meat already cooked from Honeybaked Ham ha ha) Dh gets a lunch break, and his employer understands it is Thanksgiving so he can take that lunch break whenever he wants on Thursday. Then he has to go back to the grind.

K and I were discussing Thanksgiving last week. She admitted she didn't really want to go to her family's dinner, nor her husband's family's dinner. She said with the oodles of family they have around, they seem to end up eating three different Thanksgiving dinners. By the end of the day, turkey and the trimmings are gross. (I find it hard to believe, but she would know better than I.) I didn't think too much about it, I was planning on making our little Thanksgiving meal myself (and again while in a pregnant state). But K emailed her husband, asking if it was alright with him if they skipped their family meals and instead had Thanksgiving at their own house and invited us. Her husband was thrilled, not being too chummy with any of his brothers-in-law, so the plan was set in motion. Thanksgiving is going to be at K's house. Her husband suggested inviting a new family from our church, so I think it's going to be K, her husband (I need a nickname for him...), their 4 kids, the three of us, and the new family of four.

Yesterday we hammered out our plans. We are going to have a delicious spread. With no yams because none of us like them. We are even going to brine the turkey the night before. Today I made the cranberry-apricot sauce* (it smelled sooo good), tomorrow I am making some pumpkin pie, and K and I will spend Thanksgiving morning at her house making rolls and whatnot. I'll bring Baby E home for her nap, make the mashed potatoes here, and then back to K's house for final preparations and dinner at 4. I think it's going to be great, and certainly more fun for me than making it all by myself while Baby E gets into my kitchen cupboards.


*The cranberry-apricot sauce is from Real Simple and is ridiculously easy. I tried to link the page, but Real Simple's site is freaking out.

Like, Neato

Conveniently, My Mom Likes to Buy Things

New art courtesy of my mother. Now if I could just get to Italy to see the countryside in person, that would be fabulous.

Baby E lounges in style in a little chair also courtesy of my mother.

Whoops

So I've been a real blogging slacker lately. Just call me the anti-NaBloPoMo.

My mom was here last week, for eight days. The first three went just fine. That's really all I can handle of anyone who is not my spouse or my daughter. (So visit, just don't stay past the weekend. xoxo) The rest of the week was a wonderful chance for me to further develop my patience and self-control. I did summon my courage to tell her she can't stay for two weeks when the baby is born. I blamed it all on me and Dh - We're like old people, we like our routines, don't like to have any guests for very long, it's very hard for us - and she was unhappy but accepting. Mind you, all that stuff is true. We are like old people. Set in our ways. But I couldn't exactly say, Sorry Mom but I just want to scream when you ramble endlessly about your strange health ideas and quite frankly we'll be pushing it to have you over for a week. Yeah, that wasn't being said. I envy girls who get along beautifully with their moms, but I have also come to terms with the fact that my mom and I will just never be that close due to our vastly different personalities.

Let's start with bad things first, so we can end on the good notes.

• Mom's constant talking and general inability to have a point to long, rambling stories.
• The almost fight we got into about her belief that homeopathy renders immunizations unnecessary. The phone rang at a critical point. Never was I so happy to answer that phone.
• Her unsolicited parenting advice (easy to ignore, so not that bad).
• Her unsolicited health advice. It is hard to take from a woman who eats sausage for breakfast and never exercises.
  
• Her unsolicited cooking advice. VERY annoying. My mother...she can't cook. While she was here, at her request, I taught her to make a few very simple yet delicious recipes (GFF's Italian Pot Roast, oven roasted potatoes and Fake It Don't Make It Black Bean Soup.) Oven roasted potatoes, y'all. She didn't know how to make them. She burned Pillsbury cinnamon buns and blamed the oven! (There's nothing wrong with my oven, by the way.) So when she gave me advice on how to make a quesadilla, for heaven's sake, it was very hard for me to be polite.
  

Good things about her visit:

• She bought some lovely art for a long, blank wall in my living room.
• She bought smoked Gouda (the true way to Dh's heart).
• We had an absolute blast at the coast. (Oh did I mention Dh bought me a Coach bag whilst at the coast? Oh yes he did. My very first and I luuurve it. Because I am awesomely shallow like that.)
• We had fun perusing World Market with Rainbow. The tikka masala sauce you can get there is very, very good, just so you know.
  
• Between the two of us, we knit an obscenely bright green scarf for my little sister L, who has no sense of appropriate colors for her skin tone (she is 15, so it doesn't really matter).
• She bought some deliciously scented wall-plug thing so now my kitchen & dining room are filled with the yummy aroma of pumpkin spice.

Noticing a trend? Lots of shopping. I come by the shopping thing honestly. That woman has some serious shopping endurance. Anyway, it was with mixed emotions that I hugged her goodbye on Saturday, but mostly relief. During our family prayer that evening, Dh offered thanks that we had our house to ourselves again. What could I do but add a heartfelt AMEN at the end.

My pregnant belly seems to be growing at an exponential rate. This is really annoying as I am only four months along and am only going to get bigger. On the Awesome Plus side, I feel really good. Morning sickness is again a distant memory (hallelujah!!!!!) I just have to make sure to eat regularly and not stand for too long (grocery shopping is quite tiring now). The baby's kicks are getting stronger all the time. November 28 I find out if Baby is a boy or a girl!!!!! So excited for that! This pregnancy is going so quickly, I feel like I'm getting whiplash as it flies along.

This week I've been reading (I'll post some reviews later...maybe), cooking, hanging out with K, and having fun with Baby E. I made these cookies. If you haven't tried them, you must. They are soooo delicious. They are adult cookies. Don't give them to kids, they won't appreciate them. The subtle interplay of flavors is divine. Seriously. Go make them. They're easy and you already have the ingredients.

I'm also still going to the twice-weekly exercise group at my church. We seem to have our little core group established now and it's really fun to work out together. Baby E loves it too, because there are lots of little kids to watch (not really into the interaction thing yet) and there always seems to be a cart or toy stroller for her to push around. There are about 8 of us who come pretty regularly. Though one just had her baby, so I doubt we'll see her for a while. I think the exercise group is actually helping because I've only gained 5 pounds so far. Which is definitely an improvement over my last pregnancy, when I had gained 5 pounds by 10 weeks!

Halloween Pictures

Baby E not posing nicely for a picture. She was a spider. Or spiderweb. Or something.

Examining her loot. Dh took her to just a few houses, so her loot consisted of five pieces of candy. She was thrilled.

Baby E obviously relished a dark Hershey kiss!