a pregnancy update

Before I start off on my woe-is-me sadsack tale, let me at least post this little tidbit. Today, I'm 25weeks pregnant and I realized on Friday that I'll only be pregnant for 4 months maximum (well less than now) because it was December 10th and April 10th will be my 2week overdue date. So I can't believe it; I'm almost into the 3rd trimester and now have less than 4 months of pregnancy left. Wow. We also finally got the battery replaced in the scale so I'm glad stepping on the scale at the doc's tomorrow won't be a surprise.

I also found a stray one of Liam's teeny-tiny infant socks that never fit his mega big feet. I hung it up with the other stockings right next to mine from when I was a girl. So now Baby B has a little stocking. Still no name though. The moose decoration is Liam's shoe outline with his handprints attached to make antlers. I covered them with scrapbooking paper to make it pretty. I plan on doing this every year now for both the boys to see how much they've grown.

My stocking is the ballet slipper obviously. I've had it since childhood. I also found my 1st Christmas stocking in the boxes this year. Awww.

long day at work

It's my fault it was a long day. I left on Friday telling myself that I would get into work one day over the weekend to check on my exam and make sure it was congruent with what I taught. Well, of course I didn't do that.

There's was no way I could have done so on Saturday because the power went out all over the county. That also threw my plan of doing skads of laundry out the window too. We ended up going to my Granny's and visiting with her and my mom while we did about 3 loads (my poor widdle guy had no more clean warm jammers left and of course he was filthy when we went down). Best part of the day . . . my son ate a whole chicken soft taco from Taco Bell (picked at it of course) and then he ate chow-mein at dinner! This is the kid who only eats protein! He NEVER EVER EVAH eats noodles (seriously, whose kid won't eat buttered noodles or mac-n-cheese?) but he had his fill of my Granny's dinner. :)

Yesterday we ended up getting a babysitter while Jon and I looked at some real estate available in town. It was a bit of a let down considering there's nothing decent in the price point we're still stuck at. Everything is tiny, 2 bedroom 1 bath less than 1,000 sq. feet kinds of places. Then you add that they all are suffering some kind of major structural malfunction like mold, or non-permit extensions. Ugh. We apologized to the new realtor for wasting her time on us. Then we hit WalMart and got the little things we've been needing. It was nice to go without the boy since it was so crowded, being Sunday afternoon and just weeks before Christmas. Forgot to get a battery for the scale; I still have no idea what my current weight gain is, but I am 24 weeks today :)

So I got up early and went in and got my test all ready. Then I found myself staying until 4:30. Somewhere along the drive home I realized I forgot to eat lunch today and have been surviving the last 5 hours on a diet coke, 100 cal pack of pretzels, and a big handful of almonds. Oops, bad me - not good for either diabetics or pregnant ladies to go that long without eating. Had to bring home work too since I'm trying to get their work graded as quickly as possible (new notebook thing I'm trying) as the quarter ends in 7 school days!!! Ack! So a lot of them turned in their notebooks today and the rest are due tomorrow. Plus the tests have essay questions that need to be graded before I can run the test through the scanner. I posted on my facebook today that if teachers got paid for all the overtime hours and work we take home, then we'd make as much as physicians. Ain't that the truth.

Jon dashed off to pay the rent (oops - it's the 6th) and get us some hamburger at the carniceria. I had to change my very stinky boy's diaper and he gabbed the whole time at me. Let me tell you, this blue kool-aid (berry blast?) has made for interesting diapers in the turquoise spectrum. I fed the cats and came back out to find my boy had done a fabulous job stacking his cars/trucks in a fine balancing act. What's more amazing is that I got him to leave it alone long enough to let me photo it before he tossed them all to the floor in his Godzilla-like glee.
Now I'm super excited because my Hubster is making burgers with onion, garlic, and crumbled bacon mixed IN THE MEAT!!! Should be SOOOO tasty.

singing foo'

In all the high stress and chaos of the previous week, I completely forgot to mention that my big boy has started singing on his own. Last week, during my holiday, he busted out "Twinkle Twinkle" and can get through the whole first stanza without any help. He can do the whole things if we prompt him. The best part is he'll grab sheet music for the piano and pretend to read it while singing "twinkle Twinkle." Oh so freakin' cute!!!

Liam also sings the "ABC Song" if we help him. Yes, I know it's the same tune as the star song.

This morning I got up when he woke up and, while I was changing his diaper, he started singing "I'm So Sorry" from Yo Gabba Gabba. It was totally unprompted and he was totally in key. "I'm so, I'm so sorry." It's so cute.

morton salt (when it rains . . .)

Today my day began at 4:15. . .

Liam woke up in a crazy mood and Jon went in to calm him but didn't stay in there long. Consequently, Liam woke up shouting for us. This time Jon was angry so he went in and scolded our son who then screamed for 20 minutes. So at 4:45 I got up with him. After rocking and going out to the living room couch, he finally calmed down enough and I was frankly shocked that he went to sleep again. I actually heard the alarm in my room when I put Liam down, so I just stayed up and made sure to have an extra cup of coffee.

I look like crap. I felt so unattractive today (not that I'm trying to impress the 12 year old boys). My belly really popped last week and it's getting so much colder. But none of my sweaters are long enough to cover my belly. My work maternity shirts are all hotter weather shirts. I felt too casual and frankly I thought I looked worn out and frumpish. If I hadn't been taking my zoloft regularly, I might have dissolved into a puddle of tears when I had to change my pants last minute because I wasn't wearing a belly-panel pair and my naked belly kept peaking out. Alas, there is no money for buying maternity sweaters or blouses or slacks. And Christmas is too far away (in my whirlpool of sorrow). I actually had to wear a dress shirt of Jon's and looked like I was wearing a white tent.

I planned to take my popcorn popper because I had 4 classes who had earned some free time for scoring well on the 100 Facts Quiz. I took the whole she-bang. Popper, oil, salt, mortar & pestle. When I got to school, I realized I forgot the actual popcorn!!! MF! I also rode in the carpool today so I didn't have a car to run to the grocery before school started.

My students are so lucky they didn't try my patience because some heads would have rolled. As it was, they were pretty good today.

I got home and my hubby made some comfort food for me, but Liam (who had not napped all day) chose 10 minutes after I got home to throw his first tantrum of the whole damn day. Bless Jon's heart, he made tollhouse cookies and even made me a half-dozen without chocolate chips.

I took Liam into the shower which was a great chance to try to wash this awful day away. Liam threw a fit getting out.

When I was reading a book to Liam tonight, he was yawning so much we only got through one book (he chose Cinderella and said "pwincess" when I asked him who she was). But rocking wasn't getting him to sleep; Jon came in to ask him if it was time for going to bed. One second he was playing with his blanket, I hugged him closer and got a kiss, he said "nye nye" to me. I tried to get an "Ifuffyou" [i love you] out of him but that next moment he was passed out. Seriously, we were both shocked. Jon put him in the crib, we snuck out, and

. . . that (+ a cookie) made my day better.
:)

our Thanksgiving - aka we burned our turkey

So we're celebrating our big family dinner today. We're going to my Granny's house; she's 85 and this year has not been kind to her in the health department (I think she's been in the hospital 3x since New Year's). My mom has been staying with her and pretty much has abandoned her home in Pioneer to a friend that she is letting live there rent free because she has 2 boys still living at home and is going back to school and there is no income. I know this is financially strapping my mom too; she's still paying a mortgage on a house she isn't even living in. We're also having Jon's dad join us today; things have been rough for him since my mother in-law died two years ago. The house they owned is grossly over mortgaged and the government just realized they've been paying more in his annuity than he should have gotten . . . hence, they want almost $13k back. I haven't talked to my dad yet, but he works on the holidays and he's probably out shopping this Black Friday.

Yesterday we had a scary moment. Liam has done very well staying away from the pellet stove. He ignored it almost all day yesterday and our house was delightfully cozy (for a heck of a lot cheaper than running the heater). But last night, while I was cooking dinner and on the phone with my mom, and Jon was doing something who-knows-what at his computer, Liam took an old baby ring toy over to the glass of the stove. I just happened to catch him and I yelled to get his attention; Jon swooped in to yank him away. He was in tears but we thought it was because we had scared him and that he got caught doing something naughty. But he kept being whiney and miserable (also earmarks of a little boy who only took a 45 minute nap) and then he threw such a monster tantrum that we left him in his room.

Well he screamed so loud that he threw up (joy) and when we went back in that's when Jon noticed his little burned fingers on his left hand!!! We couldn't see them an hour earlier, but he had developed a couple blisters on his pointer and middle knuckles. OMG I let my baby burn himself! We got him into the tub to wash him for today, but he immediately put his hand in the warm water and that made him wail. So instead I got in the shower with him and had to hold his hand up because every time he tried to use them it he cried. But by bedtime, the Tylenol kicked in and we had some bacitracin on his fingers (can't use bandaids because he pulls them off). He woke up once in the middle of the night and it was more of a whimper than his nightmare cry. I rocked him back to sleep very quickly. Today his fingers look so much better! The red inflamed color is back to skin color and the blisters are still there but we'll keep putting bacitracin on them. This morning he's in high chipper spirits too.

Oh also, my ringworm is also gone and Liam's is looking much better but will still need a couple weeks before being totally gone.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving food

This is my 100th post on Blogger. *throws confetti* One of these days I'll find a way to move all my old Livejournal posts over and you can see what fun college was for me ;)

While reading my facebook posts this morning, a comment on an old friend's post was intriguing. Her post yesterday was about brining turkeys. I got pulled into a little mini-discussion on the comments about which brine is best to use. (We use Alton's brine recipe btw) Her mother commented that my friend is so much more adventurous in the kitchen that she had been. Then another older relative of hers commented that she herself had never brined and that [my friend] was truly more adventurous. But I don't see her as adventurous because, well, that's the same way I cook. Which got me thinking . . .

Has our generation really taken leaps and bounds away from our grandmas' cooking?
So here's some things my husband and I couldn't be caught dead without:

• smoked paprika and Worcestershire sauce in my green bean casserole
• brine for my turkey
• a roasting bag for the turkey (or most long term roasting operations)
• bourbon in my pecan pie
• Chinese 5 spice in my apple pie
• bacon for lardon
• ponzu (citrus soy sauce)
• beef stock
• roux
• shallots
• savory sweet potato dishes (instead of candied casseroles)
  

So, my Granny has always been a wonderful cook and did far more things from scratch than my mother. But you must also remember that she was a housewife in the days the TV dinner and the casserole too. She would follow recipes to the letter and they were the kind that pretty much came printed on the side of the can of condensed soup. My mom added a few innovations, mainly the addition of the roasting bag for the turkey (which came out when I was in grade school I think). My grandmother had never used one and was of the basting every 20 minutes generation. The bag, IMO, creates a far superior juicy bird with crispy skin (and it's a heck of a lot easier to clean up the carcass too).

But we just find that the addition of some flavor profiles that my ancestors never would have used regularly are what get me the most praise in my holiday cooking. Like Chinese 5 Spice or ponzu . . . my Granny would never have dared step foot into an Asian grocer to get these ingredients. White housewives just didn't do that way back in the day, even if there had been an Asian grocer in her mid-western world. And yes, now I understand that you can grab these ingredients at your closest mega-supermarket these days, but even 10 years ago I couldn't find them. They just bring our fuller, more rounded flavors. The same with smoked paprika and Worcestershire sauce in my green bean casserole. And woah, let me tell you about my discovery of the savory sweet potato dish about 4 years ago (it was a side for Christmas dinner at my moms, which btw, I always insist on roast beef instead of ham - yeah, I'm a pain in the putoot). I have never had a more requested dish for pot-lucks and holiday dinners (well, other than my bourbon pecan pie). Most people forgo regular mashed spuds in favor of the sweets, and in all honesty, we know it's because they're not candied.

We like to thank Food Network around our house for getting us to try out new ingredients. Imagine if our grandmothers or even our mothers had had access to this channel when we were young and impressionable and picky eaters. On a side note, my hubby's favorite food at Thanksgiving has always been the green bean casserole. But his mother always made the boring recipe from the side of the can. Now, he can't imagine eating any other than my recipe :)

Happy eatings everyone.

Happy news

Keeping you in the dark on the happy news for a moment, I just have to say my little Yam is being so cute right now. He's recently just reached the point where his little characters "talk" to each other. Right now his sitting at the coffee table with a construction worker, a cow, and a jeep and they are having the most intriguing conversation. Occasionally, the cow hops on the jeep . . . I didn't know cows could drive.

Okay, so my happy news. . . This morning when I woke up, I did NOT have to take my fasting blood glucose. Yup, it's not a day I have to check my sugars. I called in my glucose levels to the perinatal high-risk clinic last night and yes, I got a bit of a chastising with one of my fasting level being 100 (they want them <100, <90 is even better) but I totally understand that my night-time snack was heavy on fruit and milk (all carbs - no protein). I didn't even admit to the cookie I had :) But after that, she told me that my levels have been so good lately that I can now reduce my number of stabbings to 3x/week. Yup, Tues, Thurs, and Sat. I'll still have to check fasting and after all meals; at least it's only 12 stabbings instead of 28! Of course, the first Thursday this time in Thanksgiving! But she told me I could check on Friday instead (well, I'll check on Thursday because we're doing Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Friday as my mom has to work on Thursday). Hooray!