Jeriah's Diet....

This looks like my lunch... :) Oh wait I got to eat much more that that! SO after a week or so of floundering and wondering what to eat what not to eat and pestering poor Tiffany with questions I took a class... a Gestational diabetes class where I was schooled in all things related to this "hopefully temporary" lifestyle change that will keep my baby from being a 10lb chunk o monkey! :) My biggest questions were what can I eat what should I eat? I was told and it hasn't been to hard its kind of plug and play. I get to choose what I eat within reason and I'm just limited to portion size and the amount of carbohydrates I can eat at any given meal, another shock... no sugar no dessert... BOO...

A few weeks in and I can pretty much wing it I no longer have to plan out every meal and every crumb I'm going to put in my mouth I've found some give and take and I've even managed to eat out a couple times. It breaks down into 3 meals and 3 snacks and at each meal/snack I'm given a formula of what I need to eat.
Breakfast: 1 carb 2 protein 1 fat which means I can eat 1 piece of toast with butter and 2 eggs.
Morning Snack: 1 carb 2 protein I usually eat about 5 triskets and 2 servings of cheese like string cheese and a babybel (Oh how I love babybels!!!)
Lunch: 3 carb 1 fruit 1 veg 4 protein 1 fat I'll have a sandwich 2 slices of bread with mayo and mustard 27 cheezits 3 1 oz slices of ham and a 1 oz slice of cheese, I'll have 12-15 grapes, 1 c raw veggies like carrots, cheery tomatoes and celery. (its a lot to eat in 30 min)
Afternoon Snack: 2 carb, fruit or milk and 2 protein for me this is usually 1 cup of yogurt, 4 oz sliced apples with 2 Tbsp of peanut butter.
Dinner: 3 carbs 1 fruit 1 veggie 4 protein 1 fat I live for dinner it feels like my first REAL meal all day sometimes The best dinner I've made on record so far was 2/3 c. cooked penne pasta 1/3 cup of tomato sauce a huge pile of sauteed peppers, mushrooms, yellow squash and zucchini tossed together with an ounce of mozzarella cheese and 3 oz of yummy Italian sausage. Add a banana and Wow that was a lot of really delicious food!
Bedtime Snack: 1 starch or fruit, 1 milk 1 protein is 3 squares of graham crackers spread with peanut butter and 8oz of 2% milk.

Other observations that have come with my new diet...

-How dumb is it that when you go to eat at a restaurant and ask for a nutrition guide they say "Its all available online" as if that helps me right now when I'm hungry and wondering what I can eat. Thankfully each time we've gone out to eat it was planned and I had the sense to look at the website before going but sometimes you wanna check your facts before you make that final selection ya know. I think this is a ploy by these restaurant companies to force us to just order something whether its good for us or not. Its sad really.

-The choices of sugar free beverages in most places is just pathetic you have 8 choices of sugar laden beverages and then Diet Coke the freckled faced red-headed step child. Now its all fine and well if you drink Coke or like coke but um yes I'm also pregnant therefore trying to avoid caffeine.. oh look they have iced tea well that's good! I'd rather drink tea than coke but its raspberry iced tea with REAL sugar! Thanks so much and wouldn't you know all those Crystal light packets I put in my purse are gone now... I have determined however that Diet Coke is more palatable when drowned with lots of lemon juice! LOTS of lemon juice. I'm also thankful I'm in the habit of carrying around a water bottle.

-If possible I feel like my life is even more food centric than ever. If I'm not hungry for my next meal, I'm planning my next meal or preparing my next meal. I'm kind of starting to think my life is already on a 3 hour cycle. Sometimes I get so frustrated that i have to eat again and If i skip a meal bad things happen to my blood sugar so that's not really an option.

-What does a Foodie Girl do when she can no longer eat whatever her heart desires??? Well I haven't cried yet and I haven't even cheated really and I'm not hungry overall. I've adapted I've eaten well and that's the most important thing I guess is that I'm still satisfied. I've also got a stack of recipes to try when i can eat normally once again.

- I would just like to say for the present time I'm very angry at Starbucks for coming out with a Dark Chocolate Cherry Mocha when I can't have sugar or caffeine! Its like sucking chocolate covered cherries thru a straw! (a sip isn't cheating is it?)

-I would love to write a scathing letter to the advertising company that came up with Baskin Robbins new commercial about Ice cream and Cake and Cake you know the one... I walk around all day singing "Ice cream and cake and cake" OH TORTURE OF TORTURES!!! CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT!!!

- A recent past time Steve and I have adopted is day dreaming about what we'll eat after Jeriah comes... Sushi is at the top of my list and my husband has strict instructions that upon the successful birth of our son and reassurance that all is well he is to go downstairs at the hospital and procure one Quad Venti Iced Extra Caramel Machiato POST HASTE!! (Your husband may be the first person at church to know we've had a baby Jess )

-I miss drinking huge glasses of cold milk, I miss cheerios and all manner of cereal. I can't wait to taste maple syrup and honey again and banish the horrid splenda from my house! I can't wait til I no longer have to think about which protein I'm going to eat. I am thankful I haven't tired of eating peanut butter and cheese too!

-I am thankful EVERY single day that there is not a vegetable I won't eat! I've never eaten so many and its been kind of fun to just go to town. I can eat almost endless amounts of a lot of my favorite veggies! This makes for filling dinners, generous salads and emergency snacks! I hope I can somehow teach Jeriah to love his veggies the way his Mama does! I've even asked my parents how they managed to make me the least picky eater in the family. They just said they always enthusiastically encouraged us to try. I always knew if my Dad said try this it was GOOD STUFF! :)

-New Recipes I've created: BBQ Shrimp Skewers, Beefy Mushroom Sauce with noodles, Italian Sausage and Veggie Pasta Bake.

I haven't gained any weight I don't think I've even gained 10lbs in my whole pregnancy yet. I am hopeful Jeriah has slowed down and won't reach massive proportions. We're praying he can arrive safely, naturally and early! :)

To Wrap my Baby Bunting in...part 3

So I have the yarn and I'm so in love with the colors and just thinking about tucking it around my boy while he sleeps or watching him drag it around the house with his thumb in his mouth all doe eyed has me giddy and feeling all squishy! So many silly ideas that may never come to pass because there's no guarantees that mommy's blankie will be HIS favorite blankie (but I REALLY hope it is). I've picked 4 patterns I like them all not equally per se but I could envision his blanket in any of these configurations with the colors I bought. I have my favorites and I have my fears about each one. What do you think do you have a favorite which do you think would be the cutest?

1. I like this blanket because it's just random big blocks and chunks of color with no rhyme, reason or explanation. If I got bored with one color I could easily turn it around change color and make another randomly shaped block on any side of it. The downside to this would be it would pretty much have to be a blanket that was the same stitch over and over and over with no variation. That can get mighty monotonous my friends!
2. I like this one too I like the stripes and I like that they're different widths! The thinner stripes make kind of a TTTTT pattern around the solid thinnest stripe and the thickest stripes have what is called a spider in them. It creates some visual interest in the blanket and some variety for the person making it! The holes make it a little lighter and work up a little quicker too :)

3. How adorable are the little fishies! A little school of nestled fish swimming to and fro! I love and hate this blanket! I love the fish they're so sweet and I can imagine them in the colors I picked! This is my favorite and part of me really hopes it isn't yours! Why? What could possibly dissuade me from making this adorable school of fish? Well all those little fish are individually crocheted which is advantageous. I could make them very quickly on the fly and amass my little pond. I can also control the size by controlling the number of fish! The problem is the fish must be stitched together and for me that gets insanely boring. How boring you may ask? I started a blanket for my in-laws for Christmas last July its about 81 little squares that had to be stitched into one big square. I dutifully crocheted all 81 squares and stitched them up into 9 rows of 9 strips and then... Let's just say I still haven't sent my in-laws their Christmas present. (I do feel really bad about this by the way but in my defense life surrounding Christmas was a chaotic time I don't care to remember) So I'm fearful I'll have piles and stacks of cute little fish waiting to be a blanket never realizing their full cuddly potential. (*Mental note* When your nesting instinct kicks in finish Mom and Dad's Christmas present so you can give to Mom when she comes to visit)

4. This is kind of a neat like a little kaleidoscope and with the different colors I think it could look pretty cool with all the colors kind of swirled together. This would work up pretty quickly too most squares do and while I'm not entirely sure how to achieve the swirl look I think it'd just be a simple matter of moving the corner 1 stitch to the left while working in the round (sorry crochet speak) which could keep it somewhat entertaining along with changing colors.

I'm fairly certain I will not have this blanket finished before my boy is here I am hoping to finish someone else's blanket before her baby is here too. It's entirely possible at the rate I'm going that I won't have even started Jeriah's blankie before he's here. I'm pretty sure I won't have much time after he's here but I do hope that someday I can put it together so my visions of a sleepy doe eyed toddler with dark curled hair (I'm guessing on this he could have porcelain skin and brilliant red hair) will suck his thumb and drag it around the house. Then I will tuck that little boy in my lap and read him a storybook before tucking him into bed.

Pregnancy not so much fun but the idea of being a Mommy the "magic" of being a mommy is pretty romantical this side of labor...