Nesting...

I was dearly hoping that my nesting instincts would kick in and I'd clean my house. I would deep clean my house from top to bottom. I had hoped to rearrange my linen closet, chase the dust bunnies out from under my bed, scrub the walls of my bathroom, and finish my in laws Christmas present. Yep I had plans. Sadly when the instinct came it was in a different direction. I realized upon packing my hospital bag I had nothing to put on my baby's head or hands or feet. Poor Jeriah couldn't be cold or naked Mommy had to fix it with a Ducky Hat and yellow booties, a Froggy hat and mittens with matching booties and sweet baby blue worms in his hat, hands and feet. When my mom saw the ducky hat she melted into a pool of grandma hormones and giggles. So Jeriah I'm sorry that I don't have your blankie made yet and I'm sorry that you're coming home to a house with dust bunnies under the bed. You'll have a warm head warm hands and warm feet and you'll be the cutest newborn baby in the nursery(you would be even without the hats by the way)You have everything else you need for now or you will. You'll be loved you are already but I've loved you since I first understood I could grow up and be your mommy! You'll be coming soon enough and I'm scared and I ask myself daily how this is gonna work. I pray and seek answers and have faith that God is in control of your arrival the same way he's controlled everything else in our life in fantastic unimaginable ways so we're just gonna see.... We'll let you crash into our life like a wave upon the sand and see what treasures you uncover! :)

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...

Grandma's Girl

I have discovered I have a hobby in common with my Grandma. Grandma used to sit in her recliner all night watching TV with Grandpa thumbing through her magazines and copying any recipe that tickled her fancy one buy one into spiral bound notebooks. Being the food lover and cook that I am and also having so many memories of helping Grandma cook and just learning vicariously by watching my grandma cook I staked my claim on those notebooks long ago! No one else wanted them or had probably even thought of them. I have hardly looked through them and sadly I haven't made a single recipe from a single one. I have looked at them enough to know that Grandma LOVED Desserts almost every single one is a dessert recipe! From those magazines and spiral notebooks we have such family loved recipes as Harvey Wallbanger Cake, Piggy Cake, and Almond Pinwheels!
Now I don't spend my nights hand copying recipes from a magazine. I'd get writer's cramp before I finished the first one. (I'm a typer don't ya know) I do spend more time than I should perusing foodie blogs and websites and if a recipe tickles my fancy I just copy/paste it right into a word document and file it away under my own handy dandy recipe folder on my desktop. I'm a little more organized than Grandma was. Every recipe is organized in one big folder with little sub folders separating main dishes from soups from breads from appetizers. My desserts folder is even separated into category Cakes, Cookies, Pies, Candy... you get the idea! I have quite a few recipes but the sub folder that is without a doubt the largest and filled with so many "I should make that someday" recipes is my dessert folder. I got my Grandma's sweet tooth and her penchant for recipe collecting!
I have never ever questioned whether I was Grandma's Girl or not. She forever reminded me I was hers. She'd hug me close and lovingly reassure me I was Grandma's girl. I guess more than anything it just nice to draw the comparison and see that a part of her is a part of me. Maybe someday in the future I'll have a grand baby who wants my dusty old hard drives full of recipes and they will be a cherished collection of memories and reminders of their own Grandma.

Afraid...

So a week and a half ago I went in for the standard gestational diabetes test. I ate breakfast as instructed by my Dr grabbed my crocheting bag and prepared to drink of bottle of sugary sweet syrup and sit for an hour for my date with a needle. I felt fine and normal the whole time and wrote it off certain if there was a problem i would've felt funny. I had questioned a few months ago if I might have it but when I researched it all of the symptoms I had that I thought might be gestational diabetes also were normal pregnancy symptoms. I wrote the test off until this week when I got a letter from my Dr that my blood glucose levels were high and he'd like for me to take the 3 hour test. I'm gonna get a lot of crocheting done that's for sure! So tomorrow I start a 3 day "diet" and on Wednesday I have another 3 hour date at the lab with a bottle of sugary syrup and apparently several encounters with a needle. (pregnancy has a way of making you not fear needles so much between blood tests and rogham shots)

I'm afraid of what it could all mean. I'm beyond thankful for my friend Tiffany! (who's been a diabetic for longer than she can remember) She lets me ask her millions of questions about blood sugar and what this could mean and what that could mean. She's making a big scary world a little more clear an d clarifying some facts for me. She's explained what my symptoms could mean and while she hasn't alleviated a single one of my fears maybe she's (depending on the test results) confirmed them. She's tried to explain why if my blood sugar is high do I have an insatiable craving for brownies, soda and syrupy sweet things. That insatiable appetite I've mentioned its still here. I have no idea how or why i can eat so much or be constantly hungry minutes after eating so much. I've been so angry at myself for being so hungry. Is it normal because I'm pregnant or is it something else?

My fears are justifiable, I knew before i got pregnant it was a possibility perhaps even more likely a possibility for me than for other people. Riding on the coat tails of my fears has been this conviction that Steve and I in general need to re think the way we eat a little bit. We don't eat poorly and I'm not one to cook from a box or a can very often but being the foodie I am I read blogs and see recipes and if one tickles my fancy generally speaking I won't think twice about jumping on board to try it no matter how horrible the ingredients ( canned biscuit dough and Mt Dew anyone? ) Maybe this is the kind of motivation I need to really weed out some of the poor choices we make and take some more control and practice more moderation. I don't know why I'm so afraid of changing my diet anyways its not like I don't like or eat GOOD food. I had a veggie sandwich on whole wheat bread yesterday and it was the most delicious thing! We had fruit salad for dessert that was the stuff of dreams. I LOVE GOOD REAL FOOD!!! I think my fears are based in what it could mean for Jeriah immediately and me long term. Oh and that other thing (ugh) having to practice self-discipline. I have no qualms about eating good food so long as I can still have the bad ones if and when I want them. :)
So here we go... and we'll see whatever it means wherever it leads whatever it brings...

Over the Shoulder and on the go...

This is perhaps horribly vain and shallow but, I was thinking about diaper bags and how I really don't want a cutsie little boy diaper bag covered in cartoon characters or smiling cuddly farm animals... I didn't want something powder blue or with Winnie the Pooh.

If I had a nursery to decorate and a lot of money I would decorate it with a Dr. Seuss theme. In Bright orange and green and yellow... there would be thing 1 and thing 2. A fish in red and a fish in blue, and I couldn't forget Horton hears a Who.... Those bright colors and fun whimsical things just call to me and SCREAM CUTE!!! But I digress. :)

I wanted a diaper bag I wouldn't be ashamed to carry around if I wasn't pushing a stroller. I know I'll soon be taking on this new title of Mommy and its a title, an identity I'm so excited to take on its one I've waited my whole life to be called and, maybe it sounds selfish but I don't wanna lose Deaira all together either. I wanted a diaper bag that looked like a bag a grown woman would carry.

I went to Babies R Us to start my registry so my Mommy in Law in MI and other friends and family could have some idea how to spoil our little dude. I went to look at diaper bags and zapped it on sight it was sooo ME! I didn't open it to see if it had pockets I didn't even pick it up off the shelf to look at it before I zapped it. Thankfully before I left the store I returned and I picked it up off the shelf and took note that it had a few pockets and a changing pad and stuff. I went home that night so sad that it wasn't mine yet and that it might not be. I didn't even look at the price tag! I just remembered the beautiful multi colored stripes. I had a gift card why didn't I just buy it. I spent the next day or so kicking myself for not just using that gift card. Finally I figured out I would convince Steve he should come with me to Babies R Us so he could look at and have some say in what we registered for and when we did I would check the price on said diaper bag and buy it if it was within reason!

Sure enough the next week we were on our way. I had bargained a trip to Babies R Us with a pop into Best Buy which worked to my advantage you see.... while visiting the ladies room there I found a coupon laying there unattended for 20% off any item at Babies R Us that expired that very weekend! :) Into Babies R Us we went and I showed Steve all the things I had registered for and he approved especially of the large number of froggy items. Then I went to find my diaper bag. I picked it up off the shelf gushing to Steve about how gorgeous it was and looking it over now with a more discerning eye counting pockets mentally plotting out what I would put in each pocket... Then I looked at the price tag $59.99!!!! I would never ever spend that much money on a purse or a pair of shoes! I would have a hard time spending that much money on a whole outfit! I did have a gift card a $50 gift card tho and the coupon...

I'm so thankful my Dad taught me to do math in my head I'm also thankful for gift cards.. :) I quickly realize 20% off $59.99 would make the bag more affordable with my gift card and the tax well I could take care of that it would be miniscule. Sure enough with the coupon and my gift card I walked out of Babies R Us having paid $1.70 for that diaper bag of many colors and I felt like a savvy shopper and its mine and I have no fear of having to find another perfect bag... :)

To wrap my baby bunting in... part 2

So I have it... I didn't plan on buying it but I just happened to have an opportunity to pop into Michael's yesterday and well a trip to Michael's without looking at yarn is a wasted trip. I started grabbing skeins off the racks... a skein of red, a pretty orange, a brown as rich as chocolate and a tangle of blue. How did that get in there I hadn't planned on blue but before I knew it I had 7 or 8 skeins in my arms cuddling them close. They're all so soft and silky feeling. I know it will slip thru my fingers so gently into a delicious snuggly blankie for my baby boy! I wasn't gonna buy it (have I mentioned what a cheap skate I can be?) I could wait I rationalized to myself looking down at the armful of yarn that could potentially wrap around my Jeriah. I was ready to put it all back with a sigh. Then I looked closer and saw the sale sign. That was all I needed :) I am a girl after all.
I still have no idea how these are going to come together how they'll tangle up into something my boy will love forever. I'll look for patterns eventually or make up my own I'm thinking stripes or blocks or a slight modification off the first blanket from my original post (Everyone voted unanimously for it!) I keep telling myself it has to be perfect. I have the perfect silky yarn and the perfect colors. I must have the perfect pattern but then the words of a friend echo in my head and that's all I need to quiet the "must-be-perfect-demon" within me (Thank you Angel!)

"It will be special cause MAMA made it."