The kid was unbeliveably cute yesterday. He had to stay home from preschool because of the weather. We’d had hail that didn’t melt the night before, and then snow all morning, and I wasn’t about to risk the hills around here. (Last time it looked like this, even just a thin layer, I couldn’t get all the way there, and then couldn’t even get back up the hill to home and the poor kiddo and I had to hike back 2 miles to get home!)  So he was stuck at home, and bored, and wanted to bake cookies. So I told him that I needed to go get a recipe from my computer and we’d see what we could make.
I’m browsing my recipes (and I think I’ve mentioned I’m a recipe freak. I could make something different every day for at least 2 lifetimes and not run out, and always wanting new cookbooks and browsing the internet for more!) and he brings me his own recipe!
We ended up not baking anything, but we did get what we needed from the store so we can follow his recipe on Friday when he is home again. 😉
In a follow up to yesterday, I do think that I am too hard on myself at times. I am doing well on my List, given the whole nearly 7 months pregnant thing.  I suspect that what makes me feel like I’ve accomplished less than reality is that while I am getting some things done, I am doing it in the midst of a home that is really a mess. There isn’t one room in my home that is clean and tidy, not one room that is really peaceful. It’s difficult to feel serene and to cultivate an attitude of gratitude while being surrounded by the lack of organization, the dirty dishes, the pile of laundry glaring at me from across the room, the kidlet’s fingerprints across the dusty TV screen, my desk top that is barely visible under the piles of papers, books, kidlet’s toys, and recipes. It’s hard to recognize that I’ve just spent 2 hours with my child fostering the attitudes in one of my more recent book purchases (The Creative Family), when I look away from the smiling face of my child, away from the pleasant clutter of paper clippings, glue smears, paint splotches around us and see the floor that needs mopping, the counters that need scrubbing, the trash that needs taken out.
I need to spend a little more time on those basics each day, aside from whatever project I am tackling in my Life Improvements. And hopefully the hubby can help me a little more with those daily basics as well. For today, I cleaned off my desktop. Looking past my desk — well, I won’t go there yet, but for this moment I have a small isle of clean.
Most days I am too distracted or too tired or just too uninterested in soul searching. I know that if I sit and reflect upon my life, I will be discontented (or worse) with myself. Oh, not in my life — most days I float along, content.  But when I take a look at myself, I know that I am not living my life, giving to my life, creating the home, the parent, the wife, the cook, the gardener, the friend that I want to be. I buy hordes of books on various topics. I formulate grand plans. I make lists, which I somehow expect to resolve full bloom into results.Â
This year for New years I consolidated piles of my lists into my Grand Plan (It’s the mother of all lists – a five page list of lists). And my resolution focused more on spending some time every day working on something on the list. And in truth, I’ve done a better job at that than I might have expected. I comb through it every week or so and cross off the items that I’ve manged to conquer. But its a slow process, and it’s difficult to be patient with myself.Â
I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to be a Martha Stewart, a Katie Brown, or even a SouleMama. I don’t need to live as though every single moment is elevated, sacred. But I am tired of living as though no moment is.
So, not everything was good news at the OB yesterday. I’d gone in for a glucose tolerance test on Tuesday, and the results from that were back in. I expected to be high. I’ve been diagnosed as “Insulin Resistant” (what used to be called “borderline diabetic”) for years. However, the initial results were really high — what you’d have to call diabetic level. Because the test is more a screening test than truly diagnostic though, I’ll have to go in for another test. This one is a three hour visit in the lab. They test my fasting blood sugar, feed me a glucose solution, then test my blood every hour to see how well my body is breaking down the sugars.
My iron was also down a bit. Not low enough to be anemic or even low enough to justify adding an iron supplement to my prenatal, but lower than it has been, and so I need to make an effort to get more iron rich foods in my diet right now.
I’d also put on a lot of weight in just one month. For that first 5 months I’d manage to maintain my weight, but in the last 4 weeks I jumped up 7 pounds. The doc isn’t worried yet — he’d wanted me to keep my gain around 15 pounds total for the whole pregnancy and I’m still a ways from that — but I’m less than happy about it.  I haven’t really changed my eating or exercise habits, but I really don’t care to keep gaining at this rate, and I could use more exercise anyway (gotta prep those core muscles for upcoming work! ;)) so hopefully I can keep the scale from spiraling out of control.
An OB visit of ups and downs this week. Results from the last ultrasound are very good. Baby is the perfect size, right in the middle of the range, all important organs visible and looking well, heart rate spot on, etc. Good news, of course. Except that because things looks so great, doc can’t justify an ultrasound this month, so no other chance to peek at gender until April.Â
Ah well. We’d pretty much given up waiting on gender to start in on the nursery (or at least figure out the list of things to buy and do to get it ready) and since I really didn’t want to go with simpery pastels that baby coudl outgrow too quickly, I went looking for a gender-neutral pattern in some kind of bright color combonation. This is more difficult than you might imagine. I finally found a pattern that I liked, by Babylicious (“Happy”) — Only to discover that the pictures on Amazon and other sites were old and outdated. The set used to include an additional pattern — a large lime green and white check, which I thought was really appealing — but no longer does. Ah well. It’s still the best option I could find. It won’t be outgrown as quickly as most of the cutesy baby bedding out there, and we can girl it up or boy it up with accessories later.
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I need to finish cleaning out the room (still is mostly set up as my Mom’s room from when she was living here) and decide what to do with the walls. They’ll have to be painted; while I like the sagey green in general, it doesn’t suit the look I want in there at all!
From over at Bloomacious (which I don’t normally read, but followed a link from Tastespotting for the recipe. I’ve never tried a fruit salad with carrot, but I do like fruit salads, and this one is a great combo of super nutritious produce.
Happy – Sexy 2009 Fruit Salad
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1 Kiwi sliced
1 average sized Orange peeled and sliced, 1/4 sized section save for juice
1 Carrot slivered or grated
2 Dried Apricots chopped
1 Banana sliced
1/2 Mango cubed
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Place Kiwi, Orange Slices, Apricots, Banana, and Mango in brightly colored bowl, layering in Carrot and finishing with lovely garnish on top. Squeeze remaining Orange section over top. Think happy thoughts!
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The payoff according to David Grotto, author of 101 Foods that Could Save Your Life:
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Kiwi ~ the most nutrient dense of the 27 most commonly eaten fruits – has more Vitamin C than any other fruit – also high in Fiber, Potassium, Lutein, and Vitamin E.
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Orange ~ provides 137% of the RDA for Vitamin C per orange. Also high in Vitamin B Folate, and Flavanones.
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Carrot~ excellent source of carotenes – one cup of diced carrots provides 686.3 % of the RDA for Vitamin A. Also high in Fiber, Manganese, Niacin, Potassium, Vitamin B6, and Vitamin C.Â
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Apricots ~ In their dried form one of the best sources of Vitamin A and Beta-Carotene ~ can reach over 16,000 micrograms of carotenoids in just 3 apricots. Also contain Potassium, Vitamin C, Fiber, Phytochemicals D-glucaric acid, Chlorogenic Acid, Queretin, and Lycopene.
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Banana ~ good source of Vitamin C, B6, and Fiber.
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Mango- excellent source of Vitamins A, C, Potassium, and Carotenes.
I love Brussels Sprouts. It’s possible that I may be the only person on the planet that would say that. It’s part of our media history consciousness — what is that pungent little cabbage the sneaky kid feeds to his dog under the table? Yep, its the brussels sprout! In fact, according to some surverys, the only vegetable that people dislike more than this healthy cruciferous ball is the eggplant (and someone else will have to argue the eggplants case, its not my favorite by far!).
Aside from the fact that they are delicious (which many would argue, I know!) they are amazingly good for us. Unlike most vegetables, Brussels sprouts are rather high in protein, accounting for more than a quarter of their calories. Although the protein is incomplete — it doesn’t provide the full spectrum of essential amino acids — it can be made complete with whole grains. This means you can skip a higher-calorie source of protein, like high-fat meat, and occasionally rely on a meal of Brussels sprouts and grains.
Brussels sprouts are very high in fiber; they have 3-5 grams of fiber per cup and at 25 calories per 1/2 cup cooked, they give us a reason to eat them more often. Brussels sprouts are one of those foods that will fill you up, without filling you out. They also belong to the disease-fighting cabbage family. Like broccoli and cabbage — fellow cruciferous vegetables — Brussels sprouts may protect against cancer with their indole, a phytochemical. Brussels sprouts are loaded with vitamin A, folacin, potassium, calcium Brussels sprouts are also particularly rich in vitamin C, another anti-cancer agent.
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Of course, the health argument does little to sway a five year old, nor the 38 year old daddy with the taste buds of a five year old.
Personally, I love them plain, just steamed until nicely soft or roasted with just a touch of olive oil and pepper, but after a number of tries to get both the hubby and the kidlet to tear in with some enthusiasm, it’s time to turn to my recipe cache. If healthiness won’t win them over, maybe I can find a way of cooking them to raise thier appeal. One the docket this week:
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic VinegarÂ
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Fresh Brussels Sprouts
Good Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Sea Salt (I actually omit the salt, sorry foodies.)
Fresh Cracked Pepper
Preheat oven to roast at 375°F. Peel the outer, beat-up layers of the Brussels sprouts off. Trim the end, and then cut Brussels sprouts in half. Toss in a bowl with enough olive oil to coat evenly, then add balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Lightly oil a sheet pan, and then spread out Brussels sprouts, cut side down. Roast in oven for 15 minutes.
Prime Brussels Sprout season is over (September – February) so hopefully there’ll still be some nice looking fresh ones in the produce section this week, otherwise I may have to find a recipe that uses frozen ones.
Of all the many things I should be doing to prepare for the new arrival in a few months, one of the most important is finding more time to spend with the kidlet. I can only imagine it will be rough for him to adjust to suddenly sharing mom and dad’s attention once his sibling arrives; extra time now won’t make it any easier, but I still want to cherish those moments that we have now, while we can. To that end I cut back one of his days at his Learning Tree preschool class.Â
Last week we hit the zoo; this week the Kidlet asked to go to the Children’s Museum. We went right when they opened. It’s a great place, with lots of different areas to explore and lots of things to learn, but it gets ridiculous when it gets crowded. Especially so on weekdays, when its mostly younger kids, 2ish seemed to be the norm. Nothing is as much fun to a five year old as kids half your age grabbing your blocks/trains/magnets/dressup clothes, etc out of your hands! And there are always a few parents who are terrible at monitorring thier children. The *place* might be safe for your kid, mister, but when your 2 year old tries to take something that my child already has in his hands, and then starts hitting him when he fails, don’t be shocked that my five year old (my giant 5 year old, who towers a head above every other kid in his class) can hit a lot harder.   Of course I was right there, and didn’t let the kidlet retaliate physically (though I was tempted since the brat was a problem repeatedly in multiple areas. We kept leaving to find something new, and they kept showing up after us).
I packed us a nice little bento box snack. I forgot to get a picture, but I put in a row of folded pepperoni, some sugar snap peas and stars cut of of zucchini discs, and a little mayo cup shaped like a car with ranch dressing. The side dish had cottage cheese over diced tomatoes.
I’m not sure what we’ll do next week; I’m sure he will think of something! 😉
People have been asking over the past few weeks about the baby moving, and all I could say was that I wasn’t really sure; that I’d felt the occasional little twinge, but for all I knew it was just a gas bubble ;) Well, let me tell you, once it actually starts really moving, you couldn’t mistake it for anything else. It would be very hard to describe, but believe me, you’d know when you felt it!
And now that it is moving, it just won’t stop. Hour upon hour it is moving around, and kicking and kicking. (kicking way down low, below my belly a most disconcerting sensation!) And seemingly, mommy wanting to take a nap or go to bed at night is the cue to really get going. Still three months to go — I sure hope a person gets used to pounding from inside, because so far, its making me a little bit crazy! 😉
Today was our freebie ultrasound at the vanity place. We’d paid to go there after the *last* ultrasound was a no-go on gender, and since they couldn’t tell there either, they had us come back for another visit a month later without charge.
Sadly, I have no confidence in anything this tech says. First, I think the equipment is less sensitive. Her normal zoomed out view seems to have less resolution than even the zoomed in view of the perinatal place that my OB uses. It seems to be more suited for gross anatomy views than anything really detailed. At the official place they can zoom in and look at the various organs wth good detail, etc.
So although this tech saying “I can’t really tell, but I’m leaning towards boy” and pointing at a vague black blob gives me pause (I would have liked to have a second person saying the same thing to give me a little confidence!) about buying little girl outfits, I don’t really believe its a boy anymore than I can be sure its a girl.
Sigh. Yellow and green, here we come 😉