I'm 0.12% baby! And 30% peanut oil.

This morning I had my 16-week doctor's appointment. Everything looked good, so it went very quickly. Just a little specimen and blood pressure check, then a fast and tiny heartbeat, and we were out of there. Oh yeah, and I've put on about 5 pounds in 4 weeks. I'm sure some of it is water, and although my pants are getting tight, my rings aren't fitting any more snugly, so I don't know how much to trust the scale. But it's still disheartening, and a little embarrassing, because based on what I reported as my pre-pregnancy weight, my chart shows a 9 pound gain so far, and sources say that at 16 weeks the average fetus weighs about 2.5 ounces. OUNCES. I can't even bring myself to do the conversion to know how many of those I've gained. And there's only one fetus in there, so I have no choice but to assign the other 4.9 pounds to french fries, chicken fingers, and cheese.

Basically, unless I want to give birth to a salt-encrusted deep-fried baby, I've got to take it down a few nothches in terms of sodium and instead have an apple or a salad or some air. That should be a cinch, particularly since we're having a cookout this weekend for Mike's birthday with steaks and twice baked potatoes and onion rings. I guess I ought to install some counter space across the arms of my treadmill so I can make dinner while I preemptively burn off all of those calories. Although maintaining a brisk clip and wielding a sharp knife sounds like a recipe for birthday disaster. But if I do end up in the hospital, at least I can request the no-sodium meals they give to heart patients.

I don't really think my diet is that bad overall. I've noticed my appetite has increased over the past few weeks and I'm eating more at every meal, so I know that's not helping. I could certainly stand to add in some daily exercise, and I need to lessen the frequency with which I go places that have fried food. As it turns out, I'm too weak to resist when it's there, so the best solution is to do more of my own cooking, which will be easier now that Mike isn't gone half the week. I hate buying groceries when we're rarely there to eat them, but now there's no excuse. Plus the longer I can make it in my regular wardrobe, the better, because I can think of a million ways I'd rather spend my money than on maternity clothes. Lucky for me, my mom and Mike's mom have given me several maternity shirts and a fantastic pair of maternity dress pants, and a lot of my shirts and dresses will work for most of my pregnancy. Erin asked if I was going to post belly pictures, and I'd be happy to, except there really hasn't been any change yet, but I guess what's the point of the pictures if there's not a starting point, so I'll try to remember to have Mike take one when I get home and put that up later. For you, Erin.

So in 4 weeks I'll go back for another regular checkup, and 2 weeks after that will be the ultrasound that tells us whether we'll be getting my little ponies or hot wheels at the drive thru! Except at Chick-Fil-A when I plan to always ask for the ice cream instead of the toy. Did you know you can do that with their kids' meals? Just thank 3 of my pounds for that tip.

I'm going to need to work on throwing a ball and making noises

I think this baby is a boy. People say your instinct is usually right, but I wouldn't really say I KNOW it's a boy or that I have secret mom instincts about it. I suspect it may be my brain's way of trying to gear me up for the possibility of not a girl, because I know absolutely nothing about little boys (circumwhat?), and their clothes bum me out. Erin and I have talked about this before. I feel like I've been to enough stores to have a pretty good idea what kinds of things are out there for boys. Sweet pastel-colored smocked jon-jons, and then onesies and shirts with cars, balls, tools, stripes, farm and sea and jungle animals, dinosaurs, monsters, nautical things, and "mommy's lil so-and-so." And that's about it. No skirts, no dresses, no ruffles or frills or pink or even purple. I know that this is a tiny tiny complaint, not the end of the world, some people have REAL problems, and hey, I can spend more money on my own clothes this way! But there's just something about a little yellow bathing suit with a tiny tu-tu sewed on, and you can't put your son in that. Can you?

So tell me what you (would or do) like about having boys. Also I am taking name suggestions, because currently my list reads like a bunch of last names. That end in -n. Names that end in -r are discouraged since our last name ends in -r also. We won't have the boy/girl ultrasound until the very end of May, so I've got a while to go before we know for sure, but I'm still trying to focus on the boy names and clothes and nursery designs in the mean time so as not to get my heart set on pink ruffly things. I absolutely won't be disappointed or sad if my baby is a boy, just to clarify. I don't have a preference for the baby itself; it's just that everything about boys is so new and foreign.

This week marks 100 days of pregnancy! So far I really have not felt pregnant, save for having to pee a lot more often. I haven't been sick at all, and I don't think I've gained any weight yet (or Mike is monkeying with the scale, and that would be all right), but the weight does seem to be distributed differently. My clothes fit a little tighter around the middle and it's harder to suck in my fat, but also I feel like maybe my love handles are being pulled forward, so I look a little worse from the front but a little better from behind. I get full a lot sooner, and between meals I have absolutely no appetite, whereas before I could pretty much always eat, so that's been difficult to get used to, though I wonder if that is how regular people feel all the time between their meals.

The thought of tomatoes turns my stomach and I don't ever want to see lasagna again, but other than that there haven't been any food aversions or noxious smells. I always want salty or tart things like fried or cheesy things and fruit and lemonade, but that was the case even before the pregnancy. So my diet hasn't been stellar, but certainly no worse than before. I try to get in lots of fruits to counteract all the veggies I'm not eating, since I'm not interested in bitter or earthy-tasting things like bell peppers or carrots or mushrooms or beans (unless they're covered in butter or cheese or dressing), or things that have a peanutty taste (which sadly includes Chick-fil-A chicken, since it's fried in peanut oil, but it's so salty and good going down that I eat it anyway). I haven't had any freaky dreams, but they all seem so REAL. Really vivid and like actual life. My aunt Pam had two dreams, before she knew I was pregnant, that I was having a baby girl, and she says she's always heard that the baby is the opposite of whatever you dream, so there's that. Really I think God knew what it was before I even existed, and no amount of Chinese lunar calendar studying or salty cravings or baby girl dreams or ballerina swimsuits is going to change that, so my prayers are mostly of the "help me find the best boy stuff and don't let me mess up our baby" variety. And of course I'm praying for a healthy baby. What's more important than that? Not ruffles, that's for certain.

Think I can recycle the gift for Mike's sister?

I know how boring it's gotten around here lately, and I am going to do a lot better starting next week. For now, I'm just popping in to say that I hope you have a fantastic weekend, cause I won't be back for a few days. Tomorrow we're headed down to Charleston for the weekend to celebrate Emily's and my birthday. We'll be 24! I got her a present, but I sort of feel there's like nothing I could buy to say just how glad I am that she's my sister, so Mike and I decided to make her something too. An aunt!

So who'd you vote for on Dancing With The Stars?

The only things I've been up to lately are cooking, watching tv, and sleeping. I've started to think I might ought to cut back on how much tv I watch, because at the end of the day I generally find myself wondering where all the time went and how I accomplished so little. But then I wonder how much more I'd really get done, because gang, I am lazy. And tv is entertaining. I just get the feeling that other people are getting more enjoyment from life than I am. I don't know. I tend to be a little bit jealous of pretty much everyone, so it's probably just that the grass seems greener on the other side, but has there ever been a case of somebody saying "I regret the decision to watch less tv."? Or "I shouldn't have left the house on this beautiful day in search of fulfilling activities."?

On the food front, to prove that I don't ONLY watch tv, last week my mom and I made some amazing Philly cheese steaks, despite not really following a recipe and never having cooked meat that way before. The key is butter. And we also made some reeeally awesome funnel cakes. Oh gah they were good. Then on Sunday night I made velveeta and rotel dip, which is always delicious, and my aunt Julie and my cousin Jessie made burgers that were exponentially better than any I've ever made. Why do other people's hamburgers always taste so much better than any I make myself? What do you put in your burgers? Mine always end up dry and only taste like pepper. Somewhere I saw a guy put butter in the middle of his burger patties to keep them from drying slap out on the grill, so next time I will try that. With a side of bacon fat.


The spring weather we've had this week has been making me want to cook out and also have a picnic, so Sunday I got to cross off cooking out (even though technically it was inside and on the Foreman, it was still burgers on the grill), and tomorrow I get to cross off picnicking! Some friends and I are having a picnic at the park after work, and I am pretty pumped about it. It's going to be so pretty out and I could really use some sun, not to mention delightful picnic fare.

Spring has also made me want to chop off all my hair, something like Jessica's from What I Wore, but curly hair is a real drag because if you pick a hairstyle that's intended for straight hair, it usually looks positively heinous in curls. That haircut of Jessica's is short and blunt and so sassy, but if I got it and then wore my hair curly, everyone would feel like they were watching the season of Felicity where she chopped off all her hair. Minus the goth friend and love triangle. Ultimately I'm probably not going to wind up doing anything to my hair and it'll just keep growing until only a professional can put down the split end mutiny. Which is probably what happened to Keri Russell.

Stellaaaaaaaa!!!!

This weekend Mike and I went to see a play with his parents, who have season tickets to a community theater. I've been going with them since we started dating, and there've been a few duds (Inherit the Wind? More like Inherit a Nap), but the plays are usually really fun and entertaining (Noises Off is my favorite so far). This month's, however, was a dud, in my opinion. A Streetcar Named Desire. I won't go into all the plot details, but it's about as far from a light-hearted night at the theater as you'd ever wish to get. Analytically speaking, I think the takeaway is not to marry someone with a different sexual orientation than your own, because if you do, when you realize it and blurt out in the middle of a polka that he disgusts you, the shame will cause him to kill himself, and that will send you into a boozy spiral of prostitution, foreclosure, and despair. And maybe don't name your kid Blanche, either. Both good suggestions, but Tennesee Williams took about 2 hours to get his points across, and here I've done it in 2 sentences. Let's move on.

Next month I'm responsible for creating a mix cd to send to 10 other people, and I am really starting to feel the pressure not to be the square who uses songs everybody's already tired of. These people are a special kind of hip (and possibly a little snobby, but don't tell them I said so) when it comes to their music. The 2 cd's I've gotten so far have had a combined 3 artists I recognized. So, I need some help. Do you have any suggestions? What are your favorite songs? My mix is probably going to be fairly odd, with some hip-hop and some light rock and some upbeat dancey songs and some mellow indie-rock stuff, so nothing is off limits, except country, and if I have to tell you why then you could probably benefit from a copy of my cd. Heh. See what I did there with the snobby music hipster condescension? Really, I will appreciate any and all contributions, whether they're obscure or everybody knows all the words. So help me!

If you eat weird things, now is the time to confess

Recently I got to thinking about all the meals my mom made when Emily and I were younger that we haven't had in a while, so last night I made my mom dig up her recipe for chicken enchiladas. And they are every bit as delicious as I remembered. They're not fancy, and if you happen to be some sort of enchilada snob you probably wouldn't concede that they're enchiladas, but oh man. I'm sharing the recipe because it's easy and we loved them as kids and we were horifically picky eaters.

10(ish) soft tortilla shells
1+ lb chicken, cubed or shredded
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 8-oz tub sour cream
2 cups shredded mexican cheese
1/2 cup pureed salsa

Now I'm not sure if pureeing the salsa is an integral step, or if my poor mama did that because otherwise her children (and husband) would be like, "ew, what are these green chunks? ::gag::" It's up to you, but I didn't like chunky salsa then and I don't like it now, so we pureed it. Also the recipe calls for just 1 pound of chicken, but we actually used about 1.5 pounds, cubed, and could only stretch it to fit 9 tortilla shells. And even then they were a little skimpy, so I think in the future I'll use 2 whole pounds, and I'll shred it rather than cube it.

So what you do is cook the chicken, and while it's cooking mix together the cream of chicken, sour cream, salsa, and half of the cheese (that's 1 cup). Add the seasonings to the chicken once it's cooked (probably fine to do that at any point), then add a third of the sauce to the chicken. Coat a 9x13 (or whatever dish) in half of the REMAINING sauce, then spoon the chicken mixture into tortilla shells and roll 'em up like enchiladas, lining them up in the pan as you go. Once you've got 'em all situated, pour the last of the sauce over the top and cover it with the other 1 cup of cheese. Then bake it at 350º for 30 minutes.

You see what I mean about it not being complicated, or complex in flavors. But it's very good, if you happen to like casserole-type chicken dishes. I don't know why I feel the need to apologize for the dish. If you don't like the sound of it, just don't make it! And also, don't tell me, because what is worse than when people are grossed out by you?

Remind me to tell you about how I also ate peanut butter and cheese sandwiches when I was little.

Anything for you, hush puppies.

When I got home from work on Wednesday I did the 30 Day Shred. I think it actually may have been day 30, but days 1-29 were almost a full year ago, so I get the feeling Jillian wouldn't be okay with me saying I completed the thing. It was pretty exhausting and I am still sore today. It's probably a good idea to do the workout when I've got more energy, rather than at the end of the day when I'm tired and hungry, but right now I just can't bring myself to wake up 40 minutes earlier to fit it in before I leave for work. Do you exercise in the mornings?


I used to believe that food was just too good, and I was going to have to bite the bullet and exercise more to balance out all the delicious salt and fat, but about 15 minutes into the shred yesterday I was singing a different tune. Please Jillian, I will stop eating french fries and bread if you don't ever make me do this again, oh God not the side lunges. And she even tries to dumb it down for me. "Beginners, follow Anita." I'd feel a lot better about her as a leader if she were also panting and grimacing and using her dad's work boots instead of those unholy 3-pound weights. (Anita actually uses 5-pound ones, which is a riot.) But I try my best to do as many reps as the girls do because like Jillian says, you can't do a 20 minute workout and take a break. It really does take the place of hours of phoning it in at the gym. Which is the same as saying, these 20 minutes are going to be harder than the combined total of all the other minutes you've ever spent being physically active in your life. I think what I'll do is alternate that dvd with plain old walking, and I'm definitely aiming to eat a lot more fruits and veggies and a lot less starchy junk every day. One of the bloggers I read has lost 15 pounds in 3 weeks just by changing her diet (as best I can tell, and I'm not saying that's normal or healthy or whatever. Just saying. Diet matters a lot.) So hopefully I can get rid of my belly jiggle for good. I like to think that once it's gone, it'll be easy to keep it off because I won't want to go back to being jiggly. We shall see.


Tonight we're supposed to get some snow!!! I have high hopes that this will be our annual snow. Of course it couldn't happen during the week so I could enjoy an extra day off, but Monday is a holiday, so we're going to go visit Emily! I'll be walking to and from Charleston, in case you were wondering.