It's a . . .

We had the ultrasound this morning! Guess what all this pink means!

It's a girl!

Yay! We are excited. The blog will remain pink today to celebrate.

Also, I'll get the picture of the baby's profile up sometime soon.

I Think I Have Enough

On a trip to Costco the other day, I picked up a ginormous bag of chocolate chips. Here's a pic of the bag, next to a normal-sized bag. I think I have enough to last us a while, don't you think?

I Hope I Never.

I have never had someone be so rude to me in a grocery store parking lot as this morning.

We are skipping church today because Noah still has a runny nose, and we didn't want him to give whatever he's got to the other kids in the nursery (especially since we think he got his cold there in the first place). So this morning, Noah and I ended up making a quick run to the grocery store to pick up a few items.

To unload, I parked the cart alongside my car rather than behind it, because the parking spot next to mine was empty. I then opened the door to the backseat so I could buckle Noah in, and the way things were situated, the cart was beyond my open door--basically, I couldn't have been any more out of the way and still buckled Noah in, because that door would have had to have been open, anyway. As I was working on getting him into his car seat, I heard some honking. "Surely no one is honking at me," I thought, "especially since there are other vacant parking spots."

But the honking continued, so I backed out of the car and looked to see that an old lady in a minivan was honking at me, obviously waiting for the spot next to mine. She rolled down her window and called out, irritated, "Are you leaving?" "Obviously," I thought, "considering the cart of groceries here." What I actually said was, "Yes." "Can you move your cart?!" was the reply. "Yes, but you'll have to wait a minute," I said. At this point, I was pretty annoyed at her rude tone and the fact that she had been honking at me, which, when I leaned into the car to finish buckling Noah in, she continued to do.

When I again got out of the car, she called out to me again, rudely, "CAN YOU MOVE?!" I said, very irritated now, "Yes, but you will have to wait while I buckle my son in the car." Then, the woman had the nerve to lean out her other window and address the kid collecting the carts: "Can you come get this from her?!" she said, to which I responded, "I am still unloading." I had all of three bags in my cart. Seriously.

At this point, she had pulled as far into the vacant spot as she could, which effectively pinned the cart between my car and hers, which meant I couldn't move it if I had wanted to. So once I finished unloading, I waited for her to move her car, and once she did, I rolled the cart over to the kid who was waiting for it.

As I did so, the woman said, "I don't have time for this! I'm on my way to CHURCH!"

Oh my goodness. God, keep me from ever behaving like that then announcing I was on my way to church. What a witness. I left angry and disappointed at the same time. Although in retrospect, I am kind of glad she treated me that way rather than someone who was not a Christian.

A Good Day

We had a good day today. Here are some of the nice things that happened:

• Today was the first day of Mom to Mom, and I decided to make Noah's monkey backpack his diaper bag for the day. He hasn't seen this backpack in a long time, so it was basically like a brand new stuffed animal to him, and he loved it. Here is the only clear picture I got, which, sadly, doesn't actually show the monkey. But it was the only one in which he wasn't moving around too much. And he's pretty darn cute in it, so I thought I'd post it, anyway.
• Ever since Nathan went on his second week-long Canada trip this summer, Noah has been having some separation anxiety. As in, he wails if I leave him anywhere, including on the front porch while he watches me put something in the trunk of the car. So I knew that leaving him in Mom to Mom's nursery this morning wouldn't just be cake. Sure enough, he cried so hard when I left, and I was surprised that I made it through the whole thing without getting paged. When I went to pick him up, he was sitting in a stroller outside the door of his room--turns out he wailed any time they got him near the door, so he just strolled around in the common areas the whole time. For two hours. Bless those ladies.
• On the drive home, Noah danced to the music on the radio. He is so funny when he dances.
• We both took long naps. Hooray.
• Nathan had an errand to run this afternoon for which he needed the car, so Noah and I picked him up, and we all went. Because Nathan needed to work for about another half hour afterwards, Noah and I stuck around in the area. We collected acorns, and Noah discovered how handy pockets are. Then we sat on a grassy area and watched all the fire engines that showed up at Harvard's science center (since there was a HazMat truck there, I'm assuming something bad leaked in one of the labs or something). There were a whopping seven emergency vehicles there, including about four fire trucks, so we sat across the street from them and watched, fire trucks being one of Noah's passions in life. Noah waved at all the firefighters, and they all waved back. Then we practiced seeing how far Noah can throw acorns.
• Tonight, when I was putting Noah to bed, he did something he's never done before. We always read some stories from a toddler Bible, Noah turns off the light, we pray, then we sing a song. Well, when I asked him what song he wanted to sing, he started singing, himself. He has been doing this lately, but it's never actually a melody of a real song, and he stops whenever we start singing with him. So it was really sweet tonight when I started singing "Jesus Loves Me," and he not only sang with me, but when I got to the word "Bible," he called out, "Ba-ba!" (Bible) and kept singing along.

Now, between the acorns and the singing, wouldn't you call that a nice day?

A Hard Fact of Life

It's a hard fact of life that when your child can't sleep, neither can you.

It is also a hard fact of life that when your child is covered in snot, so are you.

My Massage

Today I used a gift card I received for a massage the last time I was pregnant, two years ago. (Thanks, Jeremy! It was the birthday gift that kept on giving!) I don't know why it took me so long to use it; I think I feel that it's such a treat that I ought to have a real reason to go, like major pain or something.

Well, the other night, I was up for three hours in the middle of the night with the worst headache. The headache basically lasted for 24 hours and felt like it was radiating outward from a knot in my shoulder, so I went and dug around for the gift card and made an appointment. I figured a knot that's causing a big old headache is worth cashing that baby in for.

My massage was scheduled for today, and I just found some aspects of my experience funny or noteworthy, or at least blogworthy:

1. They basically have you sign your life away, especially if you're pregnant. You agree that you won't sue them if something happens to you, that you won't sue them if something happens to your baby, and you won't sue them if something is stolen from you. You promise you don't have any high blood pressure, high blood sugar or protein, that your pregnancy is normal, and about 15 other things. It's a little disconcerting to have to read through like five pages of legal stuff, thinking about all the things that you now know could go wrong, but I figured that, overall, a massage is a pretty low-risk activity.
2. You can indicate on your paperwork the areas you would like them to work on and the areas where you'd like to do without a massage. One of the options was "head and face." I was like, "What do they do to your head and face, really?" One time, when I was just out of college, I had a massage where the lady did massage my face a little bit, and, frankly, I felt annoyed that she was massaging me there when obviously I had major knots in my shoulders I'd rather she spent her time on, but today I decided to just go with it and see what happened. Anyway, I just was not prepared for the woman today to do this kind of involved massage on my head that involved her running her fingers through my hair. I'm sorry, but that is just not my thing. Partly because I'm just not used to strangers touching my head, but mainly because the whole time I'm inwardly cringing about how I just fixed my hair. The thing about curly hair is that you do NOT run your fingers through it. It makes it frizzy and it straightens out the curls, both of which are things that you obviously strive to avoid. Plus, her fingers had lotion on them. Lotiony fingers being run through curly hair does not make for a subsequently good hair day.
   
3. The second thing about the face massage that nearly made me laugh out loud was the fact that I got like a two-minute ear massage on each side. I mean, besides the fact that someone is massaging your ear of all things, how long can you really massage an ear? I mean, what is there to do with an ear? There aren't any muscles in your ear. There's probably very little circulation there. What is the benefit of a massaged ear? I just couldn't figure it out, and it seemed so strange to me that it was cracking me up inside. So for the whole head and face portion of the massage, I went between inwardly cringing and inwardly giggling. I think I will opt out of the "head and face" option next time.
   

The rest of the massage was very nice, and I enjoyed it. It's nice to just lie there for a little while, for one thing. Plus, I could tell that the girl I got knew what she was doing, and she knew where to focus to ease some tension, so that was nice. Overall, it was a good experience. I just thought there were some aspects of it that were funny. :)

The New Guidelines

So I had an OBGYN appointment yesterday, at which I was weighed. My pregnancy weight is a subject to which I pay probably an undue amount of attention, but I have good reason. That reason is the ugly, ugly fact that I gained an ugly, ugly amount of weight with Noah.

Anyway, according to my doctor's scale, I've only gained one pound so far in pregnancy. One pound?! Seriously? I thought it was at least two. ;) I have been weighing myself at home and noticing that I'm not really gaining any weight. Actually, I even lost a couple pounds in the first trimester. This is so weird, because I am eating normally (or a lot, actually, at least compared to the Weight Watchers plan I was on before I got pregnant).

Anyway, yesterday my doctor said to me, "I see you've only gained one pound. You're really sticking to the new guidelines, huh?" To which I did not reply, because I had no idea what she was talking about. She went on: "The new guidelines are that women gain 15-25 pounds in pregnancy rather than 25-35." WHAT?! Okay, considering that I blew the old guidelines out of the water last time, this is even more shocking. Like, I would have doubled the new guidelines. Ugly. Very ugly.

So there you go, folks. It looks like I might be on the 15 to 25 pound track, after all, even though I wasn't really aiming for it. Although my doctor did say that you don't really start gaining a lot of weight until you hit 20 weeks, and I'm only at 16. That sounds about right--20 weeks is around the time I started gaining 8-10 pounds a month, if you can believe that. Like I said: Ugly. Which means that so far, I'm still doing better than last time, but we will have to see how that continues.

By the way, what is up with some of these pregnancy symptoms? I am starting to get pregnancy brain, where I cannot recall words that are on the tip of my brain, or when I switch the order of my words when I speak, or when I forget things altogether. Also, the insomnia still plagues me from time to time. I was up for over three hours in the middle of the night last night, and the sleep I did get was not good. And I'm starting to get really yucky headaches. I know this is all normal, but geez. I think pregnant women just do not get enough credit, especially in the workplace. (Yes, I realize the conflict of interest in a pregnant woman making that statement.) We get so darned uncomfortable, yet we just keep doing what needs doing.

Okay, that's it for my pregnancy update. I mainly thought the new weight gain guidelines were kind of shocking and figured many of you would be as surprised by them as I was.

My Birthday Cake

Is it kind of sad/pathetic that I made my own birthday cake? Well, maybe it would be, if it weren't totally delicious.

I made a cake from the book The Cake Mix Doctor. All of the cakes in this book start out with a cake mix, so 1. they're easy, and 2. they're hard to mess up. (They'll rise correctly, etc.) I made this particular cake about a year ago for Damien's birthday, and I was very pleased with how delicious it was. This time was no exception.

The cake is a strawberry cake with strawberry cream cheese icing. It's made with fresh strawberries and has pecans and coconut in it. And I always love cream cheese icing, so adding strawberries to that just made it even more fantastic. Actually, Noah and I had a good time eating some of the icing yesterday while we waited for the cake to cool.

Soup Weather!

Some oranges and reds are starting to show on the tips of the trees in our neighborhood. You know what that means: It's soup weather!

Noah and I had Ramen Noodles with Tomato Sauce and Greens for lunch, and I'm making my Ravioli Soup with Mushrooms, White Wine, and Thyme for dinner. And we're having chili tomorrow.

Yay!

My Awesome Pre-Birthday Birthday

My birthday is not until next week, but Nathan already gave me my gift(s). He did great!

First, we drove about an hour out of town and dropped Noah off at some friends' house. He spent the night with Dave and Bonnie, and they did a great job--Noah had a grand old time. And Mom and Dad got to have a Noah-free night!

Then, Nathan took me to an inn about five minutes from their house, and it turned out to be the oldest inn in America. How cool is that?! It's called Longfellow's Wayside Inn, because the poet wrote a collection of poems based on the people he met there called Tales of a Wayside Inn. That collection includes "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," for example.


It was such a neat place to stay! As soon as you walked in, you knew the place was centuries old because it had that smell--like old wood and varnish or something. It also had several rooms set up and furnished as they would have been in different periods of time, such as colonial times, the 1800's when Longfellow would have stayed there, etc.

Here's a picture of our room. It was full of antiques and had a crocheted lace canopy over the bed. It was very nice.


Now, this inn, being so old, doesn't have many rooms. This sign on the back of the door cracked me up. You know how on the emergency exit maps, there are usually dozens of little boxes and a turn or two? Well, check this one out:
Um, it doesn't get much simpler than that! Ha! It cracked me up.

We also had dinner at the inn, which was very nice. We ate in the old kitchen, which has a giant fireplace and was definitely old and colonial-looking. If you ever have the opportunity to go, I would definitely recommend the crock of French onion soup.

And before dinner, Nathan gave me my big gift. So, yeah, he kinda sorta bought me some pearls. EEE! I love them. They are beautiful and perfect. He chose some with a slightly rosy luster, which the jeweler told him was good for people with porcelain complexions. They are beautiful. He said he figured I should have a nice gift for my 30th birthday. I told him he needs to start thinking now of what he would like when he turns 30. :)

We had our picture taken outside the dining room after dinner.
Aren't my pearls pretty? My husband ain't bad, either. And also, I think I look just a little bit pregnant in this picture. ;)

The next morning, we had breakfast at the inn, and it was fantastic. I had the gristmill pancakes. They use the grain that is ground at the gristmill on the property. I highly recommend the pancakes. Here is the gristmill (we visited it after we picked Noah up that morning):

Nathan and Noah climbed on top of a rock behind the gristmill.

And then we headed off to enjoy the rest of our trip, which was a jaunt to Brimfield, the home of one of the biggest antique shows in the country. I read about it in a magazine about a year ago, and I told Nathan that I'd love to go there for my birthday to buy an antique that we can always say we got when we lived in Boston.

Brimfield was a lot of fun, and we enjoyed walking up and down the aisles and looking at all the random stuff. Noah was great, too. We bought him a little train and a bus, and he was happy running them up and down his legs as he sat in the stroller. I was nervous about how he would be, after the fiasco at the last festival we went to. However, we couldn't have asked him to behave any better.

In fact, he charmed quite a lot of other people, too. We bought some lunch and settled down to eat in a quiet spot between two vendors, and the lady running one came out and chatted with us for a while. She took a bit of a shine to Noah, and in the end, she ended up giving us two tubs of frozen lemonade mix. Ha!
She was very nice, and she also gave us a little cup of frozen lemonade for Noah, which was really tasty. She also mentioned that they send lemonade overseas to the troops. So if you ever have the opportunity to buy some Del's lemonade, go for it. They seem to be nice people.

In the end, although all the browsing was fun, no antiques really called my name. Ironically, we didn't buy any antiques at the antiques show, but we did buy some art.

Back at the Sheepshearing Festival, we saw a booth for an artist who painted some stuff that we really loved. It's considered quasi-primitive folk art, which does not sound like Lauren at all, but we were just really drawn to it. She portrays small New England towns, basically stretching from the North Shore down to the Cape and Islands. At the Brimfield show, we ran across another of her booths and were again kind of entranced by her pieces, so we ended up buying some stuff.

We bought two small prints and one medium-sized limited print. The actual paintings are way out of our price range, even though they are so cool. We really like how there are lots of things to look at--they just hold your interest for a while.

The two small ones are of a winter and a fall scene, both of which are the seasons we will miss when we move away:


And the larger one is of a scene on Nantucket. Notice the "Starbucks" near the front. Nathan asked if this was a joke, and the guy at the stand told us that, no, actually, the Starbuck family were whalers who started out on Nantucket, and some of the children moved out west. Who knew?

Anyway, we had a great time. Nathan really could not have planned a more perfect birthday surprise for me. It was very Lauren, and I loved all of it! Thank you, Nathan!

Good Stuff, Y'all.

So Nathan took me on a little surprise pre-30th-birthday trip yesterday and today, and I just need to tell you that everything was amazing and perfect. I am too tired today to write and post pictures, but check in tomorrow or the next day, because I have fun stuff to post.

Fun at the Park

This weekend, we went to a nearby park/nature reserve. We found a shallow little creek and waded in--it was warm outside, but that water was cooooold. However, you got used to it pretty quickly, and it was fun to wade in the water.

And here's a picture of me at 15 weeks:

Guess It Was a Two-Tomato Summer, After All

How pathetic is that, really?

Asian Dumpling Soup with Vegetables

I invented a simplified version of this soup one day after making something similar from scratch (it gets a whole lot simpler when you buy a storebought Asian stock!). Now it's one of the easiest go-to items on our rotating menu.

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Asian Dumpling Soup with Vegetables

1 32-oz. box Trader Joe's Miso Ginger Soup (or other Asian-flavored broth*)
3 tsp. grated ginger (or three cubes of the frozen Dorot ginger)
2 carrots, peeled and sliced thinly on the diagonal
1 bag Trader Joe's frozen Thai gyoza (or other dumpling)
1/3 cup mushrooms, sliced thinly
1 scallion, chopped
1/2 cup fresh spinach leaves
Optional: 1 cup bok choy, sliced lengthwise

Pour the broth into a pot and bring to a gentle boil over medium high heat. Add the ginger and carrots. Reduce heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Add the dumplings and mushrooms and simmer for about 8 minutes. (Do not cook the dumplings at a rapid boil or they will break open.) Add the scallion, spinach leaves, and bok choy, and continue to simmer for about two minutes longer, or until the dumplings are heated through and the vegetables are tender enough.

Enjoy!

* I used to use a Thai coconut curry chicken broth, found near the broths on the soup aisle, but I have not been able to find it in Texas.

New Feature: Recipe Index

Hey Peeps,

FYI, I've added a recipe index for the blog. It's located on the right under the Blog Archive.

Yay!

Nathan got home last night after eight days in Canada! Noah and I are happy and relieved. :)