Every week I mock myself for thinking I was huge or pregnant the week before, yet I continue to convince myself weekly that I really am huge and pregnant. The pictures sadly fail to display what it's really like around here.

We've passed several milestones in the last month, none of which I'm certain on appropriate response. I had my first congratulations on my pregnancy from a stranger on Christmas day, followed quickly by the first unwelcome advice from a stranger about my pregnancy "you can't be that far along, something must be wrong...", I reached the end of comfortably sleeping on my ever growing stomach the week after that. I finally surpassed my pre-pregnancy weight by 2lbs last month. I intentionally did not purchase a scale after Christmas to avoid knowing how quickly my weight went up after that initial 2lbs, I went into pre term labor. I realized, with horror, that contractions feel absolutely nothing like menstrual cramps and feel something more along the lines of having a machete hack away at your midsection. I swore against ever having a natural child birth and decided that an epidural is something akin to heaven, I read the Bradley Method of natural childbirth book and swore against having any drugs during birth because drugs are from Satan and are bad for the baby. I stopped caring how fickle I've become. I decided that pre term labor must be more painful than real labor, and I'm relishing in my phenomenal abilities of denial. I came to the conclusion that my baby doesn't have to have a name before she's born and promptly stopped trying to think of anything to name her. I officially joined the outtie bellybutton club, and I'm rapidly on my way to becoming president. I got down to double digits of days (92 left). 

Pregnancy is this weird, all consuming thing. It's also sparked my first jealousy of a marsupial, an opossum at that, 12 day gestation, lucky freaking mammal.

At my last ultrasound the doctor bumped my due date back a week, and I complied. For the three weeks since then I've been bitter about how long that extra week makes it seem. However, I've finally overcome my pregnancy brain, and done the math. Three weeks later. I realized that there's no way that I got pregnant on the date they think I did. Phil was in the valley. I was at home, not getting pregnant. Which means that I am 22 weeks, not 21. I want the extra week. I tried to convince myself that I was saving trouble at the end by not thinking I was overdue. But the trouble wasn't gone, it just got transfered to right now, in thinking I'm behind. Like the great little procrastinator I am, I'll take the anxiety later and the 22 weeks now. 

In other pregnancy related news- I've decided to use cloth diapers. I'm hoping that's not completely crazy. I'm convinced it's far superior because it costs way less, there's no weird chemicals seeping into the babies skin from the diapers, I can sew my own diapers (or beg other people to sew them), they're much cuter than disposable diapers, and it costs way less- I know I said that, but it's really the deciding factor. Ella, the 3 year old I watch, told me she thinks that cloth diapers are a great idea "cause it's much happer fer da earth and then you can buy more toys instead of diapers and the baby will share them with me". She just stopped using pull-ups, and you can figure out the two arguments her parents used to convince her that undies are better.

I'm officially halfway done being pregnant!!!!! Yes, I'm well aware that this baby could, and probably will, come WEEKS late which technically makes me less than halfway. However, according to medical standards I'm halfway, and I like the sound of that. 

I have come across some genuinely positive points of being pregnant. They are few, but they do exist, although their positive existence is somewhat diminished by the many, many abnormalities of growing a child in your womb. A good thing, positive point, is that she, baby no name, is moving most of the day and I love feeling her. Then there's the flip side... she can't tell night from day, resulting in late night acrobatics. Being woken up at 2 am because your intestines are being wiggled around from the inside is an odd and unfortunate thing. Being unable to fall asleep again because your bladder is a punching bag is an even less pleasant occurrence. During the day again, the movement becomes fun. Especially when you rest a cup of ice water on your stomach and watch her try to kick it off. Last night she attempted to beat down Dax for resting his head on my stomach, resulting in many a quizzical look from our puppy.

I have another doctor appointment on the 18th, and thanks to Thanksgiving my doctor should be happy with the weight gain. I guess I should enjoy the one time of my life that it's good to gain weight over the holidays, but I feel like my belly is growing at an abnormal rate. I've had a shift of the roll. The roll of chub that is. It used to lie somewhere in the region of my belly button, but has moved to above my belly. When I sit there is the pooch of baby down low, which is large and hard, and now there is a lovely roll above it that curls up between my belly and my bra, the resulting crevice of this roll leaves a red line across my rib cage when I get up and provokes the constant questioning of my husband, as if I needed more reminding that strange things are happening.

I still hold fast to the belief that anyone who claims to love pregnancy is either lying or delusional, but I will say this, it gets better for a brief time in the middle. Then... look out, hippo.

I'm a banana bread fanatic. Actually, I love all bread. Banana, Pumpkin, Ciabatta, Zucchini, Whole wheat, French.. any bread. It's really a miracle that I don't weigh 200lbs.

I really liked this recipe, it modified well, really moist and it ended up being a little crunchy because of the home ground wheat flour. The original recipe came from the Silver Plate, which is a great cookbook, but I didn't want a ton of butter or sugar so.... here's my version

Sort of Silver Palate Cookbook Banana Bread: makes 24 muffins or 2 loaves

1/2 stick butter, room temp and 1.5 c flax
1/2 c brown sugar plus 1/4 to 1/2 cup honey or other sweetener
4 eggs
3 c whole wheat flour. I used really corsely ground flour, you could use regular wheat and add 1/4c millet to mimic the texture
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 c bran and 1/2 c germ
7 large ripe bananas
1 t vanilla extract


1. Preheat oven to 325 and get out two muffin tins or two loaf pans. Grease pans or use muffin cups. 
2. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat. Add banana and beat till smooth-ish
3. Add dry and wet ingredients to butter mixture, beginning and ending with the dry 
4. Bake at 325 for approx 20 min for muffins and approx 55 for loaf pans

I know that the general target market for Ensure is not pregnant women, or even women within the age category of pregnancy being a remote possibility, but I think they could do a little better in making their campaign more appealing to the masses. Perhaps that's not the goal, however. When I hear the word ensure, my first though is white hair. White specifically, not grey. There's that phase in life where you're still on the young side of old, and it's cool to let your hair go natural and be grey. It's like a status symbol, your old but you're young. Then there comes the point where your hair goes white. My mind is rapidly scanning the possible audiences here, and, by default, my memory doesn't contain the same recall capabilities that it did fourteen and a half weeks ago, so I'm going to stop with that hair thing there. White. I think Ensure, and I think white hair. Take it as you will.