Friday, March 1, 2013

Sundry updates

I've noticed that when things are going smoothly in my life, I find myself with nothing to blog about. Then, when things go awry, I find that I have TONS to blog about but it's all petulant, whiny bellyaching (i.e., not good to read about). Today I'm kind of in the middle, so I thought I'd just throw out some various thoughts. Sorry, readers - I, too, like it better when I have an interesting topic to write about.

Anyway - I haven't slept well for the past three nights. Actually, I guess to be precise I'd have to say 27+ months. But it's been particularly bad the past three nights. My doula advised me to get this monstrous pregnancy body pillow - seriously, check it out, it's absurdly huge. I'm not much into body pillows, and I  didn't use one during my last pregnancy, but the doula raved about this one and said it's just heavenly. So I ordered one, and it arrived three nights ago. I'm not digging it. Sure, its clever design eliminates the need to reposition the pillow when you turn over, but having it there makes it a lot harder for me to turn without waking up. So what's the point? I have decided to give the pillow a week to see if I can adjust to it, but last night I took a night off and went back to a standard pillow. Ironically, I woke up at 2 am and couldn't go back to sleep for almost 2 hours. Yaaaaaaaawn! Oh, and yesterday Katie refused to nap, and instead of making up the lost sleep by sleeping a little later this morning, she decided 6:15 would be a perfectly good time to wake up. Double yawn.

But anyway - it's Friday, and today Katie has decided to nap, so things are definitely looking up. We went to the ob/gyn today for my prenatal checkup, and the baby sounds great. My vitals are all on track too, yay! Plus, I *finally* got the TB test that Katie's school has been wanting. Hopefully it will carry over to the next school year, because I registered Katie for the fall 2013 class today! I'm pretty excited. The class is Wednesday and Friday, and one of those will be a drop-off day. WOW - Katie's first drop-off situation!!! I think it'll be great, though, because she already knows the school and feels comfortable there. We'll have 5 weeks at the beginning to stay with our kids both days, and then drop-off starts on the sixth week. It's going to be a challenge to be at Katie's school with a new baby in a sling, but I think it'll work out fine. I've seen a couple other moms doing it.

Let's see...in culinary news, I tried making chicken piccata, Thai chicken stir-fry, and I converted my shrimp étouffée recipe so that I can cook it during naptime and transfer it to the crock-pot. The chicken piccata came out faintly horrible, but I think this was due more to the recipe than my failure as a cook. The Thai chicken came out good, good enough to add to the "keeper" list. And I am thrilled about the étouffée. It's a pretty simple recipe, but it requires you to make a roux, which takes 15-20 minutes of almost-continuous whisking. That's fine, but not when Katie is around. I get 3 minutes, tops, before she starts to shriek that she wants to see (and usually touch) what I'm doing. Luckily, the crock pot saved the day. I put the roux, the softened vegetables, the seasonings and the other ingredients in the pot and let it cook for the rest of the day. Then I added the shrimp right before serving. Oh, and I left out most of the cayenne pepper so Katie could eat it. Win-win! :)

What else? Hmm. After sneezing most of the week with no other symptoms and blaming it on allergies, last night I got pretty congested. If it is a cold, it's certainly not the worst I've ever had, but I hate not being able to breathe through my nose when I sleep. I wake up with desert mouth and it makes it hard to get back to sleep. When have a cold and I'm not pregnant, I take a nighttime cold remedy to keep congestion at bay, but those are off-limits now. I think I'm allowed Sudafed, but that would keep me up all night, so that's out. So, I decided to try a Neti Pot. I felt like such a fool sticking this weird little plastic Aladdin's lamp up my nose - this is something only hippies could love. But, despite my grumbling and complaining that it wasn't working, by the time I lay down in bed I could breathe! Finally, Whole Foods sells a remedy that isn't utterly bogus! WOOHOO!

That's it for now. Let's hope the weekend brings some funny stuff to blog about! TGIF!

2 comments:

  1. Oh holy cats, this that thing a planet?! With or without it, I hope you get some good sleep soon!

    How can she be going to drop-off preschool already?! I am so silly; I feel like I know her and she is growing up too fast for my liking! I can't imagine how you feel, you are being so brave about it. :)

    We had shrimp étouffée tonight! I have a feeling that yours was better. Awkward Dad left the tail shells on the shrimp.....The chicken sounds good and I am glad that you are feeling better! Henry (Awkward Dad) swears by the Neti Pot and yes, he looks like a dork doing it. But he is better faster than me everytime we get sick!

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    1. I know, I feel the same way about the Supers, even though I've never met them. I'm only being brave because I have some pretty big stuff to deal with before the fall term starts (like the third trimester, labor, delivery, and a newborn!) Way more worried about all that stuff for now!

      Yummm, étouffée! I totally bought tail-on shrimp last time, then spent what seemed like hours peeling all the tails off. This time I remembered to buy the tailless ones. Makes a big difference!

      My neti pot worked great the first time, but since then I've gotten so congested that I can't get it to work properly. Sigh... all that dorkiness for nothing. :)

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