Where Mama's Been, Part 2

First I need to brag about my awesome maternity costume for Halloween - I thought for a long time before settling on the giant eyeball. It was so easy to make, easy to change into, and got the smiles and laughs that I hoped for. Bonus, this counts as a belly pic!

Now to continue recapping summer: when we got back from Burning Man I slid seamlessly into a new obsession: prepping for babe. Admittedly, this natural and necessary obsession continues. But it was at its worst at the end of September when I realized how very difficult it will be to keep us in healthy dinners come the holidays and the arrival of our little one sometime around then. I decided we could make meals and freeze for later. I could hardly sleep for planning and plotting shopping trips, recipes, cooking. I went on a three week cooking and freezing adventure and have hardly cooked dinner since then. Despite having eaten out of the freezer for the past month it's still got 2-3 weeks worth of meals to give!


I'm really enjoying not having to think about dinner much more than putting it in the fridge the night before and putting it in the oven and setting the timer. And now that we've figured out what recipes work and what don't, I plan to do another major cooking weekend after Thanksgiving to keep us from living on pizza and burritos when bebe shows up. Favorites so far: stuffed peppers, chicken pot pie, moussaka, stuffed shells and any of a number of chicken breast recipes.

And then of course there was learning all about cloth diapers and madly planning which styles we should try. Reading reviews, making lists, comparing costs, ordering from assorted online retailers. When the diapers showed up in their boxes and bags, I had to spend about two hours fondling them and snapping/unsnapping/velcroing/unvelcroing the things over and over. For some reason I haven't managed to take a picture of these.

Finally, I've been combing the kids resale shops and buying colorful baby clothes. I've been scouring Craigslist for a co-sleeper, searching high and low for a vintage dresser/changing table (found and found!) and turning my penchant for reconstructed clothing towards baby hats and booties.

See you next week for my final installment of Where Mama's Been!

One out. One in.

While pressing the "publish" button on my last post, my phone was ringing, with the news that my grandfather had died. He was the funniest, happiest person I knew, and the world without him does not seem as grand. I am crabby and out of sorts, worried about my mother, stepfather and grandmother in his absence.

I had intended this next post to be happy news, and it still is. The picture above is my sewn representation of my first-ever, faintly positive pregnancy test that I took weeks ago. Now ten weeks into my pregnancy I've done an ultrasound on myself (to reassure me it wasn't ectopic) and heard the heartbeat, and reassured that things are progressing normally I get to spread the good news. Nausea, yes. Exhaustion, yes. Feeling the shape of my uterus daily, yes. Having to get up at 4 or 5 every morning and eat a banana to be able to go back to sleep, yes yes yes.

So, how ridiculous is it for a person to be pondering, mere hours after her positive test, and before her husband even knows the happy news, "What kind of quilt should I make?". This is a disease, no question! And I so look forward to sharing it with you.