Begining to wonder

Friday evening culminated in a crash-bang ending to an already crazy-busy week. I was driving back from my midwife’s appointment (in a city an hour and a half away from where I live) and was stopped at a traffic light when a large Dodge truck plowed into me. The impact of the collision in turn made me hit the car stopped in front of me.

I hate the sound of crushing metal. I hate sudden, forceful impact as your body slams against the seatbelt and the steering wheel. And I really hate that a person can be doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, yet be negatively impacted by some idiot.

The two other cars involved in the accident drove away from the scene with scratched front and rear bumpers while my car looked took on the appearance of an accordion and remained at the scene of the crime until it could be towed away—a couple hours later. Luckily, (and I am trying to be really grateful for this, since it could have ended much differently), I am unharmed. I came away with only a stiff neck and tender back. Baby seems to be unharmed and as active as ever. But, as ungrateful as this may sound, I am sickened by the damage to our car. I was driving our “nice” car--the one Mr. F. brought to the marriage which was only three years old and was kept in pristine condition. While it was the safest car for me to be driving, I kind of wished that I was driving Miss Mabel—my geriatric, Toyota Camry. At least it would have been less expensive to replace, and we would still have our “new” car.

The driver at fault was a 54 year old man who, according to him, had never been in an accident before. This fact he mentioned repeatedly while we were waiting for the police to arrive. I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not he wanted a gold star or a pat on a back for his nearly-perfect record. I somehow refrained from retorting out loud that I wished his first foray into traffic accidents not have been quite as spectacular and nor involve my car.

This incident though has me remembering previous experiences. I realized that, unlike the driver above, I have been in a number of accidents in a relatively short time span and all of them have been another person’s fault. To add insult to injury, half of them have occurred while I have been at a full stop. I am starting to wonder if I have been jinxed. Let’s review.

Age 17: A small meteor kicked up by a riding lawn mower, smashes into my driver side window and completely shatters it while I am innocently driving down my street at 25 mph.

Age 18: I am parked in front of my high school waiting to pick up a fellow student when a woman backs up illegally, hits my driver side leaving a considerable dent, looks over her shoulder, and takes off. Luckily, I had a quick-thinking friend in the car who thought to write down the license plate number.

Age 21: I get rear-ended while stopped at a stop light by some teenager who wasn’t paying attention. The force of the impact causes me to hit the car in front of me. My car is totaled.

Age 22-24—away on a mission, and therefore not driving.

Age 24-29—remarkably free of accidents. However, I am plagued by a car that needs constant repairs.

Age 29: after spending a small fortune on my car to keep it up and running (see above note), I am t-boned while driving to church. (I feel more keenly the injustice of being a victim of automotive incompetence when I am being particularly devout and religious). The other driver thought the coast was clear to cross the road. (Hint: it wasn’t). The car is totaled.

Age 30: I get rear-ended while stopped at a stop light by some idiot who wasn’t paying attention. The force of the impact causes me to hit the car in front of me (sound familiar?) The damage to my car has yet to be determined although given my luck, it could be totaled.

See what I mean? In fact the only “accident” that that I have been personally responsible for was taking off the driver’s side mirror while backing out of the garage at the age of 16. I would suspect the seven years of bad luck that seems to accompany the breaking of mirrors except this has gone on much longer than seven years. Instead, it seems that I have a sign emblazoned on every car that I drive that says, “please hit me and ruin my day.”

And it's a......

So I had my ultrasound yesterday. I freaked myself out a bit by looking up all the various conditions that doctors look for with the 20 week ultrasound. Not a smart move. Do not follow my example. I ended up spending the morning and early afternoon worrying unnecessarily. “Oh my goodness, what if my baby has [fill in the blank].” Repeat ab libitum. Combine this worry with having to chug 32 ounces of water and then hold it for two and a half hours and you have a recipe for misery. And then? Once one gets to the appointment and into the room, the technician checks a couple of things (seriously, just a couple of things), and then she/he says, “you can go to the bathroom before we proceed with the rest of the appointment.” Which, you know, is nice of them and all but…..Seriously? You really needed to torture me for two hours with close to unbearable pressure on my bladder for a picture or two? It just proves to me that this is a male dominated field, because no woman who has gone through pregnancy would ever think that this was a good idea.

I found myself underwhelmed by the whole ultrasound experience. I guess I expected a feeling of connection to the image on the screen—a moment of bonding between parent and child—and perhaps get a bit emotional. In the end, I was oddly detached. I partly credit this to incredibly awkward angle in which I had to position myself in order to even view the screen (and even then I was still looking at it from below and to the side). Plus, as everyone knows, ultrasound images are grainy and blurry at best. I found myself getting a headache from the trying to see the screen from my position and then make sense of any of the images.

Early into the screening, Mr. F. and the technician started chuckling. “Are you interested in knowing the sex?” she said, as she chuckled and moved the wand around. I looked at the screen trying to find what was so amusing. Not being an expert at reading ultrasound images, I was still a bit confused (and frustrated with the awkward position at which I was forced to view the screen). However, it appeared that both Mr. F. and the technician found a certain bump on the screen to be amusing. “I mean, I am just looking around and taking measurements, but it seems pretty apparent what kind of baby you are going to have.” I took from her comments that it was very clear that we are baking a boy in this little oven of mine.

What to say. I was disappointed. And yes, I feel a bit traitorous admitting that (the mother guilt starts already). Both Mr. F. and I had thought that this baby might be a girl. Granted, this thought was based entirely on first fleeting impressions—nothing factual at all. But the fact that we both had similar impressions made me think that they might actually mean something. I didn’t realize the extent to which I had convinced myself that I was having a girl until the technician said and the ultrasound showed me the complete opposite. I was devastated. And as odd as this may sound, I really felt like I needed a mourning period, however brief, to mourn for the loss of this possibility—for this daughter of mine. On top of this I felt ashamed of my behavior. I could tell Mr. F. was just really excited-not because it was a boy-but for the experience of seeing our child on the screen and for finding out more about this little person in our life, and he wanted me to be excited too. I could tell this, yet that didn’t stop me from falling into a bit of a funk. I was this <-> close to breaking down into sobs on the drive back home.

What saved me was a call to my sister. She counseled me and “talked me off the ledge” so to speak. She reminded me that all my fears regarding boys: they are difficult, they are destructive, they are crazy, they are gross, they pee everywhere, etc., were entirely dependent on the character of the baby. She told me crazy girl baby stories and then contrasted them with angel boy baby stories. She reminded me about the cute boy clothes out there and explained how easier it was to dress boys than girls. She then told the news to my nephew M, who is 6. He was SO EXCITED! So, so excited. Not five minutes after learning that he was going to have a boy cousin, he was already planning on bunking with said cousin at the yearly summer beach trip. It is hard to remain depressed in the face of so much enthusiasm. (And I am not even about to burst his bubble by mentioning that this boy cousin of his won’t be much fun for another few years.)

After talking with my sister, I found myself excited for this baby boy of ours. I even had a great conversation with my dad where we brainstormed ridiculous boy names: Udolfo, Fitzwilliam, Allgernon, Bubba, etc. I then spent some time looking over boy portion of my baby name list (names with actual possibilities versus those that my dad I and I came up with) and got very excited with the idea that perhaps one of them will be the perfect match. So you can see that at the very least I am resigned and at the very most I am quite excited. However, it wouldn’t hurt to hear more wonderful things about boy babies, so if you have any anecdotes, please share.

19 Weeks

Fact: It is much more interesting to see other’s pregnancy progression than your own.

It was so fun to see the growing belly of my co-worker; she is 10 weeks ahead of me in this pregnancy game. I got very excited when she was showing more and more. I do not, however, have the same enthusiasm for my changing physique. In fact, it is hard for me to retain any self-esteem as day by day my girth increases. I need to start chanting the mantra that Mr. F. introduced to me yesterday: Pregnancy is the new Pretty.

Fact: Hormones can take you on a heck of a carnival ride.

Based on the early part of my pregnancy, I thought I was going to sail through this pregnancy thing without much hormonal melodrama. *snort!* Now I realize that it just takes time for your hormones to ramp up to sufficient melodrama levels. Emotionally, I feel like I have just stepped off of a wild carnival ride with the ground and my surroundings still in motion. I go from anger one minute to depression the next quickly followed by some other new feeling shortly after. At times, I simply don’t know what to do with myself.

Fact: I am housing a living being.

I was nervous when my midwife asked me at my 17 week appointment if my baby was active or not, and I hadn’t felt anything yet. This worry increased when my advisor asked me a week later if I had felt anything. “No,” I said. “But then again, I don’t know what I am supposed to be feeling.” She said the best description she had heard was that the movements felt like a silverside swimming and flipping about. A couple of days later, I felt exactly that. I felt like I had a fish stuck “down there”, swimming around with the occasional bumping against the bowl that was my uterus. On Sunday, however, I felt what must be an actual foot or hand knocking against the barrier. It is exciting, but also weird.

Fact: I have become less modest about my body and its issues.

I have heard that women become less modest as they give birth. However, I think it might start earlier than right at the moment of birth, or perhaps it is just me. In any case, I have found myself lately a little bit less modest when it comes to talking about my nether regions. For example, I am going to share with you two items that have saved my bottom. The first is wet wipes. People, they aren’t just for babies. Sometimes a person’s bottom just can’t deal with the dry stuff. I find this is increasingly the case as I become more and more pregnant. The second item is bum cream. Increased pressure to your bottom region is SO NOT FUN. Having a sore bottom is SO NOT FUN. This magical cream soothes a lot of problems, and it can be a useful item even if you aren’t pregnant. Sure, mock me if you will, but there will come a time when you might take these words and suggestions a little more seriously.

Fact: Heartburn is a real phenomenon and it sucks.

Prior to being pregnant, I didn’t really experience heartburn. And sure, I was a bit unsympathetic to Mr. F.’s heartburn plights. “What do you mean you can’t eat tomatoes?! What am I supposed to fix? Everything has tomatoes in it!” I am sure Mr. F. is finding my heartburn woes now sweet justice to my insensitivity of the past. It was Mr. F. who had to identify my symptoms as those of heartburn, since I was pretty clueless. He also had to practically force feed me Tums after I ignored his kind suggestions for weeks on end. In any case, I have learned that some foods just aren’t my friend. I am hoping that all the old wives tales are true, and my persistent heartburn indicates that I will birth a baby with lots of hair.

p.s. Don’t forget to take the poll!

Poll

I have an ultrasound appointment this Wednesday. Mr. F. and I are hoping that the baby will cooperate and give us an idea of its sex. In celebration, I thought I would run a poll to see what sex my readers think baby F. will turn out to be. You will find the poll located on the right sidebar. As you can tell, I am not ruling out alien abduction as a possibility.

Teenage-Approved

Mr. F. and I were the parents to three teenagers last week. We have done this two times before for this particular family, so we knew what we were getting into. As these particular kids are really well behaved and pretty self-managing, I only really stressed about one thing: what am I going to feed them all week. I stress about this not because they are picky eaters, rather because I have a need for people to love my food. And even if Mr. F. is technically the one cooking (as he did this week), I still want the kids to like to food because I am the one who decides the menu. In the past, we have had a few misses--like the bean chili with goat cheese recipe I tried out for the first time on them. (It wasn’t a favorite with me either.) This year though, I think we were successful. We received positive reviews both from the kids at the time and afterwards via the parents.

The Menu:

Spicy Chicken Sandwiches: I am not a huge sandwich person--meaning that I very rarely clip recipes involving sandwich making of any sort. It seems like sandwiches are the sort of food items that shouldn’t need a recipe. This is probably why I never really like the sandwiches I make for myself—I am not very inventive and they aren’t very good. Something however, made me clip this particular recipe and try it out. I am glad I did because it is very tasty. Some notes: I have used both chicken breast halves and chicken tenders. I think the tenders are easier. The mayo is a must. We used whatever tortilla chips we had on hand to great effect (although I am sure it would change the nutritional info.)

Baked Ziti: Again, I am not a huge baked ziti fan. Probably because I have been unimpressed with all the examples I have tasted. I always thought lasagna to be much preferred. However, I came upon this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated and it is Yum-my, with a capital Y. This was by far the favorite of the week with the kids willingly eating leftovers. Can you really go wrong with pasta and lots of cheese? I don’t think so.

Burritos ala Chipotle style: this was an easy, peasy, slap-it-together kind of meal. Beans, cheese, salsa, guacamole, tortillas and Chipotle style rice. It takes as long to put together as it takes the rice to cook. We had the kids build their own which they liked too. Bonus: minimal cleanup. (Can I even really call this a recipe? Questionable.)

Corn Chowder. I love this soup. I love this soup so much that I have already blogged about it, so I won’t belabor the point. I wasn’t sure, however, how it would translate over to a teenage audience. Was it a bit yuppy for them, with the different flavors and textures? I think it received the weakest acclimation at the time, but I did see one of the boys go back for seconds. This made my heart pitter patter with culinary joy. Plus, we made a ton of it (doubled the recipe unnecessarily) and it was done by the end of the week.

This took the kids until a few days before their parents came home. It was at this point, Mr. F. turned into a piggy piggy (aka, succumbed to the swine flu) and quarantined himself at our house. I ended up having a number of engagements in the late afternoon/early evening which prevented me from cooking, so the last few days of our stay the kids resorted to eating leftovers one evening and frozen pizza the next. Oh well. I think they survived.

So there you have it: four teenage-approved recipes. However, I also humbly submit that adult audiences might also find them appealing as well.

Wherein Lady Susan waxes poetical about mattresses

Most of my life, I have slept on pretty inferior mattresses, from the mattress I slept on for my entire existence at home, to my grandmother’s twin mattress of indefinite age that I took to college, to the really cheap futon I slept on in Pasadena, to finally, the nicer futon that I slept on until I married. I wasn’t too picky with my mattresses as long as they were firm and available.

Prior to our marriage, Mr. F. and I determined that it would be best to purchase a new bed. He solicited my advice as to what type I would prefer, and I remained pretty ambivalent. As long as it was a decent quality, firm mattress, I was going to be happy. After all, pretty much anything was a step up from anything I had ever owned. It soon became apparent though that Mr. F. had a definite agenda when it came to mattress shopping. He didn’t want just any mattress; he was pretty much convinced that only this mattress could make him really happy.

I however, was not convinced that we needed to use up most of our savings to buy the Taj Mahal of mattresses, especially as we deemed it necessary to buy a King size. (Hey! We both like our space.) However, the more we tried it out, the more my frugality wavered—it was a really nice mattress: firm but yielding. I felt my resolve weaken. In the end (and what I probably thought at the time was against my better judgment), we took the plunge and bought the bed.

My dear readers: I am here to testify to you, that this has been, by far, the best choice we as a couple have ever made. I can’t begin to tell you the many, many hours I have enjoyed of sublime and restful sleep. This bed has been worth every single penny we spent on it, and I have absolutely no regrets. The only downside? It will spoil every other mattress for you. It used to be that I could sleep on any mattress fairly comfortably. Now? Let’s just say that once you are used to sleeping on Cloud 9, everything else just doesn’t cut it. After being away for any length of time (like all of last week, for example), it is not uncommon for Mr. F. and I to greet our bed with a fond embrace. We might even go so far as to sing its praises and to say how we are so sorry we had to be parted for so long. You see, when we invested in this bed, we invested in a relationship--a wonderful, giving relationship. My advice to you: Invest in such a relationship. Invest in a fantastic mattress. I am a firm believer that a good night’s sleep is priceless.

“They’re right to keep their distance from us. We are still dangerous.”

Mr. F. is sick with the flu. I don’t necessarily blame him for this as the flu has gained epidemic status at his place of work with at least twelve people from his department alone succumbing to the disease. What I am not too pleased about is that in a fit of gallantry and self-preservation of his gene pool, Mr. F. has imposed a quarantine upon himself which means I am not allowed in the same room as him for any length of time. Rationally, this makes sense. I have no desire to be pregnant AND miserably sick with the flu. I especially do not relish the return of any nausea and vomiting, having just recovered from two-three months of those symptoms. However, logic and feelings are two separate bedfellows and against my better judgment, I find myself wanting to smother Mr. F. with kisses, hug him until he bruises, and find a way to stuff him in my pocket so that I can carry him around with me 24/7. In fact, I seem to be MORE attracted to Mr. F. now, when he possesses the greatest threat to me. Could it be because he has finally reached the Dangerous status?

Edward Cullen: I'm a killer.
Isabella Swan: I don't believe that.
Edward Cullen: That's because you believe only the lies... the camouflage. I'm the world's most dangerous predator, Bella. Everything about me invites you in. My voice, my face, even my smell. As if I would need any of that... as if you could out run me... as if you could fight me off. I'm designed to kill.
Isabella Swan: I don't care.
Edward Cullen: I've killed people before.
Isabella Swan: It does not matter.
Edward Cullen: I wanted to kill you at first. I've never wanted a human's blood so much, before.
Isabella Swan: I trust you.
Edward Cullen: Don't.

That’s right. It appears that I am living my own little Twilight Saga here. Everything about Mr. F.’s current condition from his sick, woebegone face to his deep, manly voice seems to "invite me in.” I find myself relating to insipid Bella Swan and not caring that his breath and touch could kill me (or at least lay me low for a couple of weeks.) I ask you dear readers (since following Bella’s example will only get me into trouble), how do I fight the lure and save my immortal soul?