Jul

Just got an email from Real Simple with the subject line :

I don’t know what kind of kids these people have, but spinach couscous would NOT be kid-friendly in my house!!! In fact, not even sure it would be grown-up friendly…

Maybe if I pureed it in the blender, added food coloring, and mixed it with a ginormous amount of sugar (for the kids) or meat (for Craig)?

  

Feb

Although I’ve gotten much more adventurous as a grownup, it is still the case that I am a relatively picky eater. So this week’s challenge, listing out my top 10 most-hated foods, wasn’t all that hard. I challenged myself to try to NOT have the entire list be comprised of vegetables!

1. Tomatoes – I eat ketchup, tomato sauce, and even sun-dried tomatoes, but somehow fresh tomatoes just turn my stomach!
2. Brussel Sprouts – seriously, does ANYONE like these?!!
3. Sauerkraut – can’t get past the smell
4. Cottage cheese – possibly the only type of cheese I can’t stand
5. Catfish – scum-sucking bottom-dwellers just don’t do it for me somehow!
6. Pickled ANYTHING – why would you do that to food?!! WHY?!!
7. Mayonnaise – technically not a food, I realize, but VERY disgusting to me
8. Raw oysters – the texture, the smell, I don’t even get to the actual TASTE of them
9. Cucumbers & Celery – they just don’t taste like anything at all, I don’t get the point
10. Cooked spinach – love raw, but the cooked stuff…gag! It’s a texture thing.

  

Jan

1. LOBSTER – this should be multiple numbers, really, since it’s far and away the favorite…
2. Marinated steaks – cooked to perfection every week on Shabbat by my loving husband. Divine!
3. Shrimp Neuberg – not very healthy but very, VERY yummy
4. Tagalong Girl Scout cookies – I’m an addict!
5. *Good* General Tso’s Chicken
6. A nice, greasy cheeseburger
7. A genuine New-York style cheesecake
8. Perfectly prepared latkes (with sour cream and applesauce, of course)
9. Green Bean Casserole – cream of mushroom soup and fried onions, the perfect vehicle for a vegetable! %-)
10. Hash Brown Casserole – so good, it’s almost disgusting. Almost.

  

Feb

Ah, another day…another day on which my stubborn daughter-to-be will no doubt refuse to be born! Sigh… Clearly, the child has inherited both Craig’s *and* my slightly strong-willed inclinations. We are going to have our hands full! Presuming, of course, that she ever decides to be born…

I have now tried EVERYTHING that people have suggested to me as ways to induce labor, all to no avail. Naturally, Craig likes some of the induction-attempts better than others – he says it’s like we’re newleyweds again! Yesterday we even broke down and went to the drugstore in search of castor oil. Interesting product – it really is oil! I hadn’t even heard of it prior to this, but my grandmother and others recommended drinking it to try to get contractions started. I confirmed with a nurse aquantaince of ours that it wouldn’t kill me (though she maintained that Craig’s favorite induction attempt is much more likely to work . So, last night I poured a tablespoon of it into a half glass of cranberry juice, and then stared at it for a *really* long time. You know how you learn in chemistry that oil and water don’t mix? Well, oil and cranberry juice don’t either – the oil just kind of sat on top of the juice, no matter how much I stirred. It almost made me sick just *looking* at it. Finally, I got up the nerve to drink it, then went to bed happily assuming I would be having contractions within a few hours. And…nothing happened. NOTHING!!!

In terms of more concrete medical news – at the doc’s on Monday, I was maybe a nanometer more dilated than last time, but still not quite to 2 cm. (Last time I was barely 1 – Craig spins this as progress! %-). I was depressed after that, but the fact is, she is still only two days late – I can’t legitimately complain too much. The doctor won’t be inducing me this week, which is good because (though it would’ve gotten it over with) that would’ve made me nervous. If the induction doesn’t work, you have to have a c-section; and, while that is certainly not a tragedy, it is something we want to avoid if we can. Anyway, you are supposed to be dilated to at least 2 cm on your own before they induce. I go back on Friday to get checked again, and so they can do a non-stress test on the baby (they give me candy and juice and then see how much she moves in half an hour – they do this to make sure she is still okay in there, since once you go past your due date there can be problems with the placenta, etc.). The current plan is that next Monday night I will go into the hospital and they will give me some gel to soften my cervix, then on Tuesday morning they will give me an injection to induce contractions. So, everyone send contracting vibes my way, and hope the brat (oh, I mean baby! decides to come on her own before then!

Not much else to report – Craig has been very supportive of my mood swings the last few days, and very patient with my sucking up all the badnwidth from our cable modem to download songs from the internet. We’ve been going for walks every day, at a little trail near our house – interesting, because it’s been 55-60 degrees here the last few days, and today and tomorrow it might get up to 70! How bizarre would it be if my baby was born on a 70 degree day in *February*?!!

By the way, I want to say a BIG thank you to all the people who have been emailing me and calling me to check in – outside social contact helps *a lot*, and I really appreciate the distraction!

  

Feb

Today is Craig’s first day of “paternity leave” – he doesn’t have to teach again until after Vanderbilt’s Spring Break. We are both glad that he is going to be able to stay home with the baby for a while, too. We are also both wondering how long it will take us to start wearing on each other’s nerves, being home all the time…;-)

Of course, this presumes that there even *is* going to be a baby, which I am starting to doubt – I really think I might just stay pregnant forever! I’ve been employing as many of the old wives’ tales about how to induce labor as I can, though I haven’t quite been able to bring myself to track down something named castor oil and try to drink it – somehow, that just doesn’t sound appealing. But I have tried just about everything else, and so far – nada.

Now the doc is talking about inducing me one day next week. In some ways, this is appealing – I really am kind of sick of being pregnant, in case you haven’t gotten that from reading these little notes! Still, it makes me uneasy – my gut tells me the baby will come when she’s ready, and I shouldn’t rush her. Anyone have any personal experiences with labor induction? I’d be interested in hearing about it.

Today I’ve been experimenting with mp3 files. I got the idea to make a CD of the songs that people have been recommending for me to listen to during labor; but some of them are kind of random, things that might be fun for this purpose, but I probably don’t need a whole CD of, etc. So, I thought I would try to find them as mp3 files, to see if I like them, etc. I was just using the browser to search, which ended up being a real pain. I was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about. But then I downloaded a special program that searches for the files via napster and gnutella servers, and it was much easier after that.

Well, that’s pretty much my news of the day. Still no contractions to speak of – just small ones every now and again. The doctor is going out of town this weekend, so the baby will probably decide to come then! Otherwise, we got back to the doc on Monday and talk about this whole induction thing. Everyone please send contraction-vibes my way!

We’re off to try to track down some Girl Scouts now – rumor has it they are selling cookies at Kroger this week, and suddenly I am really craving those ones with the coconut and caramel…