The day I wanted to hit an old lady

Today, I am 6 months pregnant. At least, the doctor has declared that with 2-3% certainty that I will give birth in exactly 3 months (October 18th, in case anyone's counting). Which, as far as I can tell, makes today as good a day as any to share some of the... colorful? surprising? shit-tacular? things I have heard from people (mostly, but not all, strangers) about the now very obvious fact that I am growing a human.

When I was 11 weeks pregnant, a coworker said "I can see you've already lost your waistline." I was too shocked to say anything in return (plus, I was wearing a uniform at the time, which will disappear anyone's waistline faster than you can say "man pants"), but I did manage to flip her a double bird.

More recently, a grocery store employee called me a watermelon smuggler. I hadn't slept well the night before, so all she got was a blank stare until my hubby explained to me what the hell she was talking about. And by then we were out of the produce section.

Another woman asked me when I was due. Because I was in a (relatively) good mood, I leaned my shoulders back, put a hand on either side of my belly, and responded with a question of my own: "how could you tell?" I don't know why that made her uncomfortable, but it did.

This past weekend was my personal favorite (so far; I'm sure I'll need to do a follow-up between now and mid-October). At an event held by a community group I belong to, an old lady came up to me after our group leader made a speech identifying all the group members. She said, "When the leader said you were the 'member at large' I almost started laughing out loud." I wanted to hit her.

Now, you may be wondering: what is the moral of this collection of stories? There are probably several. For starters, people can be super insensitive. And men don't give a shit about how pregnant women look, only other women do. I'm sure there are others, but I'll leave those to your imagination. It's time for me to brush my teeth and try to fall asleep while being smacked around by, apparently, a watermelon I stole from the grocery store.

Backsplash

While my hubby does the majority of the sanding on our upstairs floors (prepping for a baby room), I've been feeling kinda useless. That's our big project at the moment, and I may or may not have broken my sander (we do a lot of sanding). So I decided that instead of sitting around reading baby books, I'd start my own home improvement project. Which I may or may not finish first (especially since I'm only doing part of the project for now--I'll explain later).  

Our kitchen isn't ready for a baby. Most of our cabinets don't even have doors, much less baby proof latches. But before we do cabinet doors, I want to cover up the dingy off-white paint and replace the ugly backsplash. I thought the backsplash was tacky (it's tiles that have clearly been painted various colors at various times). 

But I was in no way prepared for what was underneath. 

Who the hell thought this was a good idea? The red and checkers and hearts appear to have been hand painted (which is impressive, if appalling). The teacups and kitchen-y stuff is (gasp) wallpaper or something else glued on. So now, I'll be spending my afternoon soaking and scraping wallpaper behind the range. Maybe I should've been more satisfied feeling unproductive...

The paradox of choice

On any given day, I maybe remember 5% of what I learned in college. Recently, one thing that popped back into my brain from some forgotten corner was a concept called the paradox of choice. The idea behind this is that the more options we have when making a decision, the less satisfied we will be with the decision we ultimately make. 

The examples my professor used were peanut butter and jeans. The example that I experienced that brought it into my head was car seats. Regardless, the idea is the same: if you only have a few options, you're going to be satisfied that the one you pick is good enough. If you have a lot of options, you're not going to be satisfied unless you pick one that is perfect. Babies R Us has easily 30 car seats in the store, and 2,000 online. How the hell am I (or anyone else) supposed to know which one is the best, most perfect car seat out of 2,000? There is literally no way. 

What is the solution here? For peanut butter and jeans, I would usually just go for it. For car seats, I'm going to do more research and hope for the best. 

Time-out

Last night, I realized I needed a time-out from being pregnant. I wasn't going to do anything crazy, but I was feeling tired of just "being pregnant." It seems like as soon as you start growing another person, everyone stops being able to see you as doing or being anything else. I was at a party recently and one of my friends introduced me to several different people as "she's pregnant." Seriously. I know she meant well and was just being excited, but I was kinda hurt. I didn't stop having a name or an identity when I started being pregnant. So last night, I put down the pregnancy books and the baby registry and did something just for me. Something I haven't done in a long time. 

What I really wanted to do was sit in a hot bath and read a trashy romance novel while sipping a glass of wine, but like I said, I wasn't going to do anything crazy. I settled for sitting on the couch and reading a trashy romance novel while sipping a bottle of water (and getting up frequently to pee). I stayed up late to finish reading it, which I haven't done since Twilight (embarrassing, but true). Even though I was using my belly as a book stand, I wasnt focused on being pregnant. I was focused on the ridiculous plot of the inconsequential story. And I enjoyed every damn minute of it. 

To all the other pregnant mamas out there, don't forget to take time to keep being you. You deserve it. 

Pretzel cravings

The cravings gods are smiling on me today. Mama wants pretzels, which means mama has to make pretzels (or drive an hour to the nearest mall for a warm, chewy soft pretzel). I found a recipe that called for a cup of milk and, lo and behold, we had almost exactly a cup of milk left. Woohoo! Pretzels, here we come!

First, I warmed my milk in the microwave to 110 degrees, give or take. I poured it into the bowl of my stand mixer with the sugar and yeast and left it alone until the yeast activated. Somehow I resisted the urge to stand over it Harry Potter style and repeat "activate!" over and over until the yeasties complied... 

Once the yeasties were ready, I added the flour and salt and plugged in my stand mixer. Thanks to the kick-ass mixer my mommy got me for Christmas last year (after I called her in a panic on Thanksgiving when my old mixer crapped out after 8 years), the dough was mixed and kneaded and pulling away from the sides like a good little dough in no time. 

I oiled up the dough ball, put it back in the bowl with a warm towel to keep the yeasties happy and multiplying, and watched an episode of Property Brothers while the yeasties did their thing. After one full Property Brothers (an hour), I checked on my dough ball, and it was fluffy and ready to go. 

I boiled some water and baking soda to dip my dough in (did you know that's how pretzels become pretzel-y?) and started rolling my dough into cute little pretzel shapes. 

After a few rolls falling apart on me, I said "screw it; mama wants pretzels!" and decided I didn't give a rat's ass how they looked as long as they tasted nice and pretzel-y. So I switched to plopping balls of dough in my baking soda water and tossing them on my baking sheet. They came out tasting exactly how I wanted them, even if they weren't necessarily food blog pretty. 

The moral of the story here is that if you have the patience, make your pretzels whatever shape makes you happy. If you want a quick pretzel fix, do as I do and know that they will taste just as good. 

Preggo piña colada

Being preggo is uncomfortable. Being hot is uncomfortable. Being preggo in record-breaking heat? Yep, also uncomfortable. But not necessarily unbearable. So what's the secret to survival here?

A comfy chair, a camera, and a hummingbird feeder. And a preggo-friendly piña colada. Step one, obviously, is to make the piña colada, which is easier than you might imagine. All you need are three ingredients, four if you're not preggo and want to add rum, you jerk.

Add equal parts of coconut milk and pineapple juice to a blender (1/3 cup or so is a perfect serving size) and enough ice cubes to cover the liquid (6-8 ish). Blend until smooth. Pour into your favorite honeymoon souvenir cup and enjoy, preferably while sitting in a comfy chair with a camera and a nice view, like of a hummingbird feeder. 

Who knows what could happen next? You might even end up with a few share-worthy hummingbird photos. 

How else do you beat the heat?

A Monday morning post

If there's one thing I look forward to about Monday mornings, it's a nice hot cup of coffee. Or, depending on the weather, a nice cold glass of iced coffee. Being preggo, I know I'm supposed to keep my caffeine consumption under 200 milligrams a day, so I usually drink one cup of coffee and save the rest of my caffeine for miscellaneous chocolate cravings. That way, I know I'm not going overboard, but I don't feel like I'm depriving myself. And I'm also not counting every milligram of caffeine that enters my bloodstream. It's a win win. 

Now, as far as I'm concerned, some good creamer is an essential part of the perfect cup of coffee. Creamer is basically a combination of the classic coffee additives cream and sugar, with an infusion of other delicious flavors. But have you looked at the ingredients in coffee creamer from the store? I don't want vegetable oil in my creamer, thank you very much (which is at least a step in the right direction... I saw one once that had palm oil in it, but that's a topic for another day). 

At this point, you may be wondering how I enjoy a cup of coffee with delicious flavored creamer without all the weird ingredients. I make it myself. It's super easy, and healthier, as far as I can tell. There are two basic ingredients:  

Combine equal(ish) amounts of milk and sweetened condensed milk in a resealable container, add whatever flavoring you want, and shake it all together. Like I said, super easy. It costs about the same as the creamers you'd find at the store (the condensed milk is about $2 a can), lasts as long as the milk, and doesn't have any scary ingredients. Plus you can put it in a cute container like this one: 

How you want to flavor your creamer is completely up to you, but I'll share a couple of my favorites in case you need a jumping off point. Vanilla extract and cinnamon make a delightful cinnamon roll creamer. Simple vanilla is nice, too. Start with a teaspoon or so of vanilla, and add as your little heart desires. Or sprinkle in some pumpkin pie spice for the fall/winter/anytime you miss pumpkin. Just remember to shake well before using. What other coffee creamer flavors do you enjoy?