eating for two

I've had several times in my life where I've kept a food diary, usually as part of a class, school assignment, or in some effort to lose weight and eat better. It was always revealing, usually humbling, and sometimes highly amusing, highlighting my food cravings like a gigantic yellow Sharpie pen.

(Actually, I'd usually end up doctoring the diaries, especially if I was going to show them to someone, even more so if I was going to get a grade out of them. I knew how I was supposed to eat, but I just didn't, so I would spend ten or fifteen minutes creating the diet I knew I should have, with some carefully placed "indulgences" so that it didn't look like I'd fudged it. Consequently, I got great grades/remarks, earned the nutritional praise of whomever I was trying to impress, and never lost any weight.)

If I would have kept a diary of my food intake since the beginning of this pregnancy, I still think it would be revealing, humbling, probably sobering, and amusing still. Some things I have done right: I've not had one drop of alcohol, I've kept my caffeine intake to the bare minimum, and I have not eaten things like raw cookie dough or fresh sushi or tuna steaks or Brie even though I LOVE ALL THOSE FOODS. So I get an A+ for toxic food avoidance, right?

Other things... well, I don't know. I'll probably earn the ire of every mommy reading this (all, like, TWO of you) when I tell you that I have not been good about taking my prenatal vitamins. There. I said it. It's out there. They make me violently ill, even the fruity chewable Flintstone and the slightly tasty chocolatey chewable Viactiv ones. In fact, any pill makes me gag uncontrollably as I take it, makes me feel mildly nauseous right after I take it, and then makes me want to hurl exactly 45 minutes to one hour after I take it. This never happened before pregnancy - I always prided myself on my ability to swallow any pill, no matter how foul or big, with minimal fluids and no gag - but it's here now. I've heard every piece of advice and hint imaginable, including but not limited to: take it right before you go to sleep, take it on a full stomach, take it on an empty stomach, take it with applesauce, and the ever-popular "did-you-ask-the-doctor-for-something" question, followed quickly by the "is-there-anything-he/she-said-you-can-take" question? To the first question: YES, I HAVE ASKED. MANY TIMES. To the second question: NO, THERE IS NOT, as the existing anti-nausea medications out there are only in pill form, at least for those of us not hospitalized.

My friend Rachel tells me that preggy women tend to crave the nutrients their bodies need the most, so in addition to chewing on well-fortified cereals a lot (and occasionally torturing myself out of massive mommy guilt with the occasional prenatal vitamin and subsequent nausea), I've tried to listen to what I'm craving. At first, I tried to eat what I thought I should be eating, like a fresh salad. Except that a couple of hours after I had that salad, I entered the bathroom and didn't come out for a good 45 minutes. And kept visiting. Often. It might have been that particular salad, but it left a pretty strong aversion to anything green and leafy. After a few more attempts at meals like that, I threw my hands up and said FORGET IT. Clearly, my body is not liking what I am doing, so I'm going to eat what it is asking for.

What has it been asking for lately?

CHEESE.

You could have probably guessed that, given my recent rhapsodic post about the blue box and macaroni and cheese in general. Shortly after that, I purchased a loaf of honey oat bread AND a stack of white American cheese and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich. "Grilled" might be a loose term, as it was actually pan-fried in a cast-iron skillet with cooking spray and a little butter. But oh, was it good. And whenever Jason asks me what I would like for dinner and gives me possible suggestions, I always think, is there cheese somewhere in there? And generally, if the answer is yes, then it's for dinner. That food diary I mentioned earlier? It would show grilled cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, some sort of pasta and marinara with cheese, and pizza (with cheese, of course) over the past 2-3 weeks.

My stomach has been happy with this arrangement. And there seems to be much truth to what Rachel told me, as I recently read that our baby's skeleton, previously made up of rubbery cartilage, is now busy turning into real bones over the last few weeks. You know, bones that need CALCIUM.

And the most unusual twist of this whole food saga? I weigh exactly the same now, at 18 weeks along, as I did before I got pregnant. All my clothes are mucho tight around the waist, the girls are growing like they are preparing to feed not one baby but the entire U.S. Armed Forces, and I am still the same weight. My face is thinner, confirmed not just by my own reflection in the mirror, but several comments from friends and family. I have not exercised (yes, another point of criticism - tsk away if you must). I have not tried to lose weight. I have eaten a LOT of cheese. And red meat. And assorted other foods that aren't low in fat. It's actually almost disturbing, except that I know it's only temporary, and in a few short months, I'll feel like the Goodyear blimp and waddle around, wishing for smaller days.

100 things about me: 15 more

Since I published my extensive, almost-exhaustive list of 100 things about myself, I have seen at least 4 other people I know do the same. Inspiring creativity and prose from others with my own excessive navel-gazing warms my heart and makes my toes tingle, folks. I encourage you to jump on the bandwagon, wherever your platform may be, whether it's your own blog, Facebook, MySpace, or e-mail. On second thought, don't do it on MySpace, 'cuz I deleted my account there and I won't be able to read yours and learn about you.

Writing the original 100 was a difficult task. Thinking of about 10 billion more things in the days that followed the posting was insanely easy, except that I mostly neglected to write many of them down, so now I'm trying to remember them all. And not remembering them quickly is probably a good thing, because I thought of 99% of them while I was driving, several were probably "I hate/detest/can't stand" comments about Orlando drivers and local traffic, and anyway, do you really want me to hold up a green light while I finish writing these things? I didn't think so, you impatient lot.

But y'all inspired me again, so here are some more things. It kept me from brooding about work for a good hour or so.

101. I would want Anne Hathaway to play me in a movie about my life.
102. I don't really look like Anne Hathaway, but I look a lot more like her than I do, say, Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, or Scarlett Johanssen.
103. There aren't many bad situations in my life that can't be made better by a good chicken parmigiana sub.
104. My favorite day of the week is Sunday. Sunday morning, to be specific.
105. I don't like watching American Idol.
106. I am on Facebook way too much.
107. 75% of my clothes are from Old Navy.
108. I read the obituaries almost every day, mostly to see if any former patients are listed.
109. I sometimes go to their funerals.
110. I'm most definitely a cat person.
111. I know what the word "pannus" means. It's not dirty.
112. If I've driven it at least once, I will always remember how to get from one location to another, no matter how much time has passed.
113. I love birthdays, and I still get excited about my birthday each year, even when I am at an age where most people I know wish that they were younger.
114. I also love getting gifts, and I'm not afraid to say it!
115. I am, unfortunately, really bad at remembering other peoples' birthdays.

doubting it all

Last night, I had a rough time of it at work. One of my younger patients had a very overprotective and overtired parent who chose my conversational moment with him to unleash his frustration. Yelled at me enough that I think I feigned calm for all of ten seconds until I could get out of his way, then ran into the bathroom and totally burst into tears. I have never grown that ability to shake things off like most of my coworkers have, the ability to not only not take moments like that personally, but to stay in the moment and turn it around to something lovely and positive. To add insult to injury, when the morning came, I had to tell the day nurse, back for another day with this patient and family, why the patient was no longer my patient: I'd had to switch with another night nurse who was more familiar with the patient and with whom the family was much more comfortable. I am telling this story with no small amount of wound-licking: I did all that I could and sweat bullets over this patient for the first few hours of my shift, and it was thrown back into my face like I didn't care. Right after recounting the story, I look over into the patient's room - and there is the parent. I know that there is quite a bit of whirring and buzzing and whooshing in patients' rooms already from all the various machines we use, and there are so many loud conversations going on at the nurse's station anyway, but I was still afraid he'd heard me, and now had yet more fuel for his fire. Ugh.

And sometimes, after yet another night of locking myself in the bathroom and crying my eyes out because of something that happened to me during my shift, I wonder if I've made the right choice. In a way, I can't even allow myself to think that, after all the hard work and BST (blood, sweat, tears) it took for me to get my nursing degree, as well as all the loans I've borrowed and the looming bills ahead. But I still wonder. A hermit's life looks so much more appealing after nights like these, when all hell breaks loose and you haven't even been at work for a full hour of the twelve you will work. I have prayed and tried and begged for years for a tougher skin, a more calloused set of emotions, and that just ain't happenin', folks. I will always be what my mom once termed "hypersensitive", which is terrific if you are a poet or some other reclusive type of artist, but not so great when you deal with injured people and their relatives, day in and day out. So many of my patients (and their families) are really wonderful and appreciative of the job I do, and I am grateful for them. Not ten minutes after I had made it out of the bathroom with red-rimmed eyes did another patient tell me how wonderful it was to have me as his nurse for the past several nights... and it almost made me cry again in gratitude. It's just the ones who think you don't care or didn't just spend the last hour practically neglecting your other, more stable patients to help their family member who become like a nasty scar you will never lose.

I'm sorry this post sounds like such a massively negative pity party. It is, really. I promise to come back soon with some more positive postings when I don't feel like burying my head in my pillow and crying.

oh, the irony

Recently, a very memorable, unforgettable patient was discharged from our trauma floor after "living" with us for quite some time. So that the HIPAA Gestapo do not come running after me with sharp objects, I won't disclose too many details about who this patient was or the sordid details of her very sordid injuries, except that they were not pretty and required many weeks of healing and grafts and stuff. And when I tell you that this patient was, quite possibly, the most challenging patient of my very short nursing career thus far, it still doesn't fully paint the picture, but anyone I work with will know EXACTLY who I am talking about. Because everyone I work with has been her nurse at some point, and knows very personally and intimately the struggle of caring for such a patient who grates on your last remaining nerve.

I was talking to a close friend about this patient (HIPAA, I was good! I promise!) and how drained I would be after just half a shift of caring for this patient. So she asks me to explain why this patient was so much more challenging than some of the other patients I've had. Well, I tell her, where do I begin? First, she cried ALL NIGHT LONG. ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Without a break, without taking time to sleep. When awake, you could hear the cries all over the unit - you couldn't escape them. Secondly, she cried aloud about everything, and it was a constant struggle to keep her placated because her communication skills stunk. Was she cold? Hot? Hungry? Thirsty? And she needed help with EVERYTHING. Even the simplest of things, like pulling her sheets up or down, or changing the channel on her TV. She pooped and peed constantly. We were constantly wiping her backside, a process which made her cry even more and sometimes even pee and poop while we were cleaning her. Her nurse had to go in every five minutes. She was calm once you were in the room with her, but then began the cries again the moment you left. You couldn't get anything else done, like charting or taking care of your other patients, for more than a five minute stretch. I mean, how could ANYONE put up with this, day after day, night after night?

And when I am done telling my friend this story, I am genuinely frustrated in remembrance of the struggle. Somehow, my friend is shaking. Hard. Tears streaming down her cheeks. Biting her lip to keep from letting out a huge, raucous guffaw. Well, I'm pissed! How dare she laugh at me?

Then it hits me exactly why she's laughing, exactly why she is probably just waiting for August and the following months after that, excited to see just how well I'm going to adjust to motherhood after telling a story like this.

addendum

I will never, ever eat macaroni and cheese again. 4am was blissful, then around 8am, in the middle of morning rehearsal, there were major cramps. Not the oh-my-god-call-the-OB cramps, but the other type, the kind both boys and girls can get when they eat something they shouldn't. I forgot how sensitive my stomach has become since becoming pregnant. I don't need to elaborate any more than that.

I'm going to lay down now. The stampeding herds of wildebeests in my stomach are fighting again.

One big confession: my secret love

It's 3 in the morning. Actually, since tonight was the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, the night where you set your clocks forward with no amount of joy, it's really 4am. But all my clocks still say 3am, except for my super-smart, time-sensing MacBook, which says the actual corrected time. Traitor. (But, he'll make sure I'm on time for church this morning.)

Working nights has screwed with my sleep schedule. If it weren't for Jason, I'd probably become a permanent night owl, sleeping during every day and awake during every night. I'm fine on the nights I work - I don't get too sleepy - but nights like these when I try and share a bed with my husband, I inevitably wake up at 3am, hungry and surprisingly energetic, unable to go back to sleep. I have to do something about the hunger, but my repertoire is limited because I don't want to wake Jason up, nor do I want to make the trek in my jammies across town to the one, somewhat local 24-hour supermarket to get ingredients I didn't think to buy during the daylight hours. You know, when I was probably sleeping.

I woke up this early morning wanting macaroni & cheese. I love, love, love macaroni & cheese. I don't know anyone who doesn't at least like the stuff, and anyone who likes it usually falls into one of two mac & cheese preference categories: creamy vs. baked. I happen to like both, though I know the heated argument for the merits of both. I know one couple who live as a house divided on this one issue: he likes baked, she likes creamy. (On second thought, it might be the other way around, but you get my drift.) It's a powerful thing, cheese over pasta. You might even fall into one of the many sub-categories of mac & cheesers: eating yours with different additions (ham, hot dogs, vegetables), eating it smothered in ketchup, or being loyal to a certain chef's recipe (I hear Martha Stewart's version has quite the following). Personally, I prefer my mac & cheese unadulterated and pure, but I am open to different taste preferences.

Then there is that third category of mac & cheese lovers. Oh, you know what I'm talking about, folks. The subversive, underground third category, home to frazzled time-crunched mothers, broke college students and twentysomethings, and hyperactive kids seeking an afterschool snack.

The Blue Box.



I know. How could I proclaim my love for a gourmet foodie site like Tastespotting and betray it by saying this?

I love this stuff. I'll admit it, I do. I think it has to be some sort of guilty pleasure, left over from I don't know when, because I *never* ate this stuff growing up. My mom, firmly in the creamy mac & cheese camp, always made delicious homemade, never out of the box. I loved that, too. If it weren't 3 (er, 4) am, I'd call her up to get the recipe and post it for you. Occasionally I'd spy boxes of it at friends' houses and come home later, begging my mom for some, and she'd get this scrunched up look of disgust on her face like I was asking to eat fried rat tails for dinner. And then she'd make the real thing and I'd be perfectly happy. But once I was in college, I was on my own. I didn't own a car then, the grocery store was too far away to access by foot, and the campus convenience store didn't carry fresh cheese and butter. What they did have, however, were the blue boxes. Cheap. Right next to the ramen noodles, which I never liked no matter how many times I tried. You could put the blue boxes on the student food account, too, and never actually see the 94 cents come out of your pocket. I remember many an all-nighter with some no-butter-added mac & cheese from the box as my sole source of brain food. (That might explain the quality of some of my term papers, but I digress...). It became the meal to eat when I couldn't stomach whatever the cafeteria was (re)serving that night. Never mind that my mom lived a whopping ten minutes away and would probably have been more than happy to spare me the experience of the blue box - I still ate it the Kraft version with relish. (Well, not actual relish - ew.) Later, I discovered that Publix makes an acceptably-tasty generic version of the blue box (also in their own blue box) for less coin. Kraft still wins the taste contest, though, and in my frugal mind, it's well worth the extra quarter for a little powdered luxury.

So tonight, when the 3am hungries hit, what do you think I made? Yep. Enjoyed every bite, and had enough left over to enjoy it again another time. Washed it down with Gatorade of roughly the same orange hue. I varied it a little from my college days: I used real butter and milk.

Oh, I want to make my son the real thing, like my mom made for me, from real cheese, not powdered. I might even adopt her scrunchy face of disgust whenever he asks me, "Mom, can we get the box kind?" It doesn't require much preparation or cooking, just a little forethought to buy the 3-4 extra ingredients you need, versus just the blue box and whatever milk/butter you might have at home already. However, in these hormonal, pre-child maternity months, when cravings strike swift and fast at the strangest times of night, it's the box that wins.

By the way, did you know the blue box has quite a history? It was born in 1937 in my grandparents' youthful years, when milk and dairy were being rationed and you couldn't afford meat at every meal. Silly me, thinking it was an invention of a convenience-seeking 1970s nation. It is also called Kraft Dinner by our neighbors to the north, the Canadians, and if you go to a Barenaked Ladies concert, you can throw boxes of it onstage. Serious. They encourage it, and they donate all the boxes to charity.

love/hate, vol. 3, saturday lazy edition

love: today's beautiful blue skies and cool-not-cold temperatures

hate: the gale-force winds that whistle menacingly and make my sliding glass door rattle a lot. Sort of spoils the sunny/cool ambience thing.

love: lazy saturday afternoons to watch TV, which I hardly get to watch anymore

hate: hours of infomercials, preachy financial gurus, boring golf, and Flavor of Love mini-marathons. Where's my Saturday afternoon movie featuring 1980's Molly Ringwald?

love: making lists of possible baby names and dreaming of blue tugboats and baseball mitts

hate: most of them were either girl names (we were certain we were having a girl for a while there) or names Jason doesn't like, introducing the new fear that the baby will be permanently named It, Male One, or Junior before his parents ever make up their minds

love: the lump that once resided in my left arm turned out to be nothing to worry about, after all, confirmed by a very smart South American MD with a German last name WHOM I LOVE

hate: Patrick Swayze getting one of the the worst of all cancers. Say it ain't so, Johnny Castle!

love: Tastespotting. YUM.

hate: never actually making any of the delicious recipes from the site, spending hours instead just drooling in stupor, and finally breaking down in hunger and eating cold, blue-box macaroni & cheese at 3am

love: finally making one of the recipes - red velvet cupcakes with homemade cream cheese frosting

hate: testing them out for my friends, and somehow forgetting everyone who scarfed them down and only remembering the one person who took a tentative nibble, then left the rest of the cupcake untouched. EPIC FAIL.

love: having a baby (boy!) in the belly while my fears of Something Bad Happening are slowly fading

hate: maternity wear doesn't yet fit, regular clothes are just too tight

love: signing up for Lamaze class

hate: paying for Lamaze class

love: my funny-face cat, sleeping so hard that she wakes herself up from a (bad?) dream with these pitiful half-meows, then runs to find me and snuggle and feel safe again

hate: she sometimes does this when I am the one sleeping hard, and uses full loud meows, then practically body slams me with her full weight, stretches out over half the bed, then purrs louder than a Chevrolet to make sure I know she's there. Good thing she's so cute.

oh baby!

Jason and I went for my 15 week, 5 day ultrasound today. Yes, I was nervous. I think it comes with impending motherhood! Thankfully, we have a perfect little munchkin - absolutely nothing wrong at all, except that I am too impatient for August to arrive...



Our Skull Baby. Actually, I think this is a total rockin' out, fight-the-establishment type of kid - the top picture shows a fist raised just above the head. Killer, dude. Prepare for your first mohawk and electric guitar.



Another shot of the head (Skull Baby) in the top half, and a full body shot in the bottom half.



A tiny footprint, toes at the top (pointing at "my"). I'm already preparing some ranch dip to nibble them with come August...



And as you can see, we are having, unmistakably, a precious little boy. Jason was so sweet, getting instantly excited for all the camping, fishing, and hiking trips he's planning for his son, not to mention the hours and hours of... video games. Ah, male bonding.

My awesome OB checked all the different body parts out, and she pronounced him absolutely perfect. I couldn't agree more!

Now we just gotta think of some names...

ye olde mixe tape

Jason and I had a rare opportunity to steal away for some romantic time together: no work, no distractions, no obligations. Just two days and two nights at a very lovely, quiet bed and breakfast in historic Gainesville, blocks away from not-so-quiet UF and The Swamp. It was wonderful, mostly because we didn't try to run around and sightsee or do a whole lot of stuff. I think that part might have been a challenge for my husband - he likes to be on the go, all the time, plus we passed a bazillion horse farms on the drive to Gainesville and he practically whinnied in longing.

Since we hadn't been able to celebrate Valentime's Day the way we'd wanted to, this was a belated V-Day getaway. I made him a mix CD and channeled old memories of the most awesome mix tape I'd received as a sophomore in high school from my friend Aaron, who I'm sure still makes great music mixes. I loved that tape. Played it over and over until it was finally chewed into sad little ribbons by my crappy tape player, just days before I started college. I loved it because it was both music I'd never heard and all the songs so perfectly matched who I was and where I was at the time. To this day, I still can't hear Leonard Cohen or Modern English without remembering the bittersweet memories of teenage angst and late night visits to Denny's with the drama club.

I set out to do that with Jason, and I thought I did a good job. I wanted a mix of love songs, not completely Top 40 drivel, suited to his folksy/indie style, not too sappy, but not all songs that we'd listened to together a billion times. Here's what I came up with:

I Only Want to Be With You - Shelby Lynne
Without You – Brooke Fraser
I Don’t Want to Live Without You – Foreigner
The Way I Am – Ingrid Michaelson
Luckiest One – Ben Folds
Simple Love – Alison Krauss
Little Moments – Brad Paisley
Hold You in My Arms – Ray LaMontagne
We Build – Nichole Nordeman
Arithmetic – Brooke Fraser
Ice Cream – Sarah McLachlan
Someone Like You – Van Morrison
Looking In the Eyes of Love – Alison Krauss & Union Station
Feels Like Home – Chantal Kreviazuk
Blood of Eden – Peter Gabriel
Baby Mine – Alison Krauss

I was pretty proud of it. My two favorites were the Ben Folds song, a completely random find on iTunes that knocked me over with only a 30-second sample, and Alison Krauss singing "Baby Mine", a song from Dumbo that I loved since I was a kid. I ended the CD with that song for many obvious reasons, and I hoped that since my belly was not yet in the round-and-out-there stage, it might help make Jumping Bean seem a little more tangible to him.

That first night at the bed and breakfast was the big unveil of the CD. Would he like it? Would it move him or just get a "that's nice, babe" response?

By the time we made it to Foreigner, his cheeks were wet and so were mine. Double score!

how to raise a baby

This was shamelessly stolen from my dear friend Kelly's blog, because it made me laugh until I snorted, and I needed that after a not-so-great night at work. And also because she has a way-cool designed site now, and I am greatly jealous.