and then there were four…

I just wanted to post this delicious recipe that I tried tonight. I’ve made Butternut Squash Risotto before, and it was good, but we thought it was missing something. After doing some research, I found this recipe and it is so good. The sage & nutmeg really bring the recipe home.

A few tweaks on my part: I didn’t use white wine, because we didn’t have any (and I don’t even know if cooking with it is good if you are pregnant anyway). Instead I added a dash of cream at the end, which helped make it super creamy and yummy. I also used fresh roasted Butternut Squash, which is so easy to do: Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, place face down on a cookie sheet lined with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

The butternut squash helps make the dish very buttery without a lot of butter. Also: I didn’t use a whole onion. I used maybe 3/4 of one, and it was perfect for us.

Olivia loved it also, so it is a good dish for little ones. The creamy consistency probably helps.

On a side note: I promise to post more, I’m just still really sick. Today was a bit better, but I live in a constant nauseous state. I keep telling myself “2 1/2 more weeks” until I am out of the 1st trimester. HOPEFULLY the nausea will subside. But, in all honesty, if being sick is something I have to be in order to produce a healthy baby, I won’t complain. :o)

So, I’ve been REALLY bad and haven’t posted in over ten days.

But I have a really good explanation for this lapse in writing.

I’ve been dealing with a very special type of sickness. They call it “morning sickness” but it affects me all day long, and it is totally draining me of any energy I may have had after taking care of Olivia all day that I would have used for writing. But, it is the most wonderful sickness in the world, because of course, it means I’m going to have another baby!

We waited a teeny bit longer this time to tell everyone (I’m 8 weeks along this time, instead of the 5 weeks I was last time), because we needed the ultrasound confirmation and I had NO clue as to how far along I was. I haven’t had a period since before I became pregnant with Olivia, so I didn’t realize I was ovulating. Don’t hate!

Now, this is not to say the baby wasn’t “planned”, because technically we had planned to start trying as soon as my body had gotten back on track. We assumed this meant I would have had Olivia completely weaned, off of the birth control a few months, had a couple of periods, etc. We assumed we would be fertile again sometime in the beginning of 2008, possibly the spring. Apparently, we are super-fertile, as I stopped taking the birth control (progesterone only, mini-pills I was taking since I was also breastfeeding) in October (a little more than 2 months ago) and I am a little more than 2 months pregnant. Go figure.

So, now, Olivia has been completely weaned (as of last Sunday) and I am 8 1/2 weeks pregnant. It happened a bit sooner than anticipated, but, that just means we’ll have a summer-time baby! My tentative due date is July 20th. My cousin and his wife are pregnant with their second child and their due date is July 7th, which is pretty cool. All of the cousins have a “buddy” close in age to them. Olivia and my cousin’s son are 4 months apart, and now TheDeuce (as Bill sometimes likes to call him/her) will be very close in age to my other cousin’s child. Plus the cousins’ respective other children are 8 months apart.

We saw such a strong heartbeat and I feel so confident this pregnancy will be okay that we decided to go ahead and get the good news out, so people could keep us in their thoughts, prayers, etc. I know anything can happen, but I feel good about this little butterbean.

Everyone says “Oh, maybe you’ll have a boy this time.” As if I was disappointed that I had a girl the first time, or that in order to be “complete” you have to have one of each. At least, that is how it sounds to me. Personally, we don’t care which sex child we have, just so long as the baby is healthy. Yes, it would be pretty cool to have a boy and see what raising a boy would be like, however, the idea of having two little girls just melts your heart also, so it doesn’t matter! Looking back at Olivia’s pictures from when she was a teeny little baby made me realize that it didn’t matter one little bit, because this baby is already so loved. We won’t be finding out the baby’s sex either, because we like a surprise. Sure, it might be cool to know ahead of time, but I feel that finding out when the doctor pulls the baby out is an amazing experience. We didn’t know what Olivia was until she was laying on my stomach and they had to practically pry her little legs open.

One caveat: Unless we can figure out an amazingly awesome girl name, this baby better hope it’s a boy. Right now we have no clue for a girl’s name, and we are just going with the same name we had chosen for a boy the first go-round. I’m searching for one that isn’t too trendy, classic enough without being generic, and something people can pronounce. Also, it can’t be too long. Apparently Bill has an issue with really long names (haha). It should also lend itself to a decent enough nickname. Olivia is usually “Liv” or “Livie”, and Bill usually calls me “Nat”. His family really has a thing with shortening names, because it seems EVERYONE is called something shorter than their given name. Also, I feel like Olivia’s name is just perfect for her, and I want nothing less for our next child.

I guess it isn’t very fair (or right) of me to say that the baby should hope it is a boy, but…I just want the right name, and right now I’m not feeling the love that I felt when I realized I had fallen for the name “Olivia”. I mean, it’s a huge responsibility, naming a person. Sure, if they don’t like their name they can file a change of name when they are of age, but do you know how expensive it is to change your name? Part of my job at the newspaper was to write/run the name change ads, it can cost over $1000. This is just for the ad portion, not counting the court costs, filing costs, etc. Why place the extra burden on the child by naming them something they are unable to live with? I’m sure if we found out the sex of the baby we could alleviate (or perhaps elevate) our name-anxiety, but, it’s fun to wait (really, it is!). I’m sure we’ll find something. We have 7 months. Send your suggestions! I’m not opposed to taking names from others, just make sure it isn’t a name you want to use for your future child. I don’t want to be a “name stealer”. hahaha

Another added bonus of not finding out the sex: we get to test-drive all of the old-wives’ tales. I wish we had done that more thoroughly with Olivia, kept better track of it, because it would have been pretty cool to see which ones panned out and which ones didn’t, and then use the data from my pregnancy with Olivia and the pregnancy of this baby to figure out if any of them were remotely accurate. God, I’m a nerd.

It was really cute when I told my mama we were pregnant again. We had not been able to find plane tickets (see, God works in mysterious ways…he had a reason for me not to fly, methinks!), so I called her up and said “Well, it looks like we won’t be coming for Christmas.” And my mom was like “yeah, I figured as much.” (she sounded so upset!) And then I said, “Because it really isn’t all that good to fly during your first trimester.” And she just started crying (happy tears, of course!).

Now, it is okay to fly in your first trimester, most people agree it won’t necessarily harm the baby, but there may be an increased risk of miscarriage from some reports and studies shown, especially if you will be flying in those tiny little planes with unpressurized cabins (as was the case with at least one leg of our trip), so we decided to err on the side of caution and not fly. We’re planning a trip in late January/early February right now.

My mom says she “wants” another girl. I told her we weren’t having those types of conversations, and if she continued to say stuff like that we wouldn’t have baby-related conversations. I never want my child to think that we (or anyone in the family, for that matter) had preferred one sex over the other. NEVER. Of course she said that she would love either sex the same, and I know she means that, but I still don’t like that line of thinking. I also told her she wasn’t allowed to poo-poo all of my name choices, which was a waste of breath, as she has already complained about one name in particular, calling it an “old lady” name and that she didn’t like it. What does it say about me that it is one of my current top contenders? The more I think about her disliking it, the more I like it. I’m awful, I know. Perhaps that’s the “moodiness” all of the pregnancy sites are talking about. My own passive-aggressive moodiness to be sure, but moodiness.

Looks like I’ll have to rename the blog. I’m thinking “And then there were four…” However, I’m always open to suggestion.

New Blog alert!! I am currently reading The Barmaid Blog archives. I hope to catch up soon. She’s such a talented writer. Maybe one day I will figure out how to sound more put together. One can hope, right?

I’ve just been, eh…very very busy. This month has only just begun and I already feel I am being pulled in 100 different directions. Partially because of the holidays, partially for other reasons.

Olivia is such a growntail (uh, yeah, that’s a word in my world), the other day I asked Bill if he wanted to go to the store to get some more of something and Olivia starts frantically signing “more”. Also, anytime someone says the world “Big” she raises her hands in the air, over her head. She listens to everything! I’m already having to spell words out, because if she hears the word “Go” she starts saying “bye bye, bye bye” and running to the door. The funniest thing is, whenever I ask her if she wants to eat, she will start signing “eat” but saying “mama”. Maybe because she is trying to get my attention? I don’t know, it’s rather humorous.

I’m dealing with a daddy’s girl, most definitely. Since she is now weaned from her early morning nurse, she is given her breakfast first thing, so I pop her in her seat and she starts looking around going “dada, dada” looking for Bill. My computer is set to slide show for the screen saver and anytime his picture pops up she starts running towards the desk saying “dada dada!” and pointing out all the pictures he is in. It makes my heart melt.

The one thing we both adore is how she is so convinced she is actually telling us something when she babbles. As soon as I go into her room when she wakes up either in the morning or from a nap she animatedly babbles, throwing some actual words into the mix, as if she is trying to tell me about her dream. She does the same thing to Bill as soon as he comes through the door, as if she wants to tell him, in detail, about her day. We always listen and respond, “Oh, really? What else happened?” Usually Bill will throw in a “I really wished I knew what you were saying, it sounds amazing!”

We never treat her like she can’t understand our words. I talk to her and always tell her what I am doing, what’s going on, etc. etc. I don’t use baby words or baby talk, only because I don’t want her to associate those with being actual words. I know a person with a really bad speech impediment and I don’t want to encourage any of that. I know that baby talk isn’t harmful to the child (and studies show it is actually soothing to small babies) but since we are in toddler world, and her vocabulary is expanding almost daily (she’s up to about 6 words now and there are so many more that she says I know what she means), so I want to encourage proper pronunciation as best as I can.

The best thing is that she is starting to snuggle on my lap more and more, letting me read her a couple of stories at a time instead of losing interest halfway through the first story. We always stick to the short little board books, but still, it is such an improvement over her usual short attention span I am enjoying every minute. It is so much fun to see her really look at the pages as I read and point things out. You can just see her enjoyment.

What do you think? Just have to find the right tree topper!

BTW: I think it looks nicer with natural lighting, which is why you get this shot instead of a crisp, clear, flashbulb shot.

Also, you may notice there are not very many ornaments on the bottom level of the tree. Turns out, Miss O likes to yank ‘em off. Who would’ve thought? ;o)