The beginnings of a belly

I'm beginning to feel pregnant. :D It is wonderful. Prior to this week I didn't feel pregnant at all. Even prior to this pregnancy I've been one to crave certain foods periodically, so even though I've been having crazy cravings, that did not seem new or different to me. I've also always had vivid nutty dreams, so that too does not seem new or different.

I've been waiting for the day when I can look down and notice the baby. I cannot wait to be able to feel him in there moving around and making his presence known.

I can proudly say that I can look down and notice that there's a baby in there. :D It's not really noticeable to anyone else. (Well that is not exactly true this weekend I went to a memorial for my grandma, and my mom, SIL, aunt and uncle all could tell there was a little baby bump.) My clothes are getting tighter by the day it seems. The bump is high enough now that my pants fit pretty much just fine.

I have pictures but they are in the living room, so they will come later.

Christmas in a Loaf.

I bet you all were wondering what recipe I used to make the banana bread that tastes like Christmas. :D

Even if you weren't I'll share anyway.


If you have never been, I suggest you make your way over to Smitten Kitchen. It is a glorious place to find beautiful recipes with lots and lots of "make you want to make it" photos.

She organizes her recipes by type and by ingredient so when I decided to make banana bread I looked on her site first. I knew she would have a recipe for me to use. How could she not? Banana bread is a basic recipe, one everyone must have in their repertoire. (Can I gloat that I spelt that right without looking it up? haha, but I used the wrong form of "their"...oh boy. Good thing I caught it before posting this. ;D ) 

She always has some witty explanation before the recipe and beautiful photos. So as I was scrolling down the page, I held my breath when it came to reading the actual recipe. Would I have all of the ingredients on hand? Could I make this wonderful, beautiful bread?

For the most part, yes. And like I said previously...it tastes like Christmas. :D She did not use her mixer for this recipe. But I wanted to, so that I didn't have to mash my nanners. Just one bowl for this recipe. But if you don't want to use a mixer, mash the bananas by hand. :D

Smitten's Banana Bread
See the original recipe in all its glory here: Jacked-up Banana Bread
Ingredients:
-3 to 4 ripe bananas
-1/3 cup melted salted butter
-3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar (I like things sweet, so I used 1 cup)
-1 egg, beaten
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1 tablespoon bourbon (I only had rum, and used that instead. It was scrumptious) (optional)
-1 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
-Pinch of ground cloves
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-Pinch of salt

-1 1/2 cups of flour

-Extras: ~1/4 to 1/2 c. chocolate chips; a handful of walnuts.

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Coat your 4x8 loaf pan with butter. (I like to add flour to the pan and coat the butter with it lightly. Never done this before? Add a little bit of flour, start with a Tbsp to the buttered pan. Then gently tap and rotate the pan until all of the butter is coated with flour. Tap out excess.)

2. In a large mixer bowl, add bananas and mash. Add melted butter, and mix.

3. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and bourbon (or rum). Add the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Scrape the sides as necessary. 

4. Next add the baking soda and salt. Gradually mix in the flour. It will be a runny-ish dough.

5. Extras: This part is definitely optional. But I personally don't think banana bread is quite the same without nuts. Just me? Leave them out. :D Because my husband doesn't like nuts, I added them at the very end. I poured my batter, and topped half of the loaf with them. I sprinkled that side with a little bit of brown sugar. My husband likes banana bread with chocolate chips in it, so I added chocolate chips to the other half of the loaf. It was very scientific, my method. I sprinkled the chips over the loaf then used a tooth pick to push them down into the dough.

6. Pour the mixture into your buttered pan. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes. Or until a tester comes out clean. (I started my timer at 45 minutes, and I think I added a little bit. The original recipe says 50 minutes, but I always get nervous that I'll burn stuff. :D ) Cool on rack. Remove from pan and cut and serve. :D

So I spent all that time with a tooth pick pushing down chocolate chips...all so my husband might like the banana bread. Did he eat any of it? No. Did I love the side with chocolate chips? Yes. It was wonderful. The only thing missing was some walnuts. :D Next time I'll mix in chocolate chips before pouring (if my DH hasn't eaten them all by then; he loves to snack on them as a dessert...half of a bag in a night isn't uncommon in this house.) Then I'll add walnuts to half of the loaf, but no brown sugar since the chocolate will make it sweet enough. I also would probably use the lesser amount of brown sugar in the dough since there will be chocolate chips in the entire loaf.

Guess what I have on top of my fridge! Brown bananas...this bread will be made again in the near future. :D

TMI to follow.

The Good.
I still am pretty much free of nausea. Ever so often I get a touch queasy, so I eat something and feel better. I work with several mamas, and pretty much all of them have had awful nausea. One girl would stare at her pantry looking for something to eat, because she was starving, but eventually she would lose her cookies just thinking about the food. Another girl would come to work, try to eat, and would always have a garbage can next to her, for the eventual regurgitation. Yet another would guzzle chocolate milk, then run to the toilet. She always wanted more chocolate milk, but could never keep it down.

I feel pretty guilty for having so little nausea. It actually makes me nervous as well, as if something is wrong with the baby. Whenever I feel like complaining, I remember that it could always be worse.

I am 10 weeks and 2 days along now. I have less than 5 weeks until my next appointment, which is super exciting. I didn't ask if there would be another ultrasound or not at this appointment, but if there is, we might get to find out the gender of this little gummy bear. There are mixed feelings out there, my family is rooting for healthy pink. I think Jamaal's mom would like a granddaughter since she has only sons, but Jamaal's brother wants a nephew.

Obviously we'll take what we get, and everyone is hoping for a healthy little bundle. But I keep thinking "Please let there be no penis." ;)

Today is Jamaal and my Anniversary. 1 year of marriage. 5 years together. 1 baby cooking. And I couldn't be happier. We laugh together daily (when we get to see each other). And still enjoy being around one another. :D

I bought Trophy cupcakes to celebrate. We will also try our wedding cake top, but since I wasn't sure how well it will taste, I wanted to have a back up. Jamaal loves the cupcakes. Yesterday he asked me what it was that they put in them, because they tasted so good. :D This is a dangerous thing, I do better when he doesn't like something, because I won't get it if he doesn't care for it. He loves them...so do I...cupcakes will be visiting our house again in the future.

Last night I made some banana bread, and it is pretty darn good. It tastes like Christmas. So when I taste it I think about how shortly after Christmas I'll get to meet the little gummy bear for the first time. :D It cannot come soon enough.

The Bad.

I am not without any symptoms. One of the worst ones is pretty bad constipation. I've been taking stool softeners, which helps a little, but I find that I have some diarrhea at times too. So I go between pretty bad constipation, followed by diarrhea. It's like I cannot win. I'm thinking of trying Senna (a laxative) to see if I can get things moving instead of softening. It's pretty gross. And unfortunate. But it's the price I pay for not being nauseated I guess.

I also have some lower back pain. It does not radiate down my legs or butt, so as of yet it isn't sciatica pain. But it is pretty bad. It twinges when I get up out of chairs sometimes. I find it is worse when I'm at work, which makes me think it is related to my stress level. I must be tensing up in a way that aggravates it. I really want to see a chiropractor to get it better controlled.

My girls have been causing mischief as well. Yesterday Jamaal mowed the lawn. On one side of our house, we have double fences. There is one at the front of the house and one at the back of the house. Jamaal left the one at the back of the house open, but the front one was shut. I went to let the girls in, and Bella was the only dog that came. I looked everywhere for Bacardi. I didn't know how she got out, since the front gate was shut. Jamaal came home while I was searching the backyard. I asked if he had seen Bacardi, and he said "no." I went out front and couldn't find her there either. I was beginning to panic.

Well, the husband had lied. He put her in the front seat of his car. He said "I can't believe you didn't see her there." I didn't see her because I didn't look there. I was a little upset with him for lying to me. I was really worried about her. She's cute. People might like to keep her for themselves. She also is pretty loving to most strangers eventually, so she might even not fight them. Or worse, she could get hit by a car, and get hurt, or killed.

The gate at the front of the house is a little bit short, so Bacardi just crawled out from under it. So, we shut the gate in the back of the house. Then this morning after I let the girls out, they didn't come when I called them to come in. I was smarter this time. I threw on a bathrobe (I had just gotten out of the shower) and went to the front yard and called for Bella and Bacardi. Bella was munching on something she found right next to the front of the house. My guess is cat poop. Blech. But again, Bacardi was nowhere to be found. I went inside to double check the backyard, and to wake Jamaal if she wasn't there. We were going to have to do a sweep of the neighborhood. Thankfully she's a smart cookie. When she heard me go to the front yard, she pretended like she never left the back yard. I'm no fool though. Both girls were in trouble. But I was thankful to have found them.

The Ugly.

Could I be pregnant with a girl? They say that girls steal their mother's beauty...and I'm breaking out a lot more than usual. It's not terribly bad but I sure don't feel very pretty.

My hair is also pretty dry and frizzy. It's frustrating. I'm sure it has something to do with the chlorine from water aerobics. It could also be that I haven't had my hair cut since March. I don't know when I'll be able to get in to get my haircut now, because I have plans most days this week.

Strange dream...

I cannot even begin to describe the dream I just had. But I'll try...

There was a war starting between two groups of people. I don't know what the war was about though. Our home base was at my parent's house, though it was much much bigger than their house, like the size of a mall or something. We had a garage and were going to park our ridiculously long bus in it, but the garage door was broken somehow, and it just fell down and the bus crashed into it. I had to go to the bus to get everyone off, and to find the equipment we had on the bus. I ended up finding a couple bags, but there were no weapons at all, there was the parts to a computer but no actual computer. (Only a keyboard, mouse and speakers) Since I had no weapons I went to hide in a swamp, I had to swim underwater so that I didn't get shot, as there were several people firing at me. I found a tall group of grass and hid behind it, and I was doing pretty good until this kid decided to hide with me. Eventually I got a gun from someone, and shot a couple people, but the bullets were the size of a golf ball and moved about as fast as a sloth, so they could literally move out of the way, or the bullet would simply land on them causing no pain. One kid caught a bullet in his teeth, without causing damage. I ended up getting shot in the hip trying to help the kid that hid with me. I swam/crawled back to home base and the war was finally over. I had to have a hip surgery because my hip was dislocated and there was bleeding in the space.

Nuts.

Today I was going to go to the mall to get my hair cut and colored, but I decided to sleep in instead. I have to work tonight for 12 hours so it is better for me to get rest. Maybe I'll get my hair done on Saturday.

Quick Applesauce

Single Serving Microwave Applesauce
-1 apple cored and chopped
-1 Tbsp. brown sugar
-1 tsp.? cinnamon
-2 Tbsp. water

Mix the ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl. Cook on high for 8 minutes or until apples are cooked through. Use a potato masher (or an immersion blender like me) to mush it up. Eat warm. (Or allow to cool). I personally love my applesauce warm.

MMMmmm....

Since it was just one serving I didn't pull down my food processor. I don't have any other type of masher, so I thought, "Let's try this immersion blender. It doesn't seem to have any use for anything else." It worked well enough. I just pulsed a few times and stirred and pulsed again. I would recommend peeling the apple, because the peel did git a bit chewy. I think stove top applesauce tastes better, but this was a quick and easy alternative.

I got my applesauce fix. :D

Baby's first photo

I finally got around to scanning the picture in from the ultrasound. I also realized I forgot to mention that during the ultrasound the little one was wiggling a little. He was squirming side to side a little bit while the tech was trying to measure. He wasn't going places, but just moving a little. It was funny. I couldn't believe how human he looks already. You can't really tell in the picture but during the ultrasound we could see the eyes, nose and mouth. I was blown away. (I just read the previous post, and I already said some of this. Just another example of my pregnancy brain at work.)

I really want applesauce right now. I think I have some organic apples in the fridge...I could boil them and blend them and make my own. Mmmmm

Back to the appointment:

Jamaal and I were in Vegas the week following conception. I have felt slightly guilty about that. My midwife made me feel a ton better by saying that the little one wasn't connected to my blood supply at that time so he won't be affected by my alcohol consumption. I really didn't drink all that much while I was there...definitely could have been worse. But now I feel less guilty about it.

Last night I pulled out my knitting needles and my "Learn to Knit" book and sat on the couch trying to learn how to knit. It was awful. The "Learn to Knit" author needs to read "Learn to Teach" because it really was terrible. I felt like an idiot, because the book says it's "easy" but it definitely was not easy to follow that stupid book.

So I decided to google knitting online. And found this website:

http://www.knittinghelp.com/

OMG. It is awesome. Want to learn to knit? You CAN. Know how to knit already? Want to learn different techniques? You CAN. The videos are awesome. I figured out how to knit after watching a couple times. I did it with the lady and voila! It was late when I finally found the website, so I just figured out I could knit, and stopped. But I'll start again later today, with the videos in front of me. I need to tidy up the house a little before I go back to knitting though, or the husband might not be too happy with me.