STINKIN' KFC ....

I don't go to KFC much. But, here in the South, they serve catfish along with their chicken. My girls (especially Bean) are big fans of catfish. I don't like to cook fish, because I don't like how it makes the house smell, but I want my kids to be able to eat it and get their Omega-3's. So, last week, we all went to KFC while we were out shopping.

We all got the buffet, and were happily chowing down. One of the KFC employees was walking around the dining room with a tray of biscuits, asking if anyone wanted any. It was then that we noticed that this employee was hacking up a lung all over those hot, fresh biscuits. And all over the buffet. The buffet which I was ingesting at that very moment.

So, thank you, stinkin' KFC employee. I was up all night with a sore throat, a cough, and congestion. And pregnancy prevents me from actually medicating myself. Stinkin' KFC ....

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP

This is what I see when I look down:




Yeah, I haven't seen my feet in quite some time. I'm not too concerned about that. I also can't see when I've leaned the underside of my blossoming belly into food on the counter or stovetop. That concerns me a little more than not seeing my feet; but, at this point, I must say I don't care too much if I'm the pregnant lady walking around with food stains on her belly. I mean, it's like a magnet for food. Couple that with pregnant clumsiness, and I'm pretty much a poster child for the need to tuck napkins into your shirt collar to eat.

What gets me, and I don't know if you can tell from the picture, is that my belly button isn't centered. I think Peanut likes to hang out on the right side of my body, because my navel is always shooting out to the left. I look down, and I wonder if it's as obvious from the front as it is from the top. And, it's like this with every pregnancy. And, I tend to be a bit OCD about centering. I'm one of those people that, if I touch something with my left hand, I have an overwhelming urge to touch it with my right hand as well so that I feel balanced. I'm not like Monk or Howie Mandel or anything, but I do have those little idiosyncracies that I like to think make me delightfully quirky. And, my bellybutton is already freakishly huge. Weird.

THE HAND OF GOD

Another weird pregnancy dream. I live on the outskirts of Tornado Alley, and I tend to have dreams about tornados during tornado season. So, couple that with my growing frame and pregnancy hormones, and you have some bizaare dreams. Here is the latest.

I was driving to the store with my children, when the sky blackened and the clouds became the consistency of frozen black Jello. Worried that a tornado was imminent, I pulled into the parking lot of an office building and dragged my cherubs inside to wait out the storm.

Instead of seeing tornados, however, I saw a large, black, handshaped cloud reach down, grab a car, shake it vigorously, then drop it. Everyone in the dream started yelling about the "hand of God" cloud, and scattered for cover. Now, apparently, the only way to escape the "hand of God" cloud was to squeeze into a small, windowless space. And that's where the pregnancy hormones entered. It wasn't hard for me to squeeze my cherubs into small places, but I also had to find a way to get my enormous uterus into that same, tight space.

I don't remember the rest of the dream, except that we ended up at a children's birthday party. Yeah, strange.

I guess pregnancy makes me feel a bit claustrophobic. When I was pregnant with Bean, I had a floor-length, denim slipdress that was loose on me when I was not pregnant, but was form-fitting enough to make my belly feel supported while I was pregnant. At least, it was supportive when I first put it on.

On the forty-minute drive to work, I began to feel slightly squished and uncomfortable in the dress, and I started to wonder if I had made a mistake in my choice of clothing. As the day progressed, I grew increasingly panicked as the dress seemed to shrink on me and restrict my breathing. I kept eyeing the scissors on my desk, wondering how unprofessional it would really be for a legal assistant to walk around with the side of her dress cut open. By the time I got home, I was almost in hysterics. I walked into the house, screaming for my husband to get that horrible dress off and burn it in the back yard.

And that is the last time I ever wore that dress. And that is how far off-track I got from the beginning of this post, which was supposed to focus on my weird pregnancy dream.

THINGS THAT SCARE MY KIDS ...

My kids (especially Cakes) are generally pretty fearless. They jump off of high things and horse around almost more than their poor mother's pregnant nerves can handle. But, they are scared of some things:

Houseflies (photo courtesy of QPM)...

Moths (photo courtesy of the University of Sydney)...

Finding Nemo ...

And, then there was the critter we found in our yard the other day that, surprisingly, didn't scare my cherubs to death:

We were outside after a spring rain, and one of these little guys crawled right over Cakes' flip-flopped feet and into a crevice near the sidewalk leading to our back porch. I expected mass hysteria on the part of the children; instead, they squatted down exclaiming about how small and cute it was, and then they proceeded to try to force-feed the poor critter dandelion greens until it managed to escape when the girls were distracted.

RABBITS AND CHICKENS AND MULCH

Last year, we had two major issues with our garden: weeds and those disgustingly enormous tomato worms. So, we decided to get a head start on those issues this year. We have loaded up with organic pesticide, and we are buying untreated mulch and hay to spread around the plants and down the aisles. I know that mulch will not completely stop weeds from growing, but we are hoping to retard the growth enough to make the weeds manageable.

However, we have been accosted by a new enemy. Our garden is being decimated by a humongous rabbit. Yes, one gigantic rabbit is singlehandedly destroying our fledgling plants. We've lost half of our tomatoes and broccoli, and we've lost all of our lettuce and beans. So, when I went to the local co-op to purchase my hay and untreated mulch (along with some seed corn to bolster our currently pathetic corn crop), I asked the co-opers for some advice on dealing with the pesky ... um ... is a rabbit a rodent? The co-op staff gave me three suggestions.

The first suggestion was to spread human hair around the perimeter of the garden. I figured we could get some hair clippings from the local salon. However, Grampy nixed that idea. He was a little grossed out, and declared that he could not eat vegetables that had been nourished by other people's rotting hair. Fair enough.

The second suggestion was to sprinkle Cayenne pepper around the perimeter of the garden. The smell will temporarily keep the rabbits out. Of course, it must be reapplied after every rain or watering, and the rabbit will eventually get used to the smell and invade the garden again.

So, the third suggestion was to follow the second suggestion. Once the rabbit gets used to the smell of Cayenne pepper, we need to sprinkly shavings of Irish Spring soap around the garden. Again, this is only a temporary solution, as the rabbit will eventually get used to that smell, too; but, the hope is that the above methods will deter the rabbit long enough to allow the plants to grow a little. Once the plants get too big, the rabbit won't want to eat them anymore, and will be forced to seek tender young shoots elsewhere.

While I was receiving these pearls of wisdom from the co-opers, my cherubs were happily occupied with this:

Yes, a big trough of chicks. Fortunately, the chickens were covered with netting. Although my cherubs found them to be adorable in the trough, I think there would have been mass hysteria if the chicks had been able to make actual contact with them.

MY FAVORITE MOTHER'S DAY VIDEO

I can't believe I forgot to post my favorite Mother's Day video on my Facebook page this past Sunday (check out Barats and Bereta). So, without further ado, here it is:





Happy belated Mother's Day to all those moms out there!

BIG DADDY TO LEAN, MEAN, DADDY MACHINE - WEEK 7

And we have hit another plateau. Sort of. I mean, that Pioneer Woman chocolate cake that Big Daddy baked me for Mother's Day and proceeded to eat large portions of has not helped, but he's been pretty careful this week. Still, he is stuck at 296. So, we are going to decrease his calories just a bit, increase his water and green tea intake, and (hopefully) up his activity level. His jobs have kept him pretty active, but construction work is not the same as 30 minutes of sustained aerobic activity.

And, just because you might care to know, I have only gained 23 pounds so far this pregnancy. Yay! Of course, I still have 6-7 weeks to go, so there's still a chance for that number to get bumped up to 30 pounds. Especially since Big Daddy baked me that Pioneer Woman chocolate cake ...

So, here's the latest tally:

Starting weight = 312 pounds

Ending weight this week = 296 pounds

Weight loss this week = 0 pounds

Total weight loss = 16 pounds

BIG DADDY TO LEAN MEAN DADDY MACHINE - WEEK 6

Big Daddy loves to cook. He's one of those people that intuitively knows what flavors go together, and he considers cooking an artistic release. I, on the other hand, am chained to the cookbook. Even then, things don't always turn out well, especially in the baking department (you may remember Dora and Pablo ...).

One pattern that we have noticed, though, is snacking. Big Daddy will often grab a little handful of this, a little spoonful of that, and little nibble of the other. There is typically some snack or another sitting out on the table that is accessible to the cherubs, and it often proves tempting to Big Daddy. Usually it's fruit, but it occasionally consists of peanut butter-y things or fruit snacks or something along those lines.

Big Daddy also snacks when he cooks. I guess it's pretty impossible when cooking to avoid helping yourself to the fruits of your labor. So, we're starting to work on becoming mindful of everything that Big Daddy puts into his mouth. It's so easy to snack mindlessly, and then not even remember it five minutes later. I guess that's one of the reasons that food diaries work so well: your mind is constantly focused on what is going in.

So, here's the latest tally:

Starting weight = 312 pounds

Ending weight this week = 296 pounds

Weight loss this week = 1 pound

Total weight loss = 16 pounds