37 weeks


Oy. 37 weeks! That means I'm full term and baby Neon can pretty much hatch any day now. Not much new is going on this week except major baby and money anxiety. I have developed a bad pattern of waking up at 4 or 5 am and staying up. Here's everyone else on the 37 week flickr stroll.

I've got a lazy baby. Since Sunday, he hasn't been moving much. At first I wasn't too, too worried. I was really active on Sunday (walking around SF) and Monday (cleaning house), so I thought that baby was just chilling. So after I ate breakfast yesterday morning, and didn't feel the usual vigorous kicks, I started to worry. Then after a trip to Ikea, I grabbed a cinnamon roll. P.S., they're never as good as they smell. So when the cinnamon roll didn't get baby moving, I decided to call the doctor's office. They sent me directly to the hospital for assesment. I sat strapped up to a couple of monitors for an hour or so while they checked the heartbeat, movements and contractions (every 7 minutes at the hospital). Turns out baby is just fine, only lazy. We hit up Tres Hermanas for some spicy tamales afterwards and before dinner was even over, baby perked right up with a fetal mexican hat dance. Phew. I guess he doesn't have much room to move around in anymore.

Food and food


I made these green beans last week. I always try to make a green vegetable with dinner but get tired of plain, blanched asparagus and broccoli. So I cracked open my Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone book by Deborah Madison. Sabs got us this for our birthday last year. I've made quite a few things out of it so far. It's a great resource for cooking basics, providing the how and why behind it. Deborah used to cook for Greens, she also cut her chops at Chez Panisse, so you know she's real. So I had these green beans and needed some interesting way to serve them. I found this spicy olive sauce in the book and whipped it up right quick. Luckily I had everything on hand already.

Some kalamatas, some green olives, capers, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, lemon juice and good olive oil. I fine chopped all the olives and threw it all together and let it sit for a couple of minutes before I tossed it with my blanched green beans.

It was pretty good and a nice change from just dousing the veggies in butter and garlic salt. I got so inspired about it that I ended up making my very first mashed potatoes (I know, total basic dish, but my dad makes them really good and I just didn't have the courage to ever try before). The recipe in the book came out great. I'm now scouring the rest of the cookbook for some easily freezable meals to make ahead so when baby Neon hatches we don't have to cook anything for a while.

This weekend we took Heylove to SF to sell off a bunch of CDs (only from my personal collection of course!). Walking her around was like hanging out with a minor celebrity. Everywhere we went, people would smile and point "A boston terrier!" We'd wave and Heylove would do a butt wiggle, but no autographs. She's kind of a bitch that way. We also hit up Jay's Cheesesteaks in the Mission and had the most delicious, toasty seitan cheesesteaks ever. I ate half and tried to eat the other half at home, but cold seitan kind of grossed me out. I won't hold that against them.

OMG! Did you see Flavor of Love last night? Flaa-vor FLAV!! So stoked he made the right choice.

36 weeks


I can't go on like this much longer! I'm so uncomfortable. I wonder how everyone else was feeling on the 36 week flickr stroll. I went to the doctor yesterday for my check up. They have me coming in every week now to check if baby is making his way out yet. So far, his head is already low in my pelvis, I'm not dilated, my uterus measures 38 cm from bottom to top and the doc says that baby is going to have a big head and weigh about 8 lbs. Ow! I also had a little preeclampsia scare, but my blood labs turned out absolutely normal. Phew.

So what am I doing with all this free time to myself (remember, I'm laid off now, not on maternity leave anymore because "leave" implies that I'm returning somewhere)? Nesting! I felt the incredible need to clean out the fridge and spice cabinet yesterday. I also did some laundry, bought some food to make for dinner this week, took a nap and watched Club Dread....which was terrible! Today I'm going to check out a mommy's group with HH, hit Target for some last minute baby items, then continue to feather my nest at home. I wonder what's on Oprah today.

Aww, thanks.

100_1983
Originally uploaded by electrogroup.

Our friends are awesome. We had a baby shower at Casa Hull this weekend. So sweet! Our hosts were fab and our friends were so generous. I've been washing and organizing all the tiny baby clothes and putting them away. There are a couple of things I still need to get though...or not. Mommas out there, do I need a humidifier or what?