We are home from Indiana, and we are both emotionally and physically unscathed. (and there was much rejoicing!)
Mostly, we hung out with La’s amazing mama (who cooked us delicious breakfasts every day!) and her cousin, who is going through a rather heinous divorce at the moment. So, there was a lot of shit talking her soon to be ex husband. And rightfully so, the d-bag cheated on her and then, after getting served with papers, cleaned out their checking account so she couldn’t buy anything, like, you know – food, their two young children.
Everyone was really excited about Seafoam’s impending arrival – or at least they faked it well. Of course, ShitBro and his wife had decided not to tell their children. Their ‘reasoning’ was that I am not yet out of my first trimester (true, but only barely so) and they didn’t want to have “two awkward conversations.” However, they also knew that we were coming home and that everyone else would know and be talking about it, including their children’s 5 year old cousin, who can’t keep a secret to save her life. Anyway, this means that we ended up (inadvertantly) telling their kids. This happened, beautifully, right before they were all leaving for the day. So I can only hope that there were LOTS of uncomfortable questions on the ride home! For the record, the only thing they asked was “why Auntie Andie is pregnant, not Auntie Lala?” Once we explained we had rock-paper-scissor’d for the privilege, and Lala would go next, they seemed satisfied.
I seem to be recovering my energy fairly as the first trimester starts to close out, and I am very, very excited! Mostly, I am excited that I might start to eat well and cook again!
You see, La is very good at many, many, many things. But cooking just isn’t her most favorite thing to do. It’s not that she is ‘bad’ at cooking, it’s just that she tends to stick to what she knows. And what she knows is a fairly small repertoire of simple things – like spaghetti or BBQ chicken. To her enormous credit, she has 100% stepped up while I have been too busy napping to contemplate cooking, and for this I am grateful. But, she doesn’t have the interest to make the kinds of food I most like eating, so I’m very excited to have enough energy to shop and cook again! Hallelujah! To celebrate, I have picked out a whole bunch of new recipes to try! Yippee!

I’m also heavy into the stick gathering phase of what could be called “nesting.” Like, I am feeling the itch to start getting shit hella organized, and am thinking about what life might look like in 6 months when there is a squalling infant in our house.
To wit:
-After already mostly deciding I want to use my birthday money on a new dishwasher that actually, you know, washes dishes, I amended this and decided we should find a way to ALSO get a small deep freezer. So that I can spend an entire day cooking and then freeze the food for later! And so we can buy more in bulk/in season and save things. I started salivating over the idea of my little chest freezer in the shed right next to a shelf of canned produce. Oh, be still my urban homesteader heart!
-I have started actively seeking out the organizational tools and techniques I have been ‘considering’ since we moved in. Things like pot lid organizers and tupperware systems and organizational door systems!
-I applied for a part time gig with the Princ.eton review to teach GRE, SAT and ACT prep classes (and/or be a tutor for these programs.) Seeing as how I aced my ACT (yes, really. a 36) and the writing section of my GRE, and I like teaching, and I need an extra $15-30/hour, and I have weekends free . . .I thought it would be a good plan. We’ll see what I get in the way of a call back, but I figure even a couple of extra days a week could mean stocking up on some extra cash that could mean either extending my maternity leave into unpaid territory and/or having some extra cash for things like childcare once seafoam gets here.
-We are well on our way to stocking up on cloth diapering materials. BUT I NEED YOUR HELP! We are clear we want to cloth diaper, and we know we want to use pre-folds with covers (that can have extra padding added) and we’ve found some good, inexpensive high quality covers. But, if you cloth diaper using prefolds, can you give me some tips on the brand you like, the folds you like, places you scored good deals (we are open to pre-owned and new!) or any general tips?
(of note, this seems to be the one ‘weird’ parenting thing that both of our families have a lot of commentary about. Mostly in the realm of ‘we’ll see how long THAT lasts.’ It’s obnoxious but honestly, it’s probably just the beginning. Still, tips on how to respond to cloth diaper haters would be welcome too!)
I’m excited to be thinking/planning/excited, instead of just barely getting through my days due to exhaustion. I guess I didn’t realize just how much it was impacting me until I had a flood of ideas about our house, our dinners, and our future. And I realized I hadn’t thought about so much of that because I was thinking about when my next nap was.
The nausea seems to have made a little uptick, as if to say either 1. Don’t forget how much I made your life suck when I’m gone OR 2. I’m not going anywhere. Option number three is that I picked up the stomach bug that was plaguing my in-laws in Indiana. Which would be righteously unfair, as I am still today working on getting my sinuses free of snot.