Was I this bad about meals last time around? I don’t recall. I certainly wasn’t sick. I’m on Zofran now, which has stopped most of the nausea, but I’m still a far piece from having a normal appetite and wanting to think about or cook food. There are certain things that sound good and certain things that don’t. The things I used to love and depend on regularly are not appealing to me at the moment. What’s appealing? Turkey pitas (turkey, provolone, lettuce, tomato, Ranch dressing), guacamole with tortilla chips, and strawberries. At least that’s a somewhat healthy, balanced meal. It’s been my regular meal for the past several days. David’s still working on the leftover Mexican food from Anna’s birthday party, and Anna just gets whatever we come up with for her. She doesn’t care.

So much for eating reduced-meat, unprocessed, from-scratch meals. I absolutely do not want beans right now, and most veggies don’t sound very good either. I’ve eaten a lot of white breads and crackers (although whole wheat is slowly making its way back into my diet). Jello? You can hardly call that food! But it’s been exactly what I want sometimes. I’ve even partaken of—you won’t believe this—canned condensed soup! And I’ve had a Sprite nearly every day, whereas before I maybe had one or two Cokes in a month.

Ahh, when that glorious week 14 rolls around, things will be back to normal… wait… oh yeah, we’ll have to be out of our house about a week and a half after that. And move in with my parents for a few weeks. And then move into a new house (which we have yet to find), unpack, get settled, etc… So basically it’s gonna be at least June before you see another Menu Plan Monday from me. I know my readers are devastated about this. :) But mostly, it’s just not me. Planning and preparing good, healthy meals for my family is what I do. And I can’t do it right now!

I’ve got to give credit to David, who has been a total sweetheart and completely understanding through all this. I was so sick for about a week that he’s just happy to see me just getting some calories from whatever food sounds good to me. So he’ll get it for me. Is that sweet or what?

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Oh my goodness, could this child be any sweeter? I don’t think so! I know I’m a little biased, but she’s just the most precious thing ever. She smiles so much and is happy most of the time. She is smart and picks up on everything. She says “thank you” when we give her something and “bless you” when we sneeze (it comes out more like “ba-bash,” but that’s what she means). She tries to do so much for herself now, and we try to let her. Her verbal skills are developing, and she’s starting to communicate with us more and more that way (although she has understood us for a long time now). She sometimes sings along to her lullaby CD now—it started out as just random syllables sung in a sweet little voice, but lately the syllables are starting to resemble the actual words.

There’s a lot more I could say, but I’ll just leave you with some pictures from this afternoon.

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It was a gorgeous day today (a fact that was apparent to the rest of central Arkansas as well), so we thought a great way to celebrate Anna’s birthday was for David to play hooky from work and take us to the zoo. It’s so great that he can take off and make up the hours whenever! Anna loved it so much she cried when we left, but I promised her we would come back. She did a few of her animal sounds, and a lot of the animals made “a mess” and needed “a bath” (see earlier post). She also enjoyed climbing on every single park bench when she was out of her stroller.

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We had a little birthday party for her last night. Small and simple—just the grandparents, a taco dinner, balloons, a couple of presents, and cake. I’m SO thankful I’ve been feeling better the past couple of days; I was afraid I’d be too sick to enjoy the party. I “outsourced” the cake this time, and I’m glad I did because it was super cute (thanks, Mom!). Anna had fun being the center of attention, getting some new goodies, and eating her “ye-yow” (yellow) cake!

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Anna, our late-talker, has been stringing 2 or 3 words together for several weeks now. One of the first instances I can recall was at dinner one night when she kept saying, over and over, “Mama eat!” and “Dada eat!” She was quite proud of her new accomplishment.

Lately, though, she’s also gained the ability to retell things that happened in the past. Her favorite right now is, “Dixie… a mess… Dixie… bath!” While Anna was at my parents’ house last week, their little dog Dixie, unbeknownst to my mom, started going after a crawdad in a patch of mud. Apparently she was just a horrible mess and had to be hosed off out on the deck. Anna thought it was hilarious. It’s fun to hear her tell her “story” over and over!

UPDATE: Ok, so we were at her weekly “Mother Goose” time at the library today. We got to the part where the teacher pulls various animals out of a bag and we practice our animal sounds. The dog just happens to look like a little Pomeranian (like Dixie). So now, instead of “woof woof”, my child says, “A mess! A mess!”

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Ok, so… I’m pregnant. About 8 1/2 weeks. Due around mid-October.

I’ve had 2 ultrasounds. The first was a week and a half ago, and we had intended to tell the world after we got back from the doctor. However, even though baby and heartbeat looked good, Dr. L. saw some suspicious stuff on the ultrasound that made her think there was a chance it wasn’t a viable pregnancy. She drew some lab and told us to come back in a week for another ultrasound. With heavy hearts, we told a handful of people (like our family) and decided to wait at least another week to go public.

The lab results were normal and this week the ultrasound looked much better, thank the Lord! It’s looking more like it’s going to be a healthy baby, and she gave it a 90% chance now. She wants to see us back next week. We were going to try to wait one more week before we told people. But…

I’m sick, tired, ready to bail on all my commitments, and not wanting to come up with excuses anymore. So, folks, I’m checking out of society for about the next 4 weeks or so. :) You might see me, you might not; it just depends on how I feel on any given day. I’m very thankful for a husband who works from home (and will make a grocery run at 7 a.m.) and a mom who lives close by who can come and get Anna if I can’t take care of her. I sure do miss her when she’s gone, but at least she loves going to her Mammaw’s house. Meanwhile, I’ll be subsisting on saltines, Jello, Sprite, and white bread toast. By the way, I was not sick with Anna. This kid is already giving me trouble!

This should make moving interesting. We accepted an offer on the house, and if it goes through, we close on April 30. So, if I start feeling better at around 12-13 weeks, I’ll have about 2 weeks to pack and get out of here! I may be directing some packing from the bed or couch. No, we don’t have a house to move into yet. We may have to crash with my parents. I love my parents and don’t mind staying there, but I was really hoping for a smooth transition from this house to the next, with several days of overlap to move our stuff, rather than having to pack up the whole house in its entirety. It’s looking pretty iffy though.

So there you have it.

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On Saturday we decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, despite a cold that was making me feel crummy. It would have been a good day for the zoo, but I needed a shorter, closer-to-home trip, so we visited nearby Cadron Settlement Park. Several friends had mentioned that even their little ones had done the trails there, so we thought we’d give it a try. Anna did great going up and down those hills! We just hiked a little way, then turned around. I’m sure the older she gets, the more of the trail we’ll be able to do. She’s going to be a good little hiker!

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So I’ve been a bit absent lately, both from menu planning and from blogging in general. I didn’t have a range/oven for about a week, then David’s new job plus a family commitment took him out of town for a good part of the month of February, so I didn’t really bother menu planning for myself, a toddler who eats as much as a baby bird, and a husband who was only home for a couple days at a time. Consequently, when I did Quicken last week, there were an embarrassing number of receipts from Chick-fil-A, Moe’s, and Pizza Hut. Lesson learned.

So, getting back into it, here’s what we’re having this week:

Monday: Beef/black bean tacos, Mexican rice, chips & homemade salsa

Tuesday: same

Wednesday: same

Thursday: Spinach manicotti, salad, bread

Friday: Chicken noodle casserole (brand new recipe for us), some kind of veggie, homemade biscuits

Saturday: same

Sunday: same

Check out Menu Plan Monday for more ideas.

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