I Am A Living Matryoshka Doll

...Pop me in half and there's a smaller version of me hiding inside.

I'm trying to give up caffeine again and it's killing me. I have had no energy at all. When we were on vacation, I got into the habit of having half a cup of coffee in the morning. Bad idea. All it took was five days and now I'm sufferin. I've had one Diet Coke this week and I feel like a slug. The peak of my patheticness came Wednesday night when I picked up Chinese food after work and we ate dinner in bed. I ate, put my take-out container on the nightstand, rolled over and fell asleep. Seriously. It has not bothered this kid at all though. He's still freaking out like usual. There is a Russian folk dance happening inside my uterus this morning. You know what I'm talking about:



My birthday is next week and I'm going to be 27. By the end of the year I'm going to be 27, married for two years, and someone's mother. When did all this start happening?

Summer Vacation and Growing More Pregnant By the Minute

It officially feels like summer. It's freaking hot, I feel incredibly lazy, we just went on vacation… We went to Estes Park with a side trip to Denver. Word of advice: when the weather is forecasting the hottest day of the year in Denver, you should believe them and not go to Denver. Hello, 102°. Other than that, vacation was awesome. We saw "Body Worlds: The Original Exhibition WE SWEAR" at the Denver science museum. The exhibit was awesome. (And yes, I know I'm about four years late to the party on this.) My favorite parts were seeing what a smoker's lung really looks like and pointing to all the penises. I may be pregnant but that doesn't mean I have to act like someone's mom all the time.

Back in Estes we did the usual stuff. Visited Rocky Mountain National Park (hooray for me not having a panic attack in the car!), toured The Stanley Hotel and fed wild, voracious animals (squirrels) with our bare hands on top of a mountain. I also experienced what it's like to be pregnant at 7500 feet. My hands and feet swelled up like sausages. I was pretty out of breath when we "hiked" the flat ground around a lake at RMNP. It was awesome. I am so happy to be back in an un-elevated city.

Can I get judgey for a minute? When we were in Estes, we walked by a woman on the sidewalk changing her kid's diaper. But wait. Her family was sitting outside the DQ on the window bench enjoying their ice cream. And right next to them on the same bench, in front of people on the street and other people inside the DQ, this woman was cleaning shit off her baby's butt. There was a public bathroom with a changing table about 30 feet away. WTF is up with that? I also saw a family who believed the Huggies commercial when they said that jean diapers double as pants. WHY DO THOSE THINGS EXIST!?!

So, here we are back in Omaha, finishing up July and my fifth month of gestation. I feel huge, like I look way more pregnant than I really am. I'm about 75% sure that's not really the case but still. It's hard not to feel self-conscious when there's a child hanging off your frontside. One thing getting me though all of this, though? Bravo TV. Bethanny Getting Married? has been my saving grace this summer. No matter how neurotic and overwhelmed I feel, I'm the picture of maternal grace compared to that woman. God love her for it, though. She cracks me up. I'm also really proud of her for making it through a whole lot of delivery without any birth classes or yelling and screaming. She made it though something like 12+ hours of labor with just yoga breathing exercises. Good for her!

I've made a couple baby related purchases lately. There was that stroller I got such a good deal on. I put it together and oh lordy - the thing is huge. HUGE! I could probably fit inside it. I also picked out some orange Flor tiles that were on clearance for $4.99 a square. And then we (mainly I) finally decided on a crib and ordered that. I don't know why I put up such a psychotic fit about buying the absolute perfect crib but I did. And then I ended up buying something pretty unspectacular because it matched the bedroom furniture we already own. Eh, story of my life. Freak out for months over something completely inconsequential and then in the end just give up and buy whatever is most convenient/cheapest.

Strollers and Boots

I've gotten into the habit of checking all these kid and baby deal-a-day websites, even subscribing to some via twitter, and it's ruining my life. More specifically, it's ruining the low balance on my credit card. I was doing really good and I only bought some diapers off of one but then today I lost my shit and I spent $325 on a stroller set. But to my credit it was an amazing deal. It's a fancy stroller and infant carrier that is usually $650. (Yes, people spend that kind of money on little buggies to push their toddlers around in.)

Just last night I was looking at some Vivienne Westwood boots online and I said to myself, "$425 is an insane amount of money to spend on boots, even if they were originally $899." Then, BAMM! I spend $325 on a stroller because it's 50% off. It's still an insane amount of money to be spent on anything really, but at least now I'll be one of the trendy moms with the nice stroller when I go out to Village Pointe.

But damn if I wouldn't be the hottest, trendiest mom ever with my fancy stroller and Vivienne Westwood boots.

I'm 5 Months Pregnant!

Hey there, week 22! I have officially made it to five months. Hallelujah. I can't wait for this kid to be here already. We found out last week that we're having a boy. We weren't at all surprised. It felt like one of those things that we'd always known. But since now we had medical confirmation of our hunch we went and registered for some baby stuff.

OMG everyone... Babies R Us will suck your soul dry. I'm warning you now. Of course I had been to a Toys R Us before, but not a Babies R Us. (Commonly referred to as BRU by moms in the know.) That store is aisle after aisle of pastel colored baby garbage. I turned to Matt and asked, "This stuff is gross. Where's the hipster baby aisle?" After a few minutes of stunned, overwhelmed wandering he finally pointed out that we're registering for things for a baby, not ourselves. The baby isn't going to care what his crib sheets look like. Yes. Point taken. Still though, we registered for the tuxedo bib and the peace sign sleep sack. The baby might not care, but I still have to be the one seen in public with him. I don't want him embarrassing me with his lack of style.

And then we have to deal with the nursery... It started to get cleaned out, then it filled back up with random furniture and junk. So, we've made pretty much no progress on it. Our initial goal was to have it empty and ready for decorating by Memorial Day. Now our goal is 4th of July weekend. And if that doesn't happen, then our next goal is early August when we have a shower at our house.

And if that doesn't happen, my parents will be finishing the nursery while I'm delivering at the hospital.

Sushi Night!

We had our sushi trial run with friends last night and it was awesome! My expectations weren't too high for our first attempt but it was surprisingly easy.



First up, we had to locate a bunch of Asian cooking items. We were thinking about taking our chances at a regular grocery store but then I found an Asian market literally a few blocks from our house. The market was... an experience? It smelled like poo inside the store and the lady at the front counter was eating food and licking her fingers. I kept repeating to myself, "It's all prepackaged. It's all prepackaged. It's all prepackaged." A few minutes and a few squirts of hand sanitizer later, we were ready to rock. While it was a completely disgusting place to shop, it was worth the trip. We spent $13 and got:

2 packs of seaweed wrappers
Rice paper
Rice vermicelli noodles
Rice vinegar
chop sticks
2 sushi rollers

First up, we made shrimp spring rolls.




We made ours with rice noodles, carrots, bean sprouts, cilantro and shrimp. Pile all of your ingredients up and roll the rice paper like a little tiny burrito. I also made a peanut sauce for dipping these. Without the sauce they might have been a little boring but these were one of my favorite things we made.

Next we started the sushi rolls. Sushi rice is really, really sticky. It was strange stuff. Also, you don't realize how much rice goes on a roll until you make it yourself. We used close to a cup of rice for every roll. So word to the wise for everyone: Make lots of rice. Lots. We ended up making a second batch and used over 6 cups of cooked rice. (Hope no one has to weigh in today!)

Here are our first two: shrimp rolls and veggie rolls.



The veggie rolls have spicey mayo (mayo and Sriracha sauce), carrots, avocado, bean sprouts and cilantro. The shrimp rolls have spicey mayo, shrimp, avocado and green onions. I suppose these were *close* to real sushi. They tasted like real sushi anyway.

We also made a shredded BBQ pork and coleslaw roll that was just stupid it was so good. I somehow didn't end up with a picture of that one. I also tried an orange chicken roll but it failed. Matt then one upped me with a chicken bacon roll. I didn't try that one but I hear it was good. I was seriously riced out at the end of the night. I hit my limit. But that doesn't mean there wasn't room for...

Crab rangoon rolls!



Dude. Crab rangoon stuffing, smeared on seaweed, and dipped in tempura batter. And then fried. It was so good. No need to say anymore.

The Sushi Experiment

Earlier this year, Matt and I went to California with some friends for a little vacation before the guys went on a tour. We were in the throws of our experimental vegetarian period so a trip to San Francisco and outlying cities was perfect. Everything restaurant had vegetarian items on the menu - and not just "vegetarian" items like spaghetti hold the meatballs. We're talkin real California hippy vegetarian cuisine.

We ended up in Sacramento one night to meet up with a group flying in from Omaha. We were in town so we stopped at Guy Fieri's restaurant, Tex Wasabi. Tex Wasabi is a sushi/BBQ fusion weirdo restaurant. If you've ever watched a show starring Guy Fieri you probably know that the dude is not a fan of vegetarian food. But I thought, it's a sushi joint (kind of) so we should be okay.

I was only kind of wrong.

The thing that Tex Wasabi is known for is it's really strange sushi rolls. Like, BBQ beef and french fries shoved in a roll. Everyone at the table ordered these kinds of rolls and ended up saying it was one of the best meals they had on the trip. I ordered an Asian slaw appetizer thing and a veggie roll. They. Were. Both. Terrible. My only regret from that trip is that I didn't eat meat at that dinner.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when we went to a party and the host made a platter of sushi for everyone. It was kind of late, maybe 11:00, so everyone but me was a wee bit on the drunk side. I sat in front of Keith (host) and watched him make sushi for probably close to an hour. He explained everything to me and made it sound relatively simple. I tried a few bites (Yes, I'm pregnant and I ate 2 bites of raw fish. Someone call social services.) and it tasted better than the run of the mill sushi restaurants dotted here and there all over Omaha. Which isn't saying a whole lot, really. In my opinion there's only one really good sushi place in Omaha that's worth dropping $75 at. Aside from special recipe items that most other places have, it is all the same. And it's all overpriced. But I digress.

The point here is that I got to thinking about my cooking lesson and Tex Wasabi and I'm pretty sure I can do this at home. Matt and I are going to make our own faux sushi dinner Friday night. No raw fish consumption this time though. I'll wait until I'm not pregnant to give myself food poisoning. Here's the proposed menu:

shrimp spring rolls
crab rangoon rolls
spicy veggie rolls
BBQ pork and slaw rolls
orange chicken teriyaki rolls

I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of leftovers...

New Dinnerware Wish List

Am I allowed to add new dinnerware to the baby registry? What if the baby wants to throw a dinner party?