i simply remember...

my favourite things! I baked and cooked up a small storm on the weekend (frittata, blueberry muffins, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, baked beans), and kept thinking about how much I love my pantry. Our house is 120 (ish) years old, and the pantry is definitely one of my favourite features. Especially when it's sunny and I'm working away in there. The drawer pulls are très old and lovely, and the jars on the counter contain most of the standard baking goods - whole wheat and white flours, Speerville Mills oats, bran, etc. They're very handy, and I like how they look, lined up and ready for action. And the storage space is wonderful!

25 weeks

Here's my 25 week belly picture - I'm certainly getting bigger all of the time! I had a clinic appointment on Wednesday, and got to hear a very wiggly baby's heartbeat again, which still amazes me. 141 beats per minute. Adam had to work, so this was the first baby-related appointment he's missed. Baby G now weighs approximately 1.5 pounds, and is 13.5 inches long. H/she kicks a lot in the evening, especially when I'm going to sleep, and also when I wake up. It's really neat - kicks and movements feel like muscle twitches. I'm getting very eager to meet this little one 'in person'. At prenatal class last week, we talked about the possible interventions which may be necessary during delivery (c-section, forceps, vacuum extraction, etc.) and watched video clips of them. I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed by it all and had a hormone-y (translation: teary) evening, thinking about the (remote) possibility that I would have to be apart from baby G and Adam right after birth, blah blah blah. Thankfully, those moments are very few and far between, and I'm usually back to my old self pretty quickly. Adam didn't get much sympathy for his nosebleed that evening, though, which I still feel a little bad about. (Although, I must say - blood and guts and needles and such can make me feel queasy pretty often, but seeing nosebleeds has never bothered me. Kids would get them in schools and at camp frequently, and it was simply not a big deal. Probably because there's no pain involved. Anyway...)

I try to remember what I thought about how parents think and feel about their children before being pregnant, and find it difficult. Maybe it's all of the hormones, but I realize that most parents probably feel the same way about their children as I do about this baby - that h/she is pretty much the only baby who has ever been born. I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about how we can be the best parents possible, and how to care for, raise and teach this child how to get along in the world. And I can't imagine how our lives are going to change, but in a good way rather than a scary one. At the same time as I love this baby ridiculously much, I don't want to become someone who can only carry on a conversation if it has to do with my child. I imagine it's tricky, especially while staying at home to look after the baby (since your world revolves around this little one's itinerary for the first while). But I really, really, really want to be able to hold a conversation about other things without feeling the need to turn the conversation back to me and what the baby's up to. I think that part of that is probably me wanting other people to see me as more than someone who can reproduce, but I also imagine that it will be a defense mechanism to keep myself sane. And who knows, everything might just work out beautifully and in a lovely balanced way and I won't even have to think about these things after baby G arrives. Like most things, we'll just have to wait and see.

ahhhh, Saturday

It's been a few days... I guess that's what happens when you don't have so many snow days to fill up with blogging! Adam and I just got back from a lovely little hike on a local trail - a perfect Saturday morning. I was given these terrific boxes from a teacher I work with - she had them filled with all sorts of sweet things for baby G from Frenchy's! She knows the way to my heart! I don't have specific plans for the boxes yet, but I know they will be put to good use.

Kind of a funny story about the coffee beans: Since I've been pregnant, my senses of smell and taste have been incredibly more sensitive than usual. Which is great when I'm smelling or eating something wonderful, because it's all the better. Something unpleasant, however, is an entirely different matter. On the positive side of things, I was cleaning the pantry last week and found these Java Moose mocha coffee beans. I gave them a sniff, and nearly fell over, they smelled SO good. (Note: I don't drink coffee at the best of times, because I can't stand the taste. But I've always liked the smell.) So that I could enjoy the smell more often, I put a few in a little jar on the kitchen windowsill. Every time I go by, I give them a deep breath in, and it makes everything wonderful. To be completely forthright, I also took a few beans to my office. Adam thinks this is funny.
Other Saturday morning goodness - smoothies! When I have the time and the goods, I love to make a smoothie in the morning. And it really doesn't take much of either time or goods, so it happens pretty frequently.

Loose guidelines for a delicious smoothie, open to as many modifications and adaptations as desired:

Toss into blender:
yogurt (my favourite is Activia vanilla for smoothies)
banana
whatever other fruit is desired (I have kiwi and lots of blueberries in this one)
something sweet (honey or maple syrup)
ground flax seed for those omega-3's
a bit of milk to thin for good blending (especially important when using frozen chunky fruit)

Blend until smooth and serve as soon as possible. Extra smoothie will keep in the fridge for most of a day, but it's just not quite as good after it's been in the fridge for awhile.
I came across Alicia Paulson's blog featuring Audrey the dog (amongst other crafty wonderful-ness) a couple of weeks ago, and saw that her home is featured in the March edition of Romantic Homes. After looking at some of the images, I thought "Oh, I'd love to get my hands on a copy" but thought that it might be hard to come across here in Yarmouth. To my great and pleasant surprise, when Adam and I were on our weekly Globe and Mail expedition this morning, they had one copy left at Toots! Yay, some last-weekend-in-February reading! And might I also point out that daylight savings time changes in two weeks? Hallelujah!
In other house-y things, the avocado plant hasn't sprouted yet, but apparently you're supposed to wait 8 weeks before giving up hope. It's been less than 2, so maybe I'm just a little impatient. I brought in some quince branches for forcing yesterday, and I love how they look even without blooms. And that mug is one of my favourite little things I've ever found at Frenchy's. I'm going to try some honeysuckle vines, too, which I've never done before. My hyacinth in the cupboard is making slow and steady progress - I'll post pictures if it ever blooms!

a sling, a sling, a wonderful thing

Here's my project of the day - a sling for baby G and me! The top picture is the cut material, pinned and ready for the first stitching, and I'm wearing the completed sling in the bottom picture (it's stuffed with a rolled up piece of material to simulate baby G, and should fit a bit better after the baby's born and my belly's a little smaller). The material I used was once a tab-top curtain from (take a wild guess!) Frenchy's, which I made into a shower curtain. When I found the new Martha Stewart shower curtain at Frenchy's, I decided that this one would be great sling material. It's thick cotton, in a nice neutral colour. I found the pattern for the sling here and it couldn't be much easier to make. I'm going to make one for Adam soon. Because this particular one is a pouch sling and isn't adjustable, the one pictured is made to fit me. And since Adam is over a foot taller than me, he definitely needs his own! Although it isn't adjustable for the adult, it can be worn in a variety of ways to accommodate a growing baby.
Edit: I just found a video clip illustrating the proper way to fold and put on the sling, which isn't quite what you see in the picture! We'll get it down before baby arrives!