I LOVE Cheese

So since I have been pregnant, I have been absolutely obsessed with cheese and pretty much grossed out by everything else. In fact there was a few weeks where I had cheese quesadillas for lunch everyday plus Cheez-its for a snack and have now moved onto Goldfish. It's been the one thing throughout my first trimester that has not once made me cringe or sick. I can always rely on my cheese. There was one day when Marc came home and I was eating slices of American cheese, yes the individually wrapped ones, they're the best.

My friend, Anne, sent me this book called "Diary of A Mad Mom-To-Be" when I told her I was pregnant, she read it during her pregnancies and thought I would be able to relate (not sure if she was calling me a mad woman or not but she definitely got to see my obsessive compulsive traits during the trying process and the beginning of the pregnancy before we saw ultrasounds) and she was right it is absolutely hilarious. The character is basically me in almost every way but what makes me connect with her most is that she shares (or shared) my obsession with cheese. She grew out of it at the end of her first trimester, whereas I am still going strong on the cheese front. Last week at my appointment when the Dr. asked me if I had questions, I asked her if I could eat fresh Mozzarella cheese, it's my favorite but because it is soft I have been staying away from it. I'm sure she expected some medical questions but I was really concerned with the variety of cheese I could eat. When she told me as long as it was pasteurized it was ok, I got a little too excited. Then she told me no deli meats, I said that's cool I prefer cheese sandwiches instead. That weekend at the grocery store I checked my favorite brand of fresh mozzarella and sure enough it's made with pasteurized milk. Score!

Poor Marc has been getting a lot of cheese dinners lately, let's see there was the run to Safeway I made him take for cheese Tortellini, there was the Ravioli dinner, there was the night he had chicken strips and I had grilled cheese, there was pasta with mozzarella cheese melted in and a little bit of tomatoes and olive oil, there are the Take And Bake Pizzas he buys that I make him take the pepperoni off of my side so I have just cheese. Yes, it's all quite odd, I've always liked cheese but I never bought it and consumed it like this. Our club card at Safeway must be all out of whack! I've gone shopping and have had 3 types of cheese in my cart at one time, there's cheddar slices, there's shredded Mexican for the quesadillas and then of course there are Kraft American Cheese Singles. I even bought Velveeta Shells and Cheese for lunch last weekend, who eats that stuff!?!

I bring all of this up because I am sitting here at work eating some Zachary's pizza that they brought in for lunch. If you know Chicago pizza, it's basically the crust, a big hunk of cheese, and tons of sauce. I have basically removed everything on the pizza but the cheese and crust and as I cut off my piece and I stare at my hunk of cheese, it looks absolutely delicious to me and my mouth is even watering a little bit. I hope all of this cheese doesn't cause the baby to be lactose intolerant.

Strange thing this pregnancy thing!

Correction

Marc finally read my blog entries last night and reminded me that Baby now actually makes 4 and not 3, I left Homer off because I was counting humans and he was very upset (Marc not Homer). Which he has a point, because most of our shenanigans do revolve around Homer or what he has done, so he should really be included. Skillet I apologize, Baby Really Makes 4.

Barney Bears

When I was a little girl, my brother and I both had these white Gund teddy bears we named Barney, I think my dad brought them back for us from one of his business trips when we were young or we got them on a trip, I don't really remember, all I know is that we loved these bears. Don't forget that my brother and I are way older than the purple dinosaur, Barney, so Barney Bear's name had nothing to do with the purple dinosaur. We were actually a little upset when Barney the Purple Dinosaur came out because he stole our Barney Bear's name. We absolutely loved these bears. They went everywhere with us. What was most fun about them, other than them being completely and utterly loveable, was that they had smooshy faces and arms so you could have lots of fun pushing them in and then bringing Barney back to shape. When I was really young my brother spent many hours torturing me by disfiguring my Barney Bear, I soon learned it was not permanent. They also had bean bag tooshies so we used to launch them off of the stairs and watch them always land on their butts at the bottom of the stairs. Kind of like cats are supposed the land on their legs, Barney Bear never failed and always landed on his butt, sitting up perfectly. As you can see from the original Barney that he has been through a lot, I can't even remember how old I was when I got Barney, maybe 5 or 6, maybe even younger since Ed had one too and he is 6 years older than me. Barney went to college with me, moved to the Bay Area with me, had my first apartment with me, survived Homer's spiteful days, and until recently has been sitting in the closet in our guest room waiting to be loved again. On a few occasions when Marc has been out of town I have taken him out and slept with him, he's always been my security blanket. I think he fared quite nicely considering I've had him for close to 25 years, wow, am I that old? Ed's Barney didn't fare so well, Espresso got to him on one of his rampages through the house. He was found outback with some missing limbs but he stitched up quite nicely, and after a bath in the washing machine I adopted him since Ed was in college. Ed's Barney Bear can still rock the stair launch since Espresso didn't get to his bean bag butt.

Last weekend, Marc and I got a package, Baby Margulious' first present. My mom was out on one of her many shopping adventures and came across a brand new Baby Barney Bear. She didn't buy it at the time because I was very newly pregnant but when she went home and told my dad about her find he had her go out and buy Baby Barney Bear. It was the best first present Margulious could ever have gotten from his or her grandparents. I was saving my Barney Bear to give to the baby but now Baby Margulious has his or her very own Baby Barney Bear, all clean and spanking new. Baby Barney Bear definitely needs some love to break him in but I am sure Baby Margulious will take care of that in no time. Baby Barney Bear is currently sitting in Baby Margulious' nursery (ironically on our old wine bar - I know it's wrong but that's the only furniture in the room so far), patiently awaiting his new friend's arrival. And yes, the first thing I did was test Baby Barney Bear's smooshability, cuddability, and bean bag butt, which Baby Barney Bear passed with flying colors. He's ready and worthy to be Baby Margulious' best friend! And when Baby Margulious is old enough, we have the perfect staircase to bean-bag-butt launch Baby Barney Bear off of. Hopefully, Uncle Ed, can teach him or her the proper way to launch a Barney Bear.

Thanks for baby's first present Mom and Dad!

And Baby Makes 3

At long last the Zimmerman's are adding a new addition to the Shenanigan adventures and at even longer last we can share the news with everyone. I'm 3 months pregnant! As you can imagine, Marc and I are over the moon over the whole thing. We found out at about 4 weeks so we have been sitting on the hugest and most exciting secret of our life for 8 weeks and we are so glad we can finally share it with everyone.

My due date is February 5 and so far I can't complain about the pregnancy too much, the baby and my body have been pretty good to me other than the usual complaints, I've been nauseous and tired but nothing that has affected my quality of life too much. Apparently we have learned I am a big wine-o because on several occasion when I have not had a drink when out with friends we have been called out on the pregnancy. Note to self, work on that image.

Other than the usual pregnancy complaints everything has been going well. We went July 1 when I was 9 weeks for an early appointment since this is our first baby and saw a heartbeat and on July 18 we went back for our first official 3 month visit and saw a very active baby with a very strong heartbeat. The change in the baby's development from week 9 to week 11 shocked us and the baby was quite active with his/her arms moving everywhere and it even turning around. At one point it turned around and faced us. We've nicknamed the baby Margulious (Marc's nickname) because I hate referring to our child as an "it." So until we know the gender, the baby is known as Margulious.

Of course I am busy and having fun coming up with decoration scenarios for the nursery depending on if it's a boy or a girl. And what's really fun for me is that I have been keeping a journal of every month starting with our positive pregnancy test through our latest appointment and pretty soon I am going to start scrapbooking the baby's beginning (yes, MaryJo, I have been so good about journaling). I am excited that one day the baby will be old enough to look back and read the book and know what Marc and I were feeling at each stage of the pregnancy and how the baby was developing each month.

I'll be keeping this pretty current so that our family across the country can stay in tune with what's going on and see any pictures we get from the Dr. Of course there will be lots more posts when the baby arrives. Cross your fingers the baby is on time!

Here's our 9 week ultrasound (the baby is in the upper right - the little oval):

And our 11 week ultrasound...can you believe how much Margulious has grown! In the top picture the baby is facing us and the bottom is a nice profile shot.

Next steps: Look for an SUV. :) Routine testing on August 1 (almost 14 weeks). Hopefully, we'll have another ultrasound picture, we love staring at them. It's so unbelievable that this little person is growing inside of me and moving around and I don't know it! We are still in such awe over it all.

We are really fortunate that we have this wonderful little baby to look forward to meeting in 6 months (hopefully they will go by quickly!)

My Garden of Eatin'

When Marc and I first bought our house in November of 2006 I always said that I wanted to plant a garden in the backyard. One thing led to another and I never got around to planting it. I also promised Marc for his 30th birthday a couple wine grape vines and a wine making kit. Well this summer we finally got our stuff together and while we were on vacation the week of July 4 we planted our garden. I think the fact that everytime I go to the grocery store and buy fresh veggies and fruit it costs me a fortune put me over the edge. I always realize why America is obese after food shopping because eatting healthy is so expensive. I tried my hand at growing some vegetables from seeds and that failed miserable but one day when we were out we we saw pre-grown plants at Home Depot and we decided to give it a try. We planted one Cab vine (a second is on the way) and a tomato vine (yellow cherry tomatoes), red bell pepper plant, and a cucumber plant (there is room for a zucchini plant too). The tomato plant had a few tomatoes growing on it when we planted it in the ground but the bell pepper plant had nothing growing. Within a week it had 3 blossoms and not long after that a a bell pepper began to sprout from one of the blossoms. Here are some closer views of the garden, I tried the yellow tomato today and it was quite tasty!

Marc's Cab vine:

The veggie patch:

My growing bell pepper:

My cherry tomatoes: