this and that and thanks and leaving on a plane

First, thank you so much for your comments on my last two posts. Thank you for keeping everything civil and giving me so much feedback. As I wrote in an e-mail to one of my readers (hi!) this really is an issue I am still grappling with, and in the end I may just decide the risk is no greater than other risks we take every day. But thank you for letting me think out-loud here.

As for the great food dilemma, I realized (after a conversation with a blogger who I have actually met. In person. Although I was sadly not served any pina colodas ... maybe next summer) that I have transferred all of my stress about this pregnancy onto food. And that's fine, really. I just need a pro-active action plan, which now includes 2 upcoming visits with nutritionists (one free at student health without any great hopes for competence, and one 'out of network' with a really nice, friendly woman who took my entire eating medical history over the phone including repeated travel diseases/breastfeeding/keeping kosher). I have also made a list of healthy snacks and have been forcing myself to pick from the list when I am considering skipping a meal. Thus far the list is rather short: nuts, string cheese, 1/2 an apple with peanut butter, chobani Greek yogurt (great source of protein but why must it be fat free? I realized my diet is pretty low in fat at the moment). In part the list is so short because I have decided to resist the urge to start testing my blood sugars since that easily runs the potential of encouraging my obsessiveness. I have a 1-hour glucose test scheduled for 3 weeks from now, and pending those results I may start testing blood sugars (which I did up to 10 times per day last go-round). Of course, since we're going with midwives again I was given the glucose drink, told to drink it and then "come in to the office." Let alone that I'll walk almost a mile between getting to and from the subway, most likely stand in a hot subway car, and face several other likely stressors which could both work to lower my blood sugar (exercise) or up it (stress) and either way will guarantee a highly unreliable test result. Oh well.

As for the greatest challenge in my life at the moment, it is the combination of first trimester-doldrum-exhaustion and a massive 19-month sleep regression. The fusspot has gone from 10-15 minutes to fall asleep, waking up once overnight for a drink, and up for the day between 7 and 8 to taking up to 2 hours to fall asleep, waking up 4-5 times per night, and getting up for the day between 4:30 and 5:30. I really, really hope this ends soon. In desperation I took her to the doctor today where she was ruled in perfect health although she failed to gain weight again. That now puts her in the 14th percentile for weight which puzzles me endlessly because ... well ... the kid still looks chunky. She's got rolls on her wrists and ankles and a nice little potbelly which hangs out over her skirts. So either 'American normal' is truly chubby, or the doctor is ignoring that my fusspot is rather on the short side. Either way, the doctor recommended not worrying about it and weighing her again at her next appointment.

As for the fusspot, her vocabulary continues to inch up. To date (at 19.5 months) we have: hi, mama, dada, hot, up, yeah, and go-go. And thankfully that seems to be enough to keep her from falling off the charts again. Surprisingly she still can't say no, which is delightful.

We told my in-laws 'the big news' over the weekend, mostly because I didn't want them thinking that I was truly the laziest-daughter-in-law-ever. I think they were happy. The matter received very little discussion. Of course, last time JD told them over the phone and despite having both my cell and e-mail, they chose not to contact me (he had to tell them because I needed help moving stuff and our travel plans had changed because I needed to get back to the city for an appointment). The one part of the discussion which was conducted in England was a loud declaration that they would not be trading in their car, which means that we will no longer be able to take their car out to visit them. Even more long train rides, here we come. But not a big deal in the big picture.

And with that note, we're leaving on a jet plane in the morning. AND, I'm leaving my computer here in NYC. Mostly because we have a 4 hour layover in Chicago and the idea of lugging around a laptop in addition to a heavy SLR (with both lenses, we are going someplace exquisitely beautiful) and the fusspot and her toys/snacks/changes of clothes seems a bit much (needless to say my long-time readers will have gathered that JD is not joining us). So I won't be online for a week or so. Back next week.