A brief review of our post-holiday week.

On Saturday Andy and my mom and I all got food poisoning. That was not cool. I mention my mom getting it because she's our go-to babysitter but she was out of commission too, so the poor baby spent a lot of time hanging out in her playpen. She was recovering from several very busy days, so she was okay with that - she mostly played by herself and chattered at us happily. The worst part of having food poisoning, besides the part where I barfed ten times in twelve hours (not that I was counting), was the part where my sister and I were scheduled for massages Saturday afternoon and had to cancel. Heartbreaking. I'm rescheduling mine, duh.

Before we realized that it was food poisoning and not something contagious, my sister and her family decided to split back for Maryland before it hit them, so that sucks too. And by the time they got home, my goddaughter was totally miserable and when they took her to urgent care she was diagnosed with a double ear infection. Cool stuff all around.

We are now back to normal and things are going fine. As of yesterday I was eleven weeks pregnant. I started to miscarry right before that last time, and I realized last night that I honestly had just been waiting to get to the same date and to have another miscarriage. That's a pretty shitty thing to be carrying around with me for two months. Today, for the first time, I ordered some super-sale maternity clothes, because I can finally let myself think about what it will be like to be visibly pregnant. I'm still worried all the time and can't wait for the ultrasound on Monday, but it feels good to be able to start to plan for this being real. Having passed the date I miscarried last time feels like I've sort of moved out of that sincere belief that it would happen again.

The baby's dad didn't call to confirm his visit yesterday but did today. Then he showed up 25 minutes late and told the worker he had been pulled over on the way to the visit and gotten a ticket. After the visit the worker followed him to his car to get a copy of the ticket for her records, and he mysteriously couldn't produce it. He searched his car while the worker stood in the freezing cold for five minutes, until she gave up and told him to bring it next time. He won't, of course, but all of this goes in her file and the file goes to the judge.

How was your holiday and post-holiday week?

Obligatory holiday post

We had her up late last night, so the baby is still asleep right now, and Andy and I just enjoyed a leisurely piece of breakfast pie together. In a few minutes, I'm going to start working on the next round of pies - pecan, made without corn syrup - and Andy's going to start working on his fancy-pants sweet potatoes. Then we'll head over to my folks' to spend some extra time with my sister and her family. Today is not too shabby, you guys.

This is the traditional time for us to reflect on what we're grateful for, and I have to say, there's a whole lot on my list. My life is pretty spectacular, really. I'll try to keep this somewhat brief and also not too sappy, but here's a sampling of what I'm giving thanks for this year:

• My awesome husband and our wonderful marriage. Honestly, I'm legitimately thrilled that I get to hang out with this guy every day. He does little things all the time to make sure I feel loved and cared about. He has volunteered to take on SO MUCH lately so I can sit on the couch and feel queasy. He never tells me to stop being silly when I worry nonstop. He had a dream last night in which we had our baby, she was a healthy girl, and we had given her a really awesome name.

• Our life as parents. This baby is really awesome, and parenting her has been mostly a lot of fun. She is funny and charming and she likes to snuggle my face with hers, which she doesn't do with anyone else in the world. We call her Baby Girl a lot, and she has started calling herself Baba Gull. She also sometimes calls herself Baba Yaya, where "Yaya" is a hilariously mangled version of part of her name. We are so lucky to get to be her parents, even if it's not forever.

• The people we choose to surround ourselves with. Really, the only drama in our life comes from the foster care system and the baby's bio-family. We have many solid friendships with people who are genuinely awesome and sincere.

• Related to the above post, I'm really grateful for how kind everyone was to us after the miscarriage. It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through, and I learned that our friends immediately step up in situations like that. My parents, too, were amazing, and made sure we had food in the house, and took the baby to play and snuggle and hang out so we could just be alone together. The behavior of people close to us in a really shitty time made me okay with telling (some) people about this pregnancy, because I know I will need them again if anything goes wrong.

• This is going to sound weird, but I'm thankful for feeling shitty. I felt totally fine throughout the last pregnancy, so feeling crappy this time makes me feel like things are different. Don't get me wrong, I'm still totally a whiny baby about feeling queasy, but I am supremely grateful that there are indications this time that things are going okay in there. Also, for the first time, Andy and I can feel a bump now. We didn't feel one last time at all, and okay maybe I'm crying a little now.

I can hear the baby starting to wiggle around and it's Pie-Making Time, but I also want to say that I'm thankful for having this platform to work through stuff. I know many of my readers aren't foster parents, so thanks for asking questions and reading even when it's not relevant to your life. I have never had a single trolling comment on here (because I have like 12 readers and you're all awesome) so my little corner of the internet feels like a pretty cool place. I hope you are having a really awesome holiday and that you get breakfast pie as often as you want.

Thanksgiving plans!

We're hosting Thanksgiving again. We like hosting holidays, because it means we don't have to go anywhere and we only have to eat one meal. With both of our families less than ten minutes away, we spend part of each holiday with my family and part with Andy's, so we get double meals. Hosting Thanksgiving is awesome, too, because there are no presents - we hosted Christmas one year and somehow ended up timing it so that we opened our presents with both sets of parents here at the same time. It was super awkward. If we ever host Christmas again, we'd probably have my parents come over earlier and do presents, then have his parents join us for dinner, then do presents with his side after my folks leave. 

ANYWAY. Last time we hosted Thanksgiving, Andy's mom offered to make and bring the turkey. This worked out great, as she makes a great turkey and I don't know how to cook one. So we're doing that again this year. Andy's mom is in charge of turkey and stuffing. Andy and I are making roasted winter veggies (Brussels sprouts plus probably parsnips and carrots), mashed potatoes with roasted garlic, and baked sweet potatoes with pecan praline topping stuff (we made these a few years ago and would recommend using SMALL sweet potatoes, not the large ones called for, because no one can eat an entire large sweet potato plus all the other Thanksgiving foods). Oh, and I'm making homemade applesauce and some small-batch pear-cranberry compote, which I MIGHT just can up and give as favors or some fancy shit. My folks are in charge of appetizers and rolls, and I know my mom will BRING IT with the appetizers. For dessert, I'm making a traditional pumpkin pie and a pecan pie without corn syrup.

We're going to have eight people, including ourselves, for dinner, and my brother and his wife will be dropping in for appetizers or dessert. We will have way too much food and not quite enough room at the table. It will be lovely.

Do you host holidays? What are your Thanksgiving plans?

Obligatory Holiday Post

I really like roasted marshmallows. Always have. So about seven years ago, Andy's grandma made sweet potatoes with pineapple and other stuff, topped with marshmallows, especially for me at Thanksgiving. The thing is, I hate sweet potatoes. They are the worst. And to me, pineapple is not a food that belongs on the holiday table. But Grandma was old, and it was nice of her to remember I liked marshmallows, so I pretended I loved 'em, and always thanked her and everything.

Every year for the last seven years, there have been fucking sweet potatoes with marshmallows and pineapple on the table for EVERY HOLIDAY. Easter. Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Year's. And every year, I've pretended to like them. My trick is to take a big scoop that's mostly marshmallow, with a thin layer of sweet potato, then flip it onto my plate so it looks like a big scoop of potato, then eat from the bottom and get mostly mallow.

So Andy's grandma passed away last year, and I thought I'd finally be free of the sweet potatoes.

We went to Andy's uncle's house for Thanksgiving dinner today, and his uncle's girlfriend made me sweet potatoes, because she knew how much I loved them when Grandma made them. She even spent half an hour at the store trying to find the mini-marshmallows for the top.

So this year, I'm thankful for being honest and admitting that I hate sweet potatoes, and for hopefully never having to pretend to like another sweet potato.

Although it did mean that I had Andy's mom and his uncle's girlfriend razz me ALL EVENING about the goddamn sweet potatoes. If I don't have to see them next month, it'll all be worth it.

What're you grateful for this year?

Pre-holiday festivites

Image via

So yesterday I had a nice, quiet evening of pie-baking and sweater-knitting planned. Instead, I got the pies made then went to a bar to hear my friend's band play (I didn't know about the show until very last minute). I brought my knitting with me and made the bouncer* hold it while I looked for my ID, which was terrific. While we were there, a whole bunch of my "group" from high school** arrived from out of town. They were too late for the band, but not too late for beers and catching up! It was great, despite being very unexpected.

 Tonight we're going to a dessert party at Andy's cousin's new house***, then probably stopping at the bars in my hometown on the way back to our house. So Andy's sweater isn't going to be done to wear to dinner tomorrow, but we are going to have fun and see people we don't see very often. I guess it's a satisfactory trade-off!

*Picture a skinny Hells Angel. He just looked at it, confused, while I dug through my purse.
**Full disclosure: I was not an integral member of said group, really.
***I baked a coconut cream pie!