It's a Girl!

Ultrasound yesterday--all is healthy, happy, and well! And, yes, they told us they're 95% sure she's a she! They do think my due date may need to be pushed back a couple of weeks though. It wasn't my regular doctor, so they'll send her the report, and I'll see what she thinks when I go in on the 4th.

In the meantime, here are the pics!
Profile shot. Head on the left, body on the right. She's facing up, toward the right.

The money shot. This is an inferior view, looking up where the legs meet, and there's...nothing to see here, folks.

Body on the lower left, head on the lower right, looking straight at us with her head tilted to her left. So she's looking at us sideways and you can see the two eyes, nose, kind of the mouth.

Same orientation as the last one, but now she's moved her right hand up to her right cheek. Pondering why the ultrasound women keeps poking her, no doubt.

Very obligingly showing us that she does, in fact, have all five fingers. This is the palm of her left hand.

The husband is intimidated at the though of raising a girl, but is very excited and happy. I think he thinks I "wanted" a girl. It's not so much that I "wanted" one over the other, but I think I was more comfortable with the thought of a girl. Not sure why. I spent seven summers working at a girl scout camp, so have a lot of experience with little girls. Not so much with little boys. Is it just that I'm a girl? Dunno. But I'm so glad to know! Now to work on names...

The Postman Cometh

I know, I need new fabric like a hole in the head. But I've resisted those temptresses at superbuzzy long enough! The Japanese will take over the world, wait and see.

If you can't see closely enough (or want some of your own!), there are better pictures of the hedgehog fabric here, the French animals here, and the bird tape here. It seems they must be sold out already of the folk print and the animal tape!

I'm a slavedriver today. The husband's aunt and uncle are coming to stay Friday night from out of town. This means mucho cleaning as the husband's been too busy with school and work and getting ready for an international trip. And I've been pregnant. So today is a room-by-room scouring.

My Heroes!

Oh, I am so gratified. That was the most perfect, most satisfying season finale to Heroes. I'm so happy. It was especially restorative to my tv soul given the sad, pointless, depressing, disapponting, and stupid stupid STUPID finale to Grey's. I was so mad after that episode. But Heroes made it all better. I'm going to bed before something interferes with the perfect ending to this day.

They've set the bar high for the Lost folks.

WIP Thursday

Just a sneak preview of something in the works...


By the way, are the season finales (or penultimate episodes) killing anyone else? I wouldn't even answer the phone when die Frau called today because I was afraid she'd say something about Lost and I hadn't seen it yet. So I watched it immediately upon arriving home tonight. This time of year, you can't take any chances on loose lips.

Cat Nap

Hope all the mommas out there had a lovely Mother's Day. I was pleasantly surprised with lots of cards and phone calls wishing me a Happy Mother-to-be day. The husband and I went out for brunch (blueberry pancakes, mmmmm!). And Ouiser sent me the cutest maternity tops. Such good taste in that girl. And they fit perfectly.

And I am officially in maternity clothes now. Actually, the first weekend I was forced into some was about two weeks ago. They were swimming on me then. I felt as though a stiff breeze was likely to knock the shorts right off me, but my stretchy skirts were in the laundry and I couldn't fit into anything non-elastic. Now, two weeks later (at 17 weeks tomorrow, for anyone who's counting), some maternity things fit well, some require binder clips to hold them up.

Whipped out a cat bed yesterday. Filled with that Micro Bead stuff. Very, very tricky stuff. Don't think I will attempt that again without an extra pair of hands. Gets everywhere. I'm planning to put it on top of a stack of towels in the bathroom that is a favorite sleeping spot of the kitties. That way, their bed will hopefully absorb all the hair and leave the top towel hair-free. Nothing worse than getting out of the shower and toweling off, only to find yourself covered in wet cat hair.

Harry Potter Personality Quiz

You can see I'm having a very productive day. A wee bit excited for Book 7 coming out in 10 weeks.

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

A Perfect 150

Sixteen-week appointment accomplished three days early. This time the doc heard the heartbeat with no problem, and declared it perfect. She also declared my weight gain perfect, though it seemed a little fast to me. But what do I know.

And I have an ultrasound appointment scheduled in two and a half weeks, when I should be able to find out the sex. Oh yeah, and make sure the baby's healthy, well-formed, and all that. Trivial stuff. I just assume all is well unless somebody tells me differently. Which they won't.

Strangely, I had a dream about die Frau's baby last night. Strange because she's only been married a few weeks, never mind pregnant, never mind with the three month old daughter she had in this dream. I actually wondered if die Frau's presence in the dream was an error and maybe it should have been Ouiser and her baby. But you can't question these things. In the dream, however, I did question the three-month-old's ability to speak in complete sentences. Die Frau attributed it to the fact that the child was, in fact, the daughter of an English lit teacher. To which I replied that my SiL is a reading specialist, but you don't see Baby J reading Tolstoy, or Proust, or even Dr. Seuss on his own, I dare say. Die Frau had no good argument to that.

.500

Two attempts in the kitchen this weekend and I'm batting .500.

Of course I only thought to take pictures of the cookies, which didn't turn out so well, and forgot with the dinner, which was great!

Cookies first. Whole wheat oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookies. With nuts. Trying for more of the almost-an-energy-bar thing, rather than the to-die-for cookie thing. But I was still disappointed. I'm thinking that the hazelnuts I included were either the wrong choice of nut, or that I toasted them too much. I also think I need to try them with more chocolate chips and more raisins. I'll get back to you if I give it a second shot. I also clearly need to space them out on the cookie sheet some more. Oops!

The dinner I made was another Cooking Light experiment. From the April 2007 issue, Thai Beef Tacos with Lime-Cilantro Sauce

Steak:

• 1 Tbsp sugar (I used Splenda)
• 1 1/2 tsps minced peeled fresh ginger (I used jarred)
• 1 1/2 tsps fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp chili garlic sauce
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper (mine was not fresh)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 lb flank steak, trimmed (I used a round cut)

Slaw:

• 1/4 c fresh lime juice (again, not fresh. Apparently, nothing in my house is.)
• 1 Tbsp sugar (or Splenda)
• 2 Tbsps rice wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsps minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1/2 tsp chili garlic sauce
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 c packaged angel hair slaw (I used cole slaw, which already had the carrots below included)
• 2 c packaged matchstick-cut carrots
• 1/4 c sliced green onions (skipped; we don't like raw onions)
• 1/2 c chopped fresh cilantro (I used dried; not sure how much)

And 8 (6-inch) flour tortillas

Because the carrots were included in the slaw I purchased, I just left them out and didn't think to compensate for the 2 cups less of veggies. Which explains why I was thinking their recommendation for 1/2 cup of slaw per taco wasn't going to add up to eight tacos. So next time, if I have the same packaged slaw, I'll just do 5 cups instead of 3. It was still good. Even the husband liked it. And only 431 calories for two tacos, per Cookine Light.

Charming

Happy Saturday! Just a quick post as I have to spend the morning copy editing and the afternoon at work. Not much of a Saturday here. Though I do have plans for the roller derby tonight with some friends, so I'll pack all my fun into that.

The husband's Aunt and Family sent this bead along with a baby gift a couple of weeks ago and I finally managed to make it into a necklace. I couldn't get a decent shot of the side of the bead, but one edge says "GROW" and the other edge says "STRONG." I am so in love with it and immediately knew I must wear it throughout my pregnancy. It gives off such a good luck charm vibe. A good happy.

The bead I stuck on the bottom is just a glass bead from Michael's. Some of the parts are canibalized from an old, broken cheapo necklace. Some are parts my mom left me a couple years ago when she was in Tucson for the gem show. She is a serious maker of jewelry, who doesn't mess around with glass beads, but uses almost exclusively semiprecious stones. She is a regular at craft shows and, I think, a consignment store or two in upstate NY and has quite a following. Alas, she never wanted to sell online, so I have no pictures to share. You'll have to trust me: her creations are beautiful.