Currently: October snow edition

We got a dumping of about 8" of snow yesterday. Well played, 2020. You just keep packing the punches, don't you? So much for my wish for a long mild fall. With temps in the 30s for the forseeable future and more snow forecasted for Saturday, I guess this is just how October is going to be? 

Reading: Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey and Lovely War by Julie Berry. I'm reading Raising White Kids with 3 other moms I know IRL and through social media. It talks about how to talk about racism from an early age so your kids are part of the solution, not the problem. I'm looking forward to discussing it with the other ladies! Lovely War is a book from the Modern Mrs. Darcy Summer Reading Guide. I felt a bit skeptical when I started as it's told from the perspective of some of the Greek Gods. But I'm going to stick with it for 50-100 pages as I trust Anne Bogel's taste and she says this narrative structure works!

Loving: whole milk lattes with 2 pumps of SF vanilla syrup from Starbucks as an occasional treat. I tried one with heavy cream yesterday and oof, that was too much for me. Heavy fat is good for the gestational diabetes diet but that was just too much for me. I am not a huge dairy person so that thickness of the heavy cream sat in my stomach in an unpleasant way. But the whole milk ones are perfect! Admittedly these lattes are not as 'occasional' as they probably should be. I'm probably getting 3-4/week but besides the Fairlife Chocolate milk, it's the only treat I can really have these days due to my restrictive diet. 

Feeling: very sick of pregnancy. My RA has been really bad - I've been getting flares every 2-3 days and they are very painful. My last pregnancy was tough so I knew this one would be hard, too, but I'm getting more flares than I did during the final part of Paul's pregnancy so I'm just very over it!

Thinking: about how to make the Christmas holiday extra special for Paul. We won't be celebrating the holidays with family due to covid concerns/having a newborn so it will be a different season than usual. But I want to make it extra special since Paul will also be adjusting to being a big brother. I ordered a cool Advent Calendar from West Elm (appears to be sold out now!) that has a drawer for each day so we'll put things like stickers, Hershey's kisses, etc in that. I'll also buy some Christmas book so we can open a new one each week and I'm sure we'll decorate cookies, too, and maybe a gingerbread house. 

Anticipating: Paul's return to daycare on Friday!! Having him home has definitely been challenging. He has watched a ton of tv but that is the only solution to keeping him entertained/busy so we can focus on our work. He's very into Sesame Street now which I much prefer to Little Baby Bum!

Struggling: with this change in weather.

These photos were taken on Saturday. Paul loved playing with the leaves and Phil kept the leaf pile in the backyard so he could play with them this week. 

These photos were taken on Tuesday after our dumping of 7" of snow. Paul was very excited about the snow, though. So at least 1 person in our house was happy? 

Minnesota winters are VERY long. We can have snow through March or April. So getting this much snow in October when we know we'll be extra isolated due to Covid is just DEPRESSING.

Grateful: that Phil took Paul out to his mom's on Sunday afternoon so I could have a solid 4+ hours alone in our house. I had a very painful flare that day so I really needed the downtime with no demands made upon me. We had been quarantining and had all tested negative so he felt safe bringing Paul out there. It was probably better that I wasn't there as Paul was happy to sit on nana's lap and read books. When I'm there, he wants to sit on my lap... 

Working: on some baby prep stuff. I took all the baby stuff out of our storage areas under the stairs. After it was all out, I wondered how it all had fit in there before? The storage area was like the equivalent of Mary Poppin's margic carpet bag, I swear. So I have a pile of stuff in the guest room that needs to go upstairs when the baby is closer to arriving. I was also reminded how many hand-me-down toys Paul has from generous friends! I'm keeping them stored away until we can swap them out for some of the things he's currently playing with. 

Just some of the stuff that came out of the storage area... I had already moved some items to the guest room when I took this pic. As a minimalist, looking at this photo stresses me out!

Listening: to podcasts, as usual!

Watching: the show Fargo on Hulu. We needed something new to watch as a couple so decided to give it a try. It's darker than I like shows to be but it's interesting and well-written so we will keep at it. 

Wishing: for this snow to melt and for 50ish degree weather to return!

Your turn! What are you reading, anticipating, and struggling with?

Three Things Thursday

Well, this has just not been our week. We found out on Sunday evening that a little girl in Paul's class tested positive for Covid. That really threw a wrench in the week... but such is life in the time of a global pandemic. Here are 3 things on my mind today - I forced myself to come up with something positive for the 3rd one. But that's like and sometimes you just need to acknowledge rough times/crappy things so you can move ahead. 

1. Paul's classroom will be closed for 14 days from the day the little girl was last there, so Paul is home with us until he can return on Friday, October 23rd. In the spring, you were able to send your child back once they had a negative test (per the MN Dept of Health guidelines). MDH has since revised their policy and now you need to stay home for 14 days from the last known exposure. I am glad they made this change because in the spring, when we last had cases at daycare, kids got tested within the first couple of days of finding out about the positive case. They might not have had the viral load to get a positive test. So I think it's better to err on the side of caution and have people isolate for 14 days. This time around they told us to wait 5-7 days from our last exposure to make sure the testing was as accurate as possible, so we waited until day 6 (yesterday) and all got tested. It was negative - phew!! All of this has definitely resulted in some anxiety for me. I had to cancel my 32 week OB appointment, which isn't the biggest deal as I have them weekly starting at 32 weeks, but it wasn't ideal. I'm finding it harder to work from home with Paul around than it was in March/April. I'm busier at work, plus quarter end is the busiest time of year for me, and he's more verbal. I've told my coworkers I can't take client calls unless it's nap time and they've been able to accommodate that. Everyone is very understanding that this situation is out of our control. Here are a couple of pics of how we have been keeping Paul busy. I ordered some stickers and new puzzles as we clearly need more things to entertain him!

He's very into stickers. Note the usage of our "I voted!" stickers - Phil and I voted by mail in early October and confirmed our ballots had been received within 4-5 days of mailing them.

This puzzle is challenging for him, so requires some help from me. He sings his ABCs and recognizes the letters, but getting them in the right order/getting the letters to face the right direction is challenging. 

2. I'm also still struggling with flares even though I am on my max dose of prednisone. I had to stop taking my RA injection at 28 weeks and once it was out of my system, I started getting rolling flares that move from joint to joint. I guess that is just how the rest of this pregnancy is going to be. This time I got one in my elbow and it just won't go away. :/ On Tuesday, I had email exchanges with my endocrinologist, rheumatologist, OB, and hematologist. And then the hematologist had to contact the perinatalogist. It's just kind of overwhelming at times as that is a lot of -ologists to communicate with. Thank goodness for my chart/patient portals - it's way more efficient than having to call all these practices and get a nurse to call me back, etc. 

3. I'll end on a positive note. This fall has seemed especially beautiful - or maybe I'm noticing it more because I'm taking daily walks - and sometimes multiple walks/day - in our neighborhood. There is a house we walk by on most walks that has 2 geese - they change their costumes every couple of months. Paul loves walking by this house, although he calls the geese ducks - close enough, right? Seeing them is the highlight of every walk for Paul. Other costumes they've worn include a shark, football player, referee, and teacher - and the list goes on and on. There's someone creative and crafty living in that house!

The latest geese costumes - a scarecrow and a squirrel with an acorn!

Is your week going better than mine??? I hope so!

TGIF

Happy Friday! It's going to be summer-like here this weekend so I am looking forward to the weekend ahead!

The book I'm reading is Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. It's 600+ pages so it will take me while to get through it but I am enjoying it. He's a very quiet, thoughtful writer so it's a slower paced novel. The protagonist in the novel is writing about his grandparents settlement in the west in the late 1800s. His grandfather worked for mines so they lived in some remote places. I'm not sure if any of this is autobiographical - it kind of reads like it is, though! 

The high of my week was getting together with a friend I hadn't seen in 2 years (!!!) for a walk. She has a 7 and 10 yo so it's been hard to plan get togethers in the past with all the activities her kids are in. I reached out to her this fall to see if she wanted to get together for a walk and we made it work. It was great to catch up! We met back in 2004 at my first job out of college and she sang in our wedding in 2017. It's one of those friendships where you can go a long time without talking and you just pick up where you left off!

The low of my week was RA flares. Oof, I am in a really bad stretch. I've had 4 flares in the last week - 2 in my feet, one in my left pointer finger and then both hips are flaring right now. I've never had a flare in my hip joints before and wow it is painful. I am hobbling around like a 90yo woman and sleeping is really tough as you need to sleep on your side when pregnant. I've increased the dose of my steroids so hopefully they do the trick soon. If this keeps up, these last 8 weeks of pregnancy are going to be looooong. I went off my weekly RA injections at 28 weeks so I had a feeling things might get worse but I didn't imagine this many flares. :( 

This is what an RA flare looks like - the impacted joint is the pointer finger.

A recipe I made was Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade GF Enchilada Sauce. I made these on Thursday, but made the enchiladas sauce and poached/shredded the chicken on Wednesday to make enchilada assembly faster. The enchilada sauce is very easy to make and requires staple pantry ingredients/spices - at least for us. Everybody liked this, including picky Pablo. Because of spanish immersion daycare, he tends to love/eat Mexican food!

I forgot to take a pic before Phil and Paul had dished up! I added olives since we love them. 

A show we are watching is nothing at the moment... We watched the Epstein documentary series and the American Murder documentary series which is about the Denver-area husband who killed his wife and 2 daughters. Both were horrifying and I wondered why we watched such grim shows?? Phil and I have very different tastes in tv, though, so we tend to watch documentaries and most of what caught our eye was sad/dark stuff. We definitely need something lighter! We also watched "The World's Toughest Race" on Prime which we both enjoyed. We had fun talking about who we would have on our teams. Our number one pick for both of us was our friend Kyria! She's the toughest, most fit person we both know. We met through blogging but now we have joint custody of her as a friend as Phil and her get along super well - they are both frugal, and love hiking/the outdoors and beer!

The best money spent was on some LS shirts from Target for Paul. We mostly rely on hand-me-down clothes but he was in need of some warmer clothes for fall/winter. Target had a bunch for $5 which you really can't beat so I bought 8 shirts!

My plans this weekend include getting together tonight with 2 former coworkers for an outdoor take-out meal. The high will be 82 so it should be a really pleasant evening to be outside! Tomorrow we are doing a post-nap play date with my friend whose kids go to the same daycare. I told Paul about the play date on Wednesday night and he keeps asking if today is the day we go to their house? I'm also planning on baking these pumpkin oatmeal cups with Paul. They have too many carbs for me to eat but I think Paul and Phil will enjoy them and they are fairly healthy. And then on Sunday after Paul's nap we are going out to Phil's HS friend's house for a bday get together for one of his friends. This is the group we got together with for Phil's bday in August. The couple that hosts us has a huge house on a lake with a huge outdoor table. So we can all safely spread out. So it's kind of a 'busyish' weekend, but the right amount of activity for me and it's all outdoors so very covid-safe!

Bonus Paul photo!

My only Paul photo from the week is the one I took on Tuesday when we went to the creek to throw rocks. It was 80 degrees that day so very summer-like! 

How was your week? Any shows you'd recommend for a documentary-loving couple?

What We Read in September

September was another solid reading month for me - I finished 8 books. I really like most of what I read! As of today, I've read 74 books and my goal is 75 so it's going to be another banner year of reading for me! I read over 100 last year but I kind of doubt I'll hit that number this year - which is fine. I track my reads because I find it interesting but I don't put pressure on myself to read more each year. I'm in the middle of a 600+ page Wallace Stegner novel (Angle of Repose) so my number of books read in October will certainly be lower - and that is ok!

Mom's reads:

Hits:

- All 4 books in the first picture are excellent and are books I would recommend. Of those 4, Vanishing Half and Rodham were my favorites. In the 2nd picture, I'd recommend You're Not Listening (great non-fiction read about the decline of our listening skills) and Royal Holiday (fun romance novel loosely based on Megan and Harry - great if you are looking for a light book!). 

Misses:

- I struggled to get through "Girl, Woman, Other." Had it not been a book club book (which only 2 of us ended up reading!), I would have abandoned it. It won the Booker Prize in 2019 so clearly it was a critically acclaimed novel. But as I've said before, big awards are often a kiss of death for me. There was no punctuation or capitalization in this book, so it took a long time for me to get used to that. The 2 of us who read it discussed whether that benefited the book in any way and we really couldn't see how it did... The other person was a literature major so she has the education background to identify how it helped the book and came up with nothing. This math major just really did not care for it and found it distracted from the novel. 

Paul's reads:

I started to get library books for Paul this month. He has loved having new books to read. His favorites this month were "Mighty Mighty Construction Site" and "Frog and Toad Together." We have the bedtime construction site book but probably need to buy this one since he loves it so much. When he's a bit older, we will probably buy the boxed set of the Frog and Toad books as they are great for early readers.

Phil also surprised us and bought a book he loved from his childhood called "Strega Nona." It's about a woman in a village in Italy who has a magic pasta pot. It kind of reminds me of "The Sorcerers Apprentice" as the theme of the stories (trying to do magic you shouldn't be doing) is very similar. Paul really loves this book! 

He continues to love to read books which makes my heart very happy. He loves bringing us a huge stack of books to read on the weekend or evenings. He's such a busy little guy so I love reading to him as he will snuggle in and relax for awhile.

Did you read anything great in September?

Weekend Recap

We had a pretty quiet fall weekend here which I didn't mind as the weather was nice enough to be outside quite a bit. The key to happiness for us is outdoor time! Here is how we spent our weekend!

We had a quiet Friday night. After logging off from work, I read Anne of Green Gables, which is a delightful re-read, while kitty kept trying to find a place to sit on my chest. I didn't take a picture of our dinner, but we had walleye with a lemon butter sauce, broccoli and a baked potato. It was really good! 

Is there room for me?

On Saturday morning, I met up with 4 moms from my mom's group, sans kids, at a park for a catch up. We keep in touch via text, but we hadn't seen each other since last October! We were going to get together in March to celebrate the toddlers birthday, but then covid hit. It was great to catch up and hear about what is going on in their lives. One of the moms is a couple weeks further along than I am and their baby has a major heart defect and will require surgery in the first week of life and further surgeries. So it was good to hear how she is doing/hear what to expect for the first 6 months of life so we can figure out how to support her with meals and such. It puts my GD/RA/challenging pregnancy in perspective as what she is dealing with is so so difficult. Phil stayed home with Paul and I was gone for about 2 hours - it was nice to get a little time away! 

After Paul's nap that day, we went for a walk and stopped at the park. Since it was a cold morning, Paul hadn't been outside at all so it was good for all of us to get some fresh air and let Paul run off some of his endless energy!

When we got back from the walk, Paul and I made cookies. We used this easy recipe from my friend San's blog and they were really good. We used PB instead of almond butter as we aren't almond butter eaters. Paul's favorite part was licking the peanut butter spoon! I used monkfruit sweetener instead of coconut sugar - monkfruit is a sugar substitute that doesn't raise your blood sugar like sugar does. They turned out really good and only have 10g of carbs/cookie so I'm able to have one as part of a snack. 

I made a stew in the instant pot with pork roast, butternut squash, and corn - it turned out good! You cut off the kernels from the cobs and put the cobs in with the stew when cooking and it really adds corn flavor to the stew. The recipe came from my Milk Street Kitchen cook book - pretty much everything we've made from it has been great! I recommend it for people who love to use their instant pot!

We woke up to chilly 37F temps on Sunday morning. The sun was shining so I bundled Paul up and we went out for a walk. He ditched the hat and mittens within the first 1/2 mile, though. 

When we got back from the walk, we had an early lunch and then headed to his haircut appointment. He has school pics this week so I figured it was a good time for a trim. It's not my favorite haircut of the 4 he's had, but oh well. His hair is tough to cut because it's very fine/thin and he has a lot of cowlicks in the back. But it looks good enough from the front!

He took a good nap after he got home from the haircut and then Phil and him headed out for a walk to the creek to throw rocks. I came down with a flare during the night on Saturday and it was feeling worse by the afternoon so I opted to stay home. After their walk, Paul took my spot on the couch and played for quite a while. He is usually in constant motion!

For dinner, I made this crustless broccoli cheddar quiche. I was hoping Paul would eat it as I cut the broccoli pretty small but he wouldn't ever TASTE it. That is one of the most frustrating aspects of feeding Paul. When we offer him new things, a lot of the time he won't even put it in his mouth, even though Phil and I are eating the same thing and tell him how good it is. Toddlers! Phil and I enjoyed it, though. 

And that's a wrap! All in all, it was a good weekend. I could have done without the flare (and I got another one during the night last night). But so it goes! 

How was your weekend?

Pregnancy Update: 30 weeks

Woo hoo! 30 weeks! Hitting the 30s makes it feel  like the end is in sight! Which I am happy about because I don't love pregnancy. But the end is approaching!

Baby size:  He's the size of a head of cabbage this week. Last week he was the size of a butternut squash. The vegetable comparisons are so weird and seem to flip from length to mass or something.

Here are some bump pics, which I apparently only take at doctor appts, hence the mask! I'm 28 weeks on the left and 30 on the right. I feel so huge - I'm close to as big as I ever got with Paul. Eeks. But my belly is measuring on track and the baby was measuring 2 weeks ahead at my 28 week ultrasound so my doctor said the size of my belly is healthy/normal. 

Sex of the baby: boy! 

Name progress:  We have 2 in mind and are leaning toward 1 but haven't made a final decision. 

Symptoms/RA management: My RA management has been ok. I got a flare in my foot over the weekend so had to bump up my prednisone. But overall, I'm feeling pretty good all things considered. The baby is moving a TON! I can often feel a foot or something pushing out by the top of my belly. It's kind of crazy to feel that and something I did not feel with Paul! I'm definitely getting short of breath very easily and have a hard time getting a full breath of air when sitting on the couch so I guess he's already lowering my lung capacity!

Gestational diabetes management: Eh. This has been tough and I've had some tears this week. Overall it's going fine. I have only had 2 high blood sugars - both times I had not eaten much carbs so they kind of surprised me. But I had ketones in my urine over the weekend which means I'm not eating enough carbs and I lost 3 pounds this week. My doctor isn't too concerned about the weight loss as long as it doesn't continue and I keep feeling baby move. But if I can't eat enough carbs to maintain/gain weight, I might need to go on insulin which I'm really hoping to avoid as it requires more monitoring and increases the chances that the baby will need to go to the NICU. I think I'm eating pretty similarly to how I ate when I was pregnant with Paul but I guess even being 2 years older can impact how my body handles prednisone/the lower carb diet. 

Recent/upcoming appointments: I had my 30 week appointment on Tuesday and everything looked good. We talked about my blood sugar/ketone issue and will take a wait and see approach. Starting at 32 weeks, I have weekly ultrasounds, biophysical profiles, and non-stress tests so they can make sure the baby's growth isn't impacted by my super low carb diet. I'm not looking forward to those appointments as they will be a good 1-1.5 hours but it's unavoidable with all my complications. 

Sleep:  It's been pretty good. I have bouts of insomnia about 1-3 nights/week but overall it's not terrible. I live for weekend naps, though!

Cravings/favorite foods and aversions: My new favorite "treat" is Fairlife chocolate milk. I drank this during Paul's pregnancy. It has a lot of protein and fat (more than typical milk as it's filtered many times) to offset the carbs and it is so thick and delicious! I stopped drinking my coffee with creamer as there are carbs in my fat free french vanilla creamer. So instead I treat myself to a whole milk latte with 2 pumps of sugar free vanilla syrup about once/week. I tested my blood sugar after having one and didn't have any issues so this is my go to 'treat' for the rest of pregnancy. 

Exercise:  I'm still sticking to walks - I shoot for 1 45 minute walk on week days and 1-2 hours of walking between 2 walks with Paul on the weekends as we usually take walks/go to the park or creek in the morning and afternoon.

Recent baby prep/decisions:  Nadda! I don't think we'll do anything more with his room until after the baby is born as Phil uses it as an office when he works from home. The baby will sleep in our room until around 3 months, so we really don't need to do anything else in his room, besides move the changing table in there, until February.

Mood: Meh. I cried a bit this week out of frustration over the gestational diabetes thing. Pregnancy hormones don't help. It's just hard to be on a really restrictive diet and spend so much time thinking about it. I keep reminding myself I only have to do this for 9 more weeks, but that can feel long at times. But GD frustration aside, I'm doing pretty well all things considered.

My C-section got scheduled for December 3rd so the baby will be here 9 weeks from today! And yes, I am totally counting down the days until his arrival!

A quieter weekend

 After last weekend's jam-packed socialization, this weekend was the complete opposite. I had zero social plans and we stayed close to home. Paul had a runny nose during the week and then I caught his bug towards the end of the week. I don't have any of the tell-tale covid signs such as a fever, dry cough, loss of taste, etc but out of an abundance of caution, I decided that social plans were not a good idea. Plus I was extra tired - story of my life these days! Here are some highlights from the weekend, though!

Changing colors

Fall is starting to hit here in Minneapolis. It's definitely my favorite time of year as the changing colors are so beautiful. I've been taking so many walks now that the weather is cooler and I need activity to make sure I don't get a high blood sugar. I've been soaking in the views and appreciating the beauty of this season. Pre-Paul, my schedule was pretty hectic between work travel and fun travel but that came to a screeching halt after I had Paul. There were a lot of falls that went by unappreciated by me because I was simply too busy to take in the beauty around me. So while I sometimes miss the jet-setting I did back then, overall I'm happy I'm not wracking up as many frequent flier miles!

Starting to see some peeks of color along the lake. This will be gorgeous when we hit peak season!

Walks and Park Time with Paul

Getting out of the house is essential for our sanity on the weekends! So we took lots of walks and visited our local park each day. I'm glad we live in such a beautiful area for walks. We are about a block away from a creek and about a 1/2 mile from a lake so we have lots of different walking options. On Sunday morning, we saw some ducks on the creek so we let Paul get out of the stroller to watch the ducks. They were diving for food so he had fun watching that! We were probably out of the house for 2+ hours each day which makes the days go much faster and usually guarantees a better nap!

Kitty's return!

Phil went out to his mom's on Saturday to help with some chores and bring kitty home. Originally we were going to go out there with her, but we decided to stay home to keep our germs to ourselves (Phil is healthy so far and hopefully remains so!). Oscar has been gone for 7 months so she's going through a bit of an adjustment period. But overall, she seems happy to be back. Phil said she's been all over him at night and purring like crazy. She even sat on my lap for about 5 minutes on Sunday (she much much much prefers Phil - she's really "his cat" and just puts up with Paul and me). We are working on teaching Paul to talk quietly around her... There has been some hissing and growling. She would never hurt Paul, but she definitely lets him know when he needs to give her some space! Hopefully they will be friends some day, but I kind of doubt she'll ever really "love" kids since she's very shy and very particular about who she likes!

How was your weekend? Are you seeing peeks of fall colors where you live?