I can't believe it

I think between Matt and myself, we've said "I can't believe it" about 331 times in the last 24 hours, because yesterday, Matt accepted a job offer at Volkswagen that will take us to Chattanooga, TN!

Matt's been looking for a job since mid-September and in October, we began to get VW and Chattanooga on the brain. Both make sense for us in so many ways, and now that it's finally happened, we're stunned. There were days when something like this happening just felt impossible, but we kept hoping and praying for a miracle. And I took a lot of deep breaths.

Well, we got our miracle, and another miracle is (hopefully!) quickly on its way .... Baby D is due in just under a week. We can't believe it!!

Boring banana bread

I've been making a lot of banana bread recently, and eating a lot of it, too. You see, my husband hasn't been the biggest fan of many of my recent loaves.

There are so many different banana bread recipes out there and I have a difficult time sticking with just one. For a while, though, I was pretty faithful to Banana Bread with Cinnamon Crumble Topping. It is really very good. Definitely NOT healthy.

But, a few weeks ago I had some crystallized ginger I wanted to use up, and I saw a recipe for banana bread with crystallized ginger and chocolate chips that sounded pretty good, so I gave it a try. Well, according to Matt, I might have been too generous with the ginger and not diced it up finely enough (it's not easy to get those sticky chunks into little pieces!) He said it was more like gingery bread with a little banana.

So I ate all but one piece of that loaf.

Then, a week or so later, I felt as if I owed him a loaf he liked. So I nixed the ginger and found a recipe for banana bread with chocolate chips. I had about 1/3 of a bag of jumbo chocolate chips in the pantry and the amount of chocolate chips it called for was "as much as you like." Works for me!

Well, according to Matt, I was definitely too generous with the chocolate chips and the result was chocolate bread with a little banana.

I ate and enjoyed most of that loaf.

Yesterday, I decided to give it one more try and found a plain Jane recipe for banana bread with walnuts. No ginger, no chocolate, only walnuts.

According to Matt, this one tastes great! Even if it is a little boring.

Do you want to hold the baby?

I'm really looking forward to holding our baby. I know this goes without saying, but I feel that I need to say it because it's accompanied by a confession - I don't always look forward to holding other people's babies.

It's not that I don't want to! I love newborns and infants. To all my friends who have had children, know that I think yours are adorable and are just begging to be held, rocked and cooed over.

It's just that I don't usually feel up to the challenge. For me, when I'm with a new mom and she's holding her peaceful, content baby and then asks me if I want to hold her, the first thought that usually runs through my mind is "Why ruin a good thing?!" Here you have this baby finally quieted down and satisfied in your arms, as only a mother can do, and you want to pass her off to me, who's probably only logged 53 minutes of baby holding time in her life, and risk getting her all riled up and into an inconsolable state?

To me, this does not seem like a good idea. I really don't want to be that person who made the baby cry. Of course no one will blame it on you, but come on - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the baby was perfectly fine in mom's arms and most likely would have remained that way if she just stayed put.

Yet, often I will still say "Yes!" with a big smile and hold out my arms, while I'm really sitting there thinking "What position am I going to hold her in" or "Wow, her head seems wobbly but I feel like she's old enough to support her head - what should I do," or "Hmm, 'mom' seems to be looking at me funny - does she not like the way I'm holding her baby, but is too polite to say anything???"

Now that I'm typing this confession, I'm realizing that it might indicate I won't be one of those moms who lets other people hold her baby. And let me just assure you - you are more than welcome to hold my baby. You also have complete freedom to say "No thank you!" Believe me - I will understand.

Anniversary week

Our two-year anniversary was this Tuesday and Matt surprised me with dinner at a restaurant I've been wanting to go to for a long time - Mind, Body & Spirits. Not the greatest name for a restaurant; someone even pointed out to me that it sounds more like a spa than a place you'd go to to eat. However, it's an organic restaurant that uses as many local ingredients as possible, maintains a seasonal menu and has a great atmosphere. Not quite spa-like, but relaxing.

The highlight of the meal? Our appetizer of french fries dusted with pink Himalayan salt. Piping hot, crispy but not crunchy, served in a cone of parchment paper. Absolutely delicious.

The rest of the meal was great, too, but I'm beginning to learn that my 33-week pregnant body can only handle so much food at once, so the beginnings of meals are generally the better parts. The fries, plus one and a half of a homemade rootbeer, half of a chicken puttanesca flatbread pizza, and some vanilla bean ice cream totally put me over the edge.

We continued the anniversary celebrations this weekend with a one-night stay at the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit. This is an historic hotel in Detroit that recently went through some major renovations. It was once the tallest building in Detroit and the world's tallest hotels at its completion in 1924.

Since we're not going to be doing too much hotel hopping in the near future, we made the most of our waning days of freedom and lazed around, watched TV, used the fitness center ... and of course made time to eat! We'd been wanting to go to Slows BBQ for a long time, but with threats of four-hour waits at dinnertime, were never sure when to go.

3:30 seemed like a pretty safe time to give it a shot, though, and I guess it was, even though we still had to wait an hour and fifteen minutes! It was worth it though, although, I have to confess, I'm not much of a barbeque connoisseur. I mean, I know when I'm eating really subpar barbeque, but beyond that, don't have much of a palate for what is truly amazing.

Case in point, I went to a baby shower this afternoon for a friend from Texas, so the meal was bbq. And I could have sworn it tasted just as good as Slows.

All in all, a great anniversary week! I feel like I should end this post with something sweet and sappy, something about the baby or our growing love for each other to sum it all up ... but what I really want to say is that I'm just glad I didn't ruin any of our dinners out. I have a tendency to do so whenever there's a lot of buildup for a nice night out. It's like I jinx myself and choose that very moment to let my emotions get out of control. It's quite the slippery slope.

But, perhaps my pregnant hormones have put me very much in balance, because I stayed on my best behavior. Perhaps that was the best anniversary present I could have given Matt.

Registering made easier - but at a price

I fell for giggle.com. I know I said I wasn't about to get sucked into baby registry mania, and I still think I'm keeping my sanity, but I have to admit, giggle.com is enticing. It markets itself as a "new parent store." One that weeds out all of the overwhelming choices and presents you with only the best strollers, car seats, bottles, etc. How nice! Instead of 44 monitors to choose from, you only need to choose from 4!

Of course it only weeds out the priciest items, and I'm realizing is really charging you a premium for doing the work of sorting out the 40 monitors they've decided aren't worth purchasing, and so I'm trying to keep my wits about me as I peruse its offerings. Of course I believe Baby D. deserves only the best, but I also hope he/she learns from an early age that all that glitters (or I suppose giggles in this case) is not gold. It sure is nice to look at, though!

Sometimes jellybeans for breakfast isn't a good thing

When I was little, one of my favorite books was "Jellybeans for Breakfast." I don't remember all the details, but I think the gist of it was what would happen if parents vanished and children could do whatever they wanted to? Well, they could go to the moon for the morning, live in treehouses and drink out of acorn cups and of course eat jellybeans for breakfast!

Today, though, I got confirmation that children don't really know what's good for them and that eating jellybeans for breakfast is disgusting. I had to eat 18 jellybeans in 5 minutes flat at 7:20 this morning, in order to get tested for gestational diabetes. It was either eat the jellybeans or drink some horrid glucose potion that I had been warned was pretty terrible. And I'm sure it is ... it's just that stuffing your mouth full of jellybeans 30 minutes after you wake up probably isn't much better.

I hope to be able to read Baby D. my favorite book someday (although I doubt I'll be buying it - it's now out of print and more than $100 on ebay), and you know, I might even let my child gorge him/herself on jellybeans for breakfast one morning - just to learn that sometimes grownups really do know what's best.

Football fields of crib sheets

When it comes to registering for Baby D, I feel totally paralyzed. I went to Buy Buy Baby a few weeks ago, and when I saw a football field length of crib sheets, I started to wish I was giving birth 20 years ago, before the advent of the Internet and snazzy little laser guns that make it possible for any ignorant mom-to-be to build a registry list of 100+ products in eight minutes flat.

Now of course I want to be sure Baby D. has all that he/she needs, and I'm sure that involves crib sheets (although I've heard some newborns do just fine in a dresser drawer on top of some towels), but I'm really starting to wonder if it has to involve a registering as if I were getting married all over again.

And yes, I've heard the advice that you should just bring someone with you who knows what they're doing, who can tell you what you really need, what you really don't need, etc. But isn't every baby different? Every mother I've talked to seems to have a completely different opinion on what kind of stroller worked best for her baby/family, so how do I even know if the mother of my choice is going to line up with my lifestyle and my baby's personality?

I haven't yet come to a decision on what I'm going to do, but I have a feeling I'm going to wind up registering for a few critical items and figure out the rest as a I go along ... after all, isn't it most important for the mom-to-be to remain as relaxed and stressfree as possible? If so, then I'll take a prenatal massage over a laser gun any day!