Bread and Pregnancy

I made a butternut squash gallette the other night. I fried up some onions, threw in some cubed squash and Mark Bittman's chili spice mix (ancho chilis, cumin, coriander, black pepper and oregano), tomato paste and water and put the resulting mixture in a whole wheat crust.

I have some of the filling leftover, so Ryan's getting a special treat for his lunch tomorrow: a squash pasty.

We've been so excellent about not only remembering to put things together for his lunches everyday but also baking the bread for his lunches - so even if there's no leftovers or the leftovers are a bit meager, there is fresh bread to make sandwiches. We do get our weekend loaf from Wide Awake Bakery, but that is for Friday afternoon tea with Ken and Saturday and Sunday morning breakfasts. Their bread is better than ours, but they also have a giant brick bread oven instead of a crappy, poorly insulated one.

Last week I made a batch of olive oil dough. That plus rosemary from the CSA (although once I used za'ta) meant we had focaccia for a few meals - it never lasted more than an evening.

My mood has been a little better this week although I did have another meltdown on Saturday. I know I've spent a lifetime feeling like I didn't get some memo that every other girl seem to have gotten, relating to things that are stereotypically associated with women, but pregnancy fucking takes the cake. Sure, I can read in the books that it's perfectly normal not to be radiant and excited and a blithering idiot, but that is no help when you are dealing with the well-meaning advice givers in-person.

"Oh you're cleaning your bathroom/doing laundry/cleaning house? You must be NESTING." (No, from time to time, I clean my house because I am an adult.)

"Oh I've been waiting for you to get excited! How exciting that you are finally excited!" (I just told you I had an ultrasound and that I still feel like shit after eating.)

"Oh you need to eat TONS OF FAT. It will make your baby smart." (Do not counter this argument with, "actually that's not a good idea for a number of reasons".... otherwise you will be called out for your vanity. Never mind the omega-3 supplements you are taking.)

As annoyed as I sound, the tears on Saturday were because I can't figure out how to be as excited as everyone else seems to be. I'm just existing and the baby is existing and soon the baby will be born and that is what happens. I guess I just want to be left the hell alone, but (I imagine) people get awfully touchy when you scream at them "Please for the love of all you hold sacred, talk to me about SOMETHING ELSE." Not to say I'm banning the subject - obviously it's on my mind a lot and I do have questions/potentially interesting things to say on the subject and I really don't actually mind talking about it, but the subject does get tiresome when it is the only thing people can talk to you about.

Maybe it's partially my fault: I don't have a whole lot else going on right now. I keep meaning to get on with certain projects, but I still feel sick or tired or both most days. Things about the second trimester, so far, that are annoying: it is still quite possible to have morning sickness and be too fucking tired to stay up past 8pm. These instances are just less frequent or less severe (I can manage food if I don't think about it afterward and sometimes I'm just too fucking tired to stay up past 10 instead of 8). Sleep is increasingly uncomfortable: I am an "active" sleeper, meaning I sleep on my sides, back and front throughout the course of the night, the front is increasingly not an option and the back is not recommended. So sides it is! If I can remember, while I'm asleep, not to roll onto my back (I usually can't). The books say, get pillows! People who suggest this are not familiar with the members of my family, who are quite happy to roll and roll and roll until they are completely tangled up in the duvet, pillows flung to the far corners of the bed. Pillows will do nothing to stop me. The only thing that works is Ryan occasionally waking up in the night and noticing I am on my back, then gently prodding me, hopefully onto my side. He is so brave.