Healthy Stuff

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what I'm eating. This isn't a new thing for me. I'm always concerned about what I eat, how it will affect my weight, etc.
My latest food thoughts are more about health than calories, but they are still plaguing me a fair bit. I'm trying to balance not overdoing it with making sure that the food I eat has nutritional value. Though following Weight Watchers was great, there are some things you can do. Like, you can eat food with zero nutritional value that won't make you gain weight (think jello), so now I'm trying to eat less of that stuff and more vegetables and beans and all of that.
And I started reading about eating while pregnant. One of the things that almost all of the websites out there tell you is that you should eat healthy stuff because what your child gets in utero is what they will enjoy outside of the womb.
I was even given similar advice from my doctor.
I think they are out to lunch.
Let's look at Matthew for example.
When I was pregnant with him I ate like crap. I bemoaned my weight gain for a good couple years. Poor me gained 80 lbs. Poor me.
Why did I gain that much weight? Because I ate enough for 6. And, I don't mean I ate enough beans and veggies for 6. Nope. I ate multiple servings of poutine. I ate entire pizzas. I could have entered competitive eating contest because I could eat so much.
And very rarely was it healthy.
Sure I had some juice and the occasional salad with my meal, but it was all about the junk food.
Based on the food I consumed, according to what I'm reading, Matt should be a certified french fry eater.
He's not.
For some reason he's really really healthy. His favourite food is tomatoes. If I ask him what he wants for dinner he has been known to request yogurt and cous cous. He declines cookies preferring apples. He loves brocolli. And, oh yeah, if we take him to the food court for lunch or dinner (we're classy!) he walks right past the hamburger places to go to Cultures for salad.
This is all him.
Sure we encourage him to make healthy choices. But, we often have chips in the house. We allow him candy. We've gone to restaurants and ordered him fries for dinner (until we realized he really likes the salad).
All of this leads me to wonder what on earth will happen with this next child. Though I do eat some junk I'm limiting myself way more. First of all, at this point I am not craving junk food that much. When I go to the food court I more often than not grab a salad. McDonald's isn't even a consideration. Last night we had pizza and after a piece and a half I was full. I'm not really eating chocolate (even the halloween candy) and I've completely cut out pork products cause they make me sick.
I'm with Matt - cous cous and yogurt sounds about right.
So, it will be interesting to see the food preference of baby #2. Will he/she follow Matt on his healthy quest - or prefer french fries and ice cream????

Crock Pot Thursday

Want to know what I came home to tonight?
This.

Or more specifically this.

That's right - an incredibly delicious, hot, healthy and prepared for me crock pot dinner courtesy of my sister.
It's not secret that the past few weeks have been a little bit hard with this pregnancy. Between exhaustion and nausea (which, thankfully, is leading to heartburn which I can totally manage) I've kind of had it.
And, my sister, being the amazing person she is, decided to help out by making dinner once a week. She told me to pick whichever night is the worst for me and that's when I got dinner. And, yes, by Thursday I'm ready to throw in the towel.
By Thursday (lately) Mike has kind of had it with trying to figure out what my finicky stomach may enjoy. Though, admittedly I was responsible for meals this week.
The point is, today I came home from work, changed into my pj's and enjoyed being taken care of by my big sis. It was a nice feeling.
Oh, and dinner was super yummy too!
Anyone care to do dishes??? Just kidding.

Election Fun

Infectious Laughter beat me to the punch on this one because I was just about to write about the election!
I'm not sure if everyone would know this about me, but I love elections. I love politics. I wouldn't want to be a politician, but I find politics fascinating. When 9pm came last night I was glued to the tv to see who would win.
For me the most interesting race was definitely Don Valley West - or the John Tory vs. Kathleen Wynne riding. That is my former riding. It's quite the riding. You have a huge mix of people because you have Flemingdon Park which is low income, high immigrant population and you also have Don Mills which is more affluent. And, any candidate who wants to win in that riding has to appeal to all sorts of people.
I have to admit I like John Tory. I don't agree with his entire platform, but I like him. However, he was running against one of my favourite politicians. The one great thing about living where we lived was Kathleen Wynne. Seriously. She was involved in the riding - all of it. She was big on creating programs as much for low income as higher income.
When you combine the fact that people really love her and that she high profile together with the fact that she's the education minister and John Tory handed her an election issue to run with I was really really curious how he would pull off the win. And he didn't.
I feel bad for him.
But, dude, pick a different riding.
As for our riding? I went Liberal. Why? Because I actually knew what the Liberal candidate stood for. I was pretty surprised that Conservative in our area got elected. But, either was a good choice for us, so I'm happy with it.
But, mostly I have to say I'm glad McGuinty won. What I liked about his campaign was that it wasn't all negative. I hate campaigns where candidates rely on attack ads to win an election. I truly believe that if your platform is good and if you stand for what you believe in that is enough. Of course you have to go into debates and display your opponents shortcomings. But, being positive is what it's about for me.
But, finally, I watched the speeches at the end. Of all of them, Howard Hampton's was my favourite. He was so sincere and appreciative of the people who helped him out. I loved when he pointed out a former teacher of his and thanked his family. When they did a shot of all the people in the room I was impressed. People were moved to tears. It wasn't about the correct political posturing for Hampton. It was about being a genuine person. And I was impressed. Not impressed enough that I'd want him to be the Premier, but still impressed.
And, I think we're coming up to a Federal Election soon ... I can't wait!

Sometimes ...

Sometimes people say things they don't mean.
I do it all the time. I want to say one thing, and it comes out wrong. Or, I want to convey a message and so I try to soften the blow by making it jokey.
Sometimes my messages aren't taken as they are intended.
And sometimes I take things the wrong way.
This happened to me a little more than a week ago. Someone made a comment about babies and weddings. And the topic of breastfeeding came into the mix. I took it the wrong way. I was really hurt by it. And that's okay. What wasn't okay was when I aired my complaints on my blog. Yes, it's my blog, and yes I can say what I want. But, by taking it to my blog instead of just confronting the person who hurt me I was wrong.
Sometimes a friendship weathers stuff.
Like hurt feelings and anger and a fight being brought to a public forum.
And sometimes friends realize that taking a couple minutes to clear the air and understand where the other was coming from solves a lot more problems than ruining a friendship. I'm not going to rehash the argument - that's not fair. I took the post down for a reason. But, I will say this, what I read into an e-mail about breastfeeding was not intended. Period.
Sometimes someone is just worth forgiving and forgetting an argument for - and I think we can both agree about that right now.

Thanksgiving Grace ... with a twist

Last night Matthew and I had dinner at my parents house. My aunt and uncle were also joining for dinner. I should mention that my uncle is a minister.
Anyway, as we normally do when we sat down for dinner we told Matthew it was time to say grace. We have a traditional poem/family grace that we all say - and Matt loves to say it.
So we sit down, bow our heads and as we all start with "Come our Jesus ..." Matthew shouts at the top of his lungs "Happy Birthday to You" and sings it all the way through.
Yes ... my child and his religious tendencies.
It was pretty hilarious.
My aunt and uncle have a really good sense of humour and didn't think anything of it. In fact, I think they were laughing as much or more than I was.
I'm telling you - this child loves being the centre of attention.

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And, on the whole potty training front, Matt is now obsessed with changing his underwear. At least 2 or 3 times a day he takes his underwear off, brings it to me, and says he needs a clean pair. I explained to him the other day that we change underwear every day regardless of whether it looks dirty (i.e. not just when he has an accident). Now he wants to change it all the time.

Ahhhh ... Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving has been great. Sure there have been a couple temper tantrums, a couple of emergency trips to the grocery store and a cat that has taken a liking to eating my toes ... but other than that it's been great.
Yesterday we had Thanksgiving with Mike's parents. They came in from Peterborough. Normally I make the Thanksgiving turkey, but since it's been a long 2 weeks, Mike decided to take on the task himself. And holy cow did he ever!
He chose the turkey. He did the potatoes. He made brocolli and cheese sauce. He even made his own gravy and cranberries!!!! I was truly amazed. I knew the man could cook, but I have to admit that I sort of doubted he could pull it all off.
In fact, I took Matthew out for the morning and Mike even cleaned the house. I came home to shiny floors and turkey in the oven.
Not only did I get out of cooking and cleaning, I even had a chance to sneak a nap in while Matt watched tv. It was wonderful. It almost made me want to be pregnant every Thanksgiving! (that is a joke - hear me - a joke!)
When my in-laws came over they brought dessert (pumpkin pie of course) and then after the meal the clean up was done while I watched Wheel of Fortune. Yes ... it was a good evening.
Today we decided to take it a little bit easy. We did a little cleaning and had some lunch. And then I realized something.
Today, for the first time in 3 months I haven't felt nauseous once. And, energy! It just suddenly came to me. Instead of wanting to have a nap Matt and I decided to go buy some Halloween decorations and make our home Halloweeny. What's going on??? It's fantastic. I missed my energy and my appetite.
Maybe I needed rest. Maybe my body is saying goodbye to the 1st trimester. Maybe Mike bought a magic turkey. Who knows. Who cares? Life is good.