Slice of Life

My first baby is SIX today. That simultaneously feels too old and not old enough. She is so smart and independent that I feel like she should be at least seven. We had a party a couple weeks early so one of her friends could attend before her family moved to Denver. At Lola’s request I made a princess cake (Cinderella in the pink dress, to be exact) and I have to say I was pretty proud of myself. It wasn’t anything you’d get in a bakery, but it was pretty darn good. I used this strawberry cake recipe, which was so good, free of artificial dyes and full of fresh strawberry puree! I frosted it with this buttercream frosting recipe (tripled! yikes), minus a few cups or so of powdered sugar. And It was still achingly sweet. But delicious.

Incase you missed it, this next baby is a GIRL! We’re super excited. I’ve already started going through the baby clothes we have to figure out what we still need (Lola was born in the summer, so there’s not a ton of crossover) and I bought her a special blankie, which I’m assuming will be THE blankie for her. It’s all becoming very real and seems really crazy to be adding another person to our family. We can’t for the life of us come up with a girl’s name we even remotely like, so hit me with your best shot.

Baby girl is extremely busy in there, wiggling and kicking and generally beating me up. This pregnancy has been totally unique in that I feel like physically I have felt better than a lot of other pregnancies, but my stomach has been so much more upset than I would expect. I’m fairly sure I’m having gallbladder problems, but there’s not much the doctor would do about that during pregnancy unless it became infected. I can no longer stomach my beloved avocados, and I’m finding cheese and eggs to be kind of iffy as well. I get nervous to eat anything because I don’t want to be put down by stomach pain for a few hours afterward. If anyone has suggestions for diet or natural remedies to deal with this during pregnancy, I’d love to hear it!

In the last few weeks I’ve started doing prenatal yoga at a local studio. They only offer it once a week, which is fine because I’m not sure I would want to do it much more than that anyways. It’s strange, I’m always really glad I did it once it’s done, but I can’t say I really enjoy it. It’s pretty hard work, which is great considering it’s exercise, but they also keep the room insanely hot. Doesn’t that seem like a poor choice for pregnant women? My body is running pretty hot already, I don’t need a sweaty room to work out in too.

After our busy weeks of swimming lessons, I was happy to have some time at home catching up on things last week. Turns out I got a little too relaxed and forgot about piano lessons on Friday. Whoooops. I thought Lola would enjoy continuing lessons through the summer much more than she has anyways. There’s just too much fun to be had outside, whereas the piano is pretty much the coolest indoor activity she has.

We’ve managed to keep up with the new season of True Detective so far. I think it’s almost too good, if that makes sense? Like I can sense there are layers to it that I should be getting but it’s just beyond me. There’s a lot to absorb in every episode, I should probably go back and watch each one again to understand it better. Other than that we haven’t had a ton of time for tv because we’ve been enjoying the outdoors and these last few months of being able to do kind of whatever we want before we have a baby and are stuck sitting on the couch with a baby attached to my boob.

I finally got to see Jurassic World! I’ve been waiting over a year for this movie to come out. The original had a big impact on me. It spawned an interest in innovation, entertainment, and media that I continue to have today. While other girls in middle school had pictures of Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Leonardo DiCaprio hanging in their locker, I had a picture of Stephen Spielberg. No joke. Let’s just pretend I was super cool and ahead of my time rather than being a raging weirdo.

I made an impulse purchase of art supplies the other day, a few different kinds of pens and a sketchbook. I’ve never really considered myself a drawer (is that even a word?), but it seems like the easiest way to squeeze a few minutes of creativity into my day. Keep an eye out on Instagram, I may share a few doodles if I’m feeling brave.