I played around with Photoshop today, trying to find some good paint colors for the nursery. I think I'd like to get paint from Yolo Colorhouse (they're local! And environmentally friendly, but of course), if they have a color that works for us. Luckily their website lists hex codes approximating each of their colors, so it was easy to plug each color into Photoshop and change the background of the photo I posted yesterday.

The bigger paint companies have all sorts of fun online tools for choosing paint colors, but I'm having enough trouble choosing between Yolo's 85 colors--I don't need hundreds more to choose from! Although Sherwin-Williams' iPhone app does sound cool.

My top five Yolo colors in no particular order:

Nourish 01:

Aspire 03:

Thrive 02:

Water 02:

Dream 04:

Yolo's website recommends blues, greens, and neutrals for bedrooms, and there is the anecdote about the color yellow making babies cry, so maybe we'll just stick with yellow accents instead of painting the walls yellow. I think that could be nice!

Week 22! All is well.

• The baby book says the baby can hear at this point, and to celebrate, we took him to a Builders and the Butchers show at The Woods. Okay, so the timing was just a coincidence. He could definitely feel and/or hear the music--he moved around a lot more than usual. I hope it was because he was enjoying the music and not because it was too loud.

  The book also says the baby can sense light, and if we shine a flashlight on my belly, the baby might move to get away from the light. That seems kind of mean, but I'm tempted to try it anyway. Maybe if we get really bored this weekend...

• I had my first charlie horse of the pregnancy yesterday morning. Woo! Apart from that, I'm still sleeping pretty well. Thank you, Snoogle!

• This morning we went in for the monthly checkup and for a quick ultrasound redo, to try and get some better pictures of the baby's heart, since it was hard to see two weeks ago. Unfortunately, the little goober was in the exact same position that he was in at the last ultrasound (sideways), so the ultrasound tech didn't have much luck getting better pictures (also, no cute profile pictures to be had, though we did get to see the baby yawning, which was fun). She assured us that the heart looks fine; she just needed better pictures to send for routine analysis. It's not clear if we'll need to come in again.

  Also, I forgot to mention that at the ultrasound two weeks ago, the tech noted that my placenta was low (placenta previa). I didn't think much of it at the time because she mentioned it so casually, but she commented on it again this time, as did my doctor. It looked like the placenta had moved up and off of the cervix a little, compared to two weeks ago, so it will probably resolve itself, but I may need to go in for another ultrasound at 32 weeks just to check on its location. I figure it's not worth worrying about at this point, since there's nothing I can do to change it. I haven't had any bleeding, so that's good.

• Last weekend, Patrick checked out the used crib a little more closely, and some of the slats on the drop side were loose, which made us nervous. He used wood glue to make everything tight again, but we were feeling generally uneasy about the used crib issue, so we decided just to give in and buy a new crib after all. (Not sure what to do with the used crib--it's hard to find anyplace that will take crib donations, because of liability issues. I was thinking I could make some sort of crib slat art with it, or use the sides to display quilts or something)

  We narrowed our options down to three cribs: the Pacific Rim Arts and Crafts crib, the Ikea Gulliver, and the Land of Nod Straight-Up crib. We liked the Pacific Rim and Land of Nod cribs because they're made in the US out of solid wood. Taking shipping into account, they're approximately the same price. On the other side of the price spectrum, the Gulliver is also mostly wood and has gotten pretty good reviews in Baby Bargains.

  We made a trip out to Beaverton to see the Pacific Rim crib on display at Segal's, and we both liked how sturdy it was. I like the color and style of the Land of Nod crib better, but we decided to go with the Pacific Rim crib because it's made in Eugene from local maple, using non-toxic finishes, etc. It just seemed like if we're going to use the resources to generate a new crib, we might as well support local craftspeople while we're at it. Plus it seems sturdy enough to last through multiple kids (assuming we have more). We ended up ordering the fixed-side version from Go Natural Baby, since they have free shipping. Now we just wait 6-8 weeks for it to arrive!

  I hope the baby likes his crib! The funny thing is that the plan right now is to have him co-sleep in our room (in an Arm's Reach bassinet or similar) for the first 6 months and then transition to the crib, so he might not actually spend much time in the crib for a while. But I have no idea how things will actually work out, and it seems like he'll end up in the crib sooner or later. Who knows...

• We've been thinking about nursery decoration (okay, that's mostly my department--Patrick is busy making sure all of our pressing home repairs are done in a timely manner). I think I want to go with yellow, brown, and gray, inspired by these two photos by Elizabeth Soule.

  

  I think the general feeling I'm gravitating toward is cozy forest--woodland creatures, wool blankets, etc. Pretty stereotypically Portland, I suppose :) The picture below has a collection of some of the things that will be in the nursery. I think the Pendleton blanket at the top of the picture fits pretty well. We bought the brown tulip print fabric in the middle to make into a Roman shade for the nursery window, and the four fabrics at the bottom are for crib sheets. I mostly picked them because I liked the fabric, not because they fit in with the grand plan. The three on the left are flannel for winter; I need to pick out a few more fun cotton prints for summertime.

  

  We decided to forego an expensive rocker/glider, since we're getting an expensive crib. Instead, we'll try using our existing Poang and ottoman in the nursery (I've seen quite a few people online recommend the Poang for nursing, though I'm worried I won't be able to heave myself out of it while holding a baby). I'm thinking of re-covering the Poang, but I haven't found the right fabric yet. It's possible I'm overcommitting myself with all of these sewing projects...

  Our goal is to choose the paint color for the nursery walls this weekend. I'm thinking light yellow, but I'm not sold on that. Any suggestions?

Foodwise, none of our meals has really impressed me this week. At least the desserts were good!

1. Pasta with walnuts, caramelized onions, and ricotta salata - This was okay, but I probably wouldn't make it again. Maybe it would have been better with the recommended whole grain penne (we used fresh pasta from our farmers' market instead). It seemed a little cheese-heavy, and not saucy enough.

2. Artichoke, leek, and fontina frittata with whole grain sourdough waffles (from Dorie Greenspan's Waffles) - The frittata was pretty good (it probably would have been just as good without the bacon, by the way), but not super exciting. The waffles were yeasted, which meant they were light and crispy, but they also got cold really quickly. They were nice, but I think we prefer non-yeasted waffles (which is weird, because a lot of people love yeasted waffles!).

3. Halibut and sweet potato chowder - This was better on the second day after the flavors had blended a little. We used half the amount of halibut called for (halibut is expensive!), and it was still plenty fishy. I liked the twist of using sweet potatoes in the chowder, but I don't think I'd make this particular recipe again (a common theme for this week).

4. Pumpkin custard (from Rustic Fruit Desserts) - This was pretty labor-intensive (because you make vanilla shortbread cookies to use as the crust), but it was tasty! The vanilla shortbread dough was crumbly and kind of frustrating to work with, but the cookies tasted good. The custard was nice and smooth and tasted just like pumpkin pie (not too surprising). Yum! I think given the amount of work involved, it would have been easier to just bake a pumpkin pie. I do like things in ramekins though!

5. Chewy almond cookie + ganache sandwiches (old-fashioned almond cookie recipe from Paris Sweets) - I had some egg whites to use up, and this recipe seemed like a good candidate. I made one batch using the standard recipe, and a second batch using the cocoa powder and cinnamon variation mentioned in the book. I liked the original almond cookies the best, but both types were yummy with ganache in the middle. Kind of like macarons, but not quite. The sandwiches ended up a little too tall to eat daintily, but they were still good. I figured the almonds and egg whites provided some protein, so they weren't the unhealthiest cookies ever!

Twenty-one weeks--the baby is allegedly as long as a (large) banana. That seems about right. His kicks are getting stronger, which is exciting! We can count on him to put on a little kicking show right when we go to bed, with a couple other appearances in the late afternoon and evening. Hi, baby!

• After moping around for a day or so, feeling kind of sad that the little girl I was imagining wouldn't be making an appearance (at least not this time around), I got over it and got on board with having a boy. I think having a son will be great! It helped that Susan brought over some adorable little boy clothes that she picked up at Children's Exchange (on the left in the picture below). The little red shoes make me especially happy :)

• Speaking of clothes, I've been trying not to go too crazy buying baby stuff, but there have been a few purchases I've felt compelled to make. I picked up some sweet German baby bunny slippers at Mamas n' Papas back in December (my first baby purchase), and then I bought a pair of corduroy overalls at Vintage Pink. And most recently, we made our first purchase of new baby clothes--an awesome pair of Hatley footie pajamas on sale at Black Wagon. How could we resist that bear print?

  

• We also made our first foray into buying a piece of baby furniture--we picked up a used crib and mattress from Baby to Baby this past weekend. It's a pretty standard crib. The only thing is that it's a drop-side crib, and we didn't read up on the risks associated with used drop-side cribs until after we'd bought it (I figured it was just a risk of pinched fingers, but it's a little more serious than that), and now we're second-guessing whether we should use the crib. Patrick's going to assemble it and check to see if there's any sign of a gap between the mattress and drop side. On the plus side, we can definitely use the mattress even if we don't use the crib, so we won't be out too much money either way.

  Edited 1/22: I spoke too soon. Apparently buying used crib mattresses is not recommended because of sanitary issues (or possibly because of a fungus that reacts with fire retardants in the mattress to create toxic gases, though that theory seems a little less mainstream). Oh, but also, new mattresses are bad because of off-gassing. Man, there's no end of things to worry about regarding babies! That's it, our child is going to sleep in a dresser drawer lined with a scratchy old wool blanket ;)

• Finding out that we're having a boy got us working on narrowing down our list of names. We're currently putting together lists of our top 10-15 names from the master list of ~130 names (plus anything else that catches our fancy), and then we'll compare to see if we have any overlap between the two lists. Fun! The Baby Name Wizard Name Voyager has come in handy in figuring out which names are trendy right now (like most other parents to be, I don't want a name that's too trendy, but I have a feeling that my taste in names is just like that of other parents-to-be in SE Portland). Plus it's just cool seeing how names have changed in popularity over time.

In non-baby news, we finished a house-related project that I've been working on since August! I sewed a Roman shade for our bedroom using hardware and directions from Terrell Designs (so helpful!), and Patrick took care of hanging it up. Even though it took me six months to finish the project, it really wasn't that hard to do; I just kept putting it off. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and it looks so much nicer than the spare bed sheet we were using as a curtain before.

We've got another shade pretty close to finished for the stairwell window, but that one is on hold because we may end up replacing the window (it's old and leaky and maybe a little rotten on the outside). I'm also gearing up to make a shade for the nursery. I'd better get going on that before too long!

And then there's the food. I'm still putting my second trimester energy to good use in the kitchen. It's good to be back! All recipes are from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone unless otherwise noted.

1. Quinoa chowder with scallions and feta. This sounded intriguing, but it turned out kind of boring. It could be that it was too light and brothy for a mid-winter soup. Maybe worth a remake in spring or summer.

2. Rice cooked in black bean broth (with 2 cups of cooked black beans added along with the broth), topped with scallions, queso fresco, tortilla chips, and our pickled roasted peppers. I wasn't a big fan of the pickled peppers, but everything else was great! It was like a burrito in a bowl.

3. Mushrooms and tofu in hoisin sauce on soba noodles, with lightly steamed shredded carrots and cabbage. This stir-fry included diced tomatoes, which made it kind of unorthodox, but it wasn't bad. The flavor was nice, actually. I'd make it again.

4. Bun-bun noodles with spicy peanut sauce (recipe from Morning Food), garnished with carrots, peanuts, lime wedges, and green onion. We had a little stir-fried baby bok choy on the side. The noodles were very easy to put together (and we had all the ingredients in our pantry). Definitely comfort food--probably not very healthy, but I'd happily down another bowlful.

5. Pepper-crusted tuna with oven fries and lemon spinach (I used tilapia instead of tuna steaks). Real Simple tends to stress me out more often than it simplifies my life, but this recipe actually was really simple! It yielded a well-rounded, tasty meal that only took about 45 minutes to put together (with 20 minutes of downtime in the middle). Cool! It reminded me that we should eat more fish--it's so easy to prepare.

6. This past weekend, I baked a batch of classic chocolate chip cookies (from Cookies and Brownies) for a bake sale to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. The first sheetful came out underbaked and structurally unsound, so I kept them for personal consumption. The cookies turned out really well. I actually liked the underbaked ones the best, so that worked out well. Man, looking at that picture makes me want more chocolate chip cookies!

7. Last night, I baked a batch of lemon poppy seed muffins (from Baking) to use up some leftover sour cream. I added a little bit of plum-amaretto jam in the middle as a little surprise. The muffins turned out super moist and tasty. Next time I'd actually omit the jam surprise--the muffins are perfect just as they are. I took particular joy in making these muffins because one of my favorite baking-related activities is rubbing lemon zest into sugar. It smells so nice!

Twenty weeks--the halfway point (give or take)! The big news this week is that we had our 20-week ultrasound this morning, and it's a boy! Whoa!

We actually had a little false start related to the ultrasound--we showed up at the doctor's office on Wednesday, and they told us to come back today. Turns out I'd written down the appointment date wrong. Bummer! At least I was only off by a day, so we didn't have to wait too much longer to find out.

The baby was in a funny position, so the tech had a hard time getting a good profile shot. We're actually going to go in for another ultrasound in two weeks (mainly to get some more pictures of the heart, since it was hard to see, given the baby's position), so maybe we'll get some clearer overall baby pictures then. We also have a picture showing pretty clearly that it's a boy, but I figured I didn't need to share that with the whole Internet :)

The tech didn't have a lot to say other than remarking on how cute the baby was (I'm sure she always says that) and how hard he was making her job by being in the wrong position. But everything seemed fine, based on what she said and what we could see. The baby has all the right internal organs and the right number of limbs, which is a good start :)

My two favorite parts of the ultrasound (apart from having the question of boy vs. girl answered) were seeing the baby's little spine and arm and leg bones (it's just reassuring that our baby has a skeleton, I guess) and simultaneously feeling the baby kick and seeing him move around on the ultrasound. Pretty cool!

So yeah, a boy! Not what I was expecting, but I'm sure having a son will be awesome. I guess ruffly pink dresses are probably out, but I think I can still have some fun with his wardrobe. Definitely lots of stripes and zig zags, and plenty of hats and jackets with ears. And maybe I can sneak in some floral prints. This is Portland after all; I think I can get away with a little bending of baby gender roles :)

I think the toughest boy-related decision we'll need to make (at this point in time) is whether or not to circumcise. If it were just a religious thing, it would be an easy choice, since we're not religious. But since it's also a cultural thing, it's more complicated. I think we're leaning toward not circumcising, but there are definitely arguments for both sides.

For some reason, knowing the baby's sex kind of drove home the fact that this baby is going to grow up to be an adult someday, and we need to figure out how to raise this little guy so that he fits in and is able to make friends, but still make sure that he's sensitive and caring and feels comfortable being whoever he wants to be. I hope we do a good job and are able to raise a good man, whatever that means. I think we can do it :)

Some other highlights from week 19:

• The belly continues to grow, which is great! My belly button won't be an innie for much longer :)

• This past weekend, I dropped off my deposit for the hypnobirthing class, and in exchange I got this book, which I read over the weekend. I was pleasantly surprised by how well reasoned it seemed. And there were no healing stones mentioned in the book (maybe those are an in-class bonus).

  The basic idea is that standard, non-complicated labor is painful because women are afraid. The author--who is a woman, by the way--offered some historical reasons for this, plus there's just general social exposure to scary birth stories, especially now that we have all these online pregnancy forums to read! This fear triggers the fight, flight, or freeze instinct, which diverts blood away from non-essential muscles, including the uterus. As a consequence, the muscles of the lower uterus tense up and strain against the muscles of the upper uterus during contractions, which results in pain and prolongs labor, since the cervix can't thin and open as effectively. If the woman is relaxed, the upper and lower uterine muscles work together, contractions don't hurt (there's still pressure, just not pain), and labor tends to be faster. So the hypnobirthing approach is to reach a relaxed state via a combination of self-hypnosis (breathing and visualization) and massage. Even though you're super relaxed, you remain lucid and can interact with people as needed.

  So I have no idea if any of this is true, but it seems reasonable, at least. I'm willing to try it. It requires daily relaxation practice (starting after we've taken the classes), so that the self-hypnosis cues work quickly and automatically when they're triggered during labor. It'll be interesting to see if self-hypnosis actually works for me. It's totally outside my scientist comfort zone to do this kind of thing, but if it works, that would be awesome!

Our house has been pretty chaotic for the past few days, because we had almost all of our plumbing re-piped. The pipes that were there when we bought the house were aging galvanized steel, so we decided to be proactive and replace them with plastic (PEX) pipe before the baby comes. And conveniently enough, our house's 28-year-old water heater started leaking this weekend, so we had the plumber replace it with an energy-efficient heat pump water heater while he was doing the other work. We knew the water heater would have to be replaced pretty soon after we bought the house, since it was so old. I'm just glad it didn't catastrophically fail and flood our basement in the middle of the night! Anyway, not a cheap week for us, but it's definitely good to get all this squared away now.

The plumbing is pretty much done (just a few loose ends to tie up after our city inspection tomorrow), and then we just have to have a plaster man close up the six holes that were cut in our stairwell wall and kitchen ceiling as part of the plumbing work (Patrick cut three of the holes over the weekend to save us a little money, and it looked like pretty exhausting work). We're actually thinking about leaving the holes open for a while longer, since we might get some rewiring work done within the next few months, and they could make that work easier. (The rewiring is another item that has been on our house to-do list since we bought it, and we're finally being spurred into action by the impending baby arrival). I'm sure we'll get used to having holes in our walls pretty quickly, but it might be unnerving for visitors!

Also, check out our new laundry sink! Patrick found it for free a couple blocks from our house a few months ago, and the plumber installed it in the basement for us and restored the faucet, since it was broken. Now Patrick has a place to wash his grimy bike hands and paint brushes and stuff. I like it!

I wanted to put in a good word for our plumber--Craig Anderson. He was very friendly and knowledgeable, and all of his guys were friendly and worked hard to get the job done on time. We definitely recommend him if you're looking for a plumber in the Portland area.

Also, I don't think I ever mentioned that our porch work is done. It was finished a while ago (back in October), but we never got around to taking after pictures because the rainy season started right at the same time. I'm sure we'll be able to enjoy our porches more once spring and summer are here! Maybe I'll post pictures then...

We also had our basement wall parge coating redone a week or two ago. That was noisy, smelly work, but it's good to have it out of the way.

We could go on like this for a long time (our housework to-do list is pretty long, since the house is 104 years old), but I think we've almost finished all of the big ticket items, and the rest can probably wait a few years.

The lack of reliable water for the past few days kind of put a damper on weekday cooking, but we made some good stuff during the weekend. We're still having fun exploring Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone--all of the following dishes are from there unless otherwise noted.

1. Spicy stir-fried tofu with coconut rice. This was my least favorite recipe this week. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't super exciting. I think my main problem with it is that one of the spices that we used was kind of gritty, which made the texture of the dish unpleasant. Maybe I would have liked it better if we'd used finer spices. The coconut rice was good though.

2. Our breakfast on Saturday was buttermilk pancakes with caramelized bananas and hazelnuts. I made some modifications to the basic buttermilk pancake recipe in the book--instead of buttermilk, I used a combination of 1% milk, cottage cheese, and 1/2T lemon juice (since that's what we had on hand), which actually worked just fine. I also added chopped hazelnuts to the pancake batter, and then I mixed the banana slices with a little vanilla sugar, put those on the griddle first, and then covered them with the batter. Very nice!

3. For weekend lunch, we had golden tofu with quick peanut sauce, leftover coconut rice, and carrots with hijiki. The tofu with peanut sauce was awesome, especially considering how easy it was to make (apart from the oil splattering everywhere when I fried the tofu). The carrots with hijiki were a little too sea-vegetabley for me (never thought I'd say that--I love sea vegetables!). Next time I'd use more carrots and less hijiki.

4. Cabbage and mushroom galette with yeasted tart dough. This was yummy but not super filling. It needed some side dishes to be filling enough for dinner. I'd definitely make it again though. The yeast dough came together surprisingly quickly.

5. All-bean chili. I made this in kind of a hurry during our plumbing adventures, and it turned out watery and bland. I think part of the problem was that the pot I used was too big, which meant that when I covered the beans with 4 inches of water, it ended up being too much water. All was not lost though--I drained the beans and used them to make nachos (chips, cheese, beans, sour cream, and green onions). Yay, nachos for dinner!

6. I also made a little something from Dorie Greenspan--World Peace cookies (or Korova cookies, depending on which cookbook you use). These are among my favorite cookies, and they're pretty simple to make. I want more!

Today marks the start of week 19! Highlights for the coming week include the baby reaching 6 inches in length and the start of vernix production. Oh, and we find out if it's a boy or a girl on Wednesday! That'll be fun :)

Here are some highlights from week 18:

• The baby is moving more frequently and more emphatically. I was able to feel movement from the outside a few days ago, but Patrick was asleep. The timing worked out last night, and Patrick got to feel the baby kick for the first time. I'm glad :) It's so weirdly awesome that there's a little person inside of me! For the most part, the kicking isn't uncomfortable (yet).
• After reading more about hypnobirthing (including this account from a local couple, plus some of the stories here), we've decided to sign up for the hypnobirthing class at Zenana. I think there are some elements that will be a little out there for us (sounds like there may be healing stones involved?), but it seems like it the relaxation techniques taught in class can be useful in reducing pain even if you don't go in for the whole kit and caboodle. I guess we'll find out!
• I've definitely been feeling much more pregnant this week, what with the baby moving and the belly getting bigger. Oh, and my appetite and energy are definitely back, which is great. The second trimester is way better than the first trimester, no contest!

The return of the appetite conveniently coincided with having the week before New Years off, which meant I did some real meal planning and spent a good amount of time in the kitchen. Fun! Patrick recently bought Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, and we're really happy with it so far! Everything we've made in the last week has been from this cookbook, and it has all turned out nicely. (We took a break from home cooking on New Year's Eve and went to Bar Avignon for the second year in a row. Good stuff!)

1. Butterflies with chickpeas (recipe): This was tasty and super fast to make (using canned chickpeas).

2. Lentil minestrone and walnut bread (soup recipe): The soup was really good--nice and clean tasting. I made my own vegetable stock as suggested in the book (hey, when you have the week off of work, why not make your own stock?), and I think it really improved both this soup and the next one. The walnut bread, though good, was not exactly what I was hoping for. The quest continues!

3. Turnip soup with gruyere croutons: The soup was sweet and mild, and the cheesy breads made it special.

4. Spinach tortellini with walnuts, parsley, and pecorino: With all the free time on my hands, I got ambitious and decided to buy a hand-cranked pasta machine and make some filled pasta! (I rationalized the purchase by telling myself that maybe when the baby's older, we'll have monthly pasta nights! Probably not very realistic, but you never know) The pasta took longer to make than I'd expected (almost 3 hours total, and it required some pasta cranking help from Patrick), but it turned out well. Definitely a special occasion dish.

5. Millet and chickpea pilaf with saffron and tomatoes (recipe): Not quite as yellow as it looks in the picture. This was not fancy at all, just nice and comforting. I made the chickpeas from scratch, and they did taste better than chickpeas from a can. The cookbook said I could freeze the extra cooked chickpeas; I'm interested to see if they're just as good after freezing and thawing.

6. For lunches this week, I made a batch of smoky black bean spread, which turned into quesadillas with smoky black bean spread and salsa (recipe). The salsa was homemade, and it was pretty mediocre (essentially sweetened tomato sauce with a few onions thrown in), but even that couldn't ruin these quesadillas. Yum! The black bean spread by itself is pretty good, but the addition of cheese definitely improves the situation.

With the return of my appetite, I've been needing more than three meals a day, so I've added in a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. This week, I've alternated between microwave oatmeal (did you know you can make a single serving of yummy oatmeal from Bob's Red Mill thick-cut rolled oats in the microwave in about 5 minutes? The recipe is on the back of the bag. Awesome!) and smoothies.

My smoothie recipe of the moment is: 1 banana, a handful of frozen blueberries, 1/4c lowfat cottage cheese, 1 scoop vanilla ice cream, 1T wheat germ, and 1/2c fruit juice (I'm using V8 Splash tropical blend because we had some leftover from my most recent cold). Blend it all up with a stick blender, and you're good to go! I figure it has some fruit and protein, so adding a little ice cream isn't so bad :)

Ooh, and I wanted to show you a shirt I bought from Sue Bradbury (made in Portland!). Contrary to what my expression in the picture below might suggest, I'm really happy with it--it's soft and cute, and it should be wearable as maternity clothing for a while longer (and as non-maternity clothing after that). But I'm most looking forward to wearing it right after the baby's born, when apparently I will still look 6 months pregnant. This should provide excellent camouflage.

P.S. We had a crazy good dessert at Belly Timber last night before trivia. It was a parfait with layers of chocolate, peanut butter, and salted caramel. Normally I opt for lighter, fruit-based desserts, but this really hit the spot. Yum!