Puck cooks for his sweetie.

Guest Post From Puck:

WifeWatch 2010

I have already covered my three WifeWatch 2010 items (Food, Mood, and Sleep) and here is our update.

Food

Friday I went out hunting and brought down a caribou with my teeth.  I then dragged the carcass back to my cave and buried it next to the fire pit. OK, to be honest I went to Food4Less with a mental list and bought a caribou’s worth of protein which I actually stored in the fridge. Along with the ‘caribou’ came beans, avocado, and spinach which have folic acid, plus plenty of milk, cheese and other things.

Here is where the conversation gets a bit weird. One of the key additions to Mary’s body right now is extra blood. That sounds a bit gruesome so from here on out I’m going to talk about trains which make a nice analogy for what is going on.

Trains are an analogy for Mary's circulation.

There are two things that the body needs trains for:

1. Healing
2. Building Stuff

In order for Mary to build more new trains she needs iron and protein which I’m giving her in large quantities. The new trains are going down to the “Twin-Cities” and the more trains we get going that direction (improved circulation) the better. Likewise, we want the trains to be loaded up with all the good things (nutrients) the Twin-Cities need for building and healing.

As Mary’s trains visit the Twin-Cities loaded with food and building material the twins will quickly develop and grow. That is important right now because later Mary won’t be able to eat as much in one sitting. Her tummy is going to shrink as the twins get bigger. Once that happens, it will be harder to eat and we will need to work on having lots of little meals ready for her all day long.  I’m on a mission to keep her continuously fed right now and that should help keep those trains running non-stop.

That’s the current goal. Help Mary get enough protein to build new trains and make certain those trains arrive at the destination with plenty to help our twins grow.

Lasagna

Last night I baked two lasagnas with hamburger, sausage, sweet Italian sausage, and Spinach for protein and then layered with 4 different kinds of cheese for calcium. Instead of noodles which are loaded with starchy carbs that can spike blood sugar, I replaced the starches with sliced and lightly steamed spaghetti squash and zucchini. (There is no reason to even tempt gestational diabetes and sugars have been mostly cut out.) With two of these baked lasagnas in the fridge, Mary can eat as much of this as possible and hit all her high points in one shot.

Bean Dip

Tonight is bean dip night. I’m going to make a very large serving of Tex-Mex bean dip with grilled hamburger and taco seasoning, picante sauce, lots of cheese, green peppers, re-fried beans, and at least two other types of beans to round it out. Serve that up with sour cream, fresh avocado and corn chips and it will be a go-to snack Mary can eat whenever she wants. The best thing about the bean dip is that it cooks in about 20 minutes in a deep iron skillet which leaves one dish to wash when I’m done.

Recipes?

If there is interest, I’ll post some recipes but it will take me a bit of time to write them up.

Mood

Mary has still been doing pretty well. I think she’s amused at me stuffing her so much, but she’s being very tolerant about it. The worst I have seen so far is that she gets a bit stubborn about wanting to help with things.

The only other thought I had about mood was to warn her that when the babies finally come, I don’t want her to feel like she’s suddenly dropped off my radar. With the amount of effort this is going to take, it is easy to see how postpartum depression might be exacerbated when our attention necessarily shifts to parenting and mom-recovery. I have added this to my mental watch list as a paternal commandment, “Thou shall not allow the state of Fatherhood to eclipse a loving marriage.”

Sleep

Still no compromises here. The afternoon power nap has become a ritual even on the weekends.

Babies Countdown – The Double Header

• Thursday, January 29 is 8 Weeks pregnant. Our goal is to hold the delivery until at least 36 weeks have passed which puts us at 28 weeks left after this Thursday.
• Wednesday, February 3 is our next ultrasound and we will be asking more directed questions and talk about picking a permanent OB-GYN.
• Our 5 week sprint ends on Thursday, February 26 which gets us to 12 weeks.
• Mary’s Birthday is March 3 which gets us to the second trimester.

Next goal? – Assembling the nursery.