what's in the weekly belly

we're chugging along with this pregnancy like a sweaty, doughy locomotive of hormonal unpredictability careening unchecked towards the rocky precipice of childbirth. by this point in judah's gestation i felt like i had earned every one of my twenty-some weeks because the time just crawled by.

funny how inserting a one year old into the mix will really pass the time, banish boredom and have you not even consider where the new baby will sleep until 6 months in. whoops.

at my 24 week appointment last week i found that i have gained 13 lbs thus far. i think that's good, but i also know that obese people aren't supposed to gain much weight during their pregnancies, and, no, i am not saying i am obese, but there definitely was some padded groundwork laid at the onset of preg #2 that saved this little boo from having to pack on much more foundational mass.

here's where some of that 5.9 kilos has come from (recipes to follow if wanted):

spicy shrimp nachos with mango salsa. sweet mercy. fun to look at, more fun to stuff in your gullet

i have never been a lasagna fan. i hate marinara and won't touch ricotta cheese. but postpartum with judah, the sweet music teacher at my parents' school sent us a meal of her homemade recipe and it rocked my bloated, milky socks off. there is no ricotta and there is no marinara sauce. perf. it's meaty and cheesy and wonderful. we've now made it ourselves several times and the leftovers never last longer than a day or 2.

in the tradition of 1+1 =2, here is week 23 of the belly. layla embry is weighing about as much as a mango right now though she is far less dense and taking up more room. she loses her mind every night when i lay down to sleep and gets super fired up and kicky. it's awesome to once again feel and see a tiny baby sliding and swooping around in my stomach. one of those things you can't really remember after the baby's out and that just takes your breath away with the miracle of it all while it's still in there.

mangoing strong (it's cool if you;d rather ignore that pun i just made) with another mercifully easy pregnancy. (and yes we only made the shrimp nachos because i knew we'd never use the mango otherwise)

as usual, judah loves his sister. or maybe it's the produce. we'll find out soon enough.