Monday, January 6, 2014

Pregnancy Woes; Queen of Bribery; Quinoa Salad

It’s been a touch-and-go week for me; after dry-heaving after my exercise class last Monday night, having a couple of OK days and then a bad night Friday, I went out to dinner with my family on Saturday and ate my weight in red curry at a local Thai restaurant.  I love red curry, but that was the Best Red Curry Ever, probably because of the pregnancy and it being the first meal I have actually wanted to eat in a long time.  Last night was a bit rough, and this morning I was feeling pretty icky, but my stomach has settled a bit now.  So, maybe I’m pulling out of this?

 

But if it’s not one thing, it’s another, right?  And more often than not, the trials seem to accumulate.  Both Charles and Jamie are fighting head colds right now, a fact that finds Jamie in our bed at night even more often than usual (which was a lot), only now he’s coughing.  By 4 am, my sinuses started to hurt.  Yippee!  I can take a whole lot of NOTHING for head colds while pregnant.  So we’re not sleeping much, is what I’m saying.  On top of which, I am dreading a preschool battle with Charles every morning for the next six months.  He’s bored, I get that.  The preschool where my kids go (all-day care, really) is fantastic, and run by some amazing people who have listened to my woes about Charles and stimulation and added all sorts of new activities (a creation station where kids can be engineers with trash and recyclables a la Rosie Revere, Engineer!) to keep him and the other kids engaged, but his whining about school is a hard habit to break (so is his nail-biting, but that’s a different issue).

 

I have resorted to the tried-and-true method of bribery.  Each morning that Charles gets dressed and brushes his teeth in a timely manner and doesn’t throw a fit when I drop him at school earns him a sticker.  When he gets ten stickers, he gets to go to Chuck E. Cheese.  I loathe Chuck E. Cheese, so Tony will take him.  In the four days since instituting the plan, he has earned two stickers, so we’re getting there.  The new activities at school will help, I’m sure.  When he gets his reward, hopefully he will be happy to get dressed quickly and go to school every day, but if I have to keep bribing him, I will.  It works and hey, I get paid for going to work.  It’s sort of the same.

 

I am truly hoping that kindergarten next year will be so engrossing and exciting for him that we will never deal with this issue again. 

 

And now, as I sit at my desk eating the best quinoa salad ever, I feel I must share the recipe:

Cooked quinoa (I made a lot, but I like to eat this for several days in a row)

Feta

Craisins

Whole almonds

Mint (fresh is best, but my mint is wintering right now)

Olive oil & balsamic vinegar (I used this delicious white balsamic my mom gave me for Christmas)

Spinach

 

I mix the quinoa and everything but the spinach together, then I dump a goodly scoop on top of a bed of spinach.  I drizzle extra olive oil and vinegar over the whole thing.  Yum!  I’ll say this for pregnancy: when I’m feeling good, food tastes amazing.

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