16 Weeks

Awkward, pictures-of-kelley-overload is almost over and we can get back to your regularly scheduled programming. I am finally caught up as I was 16 weeks yesterday.

The horizontal stripes help, but baby is growing!! I guess this is what people so lovingly refer to as the 'awkward fat stage.'



How far along: 16 weeks
Size of baby: 4.5 inches (apparently the size they give you doesn't include legs .. odd)
Weight gain: 2 pounds

Symptoms: If I don't eat enough or drink enough, I get really dizzy and lightheaded. It happens instantly too. So I'm packing snacks wherever I go. I think this one is hard for people to realize. If I say, 'hang on, let me grab a snack,' they think that I am just 'pregnant hungry' or 'going to get cranky,' but no, its more like, I will black out in the next 10 minutes if I don't eat now. Other than that, I'm starting to have some back pain - but hoping that keeping up with my current back routine will put this off for awhile.

Cravings: No real cravings, but I have been loving mint chocolate chip ice cream. The all natural one from Breyers. But my parents will tell you, as my birthday cake every year was mint chocolate chip ice cream cake, that this isn't a new thing.

Aversions: I actually can't think of anything that I couldn't eat right now. What a difference from last month! I still can't do cloves. I guess I should explain that one. Story below.

What I miss: Medium rare steak. I hardly ever eat steak, mostly because I'm so picky - it has to be perfect. But now that I can't have it (well .. well done, you might as well rub it in dirt, I'm not eating that), but now that it's off limits, I actually really want it. I keep telling Dan that Ruth's Chris will be our first date night post baby.

Looking Forward to: Finding out the gender!! Especially so we can stop saying "it" and "baby." We will have a proper pronoun: "he" or "she."

Best moment this month: Telling everyone!

Worst moment this month: I can't think of a single thing. I did have a dream that I gave birth to a four year old that looked just like Honey Boo Boo. That was pretty scary.

Why I can't eat cloves: My grandmother had a pickle recipe that is unlike any other. They are sweet cinnamon / clove flavored pickles and delicious. My mom planned to make them and grabbed some inexpensive pickling cucumbers from Trader Joe's while she was in town.  I also picked up a bag of fresh cloves from a spice store near work. My whole car smelled like cloves, the house smelled, it was delicious. Well .. she forgot her ingredients. She sent me the recipe so I could make them. They aren't hard, but they do require 4 days of boiling the mixture, pouring it over the cucumbers, and letting them sit. By the end of the 4 days the morning sickness really started setting in. Night was the worst -- I was home and the whole house smelled like cloves. I would also get carsick and my whole car smelled like cloves. Once the pickles were finished and the kitchen cleaned, I definitely couldn't eat any. 

I had some crackers sitting out near the clove spice bag. I went to pick Dan up from the airport, and, not feeling well, I grabbed some crackers. They had completely absorbed the clove taste. That was the last straw. I thought it was going to kill me. When we got home, Dan dug through the spice cabinets to get out all of the cloves and get them in the outside trash. And any of the crackers and bread that had been sitting out on the counter. 

Seems silly, but the smell still really gets to me right now. It's sad because I might never eat my grandmother's pickles again!