A Coupla Things

So I was down at Southcenter this week, doing a little maternity clothes shopping at Old Navy and Target. May I just say that Target's Liz Lange maternity clothes ROCK - they are so cute and stylish and don't make me feel like a bargain basement pregnant lady. Old Navy was a little bit frumped out and rag-tag, but I should mention that it looked like they were about to set out a bunch of new merchandise (staff were very busy unpacking boxes) on the day I was there, so we'll see.

I have an issue with most maternity jeans. I do not understand how so many of them can be this "demi-panel" and get away with it. Can women actually wear this without their pants falling down every time they bend over or sit? I cannot. Call me Grandma, but I just love the "full panel," over-the-belly stuff. It gives the pants something to hold onto when my waist goes away. The other advantage is that when you wear the over-the-belly panels, you don't have nasty elastic lines showing under your clothes at your mid-belly (or, your "demi-belly"). I'm all about smooth silhouettes. If I'm going to have a big, beautiful belly, I want people to look at that and think about what a gorgeous pregnant woman I am. I do not want them to wonder what tricks are going on under my fabulous maternity tunic. The whole demi-panel thing sucks because all of the stylish choices in maternity jeans are made with this kind of panel. It's like the industry thinks that if you're going for the full panel, you've completely given up on style. Not so! Au contraire!

I ended up buying a pair of full-panel jeans online at oldnavymaternity.com. They're okay - your basic boot-cut antique wash. Ho-hum. I was hoping for a dark wash, straight leg style, so I could look a little less suburban. But when you're only shelling out $24.95 or so for jeans (and also when you're shopping at Southcenter shopping center in Tukwila), you're kind of in the suburban pickings zone, I realize. Liz Lange didn't even offer any full panel jeans styles, so I got what I could get.

All of this is to get to the following point: They are opening a Nordstrom Rack at Southcenter tomorrow!!!! Hooray!! I was driving by all of that new construction that's going in on my way to Old Navy, and I almost had an accident when I saw the Nordstrom Rack sign, shining like a beacon in the distance. I drove around and around, trying to get through the construction fences to catch a glimpse of the new mecca, but when I finally got in and parked in the crispy new parking lot, the store was, alas, still not open. I hauled my daughter up to the front window and peered inside, trying to see if they had a children's department, if they had women's dresses, anything. But it was pretty hard to see past the stacks of boxes and racks of hangers. Now back in the day I would have been there, in my car, at 6:30am with a cup of coffee and a piece of blueberry coffee cake, listening to the radio, and waiting with all the other die-hards for the place to open up tomorrow morning at 7:45am. I would probably have even skipped work for such an event (I was definitely known to do such things - especially when the Rack had their annual small designer shoe event, for sizes 5-6 only. Although I never have been a match for those tiny-footed, tough-as-nails Asian fashion mavens). This time I'll bide my time, however. It's just not worth it anymore. I don't want to say that having my daughter along takes most of the joy out of shopping for me, but I'll say it anyway. It sucks. She starts howling and lashing out the minute she catches a whiff of the leather and the fluorescent lights, and won't stop until we're back on the highway toward home. No fun. Now I shop like a madwoman, whipping through racks and picking out things that look vaguely attractive, throwing them in my cart. And forget about trying anything on, though I was lucky enough to have this opportunity for about six minutes the other day at Target, thanks to the popcorn they so ingeniously sell at the front. I swear to God, I would pay $10 for a little bag of that popcorn, just to get the peace that comes from slipping a few items over my head and taking a more-than cursory look at my appearance in the mirror once in a while.

So that's a major event in fashion for those of us who live on the South-West side. The other thing I wanted to note is that there is a new maternity shop on California Ave., south side of the Junction, close to that C&P Coffee place. It's called On The Way Maternity, and I checked it out the other day, too. They don't seem to have a website yet, but their address is 5446 California Ave SW, Seattle 98136, phone (206)938-2229. They have some nice things - they carry Olian and some other bigger higher-end maternity brands, but they also have a lot of brands I've never heard of and some really cute ideas. Most of their stuff looked to be between about $40-100, so more expensive than I would pay for most maternity things, but definitely lower prices than A Pea in the Pod (racket!) or Village Maternity. I appreciated that they carry a number of maternity swimsuits, even though it's not swimsuit season, so you know you always have a place to go if you're going on vacation or need something for swim lessons.

That's all for now. Happy shopping, pregnant ladies!

September Morn

My daughter is sleeping as hard as she can right now, catching up from a day of running around the beach on Whidbey Island with her cousins and all of the excitement of trying to process everyone she met at my husband's family's mini family reunion out there. She is quite the social butterfly, ever concerned with where everyone is, how everyone is doing, and whether they need a "big hug." She wore herself out, poor thing. I wore myself out yesterday, too, being stressed about spending time with my husband's relatives and whether or not they would like my guacamole or my orzo salad (they always do like my dishes - why do I worry about this?) and whether one of his aunts would get in my business and say something terribly rude and offensive to me (she always does - why do I worry about this?). I guess I was just anticipating having to be "on" the whole day long (i.e., smiling appropriately and making sure I don't have lettuce in my teeth or a stain on my boob, limiting my political commentary and/or not stating that George W. Bush is a big fat dummy, and taking care not to say things like, "Why of course I modeled nude in college - it was for art!", plus chasing after my baby and trying to make sure she got SOME rest throughout the day so that she didn't erupt into tears at the drop of a hat or smack one of said aunties in the face because she was SO exhausted). But of course, it all went fine. I think I got out of there only mildly offending some of the Catholics/Republicans.

Anyway, these mornings when she sleeps in are so, so sweet for me. Now that the summer's activities finally seem to be winding down, I can actually sit back with my delicious americano (thanks, baby) and enjoy the weather we're having. It's the perfect temperature today - there's not too much sun yet, but the air is mild and pleasant. And the smell in the air - I always say it smells like California when it smells like this. I grew up spending a few weeks every summer at my grandparents' house in L.A. I woke up every morning there to the smell of their home, my grampy's Winston cigarettes and my grandmother's piles of fabrics next to the sewing machine in the sunlight. Their house was filled with beautiful, musty pieces from their young life in New England, and my grandmother flung the windows and doors open every morning to capture some of the last cool air. The smell of California for me is that smell - a cozy house with fresh iced tea in the refrigerator, a new jug of Arrowhead water in the dispenser, cat food in the bowl on top of the washing machine off the kitchen, and the essence of the sun warming all the world outside, promising another day filled with small adventures.

I can smell that smell now almost. I can smell the water and the salt. I can hear the sea lions far off barking to each other like that's the most natural thing to do right in the middle of a huge city on a Monday morning. I see a hummingbird out my back window and I wonder if many of these birds are going to try and get down to California before long.

Gaining

I went to see my OB for a checkup last Wednesday, and it's taken me until now to write about it. Because I have mixed feelings, but the primary feeling in the mix is crappy. No, no, no - the baby is fine. Everything's dandy there - my OB heard a heartbeat (I didn't hear it, but she heard it, so that's okay) and all else looks good with my little 5 cm. progeny. It's me. Or, as she put it as she clucked her tongue and shook her head at me from her seat in the examining room, it's my weight. She said that she was concerned that I had gained 44 lbs. during my last pregnancy, and that I hadn't lost it all before getting pregnant again. She said that for my height (about 5'2"), I should really be getting down to less than 120 lbs. after this pregnancy, and that she didn't want to see me gain more than 30 lbs. this time around.

I keep going around and around with this in my head. You see, it would be one thing if I was an overweight person to begin with. But I am not. I will be the first to admit that I gained too much weight during my last pregnancy, and that I certainly learned my lesson the hard way (those last 10-12 lbs. never did get off). I was already planning to be more vigilant about what I was eating during this pregnancy (i.e., forego the daily Ben & Jerry's chocolate milkshake and frequent stops at Jack in the Box for cheeseburgers in favor of tuna fish sandwiches or salads and glasses of water or milk). I now know that pregnancy is not a license for me to eat indiscriminately - nothing really is - and that eventually I will have to pay. But so far in this pregnancy - that is to say, in my first twelve weeks or so - in spite of my Lorna Doone frolics, I have gained around 3-4 lbs. (as opposed to 15 lbs. in my first trimester last time around), and I was feeling pretty good about myself. But no - I was shot down by my teensy-weensy, marathon-running doc who is treating me like I am a fatty. I felt like I was in the fifties or something!

It is a very fine line we women walk, I realize, when we begin arguing with our doctors about our weight (or telling our husbands or friends or our blog audience about all the things we wish we could have said to that bitch). Inevitably, we sound hyper-defensive and whiny and like we're about to make a gazillion excuses. But I'm feeling pissed off, and I think rightfully so. You see, I follow the BMI guidelines for weight versus height, because I feel that this is the most objective and simple way to determine a healthy weight for height. The other reason I follow this is because this is what doctors supposedly refer to in order to determine if a person needs to take extra steps to manage their weight. According to the BMI chart, I have managed to stay pretty much within a "healthy" or "normal" weight range for my height. And now I am pregnant, and I was planning to try really hard to gain within the "recommended" 25-35 pounds for a woman of normal weight. The point is, I had studied all of this - I had made a concerted effort to prepare myself for the changes in my body in this pregnancy - and I felt like my doctor treated me like I had no idea what was going on and I was just going into this pregnancy carelessly. She never asked me once what I was doing for exercise, what kinds of foods I was eating, etc. She just got bent out of shape about the number on the scale.

My doctor also didn't ask me, before launching into her speech about my weight and how much I was gaining, if I had ever had an eating disorder before, which I found most alarming. I actually haven't, and I am fortunate to have gained a fairly healthy attitude about eating and weight and food in my life, but I have encountered many, many women who do have a wide range of issues with eating. I also know that pregnancy and the inevitable weight gain that accompanies it can be quite a trial for someone who has gone to extreme measures to control her weight in the past. Add to this a doctor telling you that you are headed toward FAT if you don't exercise more control, and in some women this might trigger an all-out recurrence of their disordered eating behavior, leading to innumerable risks for the growing baby (not to mention the mama). Of course I checked, on the initial questionnaire, that I do not have an eating disorder, and the doctor may have reviewed this before talking to me, but I imagine that many women who do have a problem would also check "no" in order to avoid another confrontation/counseling session with a professional.

The point is, I felt that all of this that happened was very irresponsible on my doctor's part, and I am pissed off at her and wondering if I should go to the trouble of switching doctors at this point. I realize, however, that no matter what I do, what she said is now going to stick with me and needle at me throughout this pregnancy and beyond. Even if I do succeed at gaining 30 lbs. or less, I will be haunted as I try to take the weight off that maybe I won't be able to get it all off again, and then even if I do, that I won't be able to get down to 120 - the magic number that my doctor spewed. I have not weighed 120 since the 7th grade! That number seems unrelated to any BMI chart or anything I have ever seen. It sounds, again, like some ideal that girls learned, in whispers, in the 1950's - "You musn't let your weight get above 120, or your husband will stray, darling." There is the side of me that knows that what she said is at some level irrational and extreme and not exactly for me, and that's what I try to focus on. But there is another side of me that freaks out every once in a while that what she said was actually the gospel truth, and that I must trust her judgment and her comments as she is a highly-educated, experienced medical professional. After all, why would she just want to make me feel bad? She has an interest, doesn't she, in retaining me as a patient?

I think the term "eating disorder" is interesting. It conjures up images of Karen Carpenter or Paula Abdul or, for me, perfectly-tanned, blonde Connecticut girls in pearls and cashmere sweater sets eating their salads with lemon juice and a cup of tea day after day in the dining hall at my prestigious New England college. And I all-too readily said, just above, that I do not have an eating disorder. But I am inordinately concerned with my doctor's comments, made almost a week ago now, about my weight. In fact, my husband might say I am "obsessing," and he would probably be right. Though I do feel that my attitude about food and weight is generally healthy, I know that I can get caught up in other people's determinations about what a "good" or "healthy" body looks like or measures up to (or down to). I think that women in this society are severely patronized about this issue. We are told not to worry about our weight so much, and everyone knows that supermodels are freakishly tall and thin and we should just love ourselves, etc., etc., but isn't it a shame about Judy, who's had three kids and she used to have such a nice figure and now she's really gained a lot of weight. Or Allison, who would probably feel better about herself and get some dates if she could just drop a few pounds. Or back to my last post, where a woman who is beautiful and slender to boot "probably has an eating disorder." It's like this great farce. Do we or don't we feel that women should just be themselves and be healthy? And what does healthy really mean to each one of us?

I will say that my doctor's comments have freaked me out to the extent that I am giving much extra thought to what I put in my body now. And I am surely eating more healthfully as a result, even as I gain. I will try not to worry, I say. I will focus on having the healthiest baby possible and nothing else matters. But I will put out there that it is almost impossible even for the most confident of women to hear a negative comment about their bodies, their weight, and not carry that comment around in their sack of woes, of "can'ts," for a long time after. My sack was really lightening of late, but now I am huffing and puffing from the extra weight.

Perfect

My daughter must be recovering from a rockin' weekend this morning - she's napping like there's no tomorrow, after waking up at 6am. Her naps are somewhat unpredictable these days, so it's impossible to map out my schedule around them. Add that to the fact that I am extra breathless and worn out from pregnancy, and there's not a whole lot that gets done during these quiet spells.

The last time I was pregnant, I remember having a very clean house all the time. I did a lot of cooking and threw elaborate dinner parties for my husband's extensive family. People asked how could I do it - wasn't I so exhausted - and the truth is I was, at the end, after all of the guests had gone. But I was exhausted in a very satisfied sort of way, not an, "I'm never f%&*ing doing THAT again" kind of way, like I would now. I used to believe that a pregnant woman was a woman who was about to be a mother, therefore she was a woman who needed to have her shit together. and keep it together until the last child was married off, at which point she could run off to Israel and join a kibbutz. Add this to the list of "Now I know better's." A pregnant woman is a woman who needs to chill out as best she can for nine months before beginning the Ironman triathlon of motherhood. A mother is a woman who tries to hold on to her femininity, her womanhood, her shit, once a child takes over every last aspect of her life. If she can run a brush through her hair once a day and prepare a meal once in a while, as well as talking her children out of tantrums at the grocery store, she has succeeded, to my mind. If she does all this PLUS goes around in shiny shoes and pressed pants and her shirts tucked in to reveal a lovely waistline, she is a freak and I don't want to be around her.

Which brings me to this question: Why do women want to be friends with women who share their same faults or weaknesses? Or, why do women come together over weaknesses? I heard Naomi Wolf speak at my sister's college graduation (she went to a women's college), and she addressed this. She challenged the graduates to surround themselves with strong, powerful women instead of seeking out women who would make them feel better because they were so lame (I paraphrase here). I've always thought about this, and here's what I think: Strong women, powerful women, are strong and powerful because they have weaknesses and because they've sorted them out or muddled through them to get to their strengths. I feel somehow that a woman who can't admit to her weaknesses is a woman who is trying to operate in a man's world, thereby isolating herself from her sisters. The man's way is to show a superhuman-ness, a strength-and-power-in-the-face-of-all-adversity kind of face, to the world. The woman's way, I believe, is to find connections with other human beings. To show that she cares, empathizes, with their struggles as well as their triumphs. A woman rises and falls, really, by the number of people who seek her out to share a thought, a feeling. A man rises and falls by how strong people perceive him to be.

So, I agree with Naomi Wolf ultimately. Women should seek out women who are strong, in the way that women become strong. We shouldn't seek out persistent losers, or women whose self-worth relies on the tidbits men throw them. We should love each other, build each other up. We should celebrate the lovely chaos of motherhood. Certainly there are some women who just innately have it together, even in the face of childrearing, and I really shouldn't hate them for it. I shouldn't wait for the facade to start crumbling down around them, either. Why do we do that, women? Why do we see a very slender woman and whisper to each other that she probably goes and throws up in the bathroom after she eats? Why do we see a very attractive woman and reason with ourselves that she must have a daddy complex or a drug problem or a huge ugly mole on her butt? I know it's because we're jealous, but why are we jealous? Because we fear that everyone's looking at that woman, thinking about how gorgeous/skinny/talented she is, and they're forgetting about us. Again. So we must reason that if we insert some negative thoughts into the atmosphere around the woman, somehow it will all balance out back in our favor again. But do we really want to be the one everyone is looking at and thinking about all the time? Do we really want to be that woman? God, what a chore that would be.

Are men not concerned with what people think of them? I don't believe this, but I do believe that the problem is more pervasive for women. Not a day goes by that I don't think about the shape of my belly (even pregnant!) or the clarity of my skin or the smell of my breath or whether I've sent a thank-you note out fast enough to someone or whether so-and-so liked my cooking or what I will do next to build my perfect-life resume somehow. In my moms' group, we meet once a week at different members' homes, and we all tell the other moms that it really doesn't matter what shape their house is in when we come to visit - all that matters is that we get to be with them. But each week we go to the home of some poor mother who has busted her ass to get the house all cleaned up and child-proofed and plates and glasses set out and cupcakes baked and frosted for the other moms. I am perhaps the guiltiest one of all, I'll admit it (maybe it's something about having an excuse to actually get the house cleaned up, for my own sanity). No one has yet just said, "Aw, screw it" and just left their floors unswept and told people to get whatever out of the fridge for themselves. We are all perpetuating the lovely myth of homemaking/hostessing perfection.

I'm not sure where this discussion started, or where it ends appropriately. I think about Hillary Clinton, and whether this country is ready for a woman president. Perhaps it is not the woman president - perhaps it is just Hillary that people may not be ready for. What makes a woman a great leader? I think it is when she is not afraid to lead like a woman, connecting with people through the wilderness of pain and misunderstanding, sharing her own faults honestly. Hillary is a bit of an enigma to me. I really don't get the whole thing with her husband - I happen to like Bill fairly well as a leader, but I think he completely dishonored his wife when he went around humping interns. And Hillary should have treated his actions as such. Instead, she seemed to go into super-robot mode and get to church more often and talk about their counseling. Blah, blah, blah, as my daughter says. No. He was a dick, and you should at least separate from him for six months and take a nice long vacation to Tahiti if you're in a real marriage. It all left me feeling like she was even more ingenuine than I had originally thought. Like Hillary is in nothing but a power-marriage, and the whole thing with Bill is swept under the rug so that her own campaign can go on and she can use his clout for her own political gain. But the problem is, I've lost the connection with Hillary because she never showed me a face of pain or anger along the way. She never went on Oprah and said, "I know what women feel like who have been cheated on, because I have lived through that experience myself." Maybe a man doesn't have to address these kinds of issues when running for office, and maybe that's wrong. But in my mind, a woman grows with each pain she endures and lives to tell about.

Showing

I just got off the phone with my educational loans people, asking for a forbearance. Finally. I've been nervous about starting this, because I'm not sure that I want to let go of my 3-year grace period just yet. I'm a big hoarder - you should see my basement. I've got enough canned tomatoes, soup, pasta and tonic water to survive if the big one hits and we somehow manage to live through it. We might be unable to use electricity or plumbing, but if we've got a can opener and maybe some gin, we're in great shape.

Anyway, the payments are getting to be too much for our single-income family, so it's the right thing to do now. I also cancelled our New York Times subscription today, because it's very expensive and generally serves only as extra weight in our recycle bin at the end of the week. I loved the idea of getting the NY Times every weekend - curling up with a cup of coffee and the Magazine or the Book Review, hours and hours of blissful quiet and peace stretched before me, but come on. Are you kidding me? That was in another life, and hopefully in a life somewhere far in the future, when there are no children running around here on a Sunday morning trying to stick their fingers in light sockets and screaming, "Cinderella, on! Cinderella, on!" Good-bye, highbrow intellectual me. Hello, Survival Mama. Stained, tattered Mama who now showers every other OTHER day and uses moisturizer and deodorant as an afterthought.

I realized the other day, fighting the crowds at an outlet mall to buy my daughter some new fall clothes at Carter's, that I am far more concerned with what she is wearing and the state of HER clothes than with my own. Before I had kids, when I would dream about life with kids, I would always picture myself as one of those very together mommies, with nary a wrinkle or a stain on my tailored wool pants and silk blouse, and though it would be a challenge sometimes, I would always wear at least just a little bit of makeup to brighten up my face. Fast-forward to reality: most days I hang around in my bathrobe, mascara smudged under my eyes from last night, until an hour in the day I prefer not to mention, hoping for a window of opportunity in which to bathe myself before putting on a new pair of underwear. My other issue with getting dressed these days is my in-between waistline. My regular pants don't quite fit me anymore, but maternity pants look ridiculous - like I'm trying to "look" pregnant. I almost forgot about this schleppy-sloppy time of pregnancy, where mostly you just look like you haven't been taking care of yourself. It doesn't help that I reach for the same old black yoga pants almost every single day, just as soon as I step out of my bathrobe.

What's been a trip is that my tummy is really sticking out much sooner this time. I had convinced myself that I was really just behind on my situps, and I really needed to start drinking my coffee without two heaping teaspoons of sugar and a hefty pour of half and half each morning, but some good friends plus a random old woman in my workout class at the Y pointed out to me that indeed, I was "showing" (the old lady said it was either that or I was just really putting on the pounds. I told her she was very lucky that I was pregnant, or I would have had to strangle her with a resistance band). Note to reader: Just because you are old and/or have been around the block a time or two, that does not give you the right to approach random people and ask, "Are you pregnant?" What the hell is wrong with you! I swear it seems sometimes like people never had a mother - at least a mother that taught them anything about how to act.

The other thing that people have said to me so far this time that has been annoying is, "Another one? Already?" As if I have not waited the requisite time of _____ (insert random time period here) and have, most irresponsibly, disrupted some code of child-spacing. My daughter is almost 20 months now. That means that when this baby is born, she will be almost 27 months old. It's not like I got pregnant right away, and the second one will be born before the first one can even walk! Good Lord. It's hard not to get freaked out by what people say, though, especially since there are no certainties around the whole child-bearing/child-rearing thing. Surely if I lived in another community, people would be saying, "Well, what took you so long?" I have to remember that what my husband and I are doing is right for us, and stake my confidence on that.

That brings me to something that is constantly on my mind; the whole thing about staying at home and not being out there working, using my law degree to the greatest extent possible. I used to really worry about it, most of all because when our daughter was born, the amount of time I was going to take "off" kept changing the older she got - my husband and I hadn't really hammered it out as much as we should have. And money kept getting tighter and tighter (it still is). But the more I stayed home with her, the more I knew that this was what I should be doing - what made me the happiest. I also knew that going to work and being away from her was going to make me very, very sad. I do not know a single other woman who was an attorney and had a baby and now stays home full-time. That is a bit disconcerting - it makes me feel sometimes as if I am not following the "right" track for a female attorney, and that somehow I will never find my way back on again. But I have faith that this experience, while taking me out of legal practice for a while, will make me an even better attorney - more well-rounded, perhaps - and one who is not bitter for having "missed out" on these formative years. My hope is that I will be more than ready to go back to work when the time comes. Fresh and optimistic. Certainly, I want my children to see me take my education and use it to make a difference out there in the world, and contribute to the household income to boot. I also want them to see that I am committed to them, and that nothing is more important than the time I got to spend with them when they were small.

Life is much less complicated these days for me. It is also much less glamorous, a little softer around the edges, a lot more raw. I talk about poop now with all kinds of people and don't even give it a second thought. I sing "B-I-N-G-O" right out loud with my daughter and show her my bellybutton when she shows me hers - I don't care who's around. It is very rare that I get flustered or embarrassed around other people now, or that I fail to say what I really think, without my voice shaking so much. I don't get bogged down, stressed out by what I think people are thinking of me or what they actually mean by what they say. I live rich in the knowledge that nothing else really matters, when it comes right down to it. Nothing but my family. I will work hard to support and promote that, and the rest is just bullshit. I would want to hire someone like me.

Anniversary

What a wonderful anniversary we had! We celebrated a couple of days ago - my husband took the day off work and we left our daughter with her grandparents overnight. My husband insisted on surprising me, which normally I hate ("Surprise! We're going on a picnic and hike in the woods today!" or, "Surprise! I caught four frogs at the lake while I was fishing and I'm bringing them home to keep as pets!"), but these surprises were all good and did not involve anything unpleasant for me down the line. The first surprise was a sushi lunch at Nijo Sushi off of Post Alley. I know I've been yammering on about the sushi lately, but I've really only eaten it about three times since I got pregnant. And this sushi was amazing! When we go out, it's usually in West Seattle, so we go to sushi at Azuma because it's a great old local standby. But WOW - what a difference a venture out across the bay can make! I thought Nijo's rainbow roll was one of the best I've ever had, and we got some super-fresh bluefin nigiri that was out of this world. Oooh, we also had some wasabi bloody marys that were awesome (mine sans vodka, of course, but I find that a virgin bloody mary can still be quite enjoyable). And we sat at the BAR like grown-ups - that's always a treat.

Then we wandered up the way to The Spanish Table, where I've always wanted to go. After much time spent living in Spain, I am a huge Spain-o-phile, particularly when it comes to the cuisine. Many Americans don't go for the Spanish food as much as the Italian or the French - maybe because it seems heavy on the olive oil and potatoes - but man, can they do some things with olive oil and potatoes! And ham and fish and cheese and fava beans. And coffee, as my husband can well attest. Anyway, the Spanish Table is faboo - it's got almost everything you need to recreate most any of your favorite Spanish dishes, and lots of fresh Spanish cheese and ham choices. Oh - and the wine selection is outstanding (not that I could partake). I did wish that they had a little counter where they turned out cafes con leche to enjoy while you browse, so I could be 100% transported back, but I guess you have to buy a plane ticket for that. Ah well, someday again . . .

We poked around Pike Place Market for a bit. What a zoo. I wondered how many actual Seattleites were hanging out there, aside from the vendors. We got our doughnuts from that great doughnut hole stand, some cheese from Beechers, and a tea sample from Market Spice, then pretty much got the hell out of there. It's not much fun to be a foodie and be in your first trimester of pregnancy. You want to go and look at all the fresh meat and fish in the cases and wax and think about how you would prepare it all, but the combination of sights and intense odors at the Market can be overwhelming. I needed out.

We took off and headed for our next surprise; the hotel. My husband had booked us a room at . . . tah-dah! The Sorrento Hotel! What a joint! I felt like Little Orphan Annie on her first day at Daddy Warbucks' mansion pulling into that grand circular drive. They knew it was our anniversary, so they upgraded us to the penthouse even though we had just reserved a standard room. They also provided a complimentary bottle of champagne (read: sparkling apple cider) and a cheese and fruit plate to our room. I lazed around on the king-sized bed with the 450 thread-count sheets and ate and drank and felt like a queen. That is my kind of place, let me tell you. I love an historic hotel that is elegant and quiet and reserved, but not at all snooty (well, maybe just a little bit snooty, but not so you feel like a cad walking around the place). I also want to just brag a little more and mention that my husband arranged to have a beautiful bouquet of flowers brought up to the room for me when we arrived. Oh yeah - he is gooood.

For dinner we went to a wonderful restaurant in Belltown called Marjorie. It was a very cozy space with eclectic yet nicely-prepared food. We had the chef's sampler menu, which we always seem to do on our anniversary (we have not been disappointed yet!), and it was all delicious. I especially loved the cold heirloom tomato soup with salmon tartare, and my husband loved the shrimp with grits and a soft-boiled egg. I did crack up, though, when as a third course the waiter brought us a tiny dish each of raspberry-lemon sorbet, and my husband started scowling and getting very anxious because he thought that this was dessert and that was all we were going to get. It turned out to be some kind of amuse bouche, palate cleanser thing before the entree, but it was very funny to watch my husband sweat and try to figure out how he was going to handle the situation. Men . . .

In all, a landmark anniversary. Thank you so much, Daddy. And thanks to Grandma who took the baby for the afternoon and evening and essentially erased all of our worries for about 20 hours - what a treat! Everyone should be so lucky to have a day like this, to be reminded of how special their partner is and how special they are to that person. It is a rare treat these days to look into the eyes of the man I married and talk about things like the future and our dreams and how we're really doing these days. The answer is, blessedly, just great.

Sushi and Pregnancy; Like Two Edemame in a Pod

This NY Times article basically confirms what I've suspected all along; that sushi is far from a serious danger to pregnant ladies. Interestingly enough, sushi has been one of the things I've been consistently craving through all of this nausea. Perhaps because the flavors are so clean and there is no heavy smell or grease. Azuma, here I come!