A belly, some SNL and a health chat

I know this is a few days late, but here's my official 16 week shot:

(I found that if I sit down, the neighbors probably can't see me behind the wall.) (Not sure how anyone would see through a wall.)

J, your answer to the SNL trivia question was wrong. However, you do get points for answering at all. (Does no one else watch that show?) So I'm going to give you all one more hint and see if anyone can guess the skit. If Jom reads this he's totally going to guess it. In fact, I'm supposing that he didn't read the question to start out with, because I have a feeling he would have figured it out already. Here we go:
The skit has to do with hairspray and being "excited". I was reminded of it when I sprayed that terrible hairspray for about 10 minutes and can still run my fingers through my hair (although, of course, I was on the opposite end of "excited"). The skit was featured on a "best of" show, . If you have iTunes, I'm going to give you even another hint: do a search for "saturday night live best of" and this person stars in one of those (as in "best of Adam Sandler, although its' not him).

It's terribly silly and unimportant, but this amuses me, and it's all about me, right?

Today was the Markt Platz, which I look forward to each week. I actually took pictures today, but I'll post them tomorrow.

For my last two pregnancies, I was very careful about removing refined sugar from my diet. At my prenatal visits, my birth assistant had told me that especially because my mom has had trouble with varicose veins in her legs (from pregnancies), that I needed to be very careful about staying away from white sugar. She explained that when refined sugar (white or brown) hits the system, it causes the walls of the veins and arteries to thin, which can allow the blood to pool and parts of the veins to bulge out. This ends up as varicose veins. For pregnant people this is especially a possibility because of the huge weight of the uterus and the 200% increase in blood, which often makes circulation sluggish anyway, particularly in the legs.

There was one time when I was pregnant with Elijah that I finally broke down at one point (maybe 7 months pregnant or something), and went to Duncan Donuts. I'm pretty sure I only had one doughnut, but within an hour I could hardly walk. My legs were throbbing with pain. I put them up, put ice on them, a hot water bottle, but nothing helped. Finally I called my birthing assistant, and she told me to take 1 Cayenne capsule, 2 Yellow Dock Root, and 2 Vari-Gone (a Horse Chestnut Seed blend for vascular health by Nature's Sunshine) either every meal or once every two hours -- can't remember -- for 3 or 4 days. My digestive system hated it, but within the first day the pain had subsided, and by the end of the week there was no pain left at all. I didn't eat any more doughnuts until the day after Elijah was born.

It's interesting though, how memories can quickly fade. With Andrew, I stayed off of sugar from when she gave me this information at about 2 months, and followed through for my entire pregnancy. With Elijah, I cheated through the first trimester, then got into gear for the second, jumped off the bandwagon for that doughnut, then finished out the pregnancy sugarless. With this baby...well, let's just say that up until today, there has been no bandwagon. Doughnuts? I'll have half. Cookies? I'll try Andrews. Frosted Mini Wheats? Fiber is good for me. Straight sugar candy? Why not. If I'm craving it, I'll have it in moderation.

This week I've discovered German chocolate. I had some after lunch, and then some after dinner (I place the blame for the second serving squarely on my neighbor, who brought over two huge bars for me to try. I only had a few chunks...)

This morning Elijah woke me up unusually early at 6am (bad dream?) I got up to give him his bottle, and when I got back into bed, I noticed that familiar throbbing ache. I was so pissed off that my sleep had been disturbed, and then to add insult to injury, I instantly knew that I'd brought this leg pain upon myself, so then I was mad at myself. A fantastic way to start the day. I made myself fall back to sleep on my left side (the best side for circulation when pregnant -- has to do with where the vena cava is located; lying on the left side relieves uterine pressure and allows optimum blood flow to mother and baby), and by the time the boys woke me up at 7:30, my leg felt a good deal better. By the time that we got home from our morning trek through town, however, my leg was not really feeling so well. At breakfast I took my last Cayenne cap and 2 Vari-Gone, and I'll continue to take 2 Vari-Gone at each meal for the next few days, but this sucks. I suppose I'll have to order some more herbs on eBay. My leg is up on the desk as I type.

I really wish that I would have been more careful...unfortunately I found this incredible pudding yesterday made by Dannon, available only here...I might have picked some up...I might have it in chocolate and vanilla. Who will eat the chocolate if I don't? Is it a good idea to let it go bad? Oh, so many questions.

On a random note, I saw Catherine Keener the other day (Being John Malkovitch, Capote). I think it was on Tuesday, the boys and I were out walking around town in the morning, and I saw this lady walking down the street towards us. We had almost reached her by the time she got in her car, so I had a very long time to keep looking back at her and wondering "where do I know you from?". I felt like she must be a shop keeper...or a familiar shopper...but definitely someone I'd had a few real conversations with. I could not place my finger on it. Yesterday it dawned on me that it was someone from a movie, and this morning it hit me out of the blue. I looked up her picture online, and sure enough, it was her. Or perhaps her sister? Can't find a pic. However, Catherine has a very distinctive face. I'll let you all know if I see her again. I know you'll be holding your breath.