I love showing off our park to new people. This morning, one of my co-workers came over with her 6-month-old golder retriever, Molly, and her fiance, Brian, to walk with us in Walnut Creek Park. It was a beautiful day for a walk, though it is starting to get hotter. The dogs had a great time and got along well. The only misstep throughout the 2-hour walk was mine. We were at our first creek crossing. The crossing itself is usually no big deal since it's not much more than a foot wide at that point. My problem was the bank was much muddier than it usually is. I was just getting ready to jump across, when my leg went sliding out from under me. Luckily my callipygian end provided ample cushioning in the soft, sticky mud...and the bonk to the back of the head didn't hurt too much or for too long either. The main thing that aggrevated me about the spill was having to put up with "watch your step", "be careful", and "do you need any help" for the rest of the walk!
Not to be outdone by my sister, I made my very first batch of homemade tortillas today. I had received a tortilla griddle as a wedding shower present from Doug and Luca, and today I finally made the time to season it and try my hand. I tried very hard to channel my Grandma Lucio. I put on one of her old aprons, put on some latin tunes (though now that I think about it, I probably should have been listening to Telemundo), and went to work. Like Meredith, I need lots of help with the shaping (my tortillas are a long way from round) and I would like to also work on rolling them out a little thinner, but the end product wasn't too bad. Stepan summed it up best during dinner when he told me, "Hey, these actually taste like tortillas!". We had the O'Reillies over for fajitas and they seemed to enjoy them as well. I even got the pleasure of getting pestered by a 6-year-old to get the chance to roll one of his own (something that gave us immense pleasure whenever we were around when Grandma was making her weekly batch of tortillas).
This morning, Stepan and I met with one of the nurse practitioners at Dr. Litzinger's office. Since my last check up, I have gained just 3 pounds (yeah!)...quite amazing considering the amount of refined sugar I consume...I must try to get that under control! My blood pressure was normal (112/76). We also listened to the heartbeat again (152 bpm)...this whole baby thing is never more real than when you can hear the heartbeat. It's really kinda freaky to think about some whole other person living and growing inside me. Lastly, we were able to locate and measure my belly...a distressingly small portion of my growing girth is my actual uterus.
Final note: we caved to convention and went ahead with the triple screen. My main concern has been the high rate of abnormal results that turn out to be false positives. I really don't want to have an amnio, and one of the main reasons we went ahead with the test is the availability of other testing options (3D ultrasound). Ever the optimistic one, I don't think we'll get an abnormal result. Stepan and I have very different ethnic backgrounds and neither one of us has a known history of genetic disease. I also have a very strong belief that the assumed gestational age of the baby is extremely accurate. If I'm wrong, I'm sure you'll be hearing about it.
