Zip a dee doo dah

I've decided to call the baby Zippy until we know if it's a boy or a girl. Every embryo needs a nickname, and it always kinda bothered me to call a baby "it". But as my mother taught me, the nickname needs to be something goofy, lest you get too used to it and decide to go ahead and use the nickname as the official name. Emily was "Bean", so this baby is "Zippy".

So Zippy is 3 weeks old today, and already has a beating heart and eyeball bumps. Other than that, Zippy still looks pretty freaky.

So that makes me 5 weeks pregnant, although I don't have many symptoms. Since this is my second pregnancy, that makes me feel lucky, not worried. I have gagged on a couple of things, but pretty much only things that were kinda gross anyway, like oatmeal that had gotten cold and congealed, and an unpleasantly runny omelet. I don't have any food aversions yet, so I'm trying to pack in the veggies because last time around I just didn't really care for most veggies, and cucumbers and sweet potatoes in particular made me want to barf.

To help me with my quest to eat super-healthy, I have been reading through What to Eat When You're Expecting. I give it a resounding "Meh". When I first found out I was pregnant with Emily, I ran out and bought What to Expect When You're Expecting. I figured reading it was a rite of passage, and hey, that lady serenely rocking on the front sure looked calm and happy. I don't recommend this book, especially to first-timers, unless you want to spend the next 9 months curled up in a trembling, protective ball around your stomach, willing your baby not to die or have some horrible problem. If you simply must read it, try to only read the parts about what happens during a good and normal pregnancy, and keep in mind that not ALL of the pregnancy issues will happen to you.

So anyway, after wading through all the "Sugar will kill your baby" and "Don't have any alcohol even if you cook it, but here are a couple recipes with alcohol in them and one with raw egg whites thrown in to REALLY confuse you", I came away with a good feel for which nutrients I need to focus on eating more of. The recipes seem to be ok, I like them because everything is whole wheat and juice-sweetened, which is how we eat anyway but it's hard to find recipes without sugar or white flour. The one notable exception is the green gazpacho, which even Will couldn't choke down more than half a cup of. Look What to Eat When You're Expecting, I know you're trying to cleverly hide leafy greens in your recipes, but gazpacho is not the place to hide arugula and watercress. Especially not so much of it. The stuff is bitter and nasty, and call me a purist, but I kinda feel like there should be tomatoes in gazpacho. Thanks for making me waste lots of expensive groceries. I thought I was impervious this time to the worry you cause, and now you're getting to me in more insidious ways!