Shpeak for Yourshelf

Yes, I did have to go for the obvious Sean Connery pun. But that's only because we've finally gotten around to an improvement project that's been on the cards for ages: we put shelves into our dresser. (Here is where I specify that this is a kitchen dresser, holding items with which to dress the table. I know I'd normally call it a hutch, but when in Rome...)

It's a lovely light-coloured wood (aside from a few raindrop stains) and a great sturdy piece that will definitely come with us wherever we move to. But there was one (okay, two) big problem with it: the side cabinets had no shelves.

So no shelves = highly ineffective storage space. This will become a bigger problem soon, because with the move now T-7 days away this storage space needs to be functional. It will no longer be a place to hide the shameful piles of ugly dishes that came with the apartment; it will hold all of my lovely Blue Willow, cake pans, loaf tins, pie plates, and mixing bowls for easy access in the new kitchen. Because the best thing about my new kitchen, aside from a fridge that keeps food cold, is floor space to fit my dresser in a space where it actually belongs.

That meant that yesterday's Bank Holiday involved a trip to B&Q (the UK's version of Home Depot...feel the love) to grab a sheet of MDF (for only £6.50) with which to make shelves. Thankfully, half of the work was done for us: they have a free lumber-cutting service. We definitely took advantage seeing as we don't really have any tools to speak of yet.

Once we got home with our pre-cut squares of MDF, it was time for The Husband to get to work making the final few cuts with Baby Hack Saw there. We had to cut a small square out of one corner on each 40x40cm sheet of MDF. This way, the load-bearing part of the shelf fit nicely into our cabinet space without losing lots of useable surface area.

The whole thing was set up in a C-shaped configuration: two supporting legs under a table-top-like shelf. Since there were already two useless shelf brackets inside, we made the shelf legs stand about 20cm tall, so the brackets didn't get in the way. Because they fit the space so precisely, and the MDF is so inflexible at this size, we don't need much in the way of additional structural support. The Husband will nail the bits together for my peace of mind, but that's all it really needs: the cabinet walls hold it intact quite well.

So now, my dresser cabinets are way more useful:

Look at how much more organised that is. The next task to tackle with this dresser is to change out the horrendous faux-gold hardware for something much more pleasing to the eye. Some brushed bronzey-finished cup handles, me thinks. Much better than the current stuff. Pictures will follow.

I also indulged in one other little project today: the first nursery decoration for Piggly Wiggly! I snagged a £4.50 4x6" white picture frame and framed a card I particularly liked from my sister-in-law, Rachel. I love the lime green background and the flowery pattern...it walks the line very nicely for a baby of as-yet-indeterminate sex. This should be the first taste of how the rest of the nursery will go. Stay tuned!

To Nurture and Preside

To be perfectly frank, there's not much I can add to this BCC post...but I think I will anyway.

I can completely understand why people (especially strong and capable women) in the church take issue with the language we frequently use that states that the father and husband should preside in the home. If the majority of the examples of men presiding that we see week to week are men sitting on the stand doing their best to not fall asleep give an example of reverence while their wives wrestle a gaggle of unruly children with no help from the only other person with equal responsibility for the little hellions, it's no wonder some of us give the concept of a presiding priesthood holder the skeptical side-eye.

I personally completely agree with Norbert (the BCC poster) and his idea that presiding should be something active. I mean, our ward employs small children in pairs for the purpose of standing at the front and giving people an example of what it means to be reverent. If a bishop is meant to take up Peter's charge to "feed my [baby] sheep", that makes him a shepherd. Not The Good Shepherd, but a man meant to help fill those shoes, nonetheless. I don't think most shepherds would see results if they tried to keep their sheep from running away or getting lost or tangled in bushed simply by sitting still and giving the sheep a vaguely preoccupied stare-down from the front of the flock. Some sheep would need to eat, some would just meander away, some would follow rambunctious lambs...basically, a good shepherd actively herds and cares for his sheep.

It's fair, that in the people example of this, you can't force everyone to be reverent and obedient: nor should you! That sort of ham-handed use of authority is insulting and demeaning and makes Baby Jesus sad. But to actively preside - as I see it - should mean being (as the scripture says) anxiously engaged in doing what you can to help people achieve their goals: whether that goal is to become an Eagle Scout, get into a good college, or get five snot-nosed angels to sit down, stop hitting each other, and be reverent for Sacrament meeting. And yes, sometimes the best thing you can do is be a good example - whether it's an example of reverence or an example of "honesty, cleanliness, and knot-tying". (Oh yeah, Clear and Present Danger reference right there) But other times it involves going out and getting things done yourself...because if you're not willing to do something yourself, what right do you really have to tell someone else to do it?

So perhaps rather than nurture and preside, we could come up with a different pair of duties like "encourage and exemplify" or "support and advise" or some other alternative. But then, so long as presiding is an active role rather than a passive one, I don't mind it so much.

Like a Hipster at an Ironic T-Shirt Sale...

...Or like white on rice or like a Demon Deacon on some new Vineyard Vines/Vera Bradley/pastel seersucker. What's got me in such a flurry of excitement? Three simple letters: YHL.

And just what is YHL? What is my new blogosphere crack? Why only the sickeningly trendy amazing DIY blog,Young House Love.

Insanely precious DIY bloggers John and Sherry (and their tiny baby Clara...and chihuahua Burger) share the many adventures of decorating their home inside and out with a series of projects that make me sound like a three-year-old in a sweets shop:

"Oooh...I want that!" "I want that one, too!" "I need this. Yes I do."

Everything from a gallery-style wall of pictures (the gateway drug to my latest addiction) to making curtains to shrinking and dyeing slip covers for chairs to a super-cute baby quilt project. Oh holy handstitched rugs, Batman - there are so many projects I need to try!

I have quite a few pictures I want hung in my house, and I have a tiny baby steadily making its way into the outside world. And (super important emphasis), we're moving house in the next fortnight. I don't want to be at Jane Austen's House until I'm ready to pop give birth, but when I'm at home, I don't want to be bored out of my mind and resort to watching more crappy TV on Teh Interwebz. I need something productive that isn't washing the dishes or vacuuming every vacuumable surface in sight. What better than some DIY artsy projects to spruce up our new flat?

Especially since we're hoping to stay in our new place a good long while, I'd like for it to feel more like it's ours. You know? I mean, don't get me wrong, I've loved our first apartment: it was big, it had space to have guests over, it had a dishwasher - but there was only so much to be done with it. Remember the insane wall-of-mirrors in our living room? Remember the stupid purple stripe on the wall behind our bed? Remember how everything from the IKEA showroom was GLUED to the walls? Remember all that? Because I sure do. I still look at most of it every day.

I loved our apartment for what it did - like fitting in our huge dining room set - but I'm more than happy to leave behind the collection of vases and the crappy fabric blinds for something that I can personalise more effectively at all.

Already I'm contemplating fabrics that would go well with both our dark wood bedroom furniture and the black-and-white graphic print duvet cover. I'm envisioning patterns for how to best (and by best, I mean, easiest) sew curtains and pillowcases. I'm trying to price up sandpaper and wood varnish to refinish the dining room set. I'm considering the cheapest places to find picture frames for my Van Gogh prints. (Because, as we all know, a house isn't a home until it has some Van Gogh.) The obsession has already begun and I fully intend to tackle it with all the energy I've rediscovered in my second trimester. B&Q employees, we're about to become really good friends.

And not to fear: the minute these projects get their spindly little legs off the ground, I will dutifully chronicle them for the enjoyment of all. John and Sherry, you are my heroes.

Why I Shouldn't Be Allowed to Teach Seminary

It's the last week of the Seminary year and I'm teaching...again. Why can't I just say no? Nancy Regan lied...it's not that easy.

But, in the spirit of end-of-the-school-year fun, We've jazzed up the last few lessons. One category in Seminary Jeopardy was "Prophets' Beards", in which my students had to guess who a given prophet was by only seeing an outline of his facial hair. That round was a big hit. And it made up for the round about the pioneers' trip to Utah, which had lots of hard church history questions in it.

Today's lesson was about my childhood in the church - and of most people of my generation: we talked about Gordon B. Hinckley. He was President of the Church from 1995 to 2008, and while he did lots of amazing and inspiring things, I didn't hold my students' interest with stories of his exploits round the world. Nope: I kept them entertained by putting funny sunglasses on the Apostles.

To be fair, the whole point of the exercise was to see if they could name all 12 Apostles with part of their faces obscured. It was just much more fun to obscure their faces with Kanye West shades.

I think when this gets back to the Bishop, I've officially found a tactful way out of ever being asked to teach Seminary again. Victory!

Personally, seeing Neal A. Maxwell in the Dame Edna shades makes my day...and I can be satisfied that my cheesy gimmick got the kids to pay attention; which is no mean feat at 7:00 in the morning.

Time to stop making plans...

Well, that's good to know. Now I don't have to worry about the painful experience of giving birth, celebrating my first anniversary, or even moving to my new apartment. Though, if the Rapture is coming, I want my holding deposit back so I can go blow it on some nice clothes to meet Jesus in. Of course, if the Rapture is anything like its believers say it is, I won't need to worry about that, and I can go about my business after being left behind and loot all their earthly possessions. Hey! They won't need them any more, right?

Needless to say, my heathen mind is completely unconcerned with the wave of earthquakes set to ripple round the world that evening. Or the catastrophic death toll said to come in the following days and weeks. I'm not exactly envisioning any scenes like in 28 Days Later...

But wouldn't it be lovely not to have so much congestion in downtown London?

Seriously, I'm on the side of those who counter Mr. Camping's arguments by quoting the source he uses to defend his erroneous mathematical games: the Bible. After all, the New Testament says pretty explicitly "but of that day and hour knoweth no man...", but I guess he's ignoring that part. It's pretty bad when your own source material contradicts your predictions.

All of that said, while his erroneous judgement is focussed on some rather big and important events and traditions, Camping and his followers are only making the same sort of mistakes in logic and reasoning that all people make. Take, for instance, two cases-in-point from the Skeptoid blog, by Brian Dunning. Granted, he talks about Bill Maher and Sarah Palin (and I highly recommend reading the original post in full), but I think point is still valid to a degree for Harold Camping, too:

For example, I heard some skeptics the other day talking about Bill Maher, saying "I didn't realize he was as crazy as he is." (Bill Maher is an outspoken critic of science based medicine. He's endorsed AIDS denialism, Big Pharma conspiracies, anti-vaccination, and natural medicine.) Now, granted Bill Maher is wrong about a lot of things, but he's not on the fringe. A lot of people believe that stuff. Clearly it's important that they be educated, because widespread beliefs like this would represent a serious national health crisis. If you dismiss those beliefs as craziness, you're saying there's nothing to them, they're meaningless. Instead, acknowledge that there are compelling cultural influences that have led Bill Maher and others to believe those things. Bill Maher is just one of many victims of these influences, and it's because he has the average person's ability to understand and interpret the information he's been exposed to, not because he's crazy.

In the same way, you could say Sarah Palin is simply responding to cultural and political influences. People need cheap energy, so she's a proponent of drilling the oil in her state. People want government to eliminate wasteful spending, so she bashes fruit fly research, the significance of which has never been made clear to her or to the public. The United States is a strongly Christian nation, and many people support teaching creationism in schools, and oppose stem cell research. Palin isn't being stupid by embracing these concepts, she's responding to the same influences everyone else is.

So while I think this guy makes a whole lot of spurious claims and dubious leaps of logic (and I'm not entirely above making fun of him) he's not really much sillier than the average person. Though, despite that point, I must still make one last jibe...

"...They can open doors!"

Just Couldn't Let It Go...

First, read this article.

Done? Good. Now I need to have my, relatively brief, say.

Where is the pride, people? When did we - people of non- or partial-white descent - decide that it was good to rejoice, not just in mediocrity, but in abject failure at life? When did emotional, financial, and educational success become the exclusive province of white people and racial "sellouts"?

It's this kind of attitude that perpetuates a kind of social slavery that keeps bad people from becoming better, and good people from reaching and rejoicing in their potential. It's an attitude I've seen A LOT in my life, and I can't emphasize that "a lot" enough, really. This attitude of self-definition based on the dual combination of race and failure is possibly one of the most dangerous and crippling psychological phenomena I've ever seen. And the sick part is that it's not only tolerated by some, and outright ignored by others, but encouraged by just as many. And these three attitudes are found in both white and Black communities, not to mention those of us who straddle that line, not wanting to sell out either side of our heritage by being forced to pick sides.

Not to mention, I don't see this going the other way - at least not to any degree worth comparing. White people aren't denied their membership as card-carrying White People because they live in housing projects, flunk out of school, or even marry outside of their race. Yet when a Black man marries a white woman (or vice versa) suddenly that person is an ambitious sellout who is ashamed of their race and refuses to be satisfied by members of the opposite sex from their same ethnic background.

And, as a purely tangential point, it may be convenient to call Mr. Obama our first Black president, but if we're being fair and accurate, he's our first bi-racial president. Bi-racial, mixed, however you want to put it, but let's stop the oversimplification of thought that dictates that once a person has a shred of non-white lineage, they cease to be white at all. Just my own opinion, of course.

Miscellany

I'm officially eaten alive with curiosity as to whether this baby is a boy or a girl. I also want to stay strong and resolve to be surprised when the Piggly Wiggly is born, but I've always struggled with the temptation to peek under the wrapping or discover the hiding places of presents. This feels no different.

First non-sequitor: I have resolved to make it through this pregnancy with no stretch marks. An ambitious goal, to be sure, but so far so good. Considering that I've gained 5 lbs in the last 17 weeks, I think it's something that could very well be within reason to consider. Besides, I ran a 9-mile race through chest-high freezing water and giant pits of mud just before getting pregnant. I'm hardcore.

I'm not looking forward to taking the driving test over here. I have to, because otherwise I'll soon become an illegal driver, and once I get a full UK licence our insurance will go down, but I've never been fond of driving tests. I'm not bad at them - theory or practical - but it's just never been an experience I can be relaxed about.

To continue in the schizophrenic topic-hopping of this blog post: I've recently staved off boredom by watching a few episodes of a show called Supersize vs Superskinny. Trashy reality TV of the most pedestrian kind. Okay, it's not as trashy as it could be for a reality show about people's crappy eating habits, but the assumptions and stereotypes it plays to are ridiculous. Like how every obese person gets a pep-talk from someone even more grotesquely rotund in the US. I know we may be the fattest nation (whether that's most obese people per capita, highest average BMI, or highest average weight - or some combination of the above - they never specify) but let's not pretend there aren't monstrously huge people in the UK or Australia or Canada or anywhere else. Surely taking a train to Scotland to meet someone frighteningly obese would be much cheaper, and reduce the show's budget compared to constant trans-Atlantic flights. And also, there's WAY more stigma attached to the overweight people than to these stick-skinny borderline anorexic counterparts they get paired up with. Personally, I think both extremes are equally disgusting - though I sympathise more with the overweight people. I think it's easier to get to where they are without having a nearly debilitating complex about being afraid to gain weight or hating yourself or being a picky eater. Plus, I know I don't have a model diet by any means, but sweet Lord, these people have never heard of fruits and vegetables! I've seen starving children in Africa on Christian charity commercials who must have had more nutritious diets than the people on this show.

Speaking of nutritious eating, I give the skeptical side-eye to anyone who insists that gluten is bad for you (unless you have a legit allergy or intolerance) or that our bodies weren't meant to handle cooked and processed food, so raw and vegan is best. Also, purge diets: absolute crap. If you body couldn't flush out all the food from your digestive tract on its own, you'd have a blockage, which would mean surgery. I can't believe I'm backing this up with Grey's Anatomy, but as Chandra Wilson's character said: "blocked bowels become necrotic bowels." If all that crap was really inside of you, you'd have been hospitalised long before now.

The last stop on my hyperactive rant is pretending to be a grown-up. I fully acknowledge and embrace being an adult, but not a grown-up. I'm an adult simply because I'm too old to be a teenager (and I'm more than ready to dissociate with the negative connotations of being a teenager!). But being a grown-up! When does it stop sounding odd (though it feels normal) to be someone's wife? When does it stop feeling weird to be a momma? To say that you have a child (even if that child hasn't been born yet)? When am I too old for birthday money? And how creepy does it feel to think that, in the scheme of things, the days are not far distant when I could have kids who shake their heads at my idea of what is cool? And how vain is it, really, to hope that when I'm 35 I still turn heads when I get all gussied up?

Also, I'm ridiculously pleased with myself that at 17 weeks pregnant I can still lift my foot over my head while standing. Something I couldn't do until I took ballet my senior year of college. That needs to be a skill that I keep up for a long time to come.

My daily assortment of thoughts must seem so strange to anyone who doesn't know me!

What's in a Name?

It is so difficult to pick a name when you know there's going to be an actual human being to whom this name is attached. The decision rests all on you (and maybe one other person) as to what another person is called for the rest of their life. That's a huge deal.

I'm not being crippled into indecision because my baby is real now, and not just a future hypothetical in a conversation with my friends. No, the real problem is now that I have a husband and a married last name to go with him and a baby growing inside of me to name, so many names are so quickly off the list of acceptable options. To give a brief summary of the potential roadblocks:

If the Husband doesn't like a name, it's out.

If I don't like a name, it's out.

If the name could lead to unfortunate nicknames for our child, it's out.

If it reminds us of people we don't like: gone.

If it's too common: nixed.

If it's either blatantly made-up, overly-trendy, or pretentious-sounding: not a chance.

If it sounds too childish or too much like an incontinent 80-year-old, it's out.

If people will mistakenly assume we named our baby after some unfortunate celebrity or character from a ridiculous book/TV show/movie, it's a no go.

So what does this list of objections leave us with in the way of baby names? A surprisingly short list. Now, that may just be a good thing, because it leaves us less likely to be crippled by choice when the time for officially picking a suitable name comes around. Of course, then comes the issue of choosing a middle name to go with whatever first name we like. Or, the opposite problem of having loads of names that we think would work as middle names, but have no accompanying first name for the baby. Hmmm.

I know I have more than half of my pregnancy left to go, but I have a personal vow not to follow the footsteps of some family friends who took so long to name their third child after he was born, that now I don't even remember the kid's name! I just remember that he was "baby" for the first month or two of his life. My kid needs to have something it can be called once it's born. That's officially the point at which Baby and Piggly Wiggly no longer suffice.

So on the positive list of requirements, I need a name I won't get tired of having to say over and over. Preferably something easy to give a cute nickname to, but that won't sound infantile when baby grows up and goes to Stanford or Oxford or NYU...or Wake Forest! (No pressure, Piggly Wiggly, but your daddy is officially the only person in the immediate family who didn't go there. Just saying.) And something a bit off-the-beaten-track of names, like mine and the Husband's names are.

In the meantime, I'll do my best not to go numb between the ears after looking at list after list of names - most of which will be awful for one reason or another. Of course, my life, at least, would be much easier if I gave up on caring and just named the baby something truly awful like DeShawn Ramon or Moonbeam Astroturf Lemoncello. But then, I remember that I don't want my child to have any reason to sneak into my room armed with a steak knife and malevolent homicidal rage at some point in the future, so DeShawn and Moonbeam are not viable options.

The Sound of Sound

At 16 weeks and 2 days pregnant, the sound of silence would have been a bad thing, so I'm pleased to destroy the title for a pathetic Simon and Garfunkel reference. Just got back from the midwife and everything appears a-okay. My blood work is all in order (except for the tests they inexplicably lost...at least I already know I'm STD-free!) and everything else seems good. Not to mention that I have the green light to continue with my elliptical and weight training routine (which really ought to pick up to do me any good...no more laziness!).

The midwife was unsurprised at how active the Piggly Wiggly has been, and I got to hear its heartbeat on the tiny monitor! It's funny how reassuring a sound that is. Nice and strong and easy to find...though she had to chase the baby around with the wand a bit to keep hearing the heartbeat for more than 2 seconds at a time. Definitely living up to the wiggly part of its nickname!

On the pseudoscience front, everyone I've asked is still predicting that Piggly Wiggly is a boy baby. Though as half of the polled audience is under the age of 6, it's entirely possible that they're significantly swayed by which option I say last. Personally, I'd love a son, but just to but the kibosh on any bogus claims to psychic powers, I sort of hope she's a she. The Husband's take on all of this is that amongst the adult pollsters - assuming some logical thinking - guessing that the baby is a boy is a safer option, because it's a non-falsifiable claim. If no tiny man-bits are visible on the ultrasound, maybe it was just too hard to tell, or the baby was turned funny, so it could still be a boy...but a very modest one. On the other hand, if anyone guesses that it's a girl, the ultrasound could easily disprove that by revealing baby's tiny mangerines and built-in he-wee. (And for the record, no, I have not even begun to exhaust the plethora of pseudonyms for my baby's potential wedding tackle. And no again, I have no problem saying penis and testicles...I just find the other names so much funnier and prefer to use them for literary effect.)

Also, whilst on the subject of pseudoscience, I *will* scream the next time I hear anyone asking for acupuncturist recommendations to treat their infertility. I don't care if it's acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, reflexology, naturopathy, or rumpology, (and no, I'm totally not kidding about that last one...way to go Jackie Stallone) it's all bogus and does nothing for you. But don't take my word for it, look it up on Wikipedia or www.whatstheharm.net or some other credible source. And you're welcome for any entertainment found by laughing at some of the more ridiculous practises out there.

My First (almost) Mothers' Day

So I know most people don't say it counts until you have an outside baby, but this Mothers' Day has got me to thinking. Even though all I can do with my baby right now is feel it wiggle and kick like it's practising Billy Blanks, or eat healthy foods, or talk to it (apparently, Piggly Wiggly's ear bones are forming up now at the 16-week mark), I'm still a mom. That said, my Mothers' Day thought has been that I want to be as good a mom to this baby as all the amazing women in my life who raised me. (Though there are a few men who deserve a shout out as well, but they can wait until Fathers' Day.) ;-)

• First of all, my own mother. An incredible woman who, though she denies most talents of her own, was talented enough to raise two talented, well-read, intelligent, capable daughters (if I do say so myself!) and to teach them the importance of love, honesty, respect, education, responsibility, and family. I wouldn't be the person I am today without my mom's guidance, love, and friendship. It's her example, when I think back to being a kid and a teenager, that really influences what kind of a parent I want to try to be to my kids. If I can do all that she did, and do it half as well, I'll be pretty damn good!
• My nana, Elva. A classy and intelligent woman with a loving heart, a healthy sense of perspective and common sense, and a wicked sense of humour. I think more than other people she taught by example the importance of decorum and family loyalty.
• My grandma, Beverly. The best way to describe my dad's mother is to say she was a Christian. Not that my mom and my nana aren't, but Bev's faith, along with her humility, are what I remember most about her. That, and her very Southern, no-nonsense attitude that never left you feeling unloved, but always reminded you to consider what was really important.
• My step-mother, Gloria. The first thing I appreciated about her was how she made my dad's apartment feel like a home when they first started living together. She decorated and cooked nice meals that we ate around a real dining table, and until she came into Dad's life, we had that with Mom, but not with him. My favourite phrase of hers is the injunction, "Don't act ugly." I've thought about that a lot, and even taught it in Sunday School lessons, because the way she phrased it made me really remember that you do become an ugly person from the inside out when you don't show charity or compassion to other people and when you only consider your own needs and feelings at the expense of others. I thank her for that lesson and for the support she's always given to keeping up my relationship with my dad.

So thank you, moms. I know at least half of you won't see this, but I trust that you know - if only by the things I do - how much you all mean to me.

5 for 1

On days when I'm home, and times when I'm not at the gym, or cleaning, or walking and running errands, I have a guilty pleasure. It's a pretty common guilty pleasure: reality TV. But now that I'm growing a human being, I've found a particular penchant for pregnancy-themed TV shows. I've watched something on breastfeeding versus bottle feeding, on feeding junk food to toddlers, and - my personal favourite - Missbehaving Mums-to-be.

Though some of the cases are a bit annoying - mostly all the smoking pregnant ladies who don't seem to get that the baby is more important that their addiction - some of them are quite enjoyable to watch. My personal favourite are the girls with junk food problems: either eating too much generally, or only eating McDonald's and KFC and the like, or not eating enough AND only eating deep-fried crap.

I have a certain sympathy for the girls subsisting on fast food and oven fries and fizzy drinks. Though I admit that aside from the occasional diet cola or Dr. Pepper, I've really lost my taste for fizzy drinks. Everything's just too sweet now - or pregnancy makes my sweet-sensing taste buds go into overdrive, which makes me like really sweet things less. I'm still not that keen on chocolate bars or truffles. I can do hot cocoa or the occasional fun sized Twix, but that's really it. Mostly, I sympathise with the women who have a hankering for a huge portion of fries or fried chicken or a burger. The other day I had to go make myself some oven chips with mayo because seeing this girl eat them on the programme was driving me nuts.

To be fair, I do love me some salads. Huge, plate-full salads with kidney beans and croutons and carrots and broccoli and cheese and chicken and hard-boiled eggs. It's the sort of thing you almost want to feel smug for, because I got into the best shape of my life eating food like that every day...and climbing my butt off on the StairMaster in the gym at school. :) That said, I've always been a sucker for Papa Johns, and Chipotle, and sweet potato fries, and sesame chicken with beef lo mein.

It's the TV programme, though, that's got me considering how much more I could be doing. Don't get me wrong: I'm not incapable of cooking or phobic of fresh fruits and veggies. Au contraire! I just think I could do more than open a can of corn or boil and season some frozen peas. So, with that resolve, I went and bought a giant stalk of broccoli the other day and we've had some with the past two dinners. Tonight will involve grilled chicken breast, seasoned potatoes (thank you, Momma, for the Lipton onion soup mix!), and some green beans. I'm not sure yet what I want to do to the green beans, but they're fresh and I'm going to cook them!

The problem is that the Husband and I are both quite picky about veggies. We only eat tomatoes when I put them in chili - otherwise the texture is too off-putting. We don't like cucumber (at least, I don't) or zucchini...or eggplant. I don't mind lima beans or parsnips, but he hates them both. Personally, I'm considering making him eat lima beans at least once. Basically, I don't want our kids growing up without having decent nutrition. While I don't necessarily want to be on the other side of the fits I threw as a kid - sitting at the table for an hour crying until I dry heaved, just to ensure I didn't have to finish some Brussels sprouts - I also don't want them growing up unacquainted with carrots or broccoli or leafy greens. Though I'm the first person to admit I probably won't be making kale or spinach or collard greens any time soon.

So, with malnurished babies on the brain, I'm more committed to insisting on tossing apples and grapes and broccoli and green beans and corn on the cob into our shopping trolley. Not that I think my kids will ever look like a Christian charity advert, but I refuse to have a toddler wandering the house attached to a bag of sweets, or who doesn't eat anything other than chips and chicken fingers. So there it is: 5 fruits or veg a day for 1 tiny baby! Here's to pretending to know how to be a good parent.