So much better!

There is no other way to say this, so here it is: WE ARE HAVING A GIRL!!! At the end of the day neither one of us really cared what we were going to have (after all the treatments to get here we were not about to start being picky!), but now that we know, I am sooo excited that it's a girl. My friend Stef's daughter, A, will finally have another girl to play with (ok, in couple of years, but still).

I called Alan's parents and told them about it. They are living for vacation in Florida (Disney) in couple of days and already warned both of us that they will be buying lots of Minnie and Snow white items! Alan's dad is too funny! He is so proud and excited to be a granpa!

Well, I better run back to work.

Preparing for tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day when we get to not only figure out if our baby has all it's supposed to be having (2 kidneys, one whole heart, a whole brain, 10 fingers and toes... you know the drill) but we also find out if the baby is a SHE or a HE.
I think and hope for a girl, but I do not really care at the end of the day as long at we are healthy.

I don't know about all this pregnancy thing! Each day I go between being ecstatic to being paralyzed with fear of something going wrong. I know all pregnant women go thru this, but boy it's scary when it happens to you. I try hard to calm myself down and remember that gazillions other women had healthy babies, but the fear of unknown can not be easily calm down. Luckily I have some very good friends (thanks K!) who listen patiently to my every other day bickering and remind me that I will be OK!


So if you are around and awake tomorrow morning at 7:30am, please send some good karma my way!

Little piece of yummy home!

After looking around in the fridge on Saturday morning, I decided that we need few essential things to make it thru the week. So I decided to just run quickly to the neighborhood mom and pop grocery store called Seabra. I always get the flyer in the mail, and think "that's a good price" for whatever, but never really went.
The store looks exactly what you would expect. Nothing high end or fancy, with some brand names and lots of "unknown" brands as well (note: unknown brands do not bother me, lots of times, in my opinion, you get the same quality product even if it't not "barilla"). The biggest surprize in the store is that they have lots of imported foods! That is always exciting since I am always on the look out for Eastern European foods!

I went to the deli counter for some cold cuts for lunches and I saw this thing called "smoked pork ham". Now, it looks to me like half of the stuff at the deli counter are labled as "smoked ham", so i am always confused of what I should be getting. But this thing looked awefully a lot like this Romania cold cut meat called "muschi file". So I asked the lady behind the counter to let me taste a tiny slice. You can not imagine my surprise and delight (along with the poor woman's funny look at my "victory dance") when I realized that it tasted just like what "muschi file" does!

To better understand my excitement over a piece of ham, try imagining growing up with peanut butter and jelly and loving it. And then moving to a country where they have never heard of it! How would you feel if out of the blue you find a little store that sells it? Now granted, there are so many yummy foods here, but i still miss the cheese and the cold cuts meats from Romania. That's pretty much all I eat when I go home to visit.

Needless to say Alan and I ate a whole pound of that stuff (for bfast, lunch and dinner). I can't wait to go back this weekend to get more of it. Oh, and the other great thing is that they have lots of imported cheese too!

I have found my little piece of home heaven!

Growing pain!

No, I am really not referring to the obvious growing pains due to the pregnancy, but more to the emotional growing pains as one's life changes.

You know how sometimes you have those flashes of realization? Yesterday as I was walking home from work, I kept thinking how much my life has changed in the past 6 years. Moving across the world from Bucharest to Boston was a difficult thing. The hope and determination of going back to Romania each year kept me sane. And we did just so. We pretty much went back each year to visit my family and friends. But funny enough, each year was different. I think it took me a while to realize that life moved on and what I was holding onto were just memories of how things and life used to be in the past. Not only did I change, but so did my friends. So each year it was a little bit more of a bitter sweet experience.

Last night I realize that my desire of going back home each year is more than even a futile effort of holding onto something that doesn't exist anymore. Things had changed dramatically: my brother visits each year, my mom is getting ready to come and be with us for a while after the baby is born, some of my best friends moved away to different parts of the world. So, with growing pains, I have finally let go and accepted that it's ok for life to change! Are we never going to go back to Romania? No, of course we are going to go, but I am finally ok with not making it a point of going back each year. While I love my family dearly, I am finally ok with realizing that my life and family is here with A and the soon to come baby!

I can't even tell you what a world of possibilities this realization opened up for me. My mind is still spinning with all the options!

Later!

I do not get it!

This past Saturday A and I went to one of his cousin's wedding. It was a late one, but fun none the less. Unfortunatelly jumping up and down on the dance floor with an ever expanding belly is not very comfortable, so A and I were happy to chill at our table and hang out with some of the other family members.

Now for the strange part of this wedding. The groom's parents (the bride is A's cousin) gave the new couple a very nice gift: they paid for their honeymoon in Costa Rica. You might think: that is a very nice and generous gift! Yup, I would tend to agree with you, but here was the catch (you knew one was coming, right?): the groom's parents are going too! No, I am not halucinating, or making it up. The groom's parents paid for the honeymoon... for the 4 of them!!!

Now, who does that? What parent wants to be going in their child's honeymoon trip? And why you as a child would accept something like that is also beyond my understanding. I mean, can't you say:" Gee, mom and dad, that is a very generous offer from you, but rather buy me a couch and let me be with my wife alone in my honeymoon!"

You can only imagine the discussion at our table that night. All I am going to say (in order to keep it as G rated as possible) is that I don't think that the groom's parents will be grandparents any time soon!!!

He must have been human in another life!

Sometimes I swear my cat Poomba must have been a human in another life! I know cats have very strange habits in general, but I do think Poomba thinks he is one of us. He wants to sit at the table with us (one paw on the table, sniffling the food), he pulls his food bowl with his paws to get it closer to himself, he sits on the toilet sit and watches me put make up on, he likes to jump in the shower while the water is running, he hates if you try to pick him up and he hates being covered by blankets! He watches tv so intensly sometimes that I can bet my life he actually follows whatever is going on during that CSI episodes and he has his favorite shows when he likes to come and cuddle on the couch with us (he is a sucker for American Idol!). He sure does have his own personality that is totally different than Timone's. The fact that Alan and I pretend that he has his own voice (yup, we know we are strange) probably makes it even stranger! Goodness I wish I could be in his head sometimes!

Cheers!

Is it only my mom?

So, I love my mom. With all my heart. We have a great relationship. I grew up knowing that she is not only my mom, but also my friend and that I can tell her anything.

Then were is the problem you might wonder... I got married 6 years ago and moved away to another continent. Though I have been gone for all this time, in my mom's mind I am still 17 years old, not knowing what I am doing. Now, mind you, I am not old at all, I am only 30 years old, not that I know everything, but I think I managed to get a grasp of what I am doing. I don't know about you, but 90% of the time she does not listen to what I say. I would make my point and then she would continue the conversation as if I have never spoke! Details are really not important in regards to what our conversation was, though I will say it has to do with the baby! She drives me over the edge with no fail every single time.

I know she loves me, I know she raised me and she wants the best for me, but really why can't I be left to make my own stinking decisions and mistakes! While the saying "learn from other's mistakes" is cute, I really do not think it has life applications for me! I am all about being wise, but ultimately I really do not learn lessons unless I really make my own decisions and conclude that it was the wrong thing to do.

Is it only my mom, or yours are the same? God I hope I am not the only one in this situation!

Fun Saturday!

Saturday we went over our friends, K and D to go bowling, eat some food and play some card games (Alan and I got them addicted to this cards game called nerts, a 4 way version of solitaire!).

K and I really suck at bowling (hope you don't get offended K), but it was fun to see the boys trying to outdo each other (in a friendly way since they are friends. Now, nerts game is a different story since I get wicked competitive and it's one of my fav games (sometimes I think that this baby will come out with a deck of cards really to kick some butt in the hospital nursery!). But D, took the cake on Saturday and kicked my butt!

I love hanging out with D and K and they even got the honorary title of aunt and uncle. Well, K passed with flying colors, D still has to prove himself (just kidding!)

See ya!