Wednesday Randoms, 5/29

This weeks randoms have been moved to Wednesday. They may or may not move back to Monday (or some other day) next week.

Pregnancy

I'm 18 weeks along, which according to TheBump.com, puts the baby at the size of a sweet potato!

Last Saturday, I felt the baby kick for the first time! I think I may have felt a few random kicks prior to that, but they could also have been muscle spasms. I just don't know, so I put "first movement" at exactly 18 weeks, since I was sure. It feels like someone trying to very lightly tickle my stomach from the inside.

I'm counting down the days until my anatomy scan. 16 days to go! We had issues with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) during my pregnancy with Liam, so I'm anxious to know that Baby 2.0 is growing on track. And we hope to find out whether we're having a boy or a girl.

Liam

Liam is doing very well. His 18-month checkup put him in the 70th percentile for weight, and the 82nd percentile for height! He is developmentally right on track: he has well over a dozen words (Mama, Dada, dog, Elmo, cheese, cracker, ball, bubbles, milk, color, shoe, more, no, car, truck), he strings two words together (uh-oh Dada, no cracker), he uses utensils, he walks up and down stairs with help, he's pushing limits and throwing temper tantrums.

Temper tantrums aside, we had a nice Memorial Day weekend. We had a barbecue at my parents' on Sunday with my brother and sister-in-law, and on Monday, we had a picnic along a popular spot in Philadelphia, Kelly Drive.

Dave and I ate sandwiches, and Liam ate cheese, crackers and grapes, and we watched the geese and the rowers on the water, and the bikers, roller-bladers, and walkers on the sidewalk.

He continues to love daycare. He comes home with new words almost every day. Sometimes, he also comes home covered in (water soluble) paint. I love that they switched from paper "reports" to email reports — wastes less paper.

Food

What have we been eating lately?

I made this salad for my parents' barbecue, substituting Israeli (pearl) couscous for regular, and fresh mozzarella cheese for feta, turning it into a caprese couscous salad. I got a lot of compliments about it.

I also had Dave make this baked pasta with spinach, lemon and cheese. I didn't think the lemon flavor was prominent enough, but otherwise, we enjoyed it. Liam mostly ate the pasta, but a few pieces of spinach snuck into his mouth, being stuck to the pasta.

We also had this orzo chicken skillet meal, which had a nice kick of spice to it, but was otherwise bland.

What have I baked lately? NOTHING! Need to remedy that. I have my eye on these browned butter shortbread cookies.

I also have a pint and a half of heavy cream in my refrigerator to use. Any suggestions?