Pre-Baby Prep

About a month or so prior to the due date I started freezing meals. My neice came to visit from Houston and helped with the preparations. We made large amounts of the following meals:

• Teriyaki everything - beef, pork, and chicken
• Burgers - turkey, beef, lamb
• Meat Loaf
• Spicy Stewed Beef  
• Stuffed Peppers*
• Italian Spinach Meatballs
• Pineapple Pork Fried Rice

This was my most brilliant idea yet! I ended up making enough meals to stock up the freezer for a couple of months. I made or marinaded all the meat and all we had to do was prepare the fresh ingredients just before dinner. We called it "shopping in the freezer." The stuffed peppers were a recipe from my Grandmother Lenora, but by the time we got to the store for the fresh peppers they were like $2.50 a pepper. whatevs. We ended up stuffing baked potatoes (much cheaper, even though they are so, so bad for you)with the meat mixture instead. It was a big hit with my niece who stayed with us that week. I'll post that recipe in the future. Don't get all De-Mandy with me either.

My mother in-law flew in from Jamaica a week before my due date and planned to stay one week past my due date. It was so awesome having her here to share this amazing time with us. She made huge pots of our favorite dishes. She made homemade chicken soup, curry chicken, B's favorite stew peas, and my ultimate favorite ox tails. It was amazing. We ended up having meals for the entire three months I was out on maternity leave. It was a huge help having those meals once Hammie came home.

I haven't mastered these recipes nearly as well as she has (read: at all). We keep trying to get it right but there is nothing like mom's cooking. Once we get the technique and measurements together to produce a respectable recipe (we can only hope it tastes like mom's) I'll post it. Until then, try one of the recipes up there.

 In addition to my obsession for hoarding food, I had daily panic attacks about "STUFF." For every new item we brought into the house I found fifteen things that needed to be thrown out. UPS showed up at our door daily and poor B fell victim to my tantrums. I felt like I was suffocating from all the stuff. All the preggo books said that this nesting stage was normal. Let me tell you friends, it is serious. The urge was so intense that I really felt like my life depended on whether or not my house was "in order." Closets had to be cleared out, books needed to be donated (woah!), and baseboards needed to be scrubbed. It was scary stuff. So, the house was scrubbed, the meals were made and still...no baby.