Pregnancy Snack Attack

So, I’m often hungry. The quick “snack” of choice over the last week or so has been:

Flour tortilla

Shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Salsa

Microwave for 15-30 seconds.

It’s not really that unusual, but it’s something for those of you who want all the odd food combos…

Housing

It’s interesting to watch the housing market around here. I doubt we’ll move from our apartment before next summer — there’s just so many variables in having a baby I don’t know how to quantify, that I figure it would be best to stay put. But I’ve been keeping an eye on the public part of the multi-list system looking at what homes are available, just in case a gem appears in the lower price ranges. (And I may go investigate a pre-approval, just to see what our options are, but I digress…)

Right now it looks nearly impossible to get a livable house in town for under $100,000. And any houses around the $100,000 mark seem to be a gamble — they generally need some sort of work, but it’s a crapshoot as to what kind or how serious. Living outside of Morgantown instantly lowers the cost of the home, sometimes by half.

I found two cute looking houses in the last three months that were under $100,000, and near enough to be of interest to us. One was a little over 10 miles out of town, and one was near downtown in the heart of what is mostly a rental district. The first never made it past the drive-by stage: the surrounding neighborhood was run-down, littered with trash (piles of trash), and didn’t feel safe, though that last is probably not true–it just wasn’t a nice enough area to justify the drive, especially with gas prices as they are. The second looked great from the outside, so we asked to see it. The inside was really rough — holes in the walls, floors that needed work, animal smell (several dogs living there). And even with all that, I think we would have considered the possibility of making a considerably lower offer (based on the positives of the location near downtown and the attractive exterior) except that the layout was so very poor that it didn’t seem worth the work it would need. (And the smell seemed to linger on me after the visit — unpleasant. The poor animals.)

And even if we were to find a house around $100,000 that met all of our requirements, that’s a scary commitment. With the housing market in the mess it’s in, will houses maintain their heightened value in this area? Or will they drop down, back to where prices were, heck, only about 10 years ago? I’m sure that the student interest in this area has kept some of the prices going up — will that continue? Or will we have finally gotten to the point that student housing exceeds student demand?

With the fluctuating economy and housing situations, it’s a confusing time to look at houses.

Almost Craving

I keep thinking I haven’t had a whole lot in the way of cravings, but I’m not sure that’s true. Early on I really wanted fried foods, like jalapeño poppers and mozzarella sticks. Instead of going out to get them I just bought them at the grocery store and made them at home. I think my most pregnant-seeming meal combo was the night I had a blueberry bagel with swiss cheese and jalapeño poppers (and let me just say that even now, that combination sounds good to me).

I think the fried food craving was my body’s way of upping my caloric intake — I remember having hunger pangs that were actually painful. As soon as I started eating more, regularly, that craving went away. Since then I’ve been good at satisfying myself with what’s around, for the most part. (It helps that I want sharp cheese and we usually have that around — still a shame that I can’t have feta. Boo.) Also I’ve noticed that hummus seems to work well as a general craving solver when I’m not sure what I want.

I have had a few very specific cravings that were one-time fixes (at least so far). One night I really wanted a candy bar, but I couldn’t decide which kind. So I bought a bag of mini-bars and had a few different ones. And I’ve had days when I really wanted a burger, or really wanted avocado, or really wanted broccoli, or tomatoes, or spaghetti — but no regular cravings.

The closest thing I’ve had recently to a consistent craving is that I’ve wanted Flat Earth Peach Mango chips. I think it’s the peculiar combination of sweet and mildly tangy I wanted, and since we didn’t have it in the house at the time I couldn’t satisfy it and kept wanting it. So today when I went to Target I picked up a bag.

I think I ate about half the bag in one sitting. It was lovely.

The Yogurt Thing

There are so many things that you’re not supposed to eat when your pregnant. I have no intentions of going through a litany right now (note too that what you can and can’t eat while pregnant changes all the time, make sure you do your own research or talk to a doctor rather than relying on friends’ accounts from when they were pregnant). I’m sure I’ll complain about a number of the off-limit foods here in due course, but one thing that is a subject of much confusion is artificial sweeteners.

Scientifically speaking, the only really questionable artificial sweetener right now (that is legal for food use in the U.S. to begin with, I mean) is saccharin, good ol’ “Sweet ‘n Low.” Some of the others it is advised to use only in moderation, but there doesn’t seem to be any proven negative effects. Of course some people are convinced that all artificial sweeteners are poised to give us cancer or tentacles at any moment, and any pregnant woman who dares feed herself such chemicals is already a horrible mother. I have seen nastiness on message boards regarding artificial sweeteners that I thought was specially reserved for those who dared to ingest alcohol, or chose to continue smoking. Woo.

While I don’t really hold to the idea that my child-to-be will instantly grow scales and an extra head if I sip a Diet Coke, I have done my best to cut out most of the foods I would eat that would contain artificial sweeteners. However low-fat yogurt I had nearly given up on.

See, I like yogurt, in waves. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes I can ignore it for weeks and not feel deprived — but when I want it, hoo boy, I want it. So then I buy a handful of containers, eat it for a week, and then eventually get to throw out the rest. I’ve tried to avoid buying too much at a time to stall this recurrent theme.

I don’t usually want full fat yogurt though. There’s not enough of a caloric – satiety pay off there. I like low-fat yogurt. And being pregnant, it’s a great idea to eat yogurt — for all sorts of reasons, but calcium is a biggie. The problem is that all the low-fat yogurts I can find are generally artificially sweetened. So I decided I’d have the occasional “Splenda” sweetened yogurt and forget it.

I was ridiculously excited when about a month ago I found Stonyfield Farms yogurt at the Giant Eagle and decided to try it. I got a no-fat version first, I believe, but that was fine, it was yummy (I love plain vanilla yogurt, and the blackberry wasn’t bad either), and no artificial anything. I looked them up online, and as a result bought some of the “Yo-Mommy” yogurt (something I would never have bought just seeing it in the store — there’s something off-putting to me about the name).

And yes, for those of you who I’ve already hinted to about this, this is the website I nearly got choked up about. Consider it a testament to pregnancy hormones. (They care about people, about what we eat. They really care! *sniffle* I must buy their product.)

So if you, like me, live somewhere where it’s hard to find low-fat or no-fat yogurt without Splenda in it, you can try to find the Stonyfield Farms stuff. It may be in the store’s organic section.

And I’ll still reserve the right to have the very occasional (saccharin-free) diet soda. Lizard scales be damned; viva la moderation.