An excuse, and really, it's a pretty good one

For those loyal few, and I do mean few, who read my blog regularly, I feel compelled to make this announcement: I am not, in fact, dead! I am just pregnant. And really sick. And mind-blowingly, bone-crushingly tired. And I puked up pickles last night.

The fourteen-week mark is looming and I am hoping that with it comes a lack of nausea and surge of energy. Maybe even enough energy to cook dinner for my family instead of offering the children a choice of Ragu or Raisin Bran (please, please choose Raisin Bran because Ragu involves noodle boiling and that sounds like A LOT of work). And can I tell you how thankful I am for TiVo and Curious George?

I felt the baby move today. And the obstetric community may scoff and tell me it's not possible, but after enduring five first trimesters, I am convinced that the walls of my uterus are so paper-thin, translucent really, that I could feel a cricket twitch its antenna. So you can take that explanation and smoke it, scientific world!

Besides pickles (which I don't think I need to explain that I am heretofore NOT interested in), I have had intense cravings for ice cream sandwiches and Cheetos. I am hoping that my prenatal vitamin contains enough nutrients to cover many dietary deficiencies and that the old adage that the baby will just take what it needs and leave me depleted is true. Because at this point, I am probably a mere shell of a human and my skin is just a husk around dry, empty bones. The only redeemable craving I have had is for cherries, which thankfully are coming into season and their $4.99/lb price tag is slowly dropping. Every night I eat about $8.64 in cherries and I am just glad that soon upper Michigan will start producing those little red gems because I don't care if they had to surf into town on an oil plume, I want my cherries.

Please, second trimester, come quickly.