Tuesday Eats and Adventures

Hey friends! How are you guys doing!? This week has been a good one so far mainly because Chase’s weekend fever was gone by Monday (I still kept him home from preschool just to be safe) and I managed to sneak away for a fun dinner with some of my closest girlfriends which included lots of much-needed uninterrupted conversation. Since my friends and I usually get together with our toddlers in tow, it always feels like a treat when we can meet up, talk and relax without multi-tasking. Not a bad way to kick off the week!

After dinner on Monday night, I climbed into bed around 10:30 p.m. and was hit with another bout of pregnancy-related insomnia. Womp, womp. Let’s just say I didn’t wake up bright-eyed on Tuesday morning and opted to sleep in as long as I could which meant I was up a little before 7 a.m. thanks to a stomach that needed food immediately… or suffer the nausea consequences! I headed into the kitchen and made myself a big bowl of oatless oatmeal with zucchini and pumpkin so my breakfast was a hybrid between my original oatless oatmeal recipe and my pumpkin paleo oatmeal.

I’ve been eating a lot of bananas lately to try to increase my consumption of potassium-rich foods (my doctor recommended this to help with calf and foot cramps) and oatless oatmeal is one of my favorite ways to enjoy them since they naturally sweeten my breakfast in a tasty way!

I ate my breakfast while quickly browsing through my email inbox and then chatted with my mom until Chase was up for the day around 7:30 a.m. My mom initially planned to come in town to watch Chase while Ryan and I headed off on our babymoon but the timing worked out really well for her to extend her stay since we have plans to visit my Aunt Laurie who lives a little over two hours away in Raleigh for my baby sprinkle with my extended family on Saturday. Gotta love the extra family time!

Once Chase was awake, we all dug into pumpkin muffins from the double batch of whole wheat pumpkin muffins Chase and I made together on Monday and then it was off to boot camp!

The workout on the agenda for the day was a legs/shoulders/arms workout and my modified version looked like this:

I was more than ready for another snack by the time we made it home and topped a cup of yogurt with cacao nibs, chia seeds and blueberries.

Chase snacked as well and then the two of us headed upstairs to play while my mom went to a morning Jazzercise class. I made up a “shoe game” to coerce Chase into helping me sort through the shoes in my closet which served two purposes: Toddler entertainment + Organizing my closet. Chase helped match my shoes together – motivated by lots of high fives every time he got a successful match – and I was able to make a pile of shoes and clothes to give away through the matching fun.

We spent the rest of the morning hanging out round the house and tried to get Chase down for his nap on the earlier side of the afternoon. While he had “quiet time” in his crib (he never actually slept yesterday), my mom and I made ourselves lunch. I had a big ol’ egg and veggie scramble made with onions, peppers, spinach and roasted sweet potato. I topped it all off with nutritional yeast, goat cheese and avocado for more potassium and healthy fats!

And then I ate half of a bag (literally) of Boom Chicka Pop white cheddar popcorn while I worked on the computer.

I cannot be trusted around that stuff. It’s too good!

Since Chase didn’t really nap yesterday, his crib quiet time didn’t last too long, so we played at home for a bit before I had a dentist appointment on the agenda while my mom and Chase headed off to Chase’s swim lesson. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, but both of my front teeth chip regularly (so random, I know), so I find myself at the dentist for small chip repairs several times a year. Well, my front right tooth chipped over the weekend and thankfully my dentist was able to squeeze me in for an appointment yesterday in the early evening. My appointment didn’t last too long and since my dentist’s office is located right next door to the library, I took advantage of some solo time and returned a big batch of library books and took my time browsing for more books I think Chase will love.

Usually I have Chase with my during our library adventures because he LOVES the library, but this also means I’m often quickly selecting books at random and about half of them end up being duds. The book nerd in me loved browsing for books for Chase that I think he will love (basically anything with animals or some kind of transportation theme) and I picked up a few of my childhood favorites for us to read together, too!

(Helen Lester, the author of Tacky the Penguin, actually visited my elementary school when I was a kid so I’ve always had a soft spot for that book!)

I arrived home shortly after my mom and Chase returned from swimming and once Ryan joined us after work, we all quickly assembled an easy dinner that included coconut shrimp from The Fresh Market, baked sweet potatoes and grapes.