Your Father, the Fattener

Your Mom took her first solo trip to see Dr. Hagood on Monday this week. Since it was just a 5-minute heartbeat checkup, I opted to stay at work and save up some goodwill to take off for our next sonogram in 2 weeks!

Good news, of course, your heartbeat sounds perfect and is just tick-tick-ticking away.

The other news, though certainly not of the "bad" variety, is that your Mom has had a net weight gain of 2 pounds. This isn't weight gained from the beginning of the pregnancy, but weight gained from two appointments ago. So, she lost some weight two times ago, and gained some weight from then til now. Confused? Me too. Point is, though, that, though no one's in danger and nobody's at risk, your Mom is still 2 pounds lighter than the Doctor was expecting.

Thus, I've taken it as my personal mission to fatten up your mother!

I'm immediately reminded of an episode of this show called "The Simpsons" (it's a cartoon about a yellow family that started when I was 8 or something! don't worry, it'll probably still be on for you as well). Anyway, the resident huckster doctor has a formula to help the oafish dad, Homer, gain weight rapidly so he can get on disability:

"Be creative. Instead of making sandwiches with bread, use Pop-Tarts. Instead of chewing gum, chew bacon. And remember, if you're not sure about something, rub it against a piece of paper. If the paper turns clear, it's your window to weight gain. "

Your window to Weight Gain!

My first attempt at this evil plan backfired. Using the okra overstock from our garden, I made a corn, okra and cheese casserole for dinner. This dish called for a whopping 6 tablespoons of butter. Being the gourmet chef that I am, I opted to add even more butter than that! But, as it turns out, this dish wasn't all that good. Too much butter makes things too rich, leaving your Mother taking only one bite. The biggest backfire, though, was that I managed to eat half of it and gain 27 pounds just by eating one dinner.

That's a lot of butter.

But last night's dinner plans went a lot better. Instead of forcefully cooking unhealthily, I just cooked like usual. The dish I made was a big hit, and your Mom ate a whole bowl (which is a lot for her these days).

She was so full afterwards that she even said, "Ohhhhh, I'm so full. Why did you have to make it taste so good?"

I just smiled and said "I don't know how to cook any other way...except for that casserole. That sucked."

But little did she know that the well-prepared dinner was just a plan to fatten her up! And I did a little evil laugh in my mind will twirling my imaginary evil mustache:

Muah-ah-ah!! Ah-ah-ah!

All that is true except for the last bit. I told Holly about my plan to fatten her up from the get go!

Sympathy...Wait.

We also learned at our Doctor's appointment on Tuesday that your Mom has actually lost a little bit of weight since the last appointment. Now, don't fear. That's totally normal for the first trimester (with all the yakking (which your mom never actually did) and food aversions). The Doctor said that it was highly unlikely that she'd ever weigh in as less than before for the rest of the pregnancy.

But, no your Mom has a card to play in the cravings game. I try my best to steer us away from bad/fattening/greasy/horrible foods. So, yesterday night, your Mom had a craving for Arby's.

Since my body is my temple, I am proud to say that I've never sullied the grounds with a Big Beef and Cheddar. That is, until last night.

Can they legally claim that?

I was trying to talk her out of it: "I'll make you nachos!" "How about fried rice?" "What about a Chicken Pot Pie?" All of those sounded healthier to me than fast food roast beef.

But your Mom wisely played this card: "Aaron, you've got to fatten me up."

We had a coupon. I caved. Your Mom and I both ate...ewwww... Arby's.

It wasn't half bad! But, of course, that also means that half of it WAS bad. Meaning, it tasted great while we were eating it, but the following approximate 10 hours were not so good. Special Sauce, indeed.

Even though your Mom has lost weight since the 8 weeks sonogram, we still think we can see the evolution of the bump. In fact, these pictures are starting to look a little bit like "The Evolution of Man."

Evolution of Man



Evolution of You. Can you see the bump?
Or maybe you are just seeing the Arby's...