29-22 weeks

Week 29

Its getting close! Only about a month left here in Nigeria, then I go back to Austin to wait for baby to arrive. She's not due until Feb 16, but due to airline travel restrictions, when I go home for Xmas, I'll stay there. I had two dreams that I can remember this weekend -- the first one was that I was in a mall and there was a bookstore on the floor above me, and one below me. I had a whole selection of books to choose from. The 2nd one was that I was in a Texas grocery store and I shopped down every aisle. That's it. Those were my dreams. I dreamt that I had a selection of anything I wanted.

Week 26

Week 22

Its amazing how much one can grow in a week. My belly has ballooned and now I am obviously pregnant. I guess your first pregnancy, it can take a little longer to show since your body isn't so elastic yet. I haven't gained that much weight yet-- which somehow has allowed me to eat as much chocolate as I want. Which worries me a little bit because I am sure it will catch up with me and she could get big big big fast fast fast, especially when I get back to the US and indulge in the foods I've been deprived of. That's in 2 months! Soon. Anyway, if I don't start showing a little self control around chocolate, it could be the beginning of a difficult delivery.

She's starting to kick now.

How was your weekend?

Some of you ask what I do here on the weekends, so thought I'd give you a snapshot.

First of all, Saturday was one of those random "holidays." There were local elections, and when that happens, there's a law or maybe just a strong recommendation that everyone stay off the roads from 7am until 4pm. So we spent the day inside watching "The Wire." Everyday, we watch a couple episodes from our favorite TV episodes -- just finished watching all 5 bootleg seasons of The Shield, and now we're on to The Wire. We got so far on Saturday, though, that tonight when I get home, it'll be time for the Season 5 Finale. What will we watch after we're done?

Anyway, then on Sunday, we drove to the Mainland to see Yomi's mom and 2 sisters that live here. They don't have speed limits here. Not one sign that shows a speed limit. I think there are several reasons for that - 1) the police don't need a speed sign as a reason to stop you, they can stop you whenever for whatever and they do, 2) there's no reason to abide by a speed limit because there's no recourse if you get a ticket and don't pay it – half the people don’t have addresses, so where will they send the bill? So we go see Yomi’s mom, then each of his sisters. Each sister has 3 kids – lots of kiddies running around. The youngest one, Ayominkun, goes crazy when she sees me. This little girl has so much energy, and when I’m around, it peaks and she doesn’t know what to do with it. It bursts, and she literally runs in circles around the room, screaming, and throwing herself on the ground. It is so funny. So cute little girls says “Aunty Tricia is so delicious. I want to eat her up.” :)

So that’s it. That’s how weekends go around here. Oh, and we fired our cook. He wasn’t doing his job well and he had a bad attitude and didn’t want to work on it, so its back to cooking for ourselves until we find a replacement. So I cooked some on Sunday, too. I made Nigerian sweet and sour pork spareribs. A Nigerian pork sparerib is kind of like Nigerian Apple Pie, referenced below. I make do with whatever ingredients I can find. So instead of sweet and sour spareribs, we had sweet and sour pork chops.


This is us on another weekend...you can start to see my belly showing.....at Yemi's brother's wedding....that's what they do here - Saturday's are for weddings and birthday parties, and Sundays are for visiting family....

Long Weekend

We just had a 5 day weekend. It was fantastic. Federal holidays to celebrate Eid-el-Fitri Festival and Independence Day. We went to the beach, we went to some parties, we watched a lot of The Shield, I hemmed my maternity pants, and we had a little get together. I made my first Nigerian Apple Pie and it was delish. Nigerian Apple Pie is much like American Apple Pie, but the shortening for the crust is substituted with butter since I don't know where to get shortening. The apples are from Nigeria and smaller. And the brown sugar is not necessarily light brown sugar, instead it is the only variety of brown sugar I could find. And there was no vanilla ice cream. Only Cookies and Cream. Oh, and the ice cream was $20. Not even for a large gallon, but a little medium sized box. But it was so worth it. Yum Yum.

Then, this morning, I had to finally return to work. The bridge has been closed from the island (home) to the mainland (work). So I've had to take a detour for the last 2 months - that means long long commutes home. Last Friday, it took me 3.5 hours to get home. In any case, the bridge work is finally complete - on time, which is amazing that they delivered in the timeframe they said they would. So the commute should go back to normal. Yay. On the way to work, I saw an okada driver (motorcycle taxi) get into an accident. It was right in front of my house on the main road -- okada drivers are notoriously reckless. This one plowed right into a goat that was crossing the street. Poor dumb goat.