I just read this hilarious article… Oh my gosh, who was I talking about this with? Haley? Tom? It reminds me of the names on “Toddlers & Tiaras”: Teeghan, Zander, Aishlynn, Brittannie… I find them completely insufferable.
This is what I have been saying for 9 months!
“Every parent now wants every child to be unique and special from the moment the doctor wipes all the amniotic fluid off of it… There’s a bizarre assumption that if you can make your child’s name unique, the child will be unique. And that’s NEVER the case.”
Guess what? Your kid can be special with a plain old generic name. In fact, the most awesome person I know – probably my very favorite person – has a plain old generic name: Thomas.
There are so many one-liners that I keep thinking up as facebook statuses, but then I’m like, “No, I really need to just write a blog post.” At the same time, I am totally speechless. They don’t make big enough words to describe how special I feel. It’s amazing that so many people can love someone so much when they haven’t met him yet. He is one fantastically lucky little boy to be entering a family that’s this incredible.
My baby shower was the shower that I have fantasized about since Tom and I started thinking about making babies.
It started on Saturday morning. Tom and I were up at 6:30 to continue cleaning after having been up until 2 (me) and 3 (Tom) the night before. At about 10:30, the doorbell rang and we were pretty far from being ready for company. Tom answered it, I freaked out about still being in my pajamas. I crossed my fingers and hoped it was a neighbor. I said, “Is it people?” Tom looked out the window by the door and said something to the effect of, “Oh, it’s people alright!” He opened the door and it was Lindsay Kaye and Sarah. All the way from Florida, a whole day early! They were hungry, so the first thing that they did after hugging and hugging and hugging and touring the house was run out and try to find something to eat. They found Five Guys and brought back lunch for everybody.
Since they picked Five Guys, we had to show them this:
After we ate, they helped us clean up and put a whooooole bunch of boxes in the attic. Since I want to live here forever and never move again, there’s nothing in the attic that we have to ever get to unless we are moving out. I have a crapload of Disney collectibles that each came in a box with styrofoam and whatnot, so we put all of those in the attic and that’s it. Tom doesn’t like going up there, so he’s putting all the holiday decorations in the garage. Anyway – in 3 minutes, Lindsay, Sarah and Tom took care of a job that Tom and I have put off for 3 weeks.
Kayce showed up sometime in the early afternoon. Kayce – drove all the way from Northern VA, stopping in Cville, just to go shopping at Ikea with me and watch me open a bunch of presents. I mean, basically that’s the only reason everyone was there. Amazing. AMAZING. Amazing that all these people would come all this way for that.
Later in the afternoon, Trudy, Sunny and Haley showed up WITH MOM! Mom! …or, well, Grandma – I guess… who tried to tell me all week that she was going to the UVA game and coming after that surprised me and showed up with the Herolds + Hay Nick. First Lindsay and Sarah, then Mom.. that’s TWO awesome surprises.
We went to Ikea. Tom was versus me. He’s always versus me. I sat a bunch of stuff by the door to go to Goodwill on Friday night and asked him to load it up and take it. Wouldn’t you know it, not only was the truck (that we needed to fill with baby furniture) full of stuff, but it was also out of gas – which we had ALSO talked about waaaay before everyone was walking out the door to go to Ikea. Try Thursday night. Between Thursday night and Saturday evening he didn’t have a second to put gas in the truck – get outta here.
I didn’t want to be held up any more from getting the gang to the meatballs. I told Tom to drop the stuff off at Goodwill, go to South Carolina to get gas, and then meet us at Ikea… instead of napping, which was our original plan for him.
Trudy drove Grandma, Kayce and me. Lindsay drove Sarah, Haley and Sunny. Tom came by himself after doing his chores, ate with us and then napped in the parking lot. We needed the truck… and on the way home it would only seat two anyway, so we needed to take that many cars.
IKEA was, well… it was IKEA, which is always awesome. We had dinner, then went shopping. Oh! I just remembered one of my would-be facebook statuses. We had a shopping list that totaled over $800 and through savvy shopping, endless generosity from my Mom and sisters and aunts and cousins, and pure dumb luck – we walked out of there spending $175 out of pocket. I was flabbergasted. So flabbergasted in fact that I just used the word “flabbergasted.”
I was adamant about making Tom come in and pay with his debit card so we could get 1%, or what I thought would be $8, in cash back… but after all that we made less than $2. Ha. AND there was no coupon on the bottom of the receipt… so who knows if they even do that anymore.
I told Tom on the way home from Ikea that I felt like all the molecules that make me up were buzzing. I felt electric. There was so much happiness in me that my cells were unable to contain it all.
When we got home, Aunt Lindsay and Aunt Haley put Little Happy’s crib together. Tom took Grandma and the Great Aunts to WalMart and Krispy Kreme.
It was a late night. Everybody was exhausted. We had a huge slumber party.
It was awesome. Can you believe all this people went through all this for me?! Well, for one lucky little boy, anyway.
The next morning was a frenzy of activity. Dad and Lindsay went to the grocery store. Then Dad and Debbie went to the grocery store. Then Dad said he needed some wires to hang up the chandelier and had to go to Lowe’s, and before I knew he was gone, he was back and the chandelier was hung. Our menu was based on the invitations. We had Mexican dip, Chinese wontons, Hawaiian pineapple, American (although not Native American) mac n’ cheese, Italian caprese skewers, and ham and cheese croissants from France. Each dish had a little small world kid on a toothpick stuck in it. I wish I had taken pictures. It was so cute. I found a tube of toy buildings from around the world at Michael’s, so the Pyramids, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Parthenon, Empire State Building, Taj Mahal, and Eiffel Tower were scattered around the food as well. The cake also matched the invitations PERFECTLY.
I made a pennant banner out of card stock and hung it over the fireplace. It was a quick and dirty project, but in hindsight I like it so much that I think I’m going to hang it in the baby’s room. I wrote “baby” in a different language on each flag. It looked so good.
We played a lot of fun games that I’ve never played at a shower before. Haley and I had each bought a bunch of prizes. It’s funny, because I picked some of my favorite things, fancy soaps, and Haley picked her favorite things, wild animals on stickers, magnets and notepads. There was a worksheet with a list of features (eyes, hair, smile, toes, etc.) and you had to check off whether you thought that I wanted the baby to get each feature from Tom or from me. We put paper plate on top of our heads and had to draw a baby without looking. Everyone tried to guess how big around I was and cut a piece of yarn that length. My cousin Erika came within about ONE INCH!
Speaking of Erika! She and my Great Aunt Jean left Rockville, MD at 5:30 AM to surprise me at the shower. I was totally blown away! Flabbergasted again! I still can’t believe Erika was there. Amazing. Surprise number 3! And Jean! Surprise number 4!
I really want to go into detail about all the incredible stuff that I got, but don’t want to bore you. It was really just… I don’t know. I already used “amazing” and “incredible.” Did I use “awesome?” It was awesome. It was epic. I cannot understand how people love me so much, I just don’t have the brain power to comprehend it. I’ve been unpacking Lil’ Happy’s gifts this morning and it just moves me to tears. I don’t think it’s pregnancy hormones, I think it’s just being so full of joy that it leaks out of my face.
The things that stand out most in my mind are the handmade things. I wanted to buy a stool at Ikea for his room. Ikea was out of the yellow ones. But that’s okay, because Great Aunt Trudy MADE him a stool with Mickey and the gang on it. Anyone can wrap up some onesies and socks and blankets and things, but his Great Aunt Debbie made a platter of onesie cupcakes. It was so adorable that I didn’t want to take it apart. I still don’t. Great Great Aunt Sara Beth made him a blankey and a hat. I am so excited about those that they’re going to the hospital with us. They smell like her house. Love, love, love it. Kayce and Erika are BOTH in the process of stitching something up. Kayce’s sneaky. She surprised me. I didn’t know she did all that. Erika said, “Yeah, she does… and she knits all the time. She’s very crafty.”
OMG, I still can’t believe Erika and Kayce were here for the shower. Totally awesome.
Grandma, Grandpa and Lil’ Happy’s Aunts kept giving us presents filled with more presents. You know? Not just a bathtub, but a bathtub stuffed with shampoo, towels, lotion, etc. We didn’t just get a diaper bag with a giraffe on it, it was stuffed with diapers, bottles, bibs, diaper cream, etc. I LOOOOVE those types of presents.
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I really wanted to decorate onesies at the party, but we didn’t get around to it. It worked out alright, though. Lindsay, Sarah, Tom and I decorated a few after everyone left. I had such a good time doing that. It was fun with out intimate little group. I think the one that Tom made is probably my favorite, but he doesn’t want you to see it until you see it on the baby. Sarah’s are hysterical. Lindsay’s are PERFECT for MY kid. Mine were kind of anti-climactic compared to everyone else’s.
Looks like this post has gotten long enough. I’m going to go reopen some more presents for a while.
I don’t usually like to overwhelm you with two posts in one day, and odds are I won’t be able to think of anything to write about tomorrow because I talked your ear (eyes) off today.
I worked on the nursery before we left for Charlottesville on Friday and just can’t wait to show you how it’s going, although a smart Wendy would wait for the big TA-DA in a week or so when it’s done.
It was a big help for me psychologically to get something going. I feel less depressed. I’ve been complaining this whole time, “geez, if only I had a dresser!” But now, I’m all, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with his outfits hanging up in the closet…” So we have an adorable, practically empty, dresser.
BUT I STILL LIKE HAVING IT!
I can’t wait to pick up the matching one and the toy box. And the crib. And, hey, I need to finish sanding and repainting the changing table that we bought waaaay the heck back in February.
But back to my little success story… most people buy a set of stuff that’s beautifully coordinated and create nurseries that look like catalog pages. (I’m talking about you Kinsey Parham! …not that you’ll read this.) I’ve always had trouble with this. Let’s say I pick out that adorable Baby Simba jungle motif that’s out right now. Well, then where do Mickey and Goofy go? Most toys are brilliant primary colors, and I want them to look like they have a home in Mr. Happy’s room. I’ve tried really hard not to be all matchy-matchy, but to keep it coordinated. Let’s see how things are going…
Waxing is a way of semi-permanent hair removal which removes the hair from the root. New hair will not grow back in the previously waxed area for two to eight weeks, although some people will start to see regrowth in only a week.
Try 3 days. And in 3 days, I am not seeing a little, “oh, yeah -looky there… some hair is starting to grown back in.” It’s like that movie “The Santa Clause” when Tim Allen shaves, lets out a sigh of relief, and then his full white beard grows right back. I am wondering what it would look like if i just let it go. If I just didn’t touch it, would I turn into Teen Wolf? Some of the hairs are dark brown, some are red. I bet I would have a very pretty auburn beard.
I already had PCOS symptoms, which I believe (although I never had the levels checked) includes tons of extra testosterone anyway.
So, I don’t know… I guess I should just wait it out, hideout inside my house while it grows out and then flee to the salon under a bandana on Friday and get it waxed again in time for the shower. Or should I continue tweezing like a crazy person? Or should I use the Hair Removal Creme? Or should I buy a kit and wax at home? I had used the creme, and (as it turns out) it lasts about as long as the waxing did! Ha! The girl at the salon looked at my face and was like, “yeah, shaving is the worst thing you can do…” Do I look stupid to you? I absolutely wouldn’t shave it, ever! “I tried hair removal creme a couple days ago.” She did not look convinced.
I should make a to-do list every day. When I woke up this morning, my mental list included making a flag banner for the shower, but the paint marker that I bought doesn’t show up. You tell me what a white paint marker is supposed to show up on if it’s not supposed to show up on not-that-dark-blue paper. My list also included washing my pajamas and Tom’s athletic shorts. I started throwing stuff in the washer and there was a little lake in there. Crap. How did I not notice that yesterday when I emptied the washer? I am having more problems with this thing… who buys a Kitchen-Aid washing machine?! Honestly.
I DID eventually run a load and separate the next load in the queue. Need more detergent. I organized my closet. I started setting hats on a bookshelf in there and before I knew it, the whole shelf was full of hats – so I guess that’s what it is now. It’s a hat shelf.
I have more baseball caps that you would believe. And, well… lots of a certain other type of hat as well, something like a dozen. Most people probably have what, one pair of mouse ears from one trip to Walt Disney World 13 years ago and they HAD to have them (‘cuz that’s what you do) but now, it’s like, what do you do with them? You can’t just wear them around town…
…unless you’re me.
If you’re curious (It’s lengthy – don’t feel obligated. We can just say “Goodbye” here.):
In my defense, I had one pair FOREVER… okay. Then, they stopped hand-stitching the name on the back. And mine was actually VERY well-done. I got lucky, a true artist and professional was working in the hat shop on Main Street that day. It’s basically a regular embroidery machine now using a font that’s very Mouseketeeresque. A Cast Member stopped me in line for a ride once and was like, “Where did you get those ears?!” I said, “Main Street” and she said, “Well, don’t lose them! They don’t make them like that any more!” Sure enough. So, I got myself a new pair. They have a chin strap, which is nice so I am less likely to lose them – but if they DO fall off on Tower of Terror and get lost, it’s okay because they can be replaced and will look almost exactly the same. When I was getting married, I wanted a white hat with a veil, but they didn’t sell them so I bought a black hat and painted it and added a veil. By the time we went on our honeymoon, I had conceded to the headband with the veil on it. We got Tom a top hat with ears, so one of those is his. I think the Sorcerer hat came from Property Control waaay back before Lindsay even started at Disney. I have a red, white and blue top hat – forget where that came from. I just kind of inherited that one. There are 2 pair of gold ears that I believe celebrate Disneyland’s 50th Birthday. I think we got those on a cruise. We also got 2 regular pair of ears on another cruise that have Member (hand-stitched!) on the back. I have pirate ears. Tom has pirate Goofy ears – but I didn’t count those. I bought a pair at Grad Nite, although I am disappointed to report that the tassel has disappeared. We bought a pair of One More Disney Day ears on Leap Day this year, our Babymoon. That’s the only pair that I bought that I probably had no reason to buy. I just thought it was neat. Somehow I also ended up with a “baseball cap” (use that term very lightly – it’s so much more than that) with a plastic Mickey face on it with ears on it. So, if you count that one, we’re up to 15 Mickey Mouse ear hats. I’m as stunned as you are.
I really wish that they had just left those Member ears blank. I don’t know anyone who’ll walk around with “member” on their head. Everyone wants their own name. You know? I considered cutting the name off, just the thread, you know? But now that it’s hand-stitched and they don’t do hand-stitching anymore, I can’t bring myself to do it.
It’s not a good job, either. You can tell they had to hand-stitch about 2500 for a cruise full of Disney Vacation Club Members.
Tom has a tendency to run his life on something his best friend Nathan calls “Asian time.” Basically, it means if he has to be someplace at 7 o’clock, he leaves the house at 7 o’clock. I’m not sure if this actually has anything to do with being Asian.
I, on the other hand, cannot stand being late. I think I was traumatized in my youth by choruses of, “well, look who finally decided to grace us with their presence” when we’d have to run from one family’s Christmas to the other. I don’t know why – but we were always late to everything. Fifteen minutes late to church, like clockwork – every week. You’d think that we would have just started waking up 15 minutes earlier. Nope.
I don’t like close calls!
I’m nervous the shower will fall into Asian time. (Sounds so racist, we really should come up with another name for it.)
We have 2 weeks until the baby shower. There is one weekend in between. In those two weeks:
We need to buy bedroom furniture for the grandparents’ bedroom downstairs.
We need to have that room painted or paint it ourselves.
We need to unpack.
The Target registry is almost entirely online-only items. So, do I wait until the shower to see what we get? Shipping takes a while, so we’ll have to order what we don’t get and pray it gets delivered before our boy does.
I’ve got to buy some newborn size diapers. (Cloth or otherwise.)
If I get newborn cloth diapers, I have to wash and dry them about 10 times BEFORE we put them on Jr.’s butt to increase the absorbency to full capacity.
My dad needs to hang my Mickey Mouse chandelier and move the light switch in the Bonus Room. And we need to patch and paint the spot where the switch is now.
Tom’s Uncle Larry is coming to stay with us during the Democratic National Convention, the week leading up to the shower.
Pick out, figure out how to pay for, and purchase the most awesome rocking chair I can find. (Special gift from my Baby-Daddy.)
Pack for a month in Charlottesville.
So, I. AM. PANICKED.
…to say the least. I reckon I should go unpack instead of writing a whiny blog.
The planner in me is like, you can’t just do this on Asian time. But… there is a little half-Asian boy inside me that is doing EVERYTHING on at least half-Asian time.
We are really doing this. In about a month, I WILL HAVE A FREAKING BABY.
We have so many pictures to hang on the walls!!! Yesterday we found the Ark of the Covenant: a box full of pictures big and small from the Virginia house that had been wasting away in the garage for a year and a half. I can’t wait to unpack my life!!!
Okay, I have been waiting, and waiting for this.
Basically, you buy as much food as you want in the cafeteria at Ikea, and then use it as a coupon on your purchase of $100+. With a nursery to furnish, I was like, “How AWESOME would it be if everyone that is coming to the baby shower goes with us to Ikea to buy the $800 worth of baby crap and WE ALL eat for free?!?!?!”
Not happening. Eat for Free is the weekend before the shower. Womp wah. And as it turns out, that’s a VA weekend for us.
However!
However, there IS a silver lining!
My dad needs to come down here and hang up my Mickey Mouse chandelier and take care of some other electrical work before the shower. So, I think I conned the family into coming down after the UVA game on Saturday. We can buy part of the Baby La Collection and at least Mom, Dad, Tom and I will eat for free! (Squirt can have some free Texas toast, I guess, as this only applies to the restaurant, not the food stand near the exit that sells the pizza.)
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We had a busy day around here yesterday. My beef isn’t with opening boxes and putting things away. I just don’t want to take everything up and down the stairs. Tom is perfectly willing to take stuff to where it needs to go, but he doesn’t know where that is. Match made in Heaven!
I actually emptied one of those under-bed storage containers, which has been full of junk (art supplies and cards and pictures) since maybe high school? Middle school? There was some college junk in there, too, so who knows. Anyway – it’s totally empty now. All the cards are in boxes with other cards. The pictures are in boxes with other pictures and the art supplies are all sorted into their appropriate bins.
I told Tom that my Art Closet is a dream come true.
“You want crayons, here’s the crayons! Glitter, what color? Seashells? There’s a box for that.” It’s like my own personal Michael’s Arts & Craft store in the hallway, and it makes me want to get crafty RIGHT NOW. Now I understand why people get so excited about organization. It’s really a beautiful thing. My whole life has been, “dammit, I knew there was a glue stick in here somewhere!” And now I can just go to the glue bin! (Or the hot glue gun/sticks bin, depending on the kind of glue stick to which I was referring.) (Was that the proper use of which?)
I think I’m going to go stand in front of my art closet for a few minutes. Kirk out.
Lindsay and I, well, mostly Lindsay finished the baby shower invitations over the weekend. They look outstanding.
Neat, huh? My only regret is that it doesn’t say, “it’s a small world” on the invitation anywhere. I think people get it, though.
The basis for this idea is this invitation that I designed for my cousin’s wedding. But how much better is this – using the double doors AS DOORS and opening the exterior of the it’s a small world attraction to the symbolic inside of the ride. It’s like being there… in invitation form. I wish I could make it play the song.
So… here’s the play by play. I drew all the little kids, drew the exterior of the attraction, and drew the clock face. Tom scanned all of my pencil drawings and since my computer DIED on my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day… I told Lindsay all of my ideas and she colored everything in.
I sketched them, Tom scanned them, and Lindsay colored them in.
Original Sketch – This is my original drawing of the ride exterior.
Lindsay emailed me printable .pdf files that I could print from my lesser laptop. I bought photo paper and printed the invite interior. On a second sheet, I printed 2 sets of doors. The dimensions of the door invitations are the same as an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet folded in half, so the inside is borderless… the one thing I don’t hate about my evil printer is that it does print borderless when you can get it to print. Instead of folding it in half, you fold the left and right quarters in. Anyway, it makes measuring and designing pretty easy.
Here are the door pieces that I printed, cut, and glued to the outside of the invitation doors.
Most of the shower invites went out today. I wish I had put a tracking number on one of them so I could keep an eye on where they are. I wrote a blog post about creating them, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise in case someone who reads this happens to be invited so I scheduled it to post on the 24th. But man-oh-man am I excited!
They’re pretty cute. I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle/cost/hours of back-breaking (yeah, that’s right – Lindsay bent over her computer or me bent over the cutting board) work. I could probably have just bought something, or created a simple postcard… but it was nice to have my vision become a reality.
Side note, if you get an invitation with a dirty rubber cement spot on it that I tried to rub off, don’t take it personally. I stuffed the envelopes in the dark at 3 this morning, so it’s totally random.
I’m not a huge fan of Lord Hardwicke’s. It’s not my favorite place. The burgers are like charcoal bricks. You have to pay extra for fries, they give you chips. I forget why, but I told Tom to remind me never to get the Club again. I was very offended once when we walked in 15 minutes before they closed and they wouldn’t serve us. That just grinds my gears, ask my dad about the fried chicken people on Friday nights when he was trying to pick my mom up after work for dates in high school. You just don’t do that. You’re not closed. I never wanted to go back after that. You don’t want my money tonight? Fine. I won’t give it to you ever again.
My family loves it. So, we keep going back. Their pizza is pretty good. I have to be careful with this gestational diabetes thing. I ordered a taco salad. No jalapenos, but since the menu said “ask your server for sour cream or salsa,” I did ask for sour cream. “What kind of dressing?” Dressing? Really? It’s a taco salad. “Um, yes, I’d like a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette…” What? I thought sour cream or salsa was the dressing on a taco salad. I mean, I guess if you’re Lindsay, and eat ranch on anything and everything, well, yeah… I guess you could go with ranch. I just don’t see ranch and sour cream. In lieu of ground beef, they put chili on it. It was different. Not bad, just different.
I guess I just do not understand the things that they do.
I had a good weekend, though. We went to Maryland to see Tom’s mom before she leaves for Texas and she went shopping with us at Buy Buy Baby. I found the small world swaddling blankets that I LOVE live and in person! I was able to hold them, and eventually buy them – which I thought I’d have to do online. I am irritated that I didn’t have a 20% off coupon (they’re a branch of Bed, Bath and Beyond) but so, sooo happy to get those things. Overpriced, but I love them. We also saw a red dragon humidifier that I LOVE and it IS available at Target ($10 less!), so I put him on the registry.
I need to do serious research on breast pumps and strollers. I like the pattern on the stroller that we picked, but it’s huge and bulky. It comes with the infant carrier, you know, a travel system… and I feel like those are mandatory. I’m open to suggestion on that. As far as breast pumps, I’d say more than, “open” to advice – I desperately need help. “…I’m supposed to attach this contraption to those and do what now?!” I’m not all that into nursing, but I do like saving money. My plan was to pump and bottle it. I’m sure for a while there I’ll just be pumping it straight into the kid. No sense washing bottles or getting out of bed and going down to the kitchen to get a bottle… too much hassle. BUT at some point, I’ll be pumping regularly? I hope? They say the handhelds are more for occasional use. I guess I’ll need to pump at Disney World in December so Lil’ Happy can stay in the hotel with Grandma some times. Right? Help.
Lindsay finished helping (i.e. creating in their entirety) with the shower invites. They look amazing!
Did you know UVA is playing Penn State the day before my shower? Crap. Kind of rains on my weekend getaway parade.
I forgot about football. When we got married, I was diligent about picking a weekend that wasn’t a game weekend. There was only one such weekend in the fall, and one of my bridesmaids was already scheduled to be a bridesmaid in another wedding the same weekend. We tied the knot in December after all.
Anyway… if it’s not one thing, it’s another. There’s no game the weekend of the 15th or 22nd, but Lindsay has something else to do on the 15th. Haley’s birthday is the 22nd – not to mention I’ll be at 38 weeks, and from what I understand, at that point it could be any minute. So – the nursery needs to already be ready already.
I worry I waited too long! Everything I read said guests would be miffed if I had it too early – but now I’m worried it’s not going to come together here at the last minute. Aiiiiiya!
AND… it doesn’t help that we thought we were pregnant countless times and it turned out to be my imagination AND I look about as big now as I did when I had Mr. Nasty. Like, I think if you saw me on the street you’d say to yourself, “Hmm… is she pregnant, or fat?” The size of the Happy bump is comparable to the size of the Nasty lump. In some ways, I’m still not convinced that we actually are pregnant.
Although I never had to pee this much with the cyst.
P.S. Strawberry shortcake and a handful of VA peanuts for breakfast, and my blood sugar was in good shape. 106 and it needs to be under 120. Not whole wheat, but it’s nice to know I can eat it and survive.
That La Kid 