these are just a couple of my cravings

there are fourteen days until my estimated due date. that's exactly two weeks. i have gone between nervous and excited so many times that i am now stuck in some sort of weird dazed limbo. baby clothes and sheets and everything else are washed. take home outfits from the hospital are chosen and packed. bassinet will be set up today and car seat is being installed on sunday. the list of last minute items to get on saturday is shorter than i thought possible, and really only has one item on it that will be used before four months. i filled my car with gas on wednesday even though i still had almost a quarter of a tank left. (i never fill up my car unless i am at E or the line right above it.)

with my pregnancy drawing to a close, i thought i'd preserve on my blog the answer to the question i have been asked the most over the past nine months: have you had any weird cravings? and i get it. i mean, just watch any tv show or movie that features a pregnant lady and you'll start to think that all we want to eat is pistachio ice cream with pickles. but unfortunately - or fortunately i guess - the answer is no.

here is what i did crave this pregnancy:

• wegman's chocolate cake. it is pretty much the best chocolate cake you will ever eat and being pregnant was the perfect excuse to have my husband go out and get me a slice way more often than i probably should have.
  
• ice cream sandwiches. and none of that fancy tollhouse cookie stuff. the original cheap ones that people say are gross because they never melt or something. though why you would let it sit around long enough to see if it would melt is beyond me.
  
• ruffles chips. this was perhaps one of my most tv cliche pregnant moments. i wanted ruffles really, really badly. i was going to die if i didn't get some right now. i didn't even care what flavor they were. my husband went to the store and came home with four huge family size bags of chips and... none of them were ruffles. i cried and threw a hormonal fit.
  
• chicken caesar salad. i ate this for lunch/dinner at least four or five times a week for months. i kind of want one right now.
  
• black beans, microwave some in a bowl with pepperjack cheese OR throw some on your salad and you basically have the most delicious meal i could think of. when i wasn't eating chicken caesar salads i was eating this. one time i thought i'd be fancy and throw some corn in with my beans and cheese, and it was probably the worst decision i have ever made. well, tied with that time that i thought it would be a good idea to put both blueberries and raisins in my morning oatmeal. blech.
  
• hot fudge sundaes. this one makes me want to cry a little. i've wanted a real hot fudge sundae since the summer. i have gotten a bunch of sundaes over this time (three in the past two weeks) but they are all either hot fudge with soft serve ice cream or real ice cream with caramel. because apparently the ice cream shops around me have all decided that they don't believe in hot fudge anymore. i think it's a conspiracy of sorts.  
  
• zucchini.  there was one time that my husband was picking up burgers from ruby tuesday and i told him to get me zucchini with my burger instead of fries. he looked at me weird and asked if i wouldn't rather get a side of zucchini and my fries instead. i am a huge fry person (really any type of potato) and so i got his confusion, but no, i just wanted the zucchini. he was so sure i was going to regret my decision when he came home with the food, but that zucchini was delicious and choosing it over fries was maybe the best food-related decision i made this year. i am having zucchini for lunch today and am already excited for it. (of course, i'm not crazy and have gone out to get just fries on more than one occasion.) kind of on the same note, i've always been kind of whatever about green beans, but one night my dad made them with a roast and i realized that green beans were probably one of the best vegetables to grace the earth. i immediately went out and bought my own. my love affair with them has since fizzled, but i do appreciate them more than i ever did before.
  
• root beer floats. i don't think this needs explaining. last week the two liter bottle of root beer that i finally caved and got finished and now the vanilla ice cream in my freezer and i are both really sad.
  
• cheese enchiladas. but really, who doesn't want a cheese enchilada for every single meal? even not pregnant i could have gone for that. i love my mexican food.
  
• strawberry milk. this one was weird because if it is not in my granola i really don't do milk. i will occasionally go for a chocolate milk but i have this weird obsession about milk going bad so i have to mix it really fast and practically drink it with my head in the fridge. i think that before this pregnancy, the last time i had strawberry milk i was probably six. for the past couple of weeks i've been really into chocolate milk.
  
• there was the day that i really wanted chipotle (and ended up getting it for dinner). i'm not sure if it should make the list because it was really only that one time, but i'm putting it on here because it was like a physical need how badly i wanted it. kinda like the ruffles. 

so there you have it: the things i craved the most this pregnancy. nothing really weird. and a lot of them are things that i love all the time (ice cream, root beer, cheese enchilladas, caesar salads) but that moved from just "favorites" to "i need to stuff my face with this right now or something really bad might happen." i've been wanting pickles a lot, too, but i don't think i've wanted them any more than i usually do, so... 

*Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk - Rufus Wainwright