Packing on the pounds

Having reached the glorious third trimester, I decided to evaluate my weight gain over the past six months to see if it could shed any light on what I can expect over the coming three. Granted, weight gain is expected during pregnancy and even promoted. That said, I'm starting to wonder if I'm not overdoing it. According to the day-by-day pregnancy book that I read religiously and the myriad e-mails I get relating to pregnancy, the baby itself still weighs less than a kilogram at this point. And while I'm glad that Valentine doesn't account for all 12 of the kilograms I've put on so far, because I hate to think how they would ever get THAT monster out of me, especially if it's expected to roughly triple its weight before being born, I am somewhat concerned that my weight gain has become excessive.

Looking at this mathematically, so far, for every 1 kilo that went to the baby, 11 kilos went to me. Let's round that down to 10, just to make the math easier. Taking into account that the baby will likely be around 3.5 kg at birth (assuming an average, full-term baby), that's another 2.5 kg for the baby. At the current rate of increase, that means another 25!!! kg for me! And since I still get to carry the baby until its birthday, we can add on the baby's 3.5 kg on top of that! And factoring back in the kilogram I so cleverly rounded out of the equation, OMG. I don't think we need to take this all the way to the conclusion. You can see where it's headed: off the frigging scale.

Is this ratio realistic? Possibly not. However, I AM addicted to chocolate-covered kruidnoten, as stated before. Also, I have three weeks of gluttonous holiday even before my maternity leave starts in January. One week to be spent writing (fueled by kruidnoten, of course) and two weeks, yes, you guessed it, gorging myself at Christmas. I did mention earlier all the great stuff I was going to eat in Canada, right? Exactly. I think my weight forecast is probably right on the mark: extreme, with a chance of a monster baby.

Chocolade kruidnoten (Holland prepares for Santa. In September)

I can't believe the shelves are already filled with Santa* treats. Seriously. It's the beginning of September and the grocery store already has chocolate letters, kruidnoten, taai taai (really gross, tough cookies) and, caviar of pre-Christmas treats, chocolade kruidnoten. This is like selling candy canes and chocolate decorations already. Before Halloween. Before Thanksgiving. Before the autumn equinox for cryin' out loud. I'm shocked. It's just... wrong. Outrageous, even.

Not so outrageous that I refused to immediately grab a few bags of chocolate kruidnoten, though. I mean, principles are one thing, but seriously people - chocolate kruidnoten? If I don't get them now, they'll be gone and I won't get any. And then I'd probably cry. Call it hormones. Actually, I came close to crying last year when they ran out and I wasn't even pregnant then. Maybe it's just me.

So I grabbed three 750g bags and threw them in our shopping cart. My husband comments: "Oh, of course; you want to bring some to Canada at Christmas." Well schmidt. I hadn't even thought of that. My thoughts were more along the lines of: OMG Kruidnoten! Quick! Get 'em quick! Hoard! Hoard! I really had no thought for my dear family in Canada. I guiltily turned back and went and got two more bags. For Canada.

Whether they last that long is a whole other issue. Especially since I'm already more than halfway through the first bag. What? You ask; not saving them for Sinterklaas and Christmas in Canada? Well, Internet, no. I considered saving them but then my dear friends on Facebook helped me rationalize it convince me - I am PREGNANT, after all. I need to feed the baby.

So now I'm inhaling my chocolate kruidnoten with such speed that I might even run out of them myself before the autumn equinox. But that's okay. It's for the baby.


*I live in Holland. And in Holland, Santa (Sinterklaas) comes on December 5th. All of these treats are associated with Santa, NOT with Christmas. After December 6th you'd be very hard pressed to find any of these treats. Unless you stock up. Like I do.