Cravings

Everyone asks me if I have had cravings during pregnancy. I already confessed to the bizarre things I ate during the first trimester.

(I never did confess here to the bizarre feelings of contempt I had for my dog and my husband during that first trimester. I could not stand the physical presence of my dog. Or my husband. It wasn't until I realized that I didn't like chocolate anymore, either, that I realized that this change COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE PERMANENT and I had only to wait for the hormones to normalize before I could pet my dog, kiss my husband without grimacing, and EAT CHOCOLATE again.)

With the return of love for man and beast and chocolate has returned a fully-functional appetite. Some might argue that it's overly-functional. In fact, a coworker commented, not unkindly, that he predicted an eighty-pound weight gain for me. That's funny, I said, most maternity office pools are focused on how much the BABY will weigh, not the MOTHER.

So the cravings have been mostly just for food; I vacillate between feeling overly-full and overly-hungry from moment to moment. There have indeed been some strange cravings though, and definitely those items that I want again and again and again once having tasted them. This rather short list includes, so far:

• Pinkberry frozen yogurt, for which I mildly curse TK for her introduction to this fabulous concoction which is only obtainable in NYC and California,
  
• Raspberries (I ate about six pints of them in in one week right before Thanksgiving. This trend was probably spawned by the lack of Pinkberry in Atlanta - I had them on top of my fro yo in NYC),
• Rotisserie chicken, including Boston Market's Chicken Carver sandwich,
• And my current obsession, crispy-shelled tacos (with salsa verde, whenever possible)

The oddest one to me is the chicken. Before I gave up meat about five years ago, I never enjoyed meat, least of all chicken. So to actually CRAVE chicken is very, very strange. (The tacos can be with or without meat, there is just something irresistible about those crunchy shells wrapped around the juicy, savory ingredients ... mmmm... can't wait to get more tacos....)