We're Terrible at Ice Fishing So We Made Butternut Coconut Curry Instead.

Six days.

Six long, dragging, endless days until we find out the sex of our babe.

If you've had the misfortune to ask me when we're finding out, you'll likely have gotten an earful about my anxiety about it that makes you instantly regret asking.

This pregnancy has been nothing but one giant anxiety-trip.

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting to find out the sex so I have something concrete to hold on to.

Boy bits or girl bits. I don't care.

I've even made peace with a life contending with a little person with an uncontrollable little hose on the front of their body.

I just want to know what this baby is to make it more real.

Although, the tiny babe has been doing a good job at reassuring me that its there and real more and more these past few weeks. It moves like crazy now, with kicks visible on the outside. Especially at night. Look, kid, we need to figure things out. I need sleep. But I'm so happy to feel it.

And truly, I'm finally feeling more at peace that this is it, our rainbow babe will be here soon.

Poor John patiently sat with his hand on my stomach for the majority of his quick days off a few weeks ago but he didn't feel a thing. The night he left? Our big girl got to feel a bunch of kicks.

When she genuinely smiles really, really big, Beanie has a tendency to pull her chin into her neck, causing countless adorable chins to form. The smile she made when she felt the baby's kicks caused at least a 5 or 6 chinner.

And it caused me to cry, because, really, what doesn't these days?

For weeks now, I've just been staring at our big girl, marveling at how helpful she is, how smart she is, how beautiful she is. I comment daily on all of these changes that I'm suddenly noticing often throughout the day. John jokingly said it's like I'm just falling in love with our child five years later. And he might partly be right. Of course I've always loved her, but I do think I'm falling in love with her all over again through a new lens that I've never looked at her with before: that of a big sister.

She's just truly amazing.

And I can't wait for her to see her sibling on Friday at our ultrasound!

Boy or girl?! Last chance to vote!

When John was home last time, it was only for five days. So, like usual, we smashed all the fun we could into those days. That meant going ice fishing twice.

Now, if you don't know John personally... how do I phrase this nicely... he has zero patience for waiting and contorts himself into a ball of misery, fidgeting and convulsing with anxiety over thriller movies or long stories because he doesn't like suspense or not knowing things, AND YET, he claims to love fishing, the most unpredictable and suspense-laden pastime.

He does have a special way of going about it though: no bites in one spot for five minutes? He just moves himself to a new spot. And another. And another. He's not so much waiting around, but testing his luck in different locations, never letting his hook so much as settle before he's off to a new spot. It may sound like I'm making fun of him, but I find it endearing. I love this man of impulsivity.

His impulsivity has had some consequences though, like specifically when he lost the ONLY rainbow trout I've ever caught with him. It was our first ice fishing trip together, maybe ten or so years ago (old grudges run deep 😉), and I had caught this huge beautiful rainbow that was so big it barely fit through the hole. John, in his excitement, leapt forward while I was still trying to pull it completely out of the hole and in a blur of grabbing/lunging/falling, he ended up smashing the fish off the line and knocking it back down into the water. Screaming, "Nooooo!" like some dramatic hero, he plunged his arm up to his shoulder into the hole of frigid ice water in an attempt to apparently bear-snatch it back. It didn't work. To this day, I don't let him near any fish I've caught until it's safely away from the water.

Our child has always loved fishing since we first started taking her when she was two. When we were driving to our first fishing adventure she shrieked that she was going to "bite the sticky tail off" of whatever fish we caught. That should have been a red flag that we were raising a tiny savage.

Sort of kidding.

We use cocktail shrimp as bait when we fish. They work really well. They would also work really well as bait for our tiny, too, in case you wanted to catch her. She LOVES shrimp. On one fishing trip, we told her she could eat the leftover shrimp on the way home after we were done with it. The road to the lake had not been maintained in a while that winter, but my old little VW Tiguan (I miss you dearly, sweet car), was a beast and made it to the lake just fine. We had clearly not been thinking of what it would be like to try to get out of there. We did our fishing, we caught nothing worth keeping, but we had fun and loaded into the car in high spirits. And then we noticed that the road coming in had a pretty good incline to it.

As soon as we had gotten into the car, Tiny had asked for the shrimp and I told her to just wait until we were on the main road. It was snowing huge, fluffy snowflakes that made it hard to see anything and there was at least a foot of snow on the road. And the tracks we had made coming down riding our brakes had turned into ice strips. We started moving and Tiny asked for the shrimp again but we had only moved about five feet before we were stuck. I told her tersely to be quiet. For the next fifteen minutes in silence, John shimmied us slowly up this hill, only about 200 metres long, taking runs and getting stuck and rerouting and finally getting us on to the main road and all the while, ever-persistent chanting softly drifted from the back seat, barely above a breath,"shrimp, shrimp, shrimp, shrimp, shrimp."

You have to hand it to her, it takes dedication to fixate on something for that long.

When we go on any adventure, we always bring Charles. Especially ice fishing because he loooooves it. But I think it's safe to say that John hates it when Charles is there.

Why? I'm not sure.

Who needs an auto-jigger when you have a dog pawing at your line constantly.

He also likes to chase lures and sticks his face in the hole after it, blowing bubbles, scaring fish, and freezing his nose. I think it's hilarious. John has no sense of humour, clearly.

But for all our fishing adventures, we never really ever catch anything. Maybe it is because we have Charles, the worst fisher-dog in the world making a mess of a noise in each hole, sending reverberations through the water, keeping all the fish away, or, maybe we just have bad luck.

But it's fun, so we'll keep going. Our children, furry and non, have the time of their lives.

Look at her in her happy place. She definitely has this fishing thing figured out.

Knowing that we never catch anything, it is always nice to have something warm waiting for us when we get home for dinner, such as a stew or a soup. Last time, I made a butternut coconut curry that is perfect for warming from the inside out.This recipe originally came from a menu plan I followed when I attended Fit Body Bootcamp. I had decided that I needed to try a menu plan to see what it would be like to be on one since I'll soon be putting clients on them. It was a good learning experience to figure out what works, and what most decidedly does not. And what I absolutely hate about menu plans. Number 1? A one-plan-fits-all mentality will never work. But it was a good experience.

Like a lot of recipes, I figured out how to make this one plant-based and upped the veggie content. It's now a favourite in our house. It's the perfect fall or winter dish to use up the bounty of butternut squash that I apparently keep buying thinking I don't any until I look and I have six.

Hi, my name is Sam and I have a squash-buying problem.

Look at the size of this thing! Our daughter used it for practicing baby-holding before half of it became this stew and the other half was roasted as chips.

Please don't be afraid of all the spices in this dish. It is so worth it for the deep flavour that develops.

Butternut Coconut Curry Serves 6-8

1 tbsp. coconut oil
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp garam masala
2 tsp curry powder
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
2 large carrots, chopped
1 medium butternut squash, cubed
3 cups veggie stock
2-3 cups cooked chickpeas*
1 bunch kale, chopped
1 can of coconut milk

Rice, cauliflower rice, bulgur, quinoa, or other grain for serving.

1.) In an Instant Pot on medium sauté, heat the oil and onion and cook until translucent.
2.)Add the garlic and cook for a minute or so.
3.) Gather all the spices into one small bowl. Add them to the onion and garlic, stirring constantly for a minute to wake them up.
4.) Add in the butternut squash and carrots and stir to coat them in the spices.
5.) Add the stock. Put on the lid and cook on high pressure for 20 minutes.
6.) Quick release the steam and puree the mixture, either by using a hand blender or by transferring it to a powerful stand blender.
7.) Add the chickpeas, coconut milk, and kale and cook for another 20 minutes on high pressure.
8.) Quick release and ladle portions over whatever grain you choose. It also pairs well with tales of fishing trips gone by.
This tastes even better the next day when all of the flavours have mingled over night.

*You can use a can of chickpeas, which is two cups, or if you're scratch cooking, as much as you want. I like more chickpeas in mine, so I scratch make at least three cups to add.

I hope you've all been staying warm over the last few weeks. I spend my days bundled head to toe in arctic fleece.

I have no shame admitting that I often wear my flannel jammie shirts under my coat at school pick-up and drop-off. A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.