I looked down at my grocery basket as I strolled up aisle 7. Hot dogs, mac and cheese, coke and cake. Oh, and organic baby carrots, check.

I felt like I was carrying someone else's basket. My wife is (mostly) a vegetarian, we don't drink soda and we haven't had macaroni and cheese since college. And although she tries to make as many organic meals as possible (hence the organic baby carrots) everything in the basket was a specific request of hers. She really wanted those foods, but oddly enough that was the only time she craved them, and not once afterwards.

You'll hear lots of stories about strange cravings, along the lines of pickles and ice cream, but how quickly those cravings change is what can really be confusing.

The next hot item was ginger ale. She couldn't drink enough of it, and as soon as I stocked up with a dozen liters, she couldn't stand the site of a bottle of Schweppes. She then ate cracked-pepper smoked turkey twice a day for two weeks. Soon after she declared thinking of turkey made her want to puke. She'd feel terrible and nauseous if she didn't eat and not much better when she did.

My point is that you never can tell exactly what or how much of a particular food a pregnant woman will want. Nor can you tell how quickly her tastes will change. I've given away excesses of food that she couldn't be without only a few short hours earlier, and been sent to the grocery store for coconut cake at 9:30 at night because nothing else appealed to her.

The pregnant woman is a fickle being. Feed it well and it won't turn on you.

Your job really is to keep her happy and make sure the baby gets what it wants and need. Consistently our staple item has been ice cream. There is a steady supply of it in the house at all times, which leads to another important point;

there is a very high likelihood that the father will gain weight right along with the mommy to be.

Be conscious of your diet and try to exercise as much as possible.