Sleep

People keep telling me how much sleep I'm not going to be having once little Jack Bauer gets here, and I believe them. But I'm not sure they understand how little sleep I'm already getting. I'm not what you would call a sound sleeper to begin with, I wake up if I hear the slightest rustle (so burglars beware! I will hear you, and I will pee my pants with fright. Deal with THAT!), and on top of that I'm pregnant. Which means I pee a minimum of five times a night.

All of that - pretty normal as far as I'm concerned. But Then! On top of that on-top-of, I have a dog that needs help getting into the bed at least twice during the night (because he's too sleepy to jump up there, and too spoiled to jump up there even though he's perfectly capable), and then there's my murdering cat.

Oh, that cat.

He comes and goes in the night like a serial killer who likes to check in and lick himself in the privacy of his own home before he goes back out and does some more kidnapping. But not murdering. No. That would be to easy, to kill where you capture. That's kitten's play. My cat likes to bring in his victims, have them run around squeaking their heads off in sheer terror for a while, until he gets bored and eats them.

EATS THEM.

I know this is what cats do, but every time it is shocking to me. During the day, he's this tiny little yawning cat, who likes to cuddle and lick the butter, and purr into your face as he rubs foreheads with you to show his love. But at night he eats things alive at the doorway of my bedroom.

It's like living in a nightmare.

And needless to say, this whole killing-ruckus, it typically wakes me up. Which is horrifying every time.

So, there's the peeing, the dog, the sound of the house settling which could ultimately be burglars, and sociopath cat. It makes it very hard to get a few hours straight.

Maybe this is nature's way of training me for baby time. It could be. But I have a feeling my daughter won't be waking me up because she's choking a little on the mouse head she's trying to eat.

I'm actually looking forward to being woken up because someone wants me to feed them, and cuddle with them, and sing to them. So bring it on little baby! As long as you're not just tossing gallbladders to a fro in the middle of the night for me to step on in the morning I'd love to get up with you!

Nursery Stuff

I'm not very homemade. I can't sew, or quilt, or figure out how to make a mason jar into anything that's not just an empty mason jar. I know some people are naturals making things from other things into really cool things - I am not one of those people. In kindergarten I was the best tracer ever, but ask me to come up with a fairy land on my own and I'd draw a complete blank. Last summer the father of my child asked me to mend some of his shorts, and they now look like a blind, drunk surgeon sewed them up using his feet.

But apparently being pregnant has made me think I can do things. Creative things. Because suddenly I'm saying things like, "We don't need to buy that! I'll just MAKE IT MYSELF!" Huh? "No, don't worry about those. I'll just MAKE THEM MYSELF!" What? My non-pregnant self is going to go back in time and smack that handy little smile off my pregnant face.

But I'm still pregnant, thus I'm still tasking myself into oblivion. Or rather, I was tasking myself in an abnormally big way for someone who just wants to nap and watch Gossip Girl, when all of a sudden my sister came along and upped the ante to Code Crazy.

I was working on drawing these wall hangings for the baby's room, and my sister asked to see them. So I showed her. Because where's the harm in that?

Oh foolish, foolish me.

These are what I showed her:

(click to see bigger)



I was just planning on hanging them in three separate frames above her crib, and totally skewing the way she thinks animals look in real life. Easy. I was pretty much done. Just needed to find some cute frames and be done with it. I was almost done with a project! Yay! I never finish things!

And then, came this:

B: They're so cute!

A: Oh thanks!

B: You should put them with letters and do the whole alphabet. How cute would that be?!

A: . . .

B: A monkey, an owl, think about how cute the WHOLE ENTIRE ALPHABET WOULD BE!


Cut to me staring at my computer screen in complete rage hoping it would seep through to my sister's computer so she could feel my icy stare from a thousands of miles away.

B: And then you could write a children's book about it, and make a mobile, and some stuffed animals and blah, blah, blah. . .


Staring did not work.

The thing is, my non-pregnant self would have just ignored her flights of fancy, and gone about my Gossip-Girl-watching business, but my pregnant self was like, "Oh my gosh, the whole alphabet? That WOULD be cute! I should do that. I'll MAKE IT MYSELF!" And inside my non-pregnant self is like, "You're f*$&ing crazy."

And then even though it was late, and I was exhausted, I stayed up doing this:










*sigh*

Only twenty-three left to go! Gossip Girl, you'll have to wait. I have brightly colored animals to draw. And a sister to thank/stare down.

Ten Weeks Left

Thirty weeks people.



Thirty weeks, thirty-one inches of belly bump, twenty-five pounds on me, three pounds on the baby, and seven pounds of brownies in or near me at all times.

(Sidenote:
Dear Brownies,
I love you so much it's ridiculous. If you didn't cause my heart to race, and the spot right in between my eyes to break out into a weird third-eye-revisiting-Jr-High-break-out-horror I'd be eating a batch of you every day, instead of one every other day. Love, Me.)

Here's me being super pumped up on brownies and totally excited about being thirty weeks pregnant.





So just typing that sentence, "Ten Weeks Left" is so crazy exciting and shocking I can't stand it. My mom had me at thirty three weeks instead of the standard forty, and the thought of this baby being here in less that three weeks would put me into a mild coma, and then I'd pass out in my coma, and probably do something horribly embarrassing like fart really loud when everyone was coming to visit me, because that's something I would totally do if I had no control. I'd blast and then my loving partner would be like, "There she sleeps, the farty mother of my child." End love story.

Not only did she have me seven weeks early, she had twins seven weeks early! Here I am nervous about one and when I call to tell her that she says, "One! What a luxury. I can't imagine how much freedom you'll have!"

"But it's still a baby!"

"Yes but it's only one baby. I had twins. Twice!"

"But I'm not having twins."

"I'm not ever going to feel sorry for you, no matter what you say."


Ok, so that's not exactly what she says, she's much more consoling (maybe) but it feels like that's what she's about to say at any moment. And with good reason, I'm not gonna argue that.

Anyway, all those books and people that give you advice on pregnancy? Mostly they're sort of right, sometimes they're dead wrong, and usually it's all just specific to them. Which is exactly what this statement is about to be, bear that in mind, but what all those people/books tend to agree on? The second trimester is a glorious break, where you feel fantastic and glow-y and amazing, and then the third trimester hits, and all hints of glow have been replaced with pre-teen like breakouts. All fantastic feelings have been replaced with the odd sensation of all your organs being squeezed into places only your bones should be, and that amazing feeling of being pregnant? That's just constipation now.

Since I was so in love with the second trimester, I refused to believe the third was not going to hold up as gloriously by pretending I wasn't suddenly exhausted beyond belief five minutes after waking up in the morning. Or hiding the fact that suddenly I was craving melons and donuts again like I'd just smoked a boatload of pot. Or thinking that I was totally justified in having crazy emotional outbursts at the father of my child for breathing too loud because after it it was crazy loud breathing!

But no. The third trimester has officially hit. And I am back to taking three hour naps, eating like a wild mongoose, and getting emotional when I see a gopher run across the street because there was the POSSIBILITY that he could have gotten hit by a car. Not that he did, just that it COULD have happened is enough to send me into uncontrollable sobs for a good half hour.

And here's why father's-to-be should be considered for sainthood. Because once in a while (every day) something will come up (in my head only) that will be so horrific (not bad at all) that it will send me into a complete and utter break down (complete and utter) for about five minutes (a lifetime) until suddenly my hormones shift, and I sniff, get over it, and go about the rest of my day as if nothing ever happened. (Repeat)

Like the other day when I went into a panic because there was no more Luna Bars. Trying to keep my cool I whispered,"Did you eat the last Luna Bar? DID YOU!?!" But behind the panicked whisper was the fire of a thousand raging bulls. Because clearly I would not live through the next two minutes without a protein bar that's supposed to taste like cookie dough but actually tastes like what would happen to cookie dough if you forgot to add sugar, or anything else tasty, mixed it with an old hairbrush and left it to bake in the sun for seven hours. Never mind the fact that we had a house full of food I myself had just purchased. That wasn't food. That was just bags with things in it. Things that were not a protein bar with inspirational sayings on it's wrapper that I had to eat right this second before I simultaneously threw up, passed out, and killed whomever ate the last MOTHER LOVING LUNA BAR!!!

**pause while loving partner stares and watches this dance of crazy in my eyes**

**continued crazy staring from me**

Then, after some consideration of the deadly-weapons-within-reach scenario in the living room, he dared to speak:

"Oh you know what?"

"halksdfjoslkz" (I am no longer coherently speaking English, as I'm about to faint from hunger)

"I have the last Luna Bar in my bag. I never ate i-"

Never in your life have you seen a white girl run so fast. I ate half the bar before I even had time to pull it out of his bag.

So, I've reached crazy town again. But at least I'm not pukey and nauseous like the first trimester! I take my victories where I can get them.

Plus when I'm in bed napping, and eating chili cheese Fritos with cottage cheese, I've got this little sucker to keep me company.




No joke - he even eats some Fritos with me. How a cat can simultaneously love eating live mice, and a tasty chili chip is totally weird behavior. But I'm pregnant. I'm not about to judge anyone else's eating habits right now.

**action shot**

Pregnancy Brain

A text I just got from my sister:

"Note to self: if a pregnant lady asks you: What did your doctor say? what she really means is: What did you have for lunch?"

So apparently Pregnancy Brain is not a myth. All of my friends and family members who have had babies said that once they got pregnant they immediately forgot things, couldn't remember things, and generally had a hard time functioning without a periodic blank stare into space. I thought they were just a collective group of exaggerators all sent to make me feel better because the first few months I could not take a shower without halfway through going, "Wait, did I just wash my hair or my face? How long have I been in here? Have I washed anything?!?!"

And it just gets worse.

The other day I was trying to explain to my Partner's parents where he went camping and all I could come up with was, "It's far away. I think. It's either in Northern Montana, or maybe it's in Wyoming."

"What was it called?"

"Something about . . . oh wait I know this . . . It has to do with that movie. . . with the bad guys. . . with the guy who was Batman and he also played the blind guy . . . but not those movies it was a shooting movie . . . in the west. . . I think it was called. . . Bad guys. Something about bad guys."

For the record it had nothing to do with "bad guys" or even Val Kilmer which was who I was trying to describe, but try telling my brain that.

Then yesterday my sister called and told me she went to lunch, and instead of asking her what she ate I very clearly said, "What did your doctor say?" which caused a lot of confusion on both our parts. Hers because she had no idea what I was talking about, and mine because I couldn't figure out why she couldn't understand my simple question!

On top of all that fun, remember when I pulled my downstairs? Turns out I didn't strain anything at all. Instead what happened is my body produced too much of this relaxing hormone all preggo women get and my ligaments and pubic symphisis (the bones and muscles of my pelvis) are slowly separating out of place so that it hurts like white hot fire when I try to do something silly like put on a sock! Or sit down! Or watch Real Housewives of New York! (That actually hurts my brain, but I thought I'd include it just in case it has something to do with my pelvis)






Anyway, my doctor assures me this is not uncommon, a good percentage of pregnant women get this, and there is a cure. Well thank goodness Dr! Let me have it! Let's cure this S.O.B!

The cure is called: Giving birth.

Uh, what now?

Yeah, apparently there's nothing you can do except avoid painful movements (sneezing) (and all other things) and then once you have the baby everything magically goes back into place, bones realign, ligaments stop relaxing.

Basically the cure is magic. Pelvic magic.

So, if you need me I'll be the girl on the couch talking gibberish and wincing anytime she has to put socks on. I LOVE BEING PREGNANT!



(actually I do. I really don't mind any of it. You could dip my undercarriage in lava if you wanted, I'd still love it all. See - pregnancy brain. It's works in all sort of crazy good ways.)

Cutest Thing Ever

My sister just told me I was going to be as good of a mom as this kitty mom.

I hope so.

I mean, yesterday she fell asleep after I took a walk (I assume she fell asleep because she stopped trying to play chopsticks on my ribs with her feet), and I missed the kicking, so I got up and ate two dark chocolate cocoa brownies to wake her up a little bit.

That's not bad is it?

For the record it didn't work. The little sucker didn't wake up until her father came home. I know this sounds crazy town, but I think she likes it better when we're around each other. This weekend he went on an all boys camping trip (read: no one showered for three day, and by the kiss I got when he got home, I'm assuming there was no teeth brushing either) (not that I mind, there's something rustic and old western-y about a guy coming home smelling of campfire and sweat that makes me want to stay pregnant for the next fifteen years, and learn how to darn socks.)

Anyway, while he was gone she was very lethargic and not very kicky. Could be that she turned inward so all the kicking was going to my insides, but when he got home she flipped around and started wildly flailing around like, "Hey Dad! DAD! I missed you. Come whisper stuff to me through Mom's belly button."

That little lady. Already a daddy's girl. He has no idea what's coming to him.

What's Missing

Before I was pregnant I always thought the thing I'd miss the most when I was pregnant was drinking. Drinking all kinds of things. Coffee, wine, lattes, other kinds of wine, tequila shots off of Jon Hamm's perfectly, manly, just-hairy-enough chest.

Not because I'm some sex-crazed lush who gets the shakes when she doesn't drink, far from it.

But more I thought I'd miss it the most because I had grown accustomed to having a cup or two of coffee in the morning to wind me up, and a glass or two of wine at night to wind me down, and since I'm a creature of habit I couldn't imagine not having those two things. (creature of habit example: when figuring out percentages, like 57 is what percent of 294, I still do it the EXACT way I was taught in High School, complete with whispering to myself, "Is over of" and writing the formula out to figure it out, even though I'm pretty sure I could do it an easier way, but I don't want to. I like my 1994 way. It makes me feel studious.)

Anyway, I was pretty sure I'd be unable to wake up or fall asleep due to my lack of caffeine and alcohol, thus thrusting me into a perpetual cycle of crazy awakeness where I'm not really awake because I haven't slept, and can't really sleep because I'm too awake and suddenly I'd be like the walking dead, but worse, because I'd be the pregnant, puking, walking dead with a hairy stomach, and a penchant for eating disgusting amounts of melons. Cut to six months in and I'd be showing up at an AA meeting just to be around people who (sort of) know how I feel.

But turns out, that's not what I miss at all. It's like I got pregnant and all of a sudden my body was like, "Coffee? Nah, I'm good." and "Wine? Nope, don't even like the sound of it." So I stopped drinking both cold turkey and have had no problems whatsoever. I know it shouldn't be shocking to me that a body that can create a HUMAN BEING from practically nothing, like the most magical cotton candy maker in the world (where does all that cotton come from?! And why is it pink!!) can also tell you what is good for you and what is not when you're pregnant - but it totally is. Sure, my baby has gone from having a tail, to not, but suddenly I don't crave lattes anymore?! What sort of crazy witchcraft is this?!?!

So what I miss the most? This is going to sound ridiculous, but it's running.

I miss running like the dickens.

And before you go fake-barfing in your sweater, let me explain: It's not like I'm some crazed exercise nut who runs ten miles a day before taking the stairs to work and then does push ups on my lunch break. That sounds super boring to me. I like burritos at lunch, and I enjoy escalators. The running, or the type of running I miss (which can be compared to a slow jog or a very fast walk), was good for me because it was the one time of day I can let my mind go totally blank. Instead of stressing about work, or family, or money, or whatever, if I'm running I don't think about anything. Nothing enters my mind except, "Breathe. Move. Breathe. Move."

And now that I'm not running everything enters my mind. Everything. That one time I helped Tiffany Otto cheat on our English test Sophmore year by letting her see my scantron? I think about that and then I feel bad all day. First thing when I wake up? It's a barrage of different types of dark, leafy greens I haven't been eating lately and how that may or may not effect my baby's health, and suddenly I'm running to the grocery store at 7:45am because I'm fairly certain if I don't get some Swiss Chard immediately I'll get diabetes.

So, that's what I'm missing the most right now. Running. I'm actually counting down the days to when I can let my mind go blank for those four or five, eleven minute miles. I'm not even embarrassed I only run eleven minute miles. Eleven minute miles got me through two marathons and some very stressful breakups. They helped me deal with my granddad's death and a scary bout of melanoma. Eleven minute miles also made grad school more fun, it made vacations more fun, it made me feel more fun in general.

I've heard you're not supposed to exercise until six weeks after you give birth. So if anyone needs me around the middle of October, I'll be the girl running down the block, with the biggest, happiest, blankest stare on her face you've ever seen.

28 weeks!

I am now officially in my third (and last) trimester.

The book told me it was my "third (and last)" trimester, which seemed a little weird since I went to High School, I know how many tri's are in a trimester (seven).

Not only that, but if I suddenly had three more trimesters left I think I'd be more of an elephant than a human. Don't they stay pregnant for like thirteen months? THAT'S CRAZY. Those poor elephant baby daddy's are sitting around like, "It's been a year and she's still asking me to run to the store to get plain donuts. PLAIN. So she can dip it in her cantelope. I'm a year older and she's still pregnant. This shit better be over soon. And that elephant baby better be mother f*&%ing cute."

(Elephants are notorious for talking like sailors.)

This is what I picture the daddy elephant to look like.

Sort of nervous and worriedly talking over his shoulder, afraid the mama elephant will hear him.

And so yes, maybe elephants don't eat donuts and melons, but that's only because they can't go to the store and buy them. But you know who can?!

ME!

And yes I ate the entire melon and donut as a snack. It was a plain donut which is exactly like eating a piece of dry whole wheat toast as far as me and Jack Bauer are concerned.

Anyway, I'm not an elephant so I only have twelve weeks left.

Whoooooooo/Aaaaaaaahhhh!

(That's a combo of excitement and totally freaked out)

The father of my baby doesn't seem fazed in the least. He's calm, cool and collected, walking around like nothing is about to rock our world into oblivion. Of course he doesn't feel the way this little girl gets the hiccups and then stretches out and kicks/punches me on both sides of my belly so that I look like I just swallowed a rectangle. She's already so full of energy she's wearing me out, and I know that, but because he doesn't get the rectangle treatment, he doesn't fully know what's about to hit him so he's free to go about his blissful day unaware. Lucky guy.

The book also told me she's got eyelashes now. EYELASHES. Oh my gosh that kills me. Teeny, tiny, adorable little eyelashes. *sigh* I can't wait to see them, and kiss them, and watch them open and close all small and lash-like! Aalsdfhalksdfj! Too. Much. Cute.

Perks of Pregnancy #3

I miss beer.

That is all.

Oh, and I just got a shot. In my butt.

There's nothing more awkward than pulling down your pants and bending over while discussing the weather. I'd venture to say even a pelvic exam is less awkward. I'm not sure why, but when someone comes at you with something that looks like one of those things you use to crank a car up to change a flat tire and intends to use it on your delicate parts you have more to worry about than feeling embarrassed. But when you're expecting something in the arm and suddenly the nurse is like, "Ok, pull down your pants and lean over the table" it makes me feel like I'm about to be in the wrong part of a Quentin Tarantino movie.

The shot was because I'm lucky enough to have a negative blood type, which means I get a shot now, and a shot after the baby is born so I don't develop an antibody to my own babies like some sort of Marvel comic gone wrong. What it also means is right now I am sporting a pink Hello Kitty band-aid on my tush. Don't be jealous!

And the day before the shot I got to take a glucose test screening me for gestational diabetes. To do this they make you drink a bottle the size and taste of orange cough syrup in five minutes. Doesn't seem so bad after the first sip, but halfway through the bottle when the OrangeSyrupOfDeath is staring you in the face, taunting you with it's sticky, sweet, pukey-ness and you realize you only have sixty seconds to down this bad boy before it's too late and you have to retake the test another day, it pretty much feels the way I imagine that time my High School boyfriend's dad made him eat an entire pack of cigarettes after he caught him smoking to teach him a lesson*. Except more sugary and less cancery.

(*technically at this point he was my best friend's High School boyfriend. we're very share-y.)(or we were, I'm betting if either one of us tried to date the other's significant other right now it would end in a bloody blood bath of blood bathed in bloody blood.) (and yet somehow we'd survive and go on to live our lives as old maids, knitting together, taking group vacations together where we follow around a guy waving a brightly colored flag through the crowded areas of whatever exotic town we're touring (like Tuscany, or Reno) so we don't get lost, and drink much too much sweet tea.)

Anyway, the good news is I don't have diabetes, and I won't spontaneously develop an antibody to my own children anymore!

I'm not sure which one I'm more excited about.