I took the baby to a consignment store today to shop for shoes (damn they go through those things quickly) and some new puzzles (ditto the damn) and some long-sleeved shirts which shouldn't be that hard to find but for some strange reason are (???). We came away with all the necessary items PLUS this gem for the new baby (because second-born children need a toy or two of their own (said the second-born child)):
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Heaven in a cup
Today's pregnancy-enhanced culinary experience: Fran's Hot Chocolate—like drinking warm ganache. Or manna straight from heaven. Same difference, no?
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| photo courtesy onceuponachocolate.blogspot.com |
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Happy (Jewish) New Year!
Today I was going to give you, dear readers, a break. I was going to complain about something different from smells and food—say, the downfall of true investigative reporting—but then this happened: I went to a bakery to work while the sitter watched the baby (the one ex-utero) and gradually as I sat there minding my own, a horrid, rancid, oniony stank infused my clothing and hair and skin. Once I realized what was happening, I left, but the damage had been done. Added to yesterday’s list of smells that make me lose my shit is: Me. My entire self.
News item
I guess I underestimated the threat of hard-to-detect gas leaks in yesterday's post. Oops.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
National Olfactory Awareness Day
You know how I said yesterday that I wasn’t really sure why I hadn’t written in over ten days? I think I’ve figured it out. All I can think (and write) about these days (weeks) is food and smells and the smells of foods and the tastes of smells and all sorts of other taste-and-olfactory complainy obsessiveness that CANNOT BE INTERESTING to read about.
Do I care that someone on Facebook had cereal for dinner? I do not. Do you care that some blogger had pasta with lemony tomato sauce for lunch? Surely you do not. Bless you for reading anyway because, unfortunately, for now it’s all I’ve got.
Do I care that someone on Facebook had cereal for dinner? I do not. Do you care that some blogger had pasta with lemony tomato sauce for lunch? Surely you do not. Bless you for reading anyway because, unfortunately, for now it’s all I’ve got.
Monday, September 26, 2011
A friendly game of quarters
Sorry for the absence, everyone! All is well with me and Dr. Husband and Baby #1 and Baby-#2-in-the-making. I hadn’t intended to be gone from here for so long and certainly hadn’t intended to cause anyone any concern. In fact, I hadn’t fully realized just how long it had been until a kind reader wrote me to see what the deal was. (Thanks for the nudge, KF!) I have no real excuse—it just sort of…happened. A sick babysitter one day, an urgent need to shop for a dress that’s flattering to my 10-weeks-pregnant constant-cereal-eating-stomach to wear to a wedding-like event this past weekend, a few days of travel, a head-cold, a two-day-migraine, a visiting in-law, plus the standard pregnancy exhaustion—and here I am, nearly two weeks later and unable to remember how to write.
These are…letters? And they make…words?
These are…letters? And they make…words?
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Babbling
A piece I wrote a few weeks ago appears in new and improved form here on Babble. (Incidentally, I don't think my child is average. She's above average, just like every other child on the planet. Also, the photo on Babble is not my child. My child is WAY cuter than that, naturally. And my child is a girl, not a boy dressed in gender-neutralish (but upon closer inspection definitely boy's) clothing.)
Thursday, September 15, 2011
For the love of the snack pack
Please excuse me—and my blog—for being a bit obsessed with food lately. What with the constant fatigue and nausea, it's sort of all I can wrap my brain around these days. The constant needing to eat but being grossed out by the thought of most foods but really needing to eat now is shockingly consuming, as it were. (Even doing laundry has proven too daunting to tackle—which means that when I do tackle that shit, it will take four or five consecutive days to get it all done by which point, as any mom knows, it will be well past time to do it again.)
Today my "new" food "discovery" was fried chicken and baked beans and a nice, fluffy, nutrient-free dinner roll from Oprah's favorite fried chicken joint--which, yes, is located in Seattle. I never liked fried chicken—I don't like the taste of the breaded stuff—until I tried Ezell's. It's crispy and spicy and doesn't taste like a vat of old oil. And it smells like heaven—even (especially?)—to a pregnant lady. Last time around, I either hadn't tried the chicken yet or was scared of it exacerbating my pregnancy-induced indigestion issues, but I'd stop by for beans—the only baked beans I've ever liked—and rolls and just to bask in the delicious scent of a happy Oprah. Today I went whole hog—er, poultry—and got some chicken, too. Oh. My. God. It was exactly the thing the tiny beast growing inside me wanted for lunch. He(*) was all, Yes! Finally! You get where I'm coming from!
The nice cashier explained that I would save money if instead of ordering my items individually I got a "Snack Pack" with beans in place of the french fries. I thanked her for the tip and began to step aside to wait for my food when she said, "Remember, hon. Next time you're here, tell them 'Snack Pack with beans.'" And I was all, Yes! Finally! Someone gets where I'm coming from! Of course I will be back—many times over. And bless you, purveyors of crazy-delicious fried food, for calling a meal that probably contains a billion calories a "snack pack." No wonder Oprah loves you!
In other news (sort of), I had my first prenatal check-up and ultrasound today, and everything's A-okay. Just one little critter in there (praise Jesus and the God of Single Births), with a strong, wildly apparent heartbeat and little arm buds that will be used to hit his big sister, like, tomorrow. (Or at least that's what I tell myself to make this gross trimester not seem so interminably looooooooooooong. I seem to recall the first "trimester" lasting about 18 weeks last time around... Nooooooooooooooooo... Just simply: no.)
*
Like last time, I'm assuming my offspring is a boy since that's what my husband's family tends to produce and since that's what everyone and their mother-in-law tells me I must be having since my nausea isn't as bad as last time when—surprise!—I had a girl. I may or may not find out the critter's sex down the road, but chances are I'll refer to him or her as a "him" in the meantime, if for no other reason than to save some precious finger strength. (Also, honestly, after having a girl—knowing how to have a girl—the idea of having a boy is a little daunting. So I like to begin the emotional preparations early. Also the practical ones—any tips on where to buy cute boy's clothing and such are much appreciated, even if I never have cause to put them to use!)
Today my "new" food "discovery" was fried chicken and baked beans and a nice, fluffy, nutrient-free dinner roll from Oprah's favorite fried chicken joint--which, yes, is located in Seattle. I never liked fried chicken—I don't like the taste of the breaded stuff—until I tried Ezell's. It's crispy and spicy and doesn't taste like a vat of old oil. And it smells like heaven—even (especially?)—to a pregnant lady. Last time around, I either hadn't tried the chicken yet or was scared of it exacerbating my pregnancy-induced indigestion issues, but I'd stop by for beans—the only baked beans I've ever liked—and rolls and just to bask in the delicious scent of a happy Oprah. Today I went whole hog—er, poultry—and got some chicken, too. Oh. My. God. It was exactly the thing the tiny beast growing inside me wanted for lunch. He(*) was all, Yes! Finally! You get where I'm coming from!
The nice cashier explained that I would save money if instead of ordering my items individually I got a "Snack Pack" with beans in place of the french fries. I thanked her for the tip and began to step aside to wait for my food when she said, "Remember, hon. Next time you're here, tell them 'Snack Pack with beans.'" And I was all, Yes! Finally! Someone gets where I'm coming from! Of course I will be back—many times over. And bless you, purveyors of crazy-delicious fried food, for calling a meal that probably contains a billion calories a "snack pack." No wonder Oprah loves you!
In other news (sort of), I had my first prenatal check-up and ultrasound today, and everything's A-okay. Just one little critter in there (praise Jesus and the God of Single Births), with a strong, wildly apparent heartbeat and little arm buds that will be used to hit his big sister, like, tomorrow. (Or at least that's what I tell myself to make this gross trimester not seem so interminably looooooooooooong. I seem to recall the first "trimester" lasting about 18 weeks last time around... Nooooooooooooooooo... Just simply: no.)
*
Like last time, I'm assuming my offspring is a boy since that's what my husband's family tends to produce and since that's what everyone and their mother-in-law tells me I must be having since my nausea isn't as bad as last time when—surprise!—I had a girl. I may or may not find out the critter's sex down the road, but chances are I'll refer to him or her as a "him" in the meantime, if for no other reason than to save some precious finger strength. (Also, honestly, after having a girl—knowing how to have a girl—the idea of having a boy is a little daunting. So I like to begin the emotional preparations early. Also the practical ones—any tips on where to buy cute boy's clothing and such are much appreciated, even if I never have cause to put them to use!)
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Usually I don't even *like* doughnuts
Recently I mentioned on this here blog something about how pregnancy for many of us isn’t so much about food cravings as food aversions. As in, you scramble an egg—aka a weapons-grade sulfur bomb—anywhere near my nose right now, and I will be forced to kill you—right after I finish throwing up.
Perhaps later in this pregnancy I will begin to delight in food, but for now—and for many, many, many weeks after now—I’m all about eating what I can stomach. And what my stomach can stomach.
Today that has meant: a bowl of Wheaties and Oat Squares for early breakfast, a custard-filled doughnut for late breakfast, a bagel with cream-cheese and a tomato slice for brunch, some mushroom tortellini for lunch, a chocolate-chip oatmeal cookie for an afternoon snack, and some sharp cheddar and Triscuits and Gatorade for snack #2. That brings us to 4pm. Not bad! I say. Not bad at all. I mean, there TOMATOES in there. And MUSHROOMS! And OATS!
I’ve heard that there are people out there who remain doughnut-free throughout their pregnancies. Today, for instance, I was just reading about this woman who would rather not take prenatal vitamins when she’s pregnant—she’d rather just EAT RIGHT. I have to think that this woman and other right-eaters like her are people who are not made to hurl by vast amounts of hormones coursing through their system.
I tell myself that come my second trimester I will eat protein smoothies and steamed kale and mounds of acorn squash—but if memory serves and if my other pregnancy is any indicator, when the nausea lifts, I will feel no more inclined to eat steamed greens than I do now. I will want pizza, I will eat pizza, and, blessedly, I will then reliably be able to hold down pizza.
The pizza and doughnuts and Gatorade isn’t about craving—it’s more like there’s ANOTHER PERSON LIVING INSIDE YOU, a small, picky child-person in charge of your eating habits. He or she might enjoy a tomato slice atop her bagel, but cut it up into a bowl and Eeew! Gross! Get that away from me! The smell is making me sick! It’s exhausting and demoralizing.
I was talking to a friend today—one with the good sense not to reproduce—and she was all, “Doughnut? Wha? You’re nauseated and you’re eating a doughnut?”
I tried to explain that it’s not like the stomach flu. In fact, the only thing—other than a few glorious prescription drugs—that can stop the barfing is eating. So you think about what sounds good, running through options in your head while trying not to think of anything that might make you feel queasier, and when you hit on something, ANYthing you can imagine holding down, you eat that.
And then you take a prenatal vitamin and start thinking about what you might like to eat next, before you’re too hungry and nauseated to think about anything other than Damn, when was the last time someone cleaned this toilet?
Perhaps later in this pregnancy I will begin to delight in food, but for now—and for many, many, many weeks after now—I’m all about eating what I can stomach. And what my stomach can stomach.
Today that has meant: a bowl of Wheaties and Oat Squares for early breakfast, a custard-filled doughnut for late breakfast, a bagel with cream-cheese and a tomato slice for brunch, some mushroom tortellini for lunch, a chocolate-chip oatmeal cookie for an afternoon snack, and some sharp cheddar and Triscuits and Gatorade for snack #2. That brings us to 4pm. Not bad! I say. Not bad at all. I mean, there TOMATOES in there. And MUSHROOMS! And OATS!
I’ve heard that there are people out there who remain doughnut-free throughout their pregnancies. Today, for instance, I was just reading about this woman who would rather not take prenatal vitamins when she’s pregnant—she’d rather just EAT RIGHT. I have to think that this woman and other right-eaters like her are people who are not made to hurl by vast amounts of hormones coursing through their system.
I tell myself that come my second trimester I will eat protein smoothies and steamed kale and mounds of acorn squash—but if memory serves and if my other pregnancy is any indicator, when the nausea lifts, I will feel no more inclined to eat steamed greens than I do now. I will want pizza, I will eat pizza, and, blessedly, I will then reliably be able to hold down pizza.
The pizza and doughnuts and Gatorade isn’t about craving—it’s more like there’s ANOTHER PERSON LIVING INSIDE YOU, a small, picky child-person in charge of your eating habits. He or she might enjoy a tomato slice atop her bagel, but cut it up into a bowl and Eeew! Gross! Get that away from me! The smell is making me sick! It’s exhausting and demoralizing.
I was talking to a friend today—one with the good sense not to reproduce—and she was all, “Doughnut? Wha? You’re nauseated and you’re eating a doughnut?”
I tried to explain that it’s not like the stomach flu. In fact, the only thing—other than a few glorious prescription drugs—that can stop the barfing is eating. So you think about what sounds good, running through options in your head while trying not to think of anything that might make you feel queasier, and when you hit on something, ANYthing you can imagine holding down, you eat that.
And then you take a prenatal vitamin and start thinking about what you might like to eat next, before you’re too hungry and nauseated to think about anything other than Damn, when was the last time someone cleaned this toilet?
Monday, September 12, 2011
The Day After
So I wasn’t allowed to say anything about this before, but now that it’s September 12 and not September 10, I think it’s fine. It’s fine, Department of Homeland Security, right? Hellooooo? Ms. Napolitano?
My husband, for those of you who don’t know or remember, is an ER doctor—as in, he chose the specialty one chooses when one likes—or is at least adept at—removing knives from peoples’ skulls and even less savory items from even less savory places. He’s all about adventure and adrenaline and variety, so it was no big surprise when he told me he was on an urban search & rescue team. I figured it was some sort of hobby until I learned that it’s Urban Search & Rescue—capitalized and run by FEMA (run by Homeland Security)—and that he was shipped across the county to help look for people—or bodies—immediately after 9/11.
Every so often right after a large-scale disaster—tsunamis, hurricanes, the like—he gets a call letting him know that his group (unit? infantry? division?) is on high-alert. Meaning he has to pack a bag and be able to hightail it to the designated military base with only a moment’s notice. I guess it’s called “being deployed,” but I prefer to think of it as “driving quickly to catch a plane” since that sounds considerably less militaristic.
In the four years we’ve been together, he’s only been put on deployment alert twice—somewhat surprising when you think of all the natural disasters that have been running roughshod all over the country and world of late. But I guess there are plenty of Urban Search & Rescue people to go around—unless you’re talking about something on the scale of the World Trade Centers collapsing due to an apparent act of war.
One time a lady came by our house to fit him with a gas-mask, but usually his desire to throw himself into harm’s way in the name of being useful is not something I think or worry about. Urban Search & Rescue gives his work and his life extra meaning and purpose, and isn’t it my job as his mate to support him in that sort of thing? I mean, it’s not like he’s playing Dungeons & Dragons or collecting stamps or something truly dangerous—to our marriage.
But when he got put on deployment notice mid-day on Friday, it felt a little different. Nothing had happened yet—no hurrinami—just the “credible” threat of a terrorist attack in New York or DC on Sunday. It felt all-too-reminiscent of the early days after 9/11—not wanting to live in fear, but not wanting to go somewhere or do something stupid. And just generally walking around thinking “What the fuck?”
As he packed his gear into his blue duffel bag—the same one he’s taken on every trip we’ve ever made—he said casually, “I don’t think we should go to the Mariner’s game on Sunday.”
I cited the weather forecast and said I did not ever want to go to a baseball game when it was 90 degrees out—even if I weren’t first-trimester nauseous-pregnant.
He nodded and zipped his duffel and then we both tried to ignore it for the rest of the weekend as we prayed (in a totally atheist way) and hoped that nothing bad would happen again—and please, please, nothing so bad that it would require the assistance of someone from Seattle.
Of course, the terrorist attack warnings turned out to be hyper-over-preparedness of the U.S. government combined with a large dose of good ol’ fear mongering. But in a weird way it felt good to be on alert all day—like our family was connected in some tiny way to the grief and fear of New York and DC. Like 10 years of war and 6,204 soldiers dead maybe wasn’t for nothing. Like the war on terror is real. Like our family, too, would sacrifice everything if need be.
“Good thing I upped my life insurance policy,” my husband mentioned over a plate of cookies Saturday night. I just bugged my eyes out at him, like, You die, and I will kill you. Not just because I’m pregnant, borderline unemployable, and easily frustrated by the antics of our almost-two-year-old. No, because I love him. Even more than I love America.
{Note: This piece also appears here on Open Salon.}
My husband, for those of you who don’t know or remember, is an ER doctor—as in, he chose the specialty one chooses when one likes—or is at least adept at—removing knives from peoples’ skulls and even less savory items from even less savory places. He’s all about adventure and adrenaline and variety, so it was no big surprise when he told me he was on an urban search & rescue team. I figured it was some sort of hobby until I learned that it’s Urban Search & Rescue—capitalized and run by FEMA (run by Homeland Security)—and that he was shipped across the county to help look for people—or bodies—immediately after 9/11.
Every so often right after a large-scale disaster—tsunamis, hurricanes, the like—he gets a call letting him know that his group (unit? infantry? division?) is on high-alert. Meaning he has to pack a bag and be able to hightail it to the designated military base with only a moment’s notice. I guess it’s called “being deployed,” but I prefer to think of it as “driving quickly to catch a plane” since that sounds considerably less militaristic.
In the four years we’ve been together, he’s only been put on deployment alert twice—somewhat surprising when you think of all the natural disasters that have been running roughshod all over the country and world of late. But I guess there are plenty of Urban Search & Rescue people to go around—unless you’re talking about something on the scale of the World Trade Centers collapsing due to an apparent act of war.
One time a lady came by our house to fit him with a gas-mask, but usually his desire to throw himself into harm’s way in the name of being useful is not something I think or worry about. Urban Search & Rescue gives his work and his life extra meaning and purpose, and isn’t it my job as his mate to support him in that sort of thing? I mean, it’s not like he’s playing Dungeons & Dragons or collecting stamps or something truly dangerous—to our marriage.
But when he got put on deployment notice mid-day on Friday, it felt a little different. Nothing had happened yet—no hurrinami—just the “credible” threat of a terrorist attack in New York or DC on Sunday. It felt all-too-reminiscent of the early days after 9/11—not wanting to live in fear, but not wanting to go somewhere or do something stupid. And just generally walking around thinking “What the fuck?”
As he packed his gear into his blue duffel bag—the same one he’s taken on every trip we’ve ever made—he said casually, “I don’t think we should go to the Mariner’s game on Sunday.”
I cited the weather forecast and said I did not ever want to go to a baseball game when it was 90 degrees out—even if I weren’t first-trimester nauseous-pregnant.
He nodded and zipped his duffel and then we both tried to ignore it for the rest of the weekend as we prayed (in a totally atheist way) and hoped that nothing bad would happen again—and please, please, nothing so bad that it would require the assistance of someone from Seattle.
Of course, the terrorist attack warnings turned out to be hyper-over-preparedness of the U.S. government combined with a large dose of good ol’ fear mongering. But in a weird way it felt good to be on alert all day—like our family was connected in some tiny way to the grief and fear of New York and DC. Like 10 years of war and 6,204 soldiers dead maybe wasn’t for nothing. Like the war on terror is real. Like our family, too, would sacrifice everything if need be.
“Good thing I upped my life insurance policy,” my husband mentioned over a plate of cookies Saturday night. I just bugged my eyes out at him, like, You die, and I will kill you. Not just because I’m pregnant, borderline unemployable, and easily frustrated by the antics of our almost-two-year-old. No, because I love him. Even more than I love America.
{Note: This piece also appears here on Open Salon.}
Friday, September 09, 2011
A nerd is born
It’s been a big week around here. We told our families—and all of you strangers—about Baby #2 (even though it’s early still, now that I’m feeling shitty I’m not too fretful about things going wrong—knock on wood. Plus, if something were to go awry (bite tongue, then look into OCD diagnoses), I would want to be about to write about it here, so…).
Other big ticket items this week: the baby (#1) started preschool yesterday, I have an essay about teaching creative writing in this month’s issue of Teacher & Writer’s Magazine (an actual, honest-to-god print publication), and I just got a piece accepted to Babble. Also, we’re coming up on the 10th anniversary of September 11 (for those of you undergoing a media-and-calendar blackout), AND we’re getting a new refrigerator, AND we’re experiencing our first week of summer weather here in Seattle AND today is my half-birthday!
While I was laying awake last night at 2am trying to figure out if I was going to barf and therefore ought to get out of bed (I was and ought to and did), I tried to distract myself by figuring out how old I am. I’m old enough that I have to perform a subtraction equation to determine my age—isn’t that all you need to know?
The result of my late-night math: 36-and-a-half.
How the fuck did I end up in my late-mid thirties? And pregnant?! I’d always pictured myself as a young-ish mom—full of vim and vigor and eagerness to make cupcakes for the elementary school bake sale—which is hilarious, because I didn’t really start having sex with men until I was 27— already too old to be a young mom. Honestly, I still feel 27—in an abstract, out-of-body, age-of-my-innermost-spirit way. But in reality I am, in the grand history of the world, a pretty old mom. (In the grand history of the world, 27 would have been a pretty old mom.) In reality, I’m exhausted.
My husband was out of town for two days visiting one of his best friends (he is now “making up for it” by taking the baby to the zoo for two hours—for which I’m grateful but am also like, 2 hours is to 2 days what 2 pennies is to 2 million dollars.) and while he was gone, I was Just. So. Tired. Not sleepy-tired—more like the kind of tired you feel in your arms after you hold them over your head for way too long while you’re, say, French-braiding your hair after having had the flu for a week. Bone-tired, I believe it’s called. At the end of each day the baby took great delight in running away from me (and saying, adorably, “Get you!”) as I was trying to get her in her p.j.s, and instead of chasing after her and performing the line provided, I looked at her like I was going to lose my mind—or my dinner—and said in my worst mom voice, “For the love of god, please.” Not one of my shining moments—though it did do the trick. When teenagers get pregnant, are they tired like this, too?
And speaking of teenagers—my baby is just moments away from being one! She started preschool yesterday!
Sniff.
*Sniff.*
SOB!
She’s not even TWO and already I’m dropping her off at school with her lunch in hand, trying not to embarrass her by asking the teacher too many questions about the curriculum or talking too much about diaper rash.
I was worried about her being away from me and her dad and her beloved sitters and our house and, most importantly, Eliot her stuffed cat for FIVE WHOLE HOURS, but she was a total champ. She handed her lunchbox to the teacher like she’d done it a million times, stuck her backpack in her cubby, and busied herself with a basket full of wooden snakes. I, too, managed not to cry during our goodbye. I got into my car and drove out of sight, at which point I sobbed for a full five minutes. Then I went and bought a doughnut and came home to a strangely, beautifully quiet home and thought “I could get used to this.”
Then I remembered I’m pregnant and will not have peace and quiet at home for another two years starting in April. What were we thinking, exactly?
When I went to pick her up, the baby’s teacher reported that she was great all day and didn’t cry at all. Then I told her we had to leave, and she started to sob. “More!” she said. More what? “More schoo’!”
Other big ticket items this week: the baby (#1) started preschool yesterday, I have an essay about teaching creative writing in this month’s issue of Teacher & Writer’s Magazine (an actual, honest-to-god print publication), and I just got a piece accepted to Babble. Also, we’re coming up on the 10th anniversary of September 11 (for those of you undergoing a media-and-calendar blackout), AND we’re getting a new refrigerator, AND we’re experiencing our first week of summer weather here in Seattle AND today is my half-birthday!
While I was laying awake last night at 2am trying to figure out if I was going to barf and therefore ought to get out of bed (I was and ought to and did), I tried to distract myself by figuring out how old I am. I’m old enough that I have to perform a subtraction equation to determine my age—isn’t that all you need to know?
The result of my late-night math: 36-and-a-half.
How the fuck did I end up in my late-mid thirties? And pregnant?! I’d always pictured myself as a young-ish mom—full of vim and vigor and eagerness to make cupcakes for the elementary school bake sale—which is hilarious, because I didn’t really start having sex with men until I was 27— already too old to be a young mom. Honestly, I still feel 27—in an abstract, out-of-body, age-of-my-innermost-spirit way. But in reality I am, in the grand history of the world, a pretty old mom. (In the grand history of the world, 27 would have been a pretty old mom.) In reality, I’m exhausted.
My husband was out of town for two days visiting one of his best friends (he is now “making up for it” by taking the baby to the zoo for two hours—for which I’m grateful but am also like, 2 hours is to 2 days what 2 pennies is to 2 million dollars.) and while he was gone, I was Just. So. Tired. Not sleepy-tired—more like the kind of tired you feel in your arms after you hold them over your head for way too long while you’re, say, French-braiding your hair after having had the flu for a week. Bone-tired, I believe it’s called. At the end of each day the baby took great delight in running away from me (and saying, adorably, “Get you!”) as I was trying to get her in her p.j.s, and instead of chasing after her and performing the line provided, I looked at her like I was going to lose my mind—or my dinner—and said in my worst mom voice, “For the love of god, please.” Not one of my shining moments—though it did do the trick. When teenagers get pregnant, are they tired like this, too?
And speaking of teenagers—my baby is just moments away from being one! She started preschool yesterday!
Sniff.
*Sniff.*
SOB!
She’s not even TWO and already I’m dropping her off at school with her lunch in hand, trying not to embarrass her by asking the teacher too many questions about the curriculum or talking too much about diaper rash.
I was worried about her being away from me and her dad and her beloved sitters and our house and, most importantly, Eliot her stuffed cat for FIVE WHOLE HOURS, but she was a total champ. She handed her lunchbox to the teacher like she’d done it a million times, stuck her backpack in her cubby, and busied herself with a basket full of wooden snakes. I, too, managed not to cry during our goodbye. I got into my car and drove out of sight, at which point I sobbed for a full five minutes. Then I went and bought a doughnut and came home to a strangely, beautifully quiet home and thought “I could get used to this.”
Then I remembered I’m pregnant and will not have peace and quiet at home for another two years starting in April. What were we thinking, exactly?
When I went to pick her up, the baby’s teacher reported that she was great all day and didn’t cry at all. Then I told her we had to leave, and she started to sob. “More!” she said. More what? “More schoo’!”
 |
| Back to Schoo' |
The tossing of cookies
Just a little update: am no longer not barfing. Have not been not barfing for a few weeks now. Still, it’s not nearly as bad as last time around, in part because I now know to eat constantly, in part because I have a stash of drugs to take to stop the barfing once it starts, and in part because EVERY PREGNANCY IS, apparently, DIFFERENT! Why didn’t anyone tell me?
Word on the street is that I'm having a boy. Apparently boys are less nauseating than girls—until you start trying to date them.
Word on the street is that I'm having a boy. Apparently boys are less nauseating than girls—until you start trying to date them.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
A bunch of Top Secret posts from the past three weeks
Okay. I sort of lied. I actually have been doing something as exciting as going on a proper vacation. I've been gestating. A baby. In my uterus.
That’s right. I’m PREGNANT. Again.
Nausea-inducing, barf-causing, varicose-vein-creating, labor-requiring, achy-making PREGNANT. Again.
Come late April, I'll have another BABY! And I will have to stop calling the first baby "The baby"!
I’m nearly eight weeks along, so I’m used to the idea by now, but if you’d care to hear about my thought- (and nausea-) process for the past three + weeks while we kept it a secret, read on.
Real-time posts shall recommence forthwith, now that the cat is out of the bag. Meow.
Please feel free (no, feel compelled) to leave a comment where it says “comments” below. Just don’t tell me to try ginger for my nausea. I’ve tried ginger. It’s disgusting. Much like pregnancy itself.
Copper and Sodium— Monday, August 15, 2011
This post is dated August 15 but isn’t being posted until today because—brace yourselves, people—I’m pregnant (!!!!!!!!!!!!) and didn’t want to tell everyone right away this time. And it seemed only fair that I tell my mother before I told Ye Olde Internet, so…
I actually got my IUD out back in June and was seriously bummed that I didn’t get pregnant RIGHT AWAY, even though my body was all, “Wait! Where’s that copper pipe? I miss it! I miss seriously cramping around it every month! Bring it baaaaaaack!” My body acted like my IUD was one of those annoying co-workers who prattles on about the weather and what kind of taco she’s going to get from Baja “Fresh” for lunch—and then one day she’s gone and you realize you spent so much energy growing to tolerate her that you sort of miss her. Which is to say, the cramping caused by the absence of the IUD was worse than any cramping caused by its presence.
But just as the longing for the annoying co-worker lasts like five minutes, the post-IUD cramping eventually ended. The very next month my body said, “Bring it!” and my husband’s body apparently said, “I’m all over that noise!” Neither body mentioned anything about the weather or Mexican chain food, and here I am, just over four weeks pregnant as of August 15 (which is nearly eight weeks now, for those of you not so strong on math or calendars).
Last time I was four weeks pregnant, I was arguing with my future mate about the flavor of our wedding cake. (White! The flavor had to be white!) It’s so nice to be pregnant and not be planning a wedding. Also, it’s so nice to be pregnant and not be barfing a bajillion times a day. I do not delude myself into thinking my lack of nausea is because this pregnancy will be easier, gastrointestinally speaking, than my last—I just think it’s because my nausea-making hormone levels have not yet reached “orange.” (An aside: though I’m in full support of the Department of Homeland Security revamping the terror alert system to one that’s less nonsensical, I will miss being able to write sentences like the previous and have people know what I’m talking about. I loved that our nations’ airports were in a constant, meaningless, inadvertently Dadaist state of “orange.”)
Even though my Pollyannaish husband accuses me of being a total pessimist, I’ve always considered myself (perhaps inappropriately) balanced in my positive-to-negative thinking ratio. The glass is both half full and half empty. I believe my people call themselves “realists,” but I also know that optimists—and Evangelicals—say that “realism” is just pessimism in sheep’s clothing. To which I say, Baaaa!
Every time I’ve expressed a reluctance to get pregnant a second time for fear of spending four months in a constant state of just-stepped-off-the-tilt-a-whirl-after-eating-nothing-but-funnel-cakes-and-cotton-candy and then another five months with the occasional tilt-a-whirl feeling plus the sharp, heavy, achy, agonizing pain of vulvular varicose veins, I have been told, “But every pregnancy is different!”
Likewise, every prison term is different depending on who serves it and where and when and with whom, but there are some undeniable constants. The flimsy mattress, the stinky urinal, the lumpy mashed potatoes. (See? I’m Pollyannaish, too! The worst thing I can imagine in prison is the dreadful food! Not the violence and violation and dehumanization, no!)
I want to smack each of these people for assuming they can predict my body’s reaction to the objectively nauseating experience of CREATING ANOTHER LIFE FORM. Instead I say, “Yeah, the second one could be worse than the first!” and ruin the cheerful, sunny person’s ENTIRE DAY with my dark, cynical, depressing cloud of gloom. And thus I am cheered.
It’s true, I could create a WHOLE SEPARATE LIFE FORM in my body and never toss my cookies this time around, but why not plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised if it ends up not being that bad?
Hence my grocery list this week: Gatorade, saltines, dried apricots, sour candy, Zofran, stool softener, sturdy Ziploc baggies. If you’ve never been pregnant or are one of those annoying people for whom pregnancy so far has always been a non-queasy dream (remember, every pregnancy is different!), this list will make no sense. But if you’re one of those people for whom the mere words “first trimester” make you feel curvy-mountain-road carsick and the wildly misleading phrase “morning sickness” makes you want to poke someone’s eye out—just as soon as you’re finished throwing up in your mouth—you are my people. I salute you. I embrace you. I offer you some Zofran and if that doesn’t help, you can have one of my baggies.
I’m pregnant, people! Do you know what this means? One fine mid-spring day I might end up with a BABY. ANOTHER BABY!
Hormones — Thursday, August 18, 2011
At this point in my first pregnancy, I still hadn’t found out I was pregnant yet. I had some suspicions since my period was a week late, but since I hadn’t been trying to get pregnant (nor was I being particularly careful to not get pregnant, obviously), I wasn’t keeping that close a tab on things. It just seemed like I was probably due to start any day. Anway, since I didn’t know I was pregnant this early last time around, I shouldn’t really be comparing how I feel this time to how I felt last time, but I can’t help it.
I feel AMAZING! No barfing, no nausea, no nothing. I feel so great and normal that I have to keep taking a peak at the lines on the pregnancy stick to confirm that I really am in the family way.
That said, I do feel the tiniest bit weepy and nostalgic—the way you get watching a Super-8 film or one of those old Hallmark commercials. Just now the babysitter swung by in the café where I’m doing work to pick up our family zoo pass. She was driving her family’s gigantic Suburban, and as they drove off to see the penguins, tears sprung to my eyes because the baby looked so tiny in that giant truck, plus she’d been crying because they’d forgotten (and then returned for) Eliot, plus she was having a little excema flare-up on her cheek, plus I’m pregnant, dammit! I’m allowed to cry just because my baby looks so small and cute and helpless and sort of stunned to find herself riding in a damn Suburban.
Milestones — Friday, August 19, 2011
Just when she’d started to master crawling quickly up the stairs, the baby has decided she’d prefer to walk up them holding onto the upside-down-heart-shaped cutouts in the balusters. I know I’m supposed to be proud of this (literal) step towards independence, but the truth is, waiting for her to ascend the stairs has been driving me crazy for months. It takes forehhhhhhhhhhhver, and it’s not like there’s a lot of other things I can do simultaneously. Plus, she still requires spotting because she’s about as athletically confident as, well, me.
As she was taking her sweet time up the stairs this morning I asked her what she thinks we should name her brother- or sister-to-be. (Note: I have no intention of taking her suggestions, I’m just curious what she thinks. As if I’d name a child Wa-Wa Meowww-Meowww.) She paused thoughtfully and then said with utter conviction: Baby.
Vegetables — Monday, August 22, 2011
At this point in my last pregnancy, I was starting to feel decidedly queasy—and was celebrating my 34th birthday at a Cuban restaurant in Miami, quickly learning that the smell of fried food—of any ethnicity other than “fried chicken”—was not something my nose or stomach could tolerate.
I am keeping close track of “where I was at last time” because I’m not yet feeling queasy and am still waiting—bracing myself. So far Peanut M&Ms don’t taste like cardboard, I’m not choking indigestion-style on my saliva, and the smell of coffee doesn’t make me homicidal. I’m craving vegetables and salads like a rabbit, which is super weird since last time the thought of pretty much anything other than cheese, cereal, and the occasional hamburger—topped with cheese, of course—turned my stomach. When I’m not pregnant, I eat vegetables because they’re good for me—not because I actually want to eat them, and certainly not because I craved them.
Every day I don’t want to hurl is another day of bliss—and mild worry that something is wrong with my little sesame-seed embryo. I try to believe that the reason I feel so fine so far isn’t that something is wrong but that the wee thing is a future boy rather than the estrogen-pumping monster I carried last time.
Mostly, I’m just waiting for the nausea to hit and counting my leftover Zofran collection and making sure I have Saltines in hand at all times.
In the meantime, I must go and finish this delicious salad made up of lettuce and lettuce and more lettuce. Yum. Freaky, freaky yum.
Pregnancy myth # 1,397,231 — Monday, August 29, 2011
Am no longer not feeling nauseous, and, relatedly, am no longer craving—or even feeling able to eat—vegetables (unless, of course, they are sandwiched—literally—between a piece of bread and some slices of bacon). At the moment—10:15 in the A.M., to be precise, I am eating chips and salsa and sipping continuously from my new best friend—super cold, super watered-down iced tea. It’s not that any of these foods appeal—it’s just that constant eating interspersed with constant icy-cold-beverage-sipping is the only thing that keeps the nausea at bay, however briefly.
Who started the thing about pregnant ladies craving crazy foodstuffs—pickles dipped in ice-cream and whatnot? The truth—as I’ve experienced it and as I read on some baby-related website—is that pregnancy food aversions are way stronger and more omnipresent and insistent than any craving. If you put a cup of coffee anywhere within a block of me last time I was pregnant, I came close to dying of nausea. This time it’s peanuts. Sorry, Peanut M&Ms, I guess I won’t be having you in my mouth for three to eight more months. (Incidentally, the last time around our nickname for the baby-in-the-making was “Peanut.” Needless to say, that won’t be happening this time around. Okay—must stop saying the word “peanut” now.)
Not that you need to know this, but it’s pretty damn thrilling for me—so far, no hurling at all! Unlike last time. So very, very unlike last time. Knock on wood. Fingers crossed, etc., etc.
Also on the plus side, I’m no longer worried about the health of the pregnancy. Now that I feel pretty shitty, I trust that all is right in the universe—er—wombiverse.
That’s right. I’m PREGNANT. Again.
Nausea-inducing, barf-causing, varicose-vein-creating, labor-requiring, achy-making PREGNANT. Again.
Come late April, I'll have another BABY! And I will have to stop calling the first baby "The baby"!
I’m nearly eight weeks along, so I’m used to the idea by now, but if you’d care to hear about my thought- (and nausea-) process for the past three + weeks while we kept it a secret, read on.
Real-time posts shall recommence forthwith, now that the cat is out of the bag. Meow.
Please feel free (no, feel compelled) to leave a comment where it says “comments” below. Just don’t tell me to try ginger for my nausea. I’ve tried ginger. It’s disgusting. Much like pregnancy itself.
Copper and Sodium— Monday, August 15, 2011
This post is dated August 15 but isn’t being posted until today because—brace yourselves, people—I’m pregnant (!!!!!!!!!!!!) and didn’t want to tell everyone right away this time. And it seemed only fair that I tell my mother before I told Ye Olde Internet, so…
I actually got my IUD out back in June and was seriously bummed that I didn’t get pregnant RIGHT AWAY, even though my body was all, “Wait! Where’s that copper pipe? I miss it! I miss seriously cramping around it every month! Bring it baaaaaaack!” My body acted like my IUD was one of those annoying co-workers who prattles on about the weather and what kind of taco she’s going to get from Baja “Fresh” for lunch—and then one day she’s gone and you realize you spent so much energy growing to tolerate her that you sort of miss her. Which is to say, the cramping caused by the absence of the IUD was worse than any cramping caused by its presence.
But just as the longing for the annoying co-worker lasts like five minutes, the post-IUD cramping eventually ended. The very next month my body said, “Bring it!” and my husband’s body apparently said, “I’m all over that noise!” Neither body mentioned anything about the weather or Mexican chain food, and here I am, just over four weeks pregnant as of August 15 (which is nearly eight weeks now, for those of you not so strong on math or calendars).
Last time I was four weeks pregnant, I was arguing with my future mate about the flavor of our wedding cake. (White! The flavor had to be white!) It’s so nice to be pregnant and not be planning a wedding. Also, it’s so nice to be pregnant and not be barfing a bajillion times a day. I do not delude myself into thinking my lack of nausea is because this pregnancy will be easier, gastrointestinally speaking, than my last—I just think it’s because my nausea-making hormone levels have not yet reached “orange.” (An aside: though I’m in full support of the Department of Homeland Security revamping the terror alert system to one that’s less nonsensical, I will miss being able to write sentences like the previous and have people know what I’m talking about. I loved that our nations’ airports were in a constant, meaningless, inadvertently Dadaist state of “orange.”)
Even though my Pollyannaish husband accuses me of being a total pessimist, I’ve always considered myself (perhaps inappropriately) balanced in my positive-to-negative thinking ratio. The glass is both half full and half empty. I believe my people call themselves “realists,” but I also know that optimists—and Evangelicals—say that “realism” is just pessimism in sheep’s clothing. To which I say, Baaaa!
Every time I’ve expressed a reluctance to get pregnant a second time for fear of spending four months in a constant state of just-stepped-off-the-tilt-a-whirl-after-eating-nothing-but-funnel-cakes-and-cotton-candy and then another five months with the occasional tilt-a-whirl feeling plus the sharp, heavy, achy, agonizing pain of vulvular varicose veins, I have been told, “But every pregnancy is different!”
Likewise, every prison term is different depending on who serves it and where and when and with whom, but there are some undeniable constants. The flimsy mattress, the stinky urinal, the lumpy mashed potatoes. (See? I’m Pollyannaish, too! The worst thing I can imagine in prison is the dreadful food! Not the violence and violation and dehumanization, no!)
I want to smack each of these people for assuming they can predict my body’s reaction to the objectively nauseating experience of CREATING ANOTHER LIFE FORM. Instead I say, “Yeah, the second one could be worse than the first!” and ruin the cheerful, sunny person’s ENTIRE DAY with my dark, cynical, depressing cloud of gloom. And thus I am cheered.
It’s true, I could create a WHOLE SEPARATE LIFE FORM in my body and never toss my cookies this time around, but why not plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised if it ends up not being that bad?
Hence my grocery list this week: Gatorade, saltines, dried apricots, sour candy, Zofran, stool softener, sturdy Ziploc baggies. If you’ve never been pregnant or are one of those annoying people for whom pregnancy so far has always been a non-queasy dream (remember, every pregnancy is different!), this list will make no sense. But if you’re one of those people for whom the mere words “first trimester” make you feel curvy-mountain-road carsick and the wildly misleading phrase “morning sickness” makes you want to poke someone’s eye out—just as soon as you’re finished throwing up in your mouth—you are my people. I salute you. I embrace you. I offer you some Zofran and if that doesn’t help, you can have one of my baggies.
I’m pregnant, people! Do you know what this means? One fine mid-spring day I might end up with a BABY. ANOTHER BABY!
Hormones — Thursday, August 18, 2011
At this point in my first pregnancy, I still hadn’t found out I was pregnant yet. I had some suspicions since my period was a week late, but since I hadn’t been trying to get pregnant (nor was I being particularly careful to not get pregnant, obviously), I wasn’t keeping that close a tab on things. It just seemed like I was probably due to start any day. Anway, since I didn’t know I was pregnant this early last time around, I shouldn’t really be comparing how I feel this time to how I felt last time, but I can’t help it.
I feel AMAZING! No barfing, no nausea, no nothing. I feel so great and normal that I have to keep taking a peak at the lines on the pregnancy stick to confirm that I really am in the family way.
That said, I do feel the tiniest bit weepy and nostalgic—the way you get watching a Super-8 film or one of those old Hallmark commercials. Just now the babysitter swung by in the café where I’m doing work to pick up our family zoo pass. She was driving her family’s gigantic Suburban, and as they drove off to see the penguins, tears sprung to my eyes because the baby looked so tiny in that giant truck, plus she’d been crying because they’d forgotten (and then returned for) Eliot, plus she was having a little excema flare-up on her cheek, plus I’m pregnant, dammit! I’m allowed to cry just because my baby looks so small and cute and helpless and sort of stunned to find herself riding in a damn Suburban.
Milestones — Friday, August 19, 2011
Just when she’d started to master crawling quickly up the stairs, the baby has decided she’d prefer to walk up them holding onto the upside-down-heart-shaped cutouts in the balusters. I know I’m supposed to be proud of this (literal) step towards independence, but the truth is, waiting for her to ascend the stairs has been driving me crazy for months. It takes forehhhhhhhhhhhver, and it’s not like there’s a lot of other things I can do simultaneously. Plus, she still requires spotting because she’s about as athletically confident as, well, me.
As she was taking her sweet time up the stairs this morning I asked her what she thinks we should name her brother- or sister-to-be. (Note: I have no intention of taking her suggestions, I’m just curious what she thinks. As if I’d name a child Wa-Wa Meowww-Meowww.) She paused thoughtfully and then said with utter conviction: Baby.
Vegetables — Monday, August 22, 2011
At this point in my last pregnancy, I was starting to feel decidedly queasy—and was celebrating my 34th birthday at a Cuban restaurant in Miami, quickly learning that the smell of fried food—of any ethnicity other than “fried chicken”—was not something my nose or stomach could tolerate.
I am keeping close track of “where I was at last time” because I’m not yet feeling queasy and am still waiting—bracing myself. So far Peanut M&Ms don’t taste like cardboard, I’m not choking indigestion-style on my saliva, and the smell of coffee doesn’t make me homicidal. I’m craving vegetables and salads like a rabbit, which is super weird since last time the thought of pretty much anything other than cheese, cereal, and the occasional hamburger—topped with cheese, of course—turned my stomach. When I’m not pregnant, I eat vegetables because they’re good for me—not because I actually want to eat them, and certainly not because I craved them.
Every day I don’t want to hurl is another day of bliss—and mild worry that something is wrong with my little sesame-seed embryo. I try to believe that the reason I feel so fine so far isn’t that something is wrong but that the wee thing is a future boy rather than the estrogen-pumping monster I carried last time.
Mostly, I’m just waiting for the nausea to hit and counting my leftover Zofran collection and making sure I have Saltines in hand at all times.
In the meantime, I must go and finish this delicious salad made up of lettuce and lettuce and more lettuce. Yum. Freaky, freaky yum.
Pregnancy myth # 1,397,231 — Monday, August 29, 2011
Am no longer not feeling nauseous, and, relatedly, am no longer craving—or even feeling able to eat—vegetables (unless, of course, they are sandwiched—literally—between a piece of bread and some slices of bacon). At the moment—10:15 in the A.M., to be precise, I am eating chips and salsa and sipping continuously from my new best friend—super cold, super watered-down iced tea. It’s not that any of these foods appeal—it’s just that constant eating interspersed with constant icy-cold-beverage-sipping is the only thing that keeps the nausea at bay, however briefly.
Who started the thing about pregnant ladies craving crazy foodstuffs—pickles dipped in ice-cream and whatnot? The truth—as I’ve experienced it and as I read on some baby-related website—is that pregnancy food aversions are way stronger and more omnipresent and insistent than any craving. If you put a cup of coffee anywhere within a block of me last time I was pregnant, I came close to dying of nausea. This time it’s peanuts. Sorry, Peanut M&Ms, I guess I won’t be having you in my mouth for three to eight more months. (Incidentally, the last time around our nickname for the baby-in-the-making was “Peanut.” Needless to say, that won’t be happening this time around. Okay—must stop saying the word “peanut” now.)
Not that you need to know this, but it’s pretty damn thrilling for me—so far, no hurling at all! Unlike last time. So very, very unlike last time. Knock on wood. Fingers crossed, etc., etc.
Also on the plus side, I’m no longer worried about the health of the pregnancy. Now that I feel pretty shitty, I trust that all is right in the universe—er—wombiverse.
Thursday, September 01, 2011
A wee break
Hi, everyone. I'm not doing anything as exciting as taking a proper vacation or anything—just taking a tiny little temporary break from the writing. Back soon with more stuff to read, I promise.
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