I Want a Cookie

My, how time fails to fly when you’re pregnant. It feels like just yesterday the smell of coffee brought me frighteningly close to throwing up in my mouth… Wait, it was just yesterday.

On average this pregnancy has been less taxing than my last, but I’m currently experiencing a resurgence of first-trimester-type nausea that isn’t much fun. To be fair (to what, the nausea? Not sure…), it isn’t nearly as bad as the first eighteen or so weeks—it’s just an unpleasant reminder, taking me back to barfier, queasier times. For some inexplicable reason, all the cooking smells from the kitchen—first floor, west side of house—congregate in our bedroom—second floor, east side. And even though I do like the taste of bacon, I don’t relish having it jammed up my nose when I’m just trying to slip into something a little more comfortable at the end of the day (read: trade in my underwire for one of these deliciously soft camisoles that I am not being paid to plug—I just really love them). Of all the things about not being pregnant that I look forward to, the banishment of quease is at the tippy top.

It occurred to me the other morning that I bitch about being pregnant all the time, but I haven’t mentioned what’s easier this time. So: the terrifying gnarled forest of veins where my moderately attractive vulva used to be isn’t nearly as painful as last time. So far, I’ve spent zero evenings with a bag of frozen peas on my crotch, which is a major improvement.

What else is there to report from the field? The two-year-old’s room is coming along nicely, thanks to the help of a handyman with unending patience for the crap I buy off Craigslist and then ask him (sweetly) to paint. Yesterday it was a $5 doll cradle, today it was a $30 nightstand—quite the bargain if you don’t pay any attention whatsoever to the cost of labor. Or supplies. Today we got plantation blinds installed, and tomorrow the room gets a door, and then the kid can finally use the room she’s been begging to sleep in ever since I first invoked my best cheerleader/game-show-host impression and told her that the arrival of her new sibling would not only bring lots of rivalry and feelings of jealousy but a BRAND NEW ROOM!

She’s stoked—and her bed doesn’t even have sheets yet. And that, people, is why two-year-olds are fun. They get excited. And then they literally jump up and down. And then they demand a cookie. Totally understandable, really.