Pregnancy Top 5

Let's be honest. There is really not much that is fun or desirable about being pregnant. Looking and feeling like a bloated, deformed, grouchy(er) version of yourself is not always the greatest. Acid reflux, aching muscles, sleeplessness ... not a few of my favorite things. (Quite frankly, I'm not overly fond of whiskers on kittens or girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, but that is a post for another day.) However, there are some distinct advantages to packing around a freakishly active tiny being 24 hours a day.

1. Stretchy Pants. Let me just begin by saying that the older I get, the lazier I get. The fact that I haven't had to undo a single pair of pants in like 6 months ... pretty cool. It makes the 47 trips to the bathroom per day just a little bit less awful. No snaps, no zippers, no buttons. It's all about the fabulous strechy panel.

2. All You Care to Eat ... And Then Some. Yes, I know that it is highly irresponsible to gorge yourself while you are pregnant. Gone are the days when doctors and well meaning friends and loved ones encouraged the expecting mother to eat her weight in food. However, I say that if I am going to be a cow anyway, I am going to enjoy it by eating pretty much whatever I want. Halloween candy, pie, fudge, eclairs ... YUM. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts, the turkey has learned to shudder at my very presence. Dead and roasted or not. Sure, sure, some will say that it is going to make it that much harder to lose the weight. Whatever. I'm old, it's going to be hard to lose the weight anyway. Bring it on, Turkey. Yeah, and invite your friend Mashed Potatoes to the party, too. Bring it.

3. Time to Stop and Smell the Roses. I am absolutely loving the extra moment I have at least twice a day to just take a breath and think about that things that matter most to me. Sure, that time is when I have to stop and catch my breath between putting each shoe on. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.

4. Handicapped Parking. Can I say that I just LOVE that when you are pregnant you are able to use hadicapped parking spaces? The convenience of being able to park close to the entrance to any giving building is immeasurable. Not to mention how nice it is in inclement weather. I have a hard enough time walking anywhere as it is. I don't know what I would do without the use of handicapped parking. What a blessing!
Wait. What's that you say? Pregnant women AREN'T supposed to use the handicapped parking spaces?? What?!? How rude. OK, scratch that. Just forget I said anything.

5. Baby on Board ... And Totally in the Way. I apologize, honey, I simply can't do the dishes. Can't quite reach the sink. So sorry. Guess you'll have to wash them again. I feel really bad about it, though. REALLY bad.

There it is folks. The pregnancy Top 5. I'm sure a ton of other wonderful perks of being pregnant will come to me later ... just don't have time right now. Have to go so I can find some Tums and crawl around to relieve pressure from my hips or I'm sure I could think of a million more.

The Twisted Turnip

Did I say I was going to start posting weekly? Well, what I actually meant was monthly. Yeah, that's it, MONTHLY. I can't believe it's really been a month since I posted last. And if you count it in pregnancy years, it's been like 6 months and 50 pounds. Ridunkulous.

Well, the baby has been progressing through various stages of fruit and vegetable. I can't remember what the latest one was, but I know that within the last week or two, it was the size of a turnip. That's right folks, I said a turnip. Now if you are like me and are not Peter Rabbit or one of his perfect little, no-trouble causing siblings with a name that rhymes with -opsy, you really have no idea what a turnip is. All I know is that this one has a seriously twisted sense of humor. Supposedly, the fetal development has not yet extended to the practical joke playing portion of the brain, and many would argue that babies cannot yet be intentionally mean, but I beg to differ. In fact, if memory serves me right, I'm pretty sure that all of my children had the same sick sense of in-utero humor. And if you know them now, you'll agree that it's not that hard to believe that they were causing me trouble in even the earliest stages of development.

Let me back up a little by saying that I have insanely, intensely miserable heartburn throughout all of my pregnancies. From beginning to end. It gets to the point where I am receiving most, if not all, of my nutritional value from various flavors of Tums. Not the baby's fault, though, right? I mean, kind of, but not any more than the stretch marks and weight gain and overwhelming exhaustion are. No, how I know that my baby has a particularly mean and twisted sense of humor is because of the cravings. Those I totally blame on the baby. Baby decides it wants a Hostess chocolate pudding pie, and what are you gonna do? You've gotta eat it regardless of the fact that there are a whopping 520 calories in each one. (But that's a story for a different day.) The point is that cravings are totally the baby's fault. And my babies think it would be hilariously funny to make me crave foods that they know cause me the worst acid reflux ever. Spicy chicken sandwiches, carne asada burritos, deep fried zucchini, deep fried corn dogs, deep fried just about anything, you get the picture. If it causes me misery, the baby has to have it.

Mean, mean baby. And if that weren't bad enough, when I am in the throes of the most acid caused anguish ever, I swear I can hear it just chortling away down there. Very funny. This baby had better just watch its back. I've got half a mind to take it right back to Mr. McGregor's garden where it came from.

The Power of Suggestion

I never realized it before, but apparently commercials are made for pregnant women. Ok, not all commercials. I mean, obviously, we can't take any medicine, or have much fun at theme parks, and maybe we're not in the market for a snazzy new convertible. I am talking specifically about commercials for food. I don't remember this in past pregnancies; maybe because I have had more time to watch television this time around, but pretty much every food I see advertised on TV, I think I have to have it. No, I don't just think so, I am CONVINCED that I need it. And it's not even just limited to commercials. If someone is eating something on any show I'm watching, I have to have that, too.

Right now, for instance, there is someone eating popcorn on a sitcom, and the last commercial break featured an ad for the new Thin Mint Blizzard from Dairy Queen. If microwave popcorn and a Thin Mint ice cream treat doesn't sound like the best dinner ever, I'll be darned. All plans of salisbury steaks and mashed potatoes are out the window. It's all about DQ and Orville Redenbacher now. Oh wait ... change of plans, looks like it might be a pepperoni pizza, Pepsi, and some divine looking chocolate dunking sticks from Pizza Hut. Chocolate dunking sticks are an appetizer not a dessert, right? So, technically, I can still swing by the Dairy Queen for a Thin Mint Blizzard, can't I? Uh oh, hold up, it looks like it might be the $5 roast chicken combo from Arby's now complete with an icy cold Pepsi and some curly fries. Yikes. I can't keep up.

It all started with a day a couple months ago when I was in bed for a few days. I had been laying on the couch dozing, reading, and watching TV, and I was desperate for some Honey Nut Cheerios. I don't know why. I even called a couple friends to see if they had some because I didn't have any at home and I NEEDED Honey Nut Cheerios for some reason. LaVerl finally found a box out in the garage behind some other food storage. Best bowl of cereal I ever ate. I didn't even realize until later that night that there had been like 15 of those Honey Nut Cheerios low cholesterol commercials throughout the day.

It's only gotten worse since then. Even in my sickest moments, there is still something irresistible about the food I see on TV. I don't know what has come over me. I've never been so vulnerable to suggestion. It's a little ridiculous, actually.

Well, I'd better turn off the TV and get back to my dumb salisbury steaks. Don't think I'm not getting that Blizzard later, though, Hey, the baby wants what the baby wants. Who am I to stand in the way?

The Alien Inside

So most, but maybe not all of you, know that I am pregnant. I have had a pretty scary first trimester and thought for a while that I might lose the baby, so I haven't spread the news as readily as might be expected. That being said, things seem to be going well for the time being. I have been diagnosed with complete placenta previa (placenta covering the opening of the cervix - if you can handle all those gross words.) Best case scenario, it will resolve on its own. Worst case scenario, I will need bed rest towards the end and a C-section. This news is far from the worst, and I am hopeful that everything will be just fine - whatever happens. My estimated due date is 2/1/2010 so I've got a long way to go yet!

Enough with the seriousness already. I know that I have been out of the blogging world for some time now, and I figured this was as good of a way as any to re-announce my entrance into the WOB (world of blog.) I am also hoping that this will be a good enough motivation for me to post AT LEAST weekly. That's my goal anyway. We'll see how it goes.

I went to the doctor this morning and everything seems to be going just fine. Translation: the baby's heart is beating, the fundus is measuring fine (not to be confused with the fungus, which is something that I would need to go to a different type of doctor for altogether,) and I have gained infinitely more weight than I would like. I am now about 15 weeks, which according to my weekly pregnancy e-mails means that the baby is the size of an apple. I'm not sure why, but every week it seems to be the size of a different food. Maybe people like to think of their growing uterus as holding a whole, wiggly, undigested food? A pecan, an olive, a lemon, an apple. I am eagerly anticipating the later e-mails: "Your baby is currently the size of a gallon of milk." "This week your baby is approximately the size and volume of a meatloaf." I can't wait to see what kind of food my baby is growing to be. By the time I give birth, I am really hoping for a bucket of chicken.

Mo' Better Blogging ... NOT!

Holy cow ladies! So much for more time to blog .. good heck! Even now, at 10:30 at night, I am having to yell and scream and throw things at my children to get them to leave me alone for 5 MINUTES JUST SO I CAN BLOG!!! I've spent the last half hour just trying to catch up on everyone else's blog posts and now I just want to write a single blog post. Just one blog post. Is that too much to ask for?? Apparently, yes. Yes it is.

I haven't been on the computer in two weeks to do anything expect balance our dwindling checking account and pay our ever-surmounting bills. (Not fun.) Why, you ask? Why is it that I can't find 15 minutes a day to get on the computer? WELL, for starters, I have a husband who has developed a new love affair with Facebook and NBA.com (go figure.) Add to that the fact that I have three darling daughters who want nothing more than to play on Barbie.com, Disney.com, PBSkids.com, anythingbutletmeusethecomputer.com, and Microsoft Paint 24 hours a freaking day. Zariah even started typing the book Go, Dogs, Go into a Word document. I think it's a conspiracy. Even now, as I type, Zariah is watching me type and asking me what c-o-m-p-u-t-e-r spells and what a plural noun is (she is also working on a Mad Lib in addition to spying on me.) Fan keeps coming in with movie choices of what we should watch tonight because apparently my kids NEVER GO TO BED. And Audrina is telling me it is my "job" to put her pajamas on her.

Anyway, with that complaining aside, I apologize for my lack of blogging. Just in case you care.

I am going to take a second (literally, because I think that is all the time I can find) to tell you a few things I have learned in the last couple of weeks:

* 4 hours of yard work is equivalent to 86 hours of office work. (at least)

* My house will never be clean ... ever.

* Naps do not help a mother feel any less tired.

* The effort and frequency of vaccuuming somehow has no relationship whatsoever to the cleanliness of the carpet.

* I suffer from a horrible disease known as LTFA, Low Tolerance for Audrina. (About 10 hours seems to be my limit, preferably 8 of those while she is sleeping.) It is so far incurable, but as we speak the government is issuing millions of dollars in grants to find a remedy.

* Sanity is overrated. Totally.

On the other hand, I did accomplish a few things that I am quite proud of:

* Saving more at the grocery store than I spent ... sans coupons.

* Going through 50,546 (give or take) bins of girls clothes to find summer clothes for the younger two girls and organize the rest. (Don't even ASK me how long that took.)

* Pulling all the weeds in the back and front yards.

* Taking inventory of the deep freeze.

* Causing my husband to both hate and respect my supervisorial prowess. I'm kinda like the Darth Vader of taskmasters. He may try to find a part-time job just to make his life a little easier.

* Baking 4 loaves of bread. Not horrible. Not great. Not sure I'll be doing it again anytime soon.

* Making my own fruit roll-ups out of fresh, dehydrated fruit. JUST KIDDING! I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. Had you going there for a second, didn't I?

More to come. As soon as I can tranquilize my children ... I mean, get them to leave me alone for 10 minutes. Wish me luck!