Monday, June 24, 2013

What to Really Expect When Expecting...the 2nd Trimester

So as I close out the second trimester I am adding a few more chapters to my virtual pregnancy book...see my blog post What to Really Expect when Expecting the First Trimester if you need a refresher.  The basic premise behind it is that all the conventional pregnancy books leave out many of the lets call them "unpleasant" aspects of being pregnant.  The books talk about the normal things; morning sickness, swollen belly, etc., etc.  I decided to lift the curtain and let people know what really goes on.  Again, as with the first What to Expect post keep in mind you can not unread this...so think long and hard about continuing.  Also, if you do continue on you are not allowed to use any of this against me. So let's pick up at where we left off...

Chapter 10-  Cue the Circus Music

Dat, Dat, ah- da-da-da-da, dat, dat, ah, da, da, da, da!  Ladies and Gentleman...children of all ages...step right up and behold the bearded lady!!  Yup that's right my friends.  I have been sprouting hair on my chin and neck...absolutely disgusting but, apparently I am in good company.  Kim Khardashian complained that all of the hair she had permanently lasered off grew back and Drew Barrymore admitted to growing a mustache when she was expecting.  This is probably the one thing I would least like to have in common with a celebrity.  In my head I know it is from all the hormones floating around in my body, but honestly I don't give a sh*t what it is from...it is gross and I want it gone!!! Hmmm, somehow I must have missed the passage on stocking up on facial wax in the original What to Expect Book.

Chapter 11- Speaking of Hormones

Now I am not making light of mental health issues but I think the past 12 weeks have given me (or more accurately my poor husband) a slight glimpse into the world of mood disorders.  I have a very low tolerance for idiots lately.  I have been trying to stay away from society as a whole the past 12 weeks.  It is best for everyone.  I can go from completely happy to completely insane in about 3 seconds flat.  In my defense it is usually something very disturbing that sets me off...like the curtain not being straight, come on...that is just uncivilized...or my tortilla espanola sticking to the pan...now on a scale of 1-10...a ruined Spanish omelet really does a rate a 10, am I right?  I know that more often than not I am being irrational but I can't help it...and truth be told, I really don't give a crap.

Second trimester hormones can also be a good thing...wink, wink.  But let me paint a little visual for you... though I may feel "romantic" logistically it is a different story...my belly is huge... if I lay down I am not getting up without assistance...I am just shy of needing a crane to pull my fat ass up.  Have you ever seen a turtle stuck on its back?  Yeah.  That's me...when I lay down all four of my limbs are flapping around in a spastic sort of way trying to gain some momentum in an effort to roll over.  Not so romantic...once again, my poor husband is a victim of second trimester hormones.  God he is a saint going through this a third time.  You probably heard of a push prize for the lady when she delivers...well, I think my poor husband is deserving of a surviving pregnancy prize too.

Chapter 12- I See Your True Colors Shining Through

So if you have traveled down the pregnancy road before you know that certain body parts change colors when you are pregnant.  If you have never been pregnant before, I will let you in on a little secret...certain body parts change colors.  So, I was getting out of the shower and Anna walks into the bathroom...why knock?  Why give mom a tiny little bit of privacy?  But I digress...so she is staring at me as I dry off and she looks at me and says, "Ah, mom...I think you need to call the doctor."  I ask her why and she says, "Cause your boobies are all rumpled and brown."  I tell her not to worry I am fine...she asks what is going on and I tell her that my boobies are just getting ready to make milk for the new baby to drink and she says, with a total straight face, "oh, your boobies are making chocolate milk for the baby."...I will leave it at that.

Chapter 13- Am I Delivering a Baby or a Litter of Kittens?

So with all 3 of my pregnancies one of the weirdest symptoms or side effects I had was skin tags.  Each time I grew a ton of tiny little skin nubs...on my legs, arms, arm pits...well, this time I have a string of them on my belly.  They are in a straight line, small and skin colored.  My belly looks like a cat's belly with a line of teeny, tiny little cat teets.  This may be one of the weirdest and creepiest side effects...they drive me nuts.  One of them was right under my bra line...the friction from my bra actually rubbed it right off....it stung for about an hour and then was fine.  Got me thinking...if I took a pair of cuticle nippers I could remove those suckers in about 10 seconds flat...it will sting for a bit but with a little Neosporin I will be as good as new.   Again, poor Chuck is putting up with a lot.  I really should give the poor guy a stack of ones and send him off to the strip club for a night...that is really the only humane thing to do. 

Chapter 14- If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?

In that same vain...if a mom screams in the middle of the night and no one hears it....so I have been suffering from horrible leg cramps.  They wake me up in the middle of a sound sleep, every night...sometime 3 times a night!!  The first night I woke to this horrific pain...I thought someone was murdering me, yes,  the searing pain was in my calf and yes, if it was a murderer it would not have been the most effective way to go about murdering me, but, it was the middle of the night and I was not thinking straight.  So I am screaming, I mean really loudly.  Sara happened to be sleeping in my bed with me, long story, but either way, she did not flinch!!  Nothing!  I was writhing in pain and she did not so much as roll over.  Chuck was on the couch and again, nothing!!!  Yeah, I know it was a leg cramp, but it COULD have been a murderer and he would have been successful...not one of my 3 housemates came to my rescue.  Good to know for future reference...I am on my own if we get attacked.    I got some great ideas about how to deal with the leg cramps from a FB mothers group...then the  NP at my OB's office told me to massage my legs right before bed, Chuck rubbed my calfs for me last night and NO LEG CRAMPS!!!  So even though he may not stir if I am being snuffed out, he will rub my leg cramps away!  I knew he was a good guy the second I met him!!

Chapter 15- That Did NOT Just Happen!!

So in the traditional pregnancy books they allude to the fact that you will have the urge to pee a lot.  That certainly is true.  What they conveniently left out is the fact you may actually pee yourself.  YUP...I will admit it...it happened to me.  Of course, me being me, it happened at the most inopportune time possible...not that there is ever a good time to be incontinent.  But let me tell you what happened and you be the judge.  I was about 5 minutes into Sara's end of the year parent teacher conference.  I sneezed and, you guessed it...I peed.  Not just a drip or two, but decent amount.  I was horrified.  So many things are racing through my brain...oh my God, is there going to be a puddle when I stand up? (thankfully there wasn't)...will I have a huge wet spot on my pants? (OK, don't worry Erin you have dark pants on)...will I have time to run home and change before work? (who gives a sh*t if there is enough time?  if there ever was an excuse to be a few minutes late it was this...and I am sure my coworkers would appreciate me not smelling like pee all day).  So the teacher, who is AMAZING and so insightful with her students is going on and on about Sara and all I am hearing is..whaunt, whaunt, whaunt...a la any adult in a Charlie Brown special...she may have been telling me "Sara is on a wonderful path"  or "Sara is a socio-path"...I will NEVER know because all I could think was, "I am sitting in my own urine."

Again, that was suspiciously left out of the books at Barnes and Noble.  Don't get me wrong I think pregnancy is beautiful in the fact that a new life is growing inside of me...but I will never embrace the idea that all of these changes to my body are beautiful.  They just aren't.  Though I love feeling my baby move around in my belly, I am utterly grossed out by the fact that it has fingernails and hair...in fact every time I think about it I start to gag.   Pregnancy is a double edged sword sometimes and I can't wait to see what the 3rd trimester brings!!!





Wednesday, June 12, 2013

No good deed goes unpunished...

My kids have been really good lately.  I mean really good.  So good in fact I have questioned if they have secretly been replaced by imposters.  The other day Anna announced she was going to come and tell me something while I was in the bathroom.  Sara stopped her and told her to wait, let me have some privacy.  I was so overcome with emotion I swear a little tear started to form in the corner of my eye.   They have been getting along very well, sharing, taking turns and generally being nice to each other.  Also, the girls have been on an organizing kick.  I started calling it "organizing" instead of cleaning and "donating" instead of throwing away.  Their whole outlook has changed.  I wish that I had come up with this psychological trick years sooner.  Chuck says that "deception is the key to parenting"...well said my friend, well said.  Their room has never been so clean...and they have kept it up for several days now.  Truth be told they have been lobbying to have their room painted purple for a while now and we told them if they can keep it clean and prove that they are "big girls" then they can get their room painted.  We are on track to paint it this Friday!!

So to recognize their efforts I have started to say "yes" to many more requests (within reason) to let them know I see how hard they are working.  Now, I have met my kids and somehow I should have known this would come back to bite me in the ass.  Case in point...

So the girls have been asking to try switching their beds for a night.  Anna wants to sleep on the top bunk and Sara on the bottom.  I said yes, they were so shocked I relented on this request!  So off Anna goes to bed.  Sara climbs up and tucks her in...the days of me climbing up there are long gone.  We leave Anna to fall asleep.  A few minutes later it was Sara's bedtime.  We go in and Anna is still awake. No worries, they are both sleepy and should be out in no time.  One would think!!  So Anna tosses and turns a little before she falls asleep.  Sara calls me all worried.  She sometimes is afraid of the dark (even though they have a huge fish tank in their room that shines like the Vegas strip) and the noises of Anna moving around above her were making her nervous.  I try for a while to calm her nerves...to no avail.  Soooo....I have to break it to Anna that Sara wants to sleep in her own bed.  The look on Anna's face was devastating.  She was so sad.  To make her feel like she wasn't getting the sh*t end of the stick, yet again, I offer her the chance to sleep in my bed.  She happily agrees.  So off we go.  Well, that sets Sara off into a crying fit.  So after being unable to calm her down I offer her to sleep in my bed too.  So the girls are in my bed, Chuck is on the couch and I head into their room and curl up in the bottom bunk.  OK we are all tucked in...now lets all get some rest.  Yeah, not so fast.  So a little while later Sara is still having a hard time sleeping so she comes back into her room and climbs up on the top bunk and finally drifts off to sleep.  It is now 10 o'clock!!  So I tiptoe out and climb back into my bed and go to sleep.  Well you know that isn't going to last.  3 a.m. Chuck comes in, wakes me up and tells me Sara woke up and started screaming when she found out I snuck out.  I get out of bed to go see what is going on.  Anna senses I am up, jumps out of my bed, runs right past me and hightails it into her room, climbs into her bed and falls right back to sleep.  Sara climbs down the ladder and comes back to bed with me.  5:30 a.m. Anna gets up and crawls into my bed...not enough room for all of us so I head out to the couch...which Chuck has vacated when he went to work.  Did you follow all that?  So all together I got about 13 minutes sleep. Not bad for someone 6 months pregnant!!!!  I was a LONG night and an EVEN LONGER next day!!!   I thought I was supposed to be getting as much sleep BEFORE the baby comes!! 

Another, shorter example....Sara had an appointment with a specialist.  It was scheduled for Monday.  She would have to miss school...it is her last week and she really didn't want miss a day.  She has not had any "issues" in a while so I rescheduled her appointment for the end of July.  As my sh*t luck would have it Sunday night she started up with the "issue" that this specialist was set to address.  So again, no good deed goes unpunished...I may rethink this whole saying "yes" thing.

Some other random things....

*   Anna  vacuumed the living room with her toy vacuum...she came and told me she did it so I didn't have to, that I could rest today. I told her how lucky I was to be her mom and she said, "I know mom, I am so flippin' cute!!". I love that kid!!!

*  I believe that only one quarter of each roll of toilet paper in my house is used "legitimately" ..I think the rest of the roll is sacrificed to the preschool toilet gods.  Seriously we go through a roll of TP a day.  That sh*t adds up!!  (sorry, I couldn't resist!!)

*  Apparently Anna is a medical oddity.  The other day she was looking at her arms in a tank top.  She kept focusing on the spot where her armpit meets her body.  She said, "look mom, I have 3 muh-ginas!"  She thinks the little crease between her arm and body look like a vagina.  Oh man, was she proud of her crude humor...Yup, that's my girl!!!