Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Babies plural will probably do me in

I had a horrific dream last night. Thankfully, it was an absurd horrific dream, not a realistic horrific dream, so it was easy to shake once I was awake (unlike the ten or so times I've dreamed James has died in a car accident or shooting or whatever). I still woke up sobbing. I dreamed Grace had Alzheimer's. Which is really stupid, of course, but I dreamed I watched my baby lose her mind, and it cast a bit of a pall over much of my day. I kept watching her play so sweetly and thinking, "If she turns out to be a drug addict, I'll remember her at this age, and how horrible will that be?"

Yay for crazy pregnant ladies.


I know I haven't been around much lately, either reading or writing. The Child has shorter and shorter naps, and when she is awake, she is more and more demanding of my time and attention, so I just don't feel like being on here when she is asleep. Lame explanation, I know, but napping is one of the most important things in my life right now, when I can manage to fall asleep.


I did manage to start V, finally. I've been meaning to watch it since it premiered, but kept napping instead. So far, so good. I love seeing all these old Firefly cast members. Speaking of which, if anyone watches Castle, how awesome was the Halloween episode with all the Buffy and Firefly references?

Anyway, V was pretty awesome, and I like seeing the lady who plays Juliet (Lost) in a less annoying, less smirky role. Also, I have a girl crush on Inara (can't remember real life name). She's so pretty.


Doctor's appointment yesterday. Nothing exciting. Finally got to see my favorite doctor of the bunch, Dr. M. And I completely forgot to ask him his opinion on a VBAC. All of the other three have expressed pretty varied opinions (I like this; I realize doctor's offices have to have set policies on certain things, but I also like that they're individuals with their own opinions, not a hive mind), so I very much wanted his. Oh well. Next appointment, perhaps.


2.0 is hyperactive. She is awake and kicking all the time. Grace was more prone to sporadic (yet violent) outbursts. This one just does lazy somersaults all day.

Speaking of Grace, she has now learned a new word. "Block." Only, it comes out "bop," and she applies it to all smallish toy-like objects, including my spice jars. She may also have "up" and "hi" and "bye," but the verdict is still out on that. Those teeny little one-syllable words are so hard to distinguish from pure coincidence. Throw in our own conviction that she's the most intelligent child on Earth, and it's pretty much impossible to figure out.

Her sleep is still unreliable, but it's no longer beating me relentlessly into an endless gray fog of hopelessness (sounds melodramatic, but that is exactly how I start to feel after just a few days of interrupted sleep). She'll go two to three days at a time now without incident, which allows me to catch up a little on sleep. I'm still a little dull in the head, which I think also contributes to my not writing. But! It seems things are getting better. And I hope I haven't jinxed it all just now.

The other night, she woke up at 5:30 in the morning. I brought her some water, and she downed about four ounces in one go. Then she snuggled up to me against the crib rails, and I started singing to her. Halfway through "You Are My Sunshine," she pulled away, looked up, put her hand on my cheek, and said, "Mama." Devious child got at least five extra minutes of cuddling just for that--after I picked my dead body up off the floor. I am such a sucker.

James is also "mama" now, by the way, which is endlessly amusing to me. If I exclaim, "Daddy's home!" or ask, "Where's Dada?" she goes completely nuts with excitement, though, so it's not as if she doesn't know his name. When he's in the room, I pretty much cease to exist. This bothers me less than you might think. If we were both away from her all day, it would probably hurt, but I enjoy the break.


I'm still swimming, hurray! It's getting harder. Most of the time, when you exercise regularly, things get easier, right? Well, not so much when your drag coefficient increases exponentially by the day. I do a lot of kicking, not so much actual swimming. It is very hard to keep my midsection afloat. I would think I'd become more buoyant, what with most of this weight being fat and water, but that's apparently not the way it works. Pregnant ladies get more awkward both on land and in water. Awesome!

The best part is getting out of the pool at the end of a workout. "Beached whale" has become a cliche because it is so true. I refuse to use a ladder. This is stupid. But still, I refuse. So I thrash my way up onto the edge of the pool and then struggle to my feet. It's not the weight so much as it is tired muscles and terrible balance on slippery tile. (actually, I'm still -3 lbs for weight gain) Still, I look like a beached whale. A beached whale trying to climb a ladder. A rope ladder. With missing rungs.

Also, I don't have a maternity suit, so I just look like I have the most bizarre body shape known to mankind. When your torso is the length of a postage stamp, that skinnier space between the bosoms and the belly is essential. Well, with a regular old suit, that space is webbed over in lycra. I look like a pumpkin stuck with four toothpicks and a cantaloupe out the top. We won't even get into how idiotic I look in a swim cap to begin with.

This is okay, though. I'm already feeling better about myself, even if the swimming itself isn't getting any easier. I sleep better, and I have more energy when I'm awake. It's a glorious feeling, this being able to function like a normal human kind of thing. Almost forgot what it felt like.

3 comments:

  1. Just watch out, pretty soon that regular suit will stretch downwards to cover your stomach, and it will pull the top so low you'll look like Jennifer Lopez at the Oscars. Which, maybe you have the bosom to pull off, but I sure don't! I had that happen when in a previous pregnancy my mom, sure that since I was a lot thinner when non-pregnant, assumed that I would fit into one of her swimsuits. Scary, scary.

    I'm glad that The Child is sleeping a bit better for you! Any verdict as to why the sleeping was off? Early jealousy of the little sibling? My youngest has been having some sleeping problems and been grumpy *constantly* for the past few days, which we think is teething.

    Awesome job on the swimming for exercise thing, though! Just don't let your determination not to use the ladder eventually bring you to be reluctant to swim at all. Exercise is fantastic. Of course, so says the lazy woman who never really exercises at all. 'Cept a few push-ups. Keep it up! They say that exercise makes for an easier labor. You can give us the verdict in a few months. :) (I've lost track of when you're due, so please don't take it as an insult if you're only a few months along.)

    Never heard of V, but I loved Firefly and Serenity, so I'm off to find out what V is.

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  2. I've been missing you. Glad it's for the best possible reason - you getting extra sleep!

    At about the stage you're at, I started panicking about having two. For the first month, my panicking was totally justified. Now that we're approaching 2 months, J has really started to get into the groove of things, R is sleeping 6 hours at night, I get a couple things done around the house each day (not enough to stay caught up, but still) and I've been putting in some work-from-home hours too.

    That last part, the pressure of having to get some work done, is actually the only snag. Plus of course with Col being home and awake only about 3 hours per day, that's rough.

    I say all that to say, if you have fewer setbacks than that - if you don't have the pressure of doing work, if you have a husband who gets home like, in the EVENING - it should even out after a month or two.

    I have had some days of the hopeless sleeplessness too - I get this panicked style of cranky and everything is this Huge Deal and Nothing Will Ever Be Okay when I have 2-3 days of under 5 hours of sleep.

    I'm not watching V per se, but I see bits of it as I wander through the living room while Col watches it. I feel kinda "meh" about it, although it has that one guy, Wat from Knight's Tale (pause to search imdb...) oh yes Alan http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0876138/ who grew up right here in Plano Texas!! and if he had lived across town would have gone to high school with Col, but he didn't, so they didn't.

    And while looking it up I guess he's one of those Firefly/Serenity characters you were talking about, so bleh me. I saw Serenity but just the once and it has been a while.

    I wish I had done some exercise while pregnant. I realize I'm threadjacking with this comment by the way, but I haven't seen you in a while so I'm going to keep going while you're a captive audience. :) Anyhow, we did go to the pool (I think I put up pictures of it on my blog) once with all the kiddos and my Belly Of Doom, and I remember being in the water, wading around, and then when I walked up the steps to leave the pool, suddenly there was this HUGE WEIGHT ON MAH BELLEH! I hadn't realized how the water was bouying up all that weight, until I lifted the weight free of the water and carried it myself. I was amazed. I did it 2-3 more times just for the oddness of it, and told myself I should go swimming more often. But then I didn't.

    as far as 2.0 kicking, my doctor claims it's because 1.0 "stretches everything out" that you can feel 2.0 more. I dunno, he's the expert, but...

    In addition to kicking ALLLLLL THEEEEE TIIIIIIIIIME, my 2.0 got hiccups all the time where 1.0 never did. And now that she's out? She gets the most INTENSE hiccups, for as much as 10 minutes at a time. That doesn't sound like much but it feels long when it's happening!

    Ok, I think that's everything.

    Also, duh I know you're not online as much but (proud kid to mom style whine) heyyyyyyyyy.... looooook! I have been posting every day! Come and seeeeeee iiiiiit!!

    Ok, that's enough of that. Hope you're enjoying your sleep. I am about to go get a little, myself. :)

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  3. also, my captcha was carfroo. i like that. :)

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