Pregnant women are smug

An Italian made this video. What English sounds like to foreigners (American English, specifically):



Wild, right? I keep straining to understand the lyrics, even though I know it's complete gibberish.

(Apparently this has been around for a while.)

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This is one of my favorites at the moment. It's probably only funny if you've known someone like this or--horrors!--caught the same tendencies in yourself (I know I have, a little--a very little, of course).

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I'm supposed to be packing right now for another fun-filled road trip; instead I'm sitting on the couch in my pajamas fiddling with the Internet. I manage to feel okay about this because at least I'm not sitting on my couch doing lines of coke.

Speaking of which, this baby? 2.0? NEVER STOPS MOVING. I don't know who is giving her the drugs, but it's like she's constantly high. Grace was given to bursts of movement, usually violent but pretty sporadic. This one, on the other hand, makes my stomach look like a bubbling cauldron all day long. If you're not into babies and stuff, it's probably a little creepy. In fact, I'm totally into babies and stuff, and I sometimes find it a little creepy. Any second now Sigourney Weaver will pop out from around a corner and shoot me in the torso before my little passenger can hurtle teeth-first out of my chest cavity.

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So, packing. Yes. Last time, I spent a day packing and two days before that planning, and we ended up with way more crap than we ever needed. So, this time I'm going it in the usual manner: pack everything at the last minute, hope it all fits into one suitcase, and just assume we won't forget anything vitally important. I do have some laundry going. And a very short list (I stopped writing things down on it a few hours ago when something shiny flickered in my peripheral vision). There is that.

I really love making lists. In my mind, I'm a list-maker, a really organized person (if only I could stay focused for more than five minutes). And if I stick to them, they really are helpful. Problem is, my house is littered with half-made lists, some of which I can't even understand. Every time I clean around here, I find at least six scraps of paper like these:

-plastic
-tape
-drill bits
-wipe down radiator
-hair dryer
-8:00
-$3

And I stare at it for at least ten minutes before giving up on ever figuring out what Project I'd been working on that day.

There have been a lot of Projects lately. Nesting has been vicious this time around, probably because I'm stuck inside all the time while Wisconsin does its best to kill my soul. These Projects always start around the beginning of The Child's naptime, or when James gets home from work, or when The Child goes to bed. James likes the last kind the best because it means I try to drag him into it. Three nights ago it was clearing out the office closet and giving him boxes to take down to The Pit of Despair the basement. Two nights ago it was hanging a set of curtains in the living room (really boring tan curtains that don't really match very well, but that's what happens when you have accidental pink and burgundy walls). Last night it was putting up plastic on the windows. We were going to watch a movie, but I had Just This One Thing to Do, and it Will Save Us Money! (on heating), and by the time we sat down to our movie it was 11:00, and I started dozing off about twenty minutes in.

Poor James. I'm either lazy, shiftless housewife who doesn't do anything, or I'm maniacally driven housewife who cannot stop moving, and oh, can you just give me a hand here for just an hour second, please? He was raised by a woman who somehow managed to keep a huge house clean, a cat and two dogs happy, and three men well-fed. Sometimes I wonder what he was thinking marrying me. It must be the hypnotic powers of my Forehead of Doom.

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Okay, it is time to pack. For real. I just heard a baby scream, so we may not get a three-hour nap today after all, and it's really hard to pack with an irrational dwarf-like creature bumping around the house behind you on your pant legs.

Maybe if I could convince Pregnant Brain that packing was a Project, it would get done faster.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

I need to stop it with the parentheses

I have been on a quest for a really good pickle for weeks now. The really salty ones they give you in restaurants. Also, yes, I realize those two sentences could sound really dirty if your mind were in the gutter, but I know you are all ladies and gentlemen. Ahem. So, pickles! A quest! The only three kinds at our local grocery stores were Vlasic (ho hum), Milwaukee's (ok in small quantity) and Roundy's (never tried). None were what I was looking for, and this Crazy Pregnant Lady is obsessed with pickles, like so many movie cliches. And then! A Twitter friend recommended Claussen pickles, and I was perplexed. I cannot find Claussen anywhere! And then! Today! Finally! Exclamation point! I was walking past the bacon and sausage (gutter minds, keep your comments to yourselves), and there, on the shelf, were the Claussen pickles. A whole shelf full of them.

And I ate a whole jar tonight. They were THAT good. And now I'm drinking the juice. I will regret this later, but people, these are the best pickles ever in the world, amen.

(Thank you, Twitter friend)

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I am acquainted with a couple of internet ladies who just had babies. And these babies, they have SO MUCH HAIR. I am no longer the hairy baby queen, which would make me sad and jealous, except these babies are so cute as to be edible. Also, fat.

I'm not bringing this up just to talk about hair. I'm bringing this up because these soft, fuzzy babies are making me insane. March is eons away, light years, even (and I'm in a rickshaw, not a space ship)! I want my baby now, darn it. Well, except I don't. He would be all unhealthy and such if that were to happen.

(I only say "he" because I think he's a he, and so I call him that. But we don't find out until the 12th. If he cooperates.)

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I CHOPPED my hair. I do not think it has ever been this short before. People, I love it. LOVE. I have attempted to take pictures, but they all look terrible. I do not do pictures. My avatar is pretty much the best picture of me ever, which is why I have had it up for years and years even though my hair is back to blond, and it has not been that long in forever. And I still don't think it looks anything like me. Not that I think I'm Heidi Klum or anything, but I swear my nose is not that large, and I do not ordinarily look stupidly smug.

Anyway. I chopped it. Hacked it right off. And got some highlights. The next day, I woke up, took a shower, and attempted to blow-dry it to what it looked like the day before. HAH! Silly Naomi. Even though my stylist doesn't do much in the way of styling (she likes to cut it and style in ways that I can deal with it, and she knows I have fourteen thumbs when it comes to doing hair), I can still never get it the same. I walk out with this fabulous haircut, and the next day it's like a bad hangover mingled with lots of regret over stupid things you've done the day before (I actually have not experienced this--I don't think--, but I have seen enough movies).

My hair, when it air dries (and when I blow-dry it, but to a lesser degree), does this Farrah Faucett swoop off one side of my head. And, unfortunately, I do not possess Farrah Faucett's DNA, and I cannot pull of such a look. I just look like an idiot. Like Zac Efron (circa High School Musical, and can I just say I'm really glad that haircut is going out of style?) caught in a violent sideways wind.

So instead of crying, like I wanted to do, I bought a cheap flat iron. And now I wish I'd bought one six years ago. People, it fixes everything. Everything! I can now let my hair air dry, and then when I'm ready to go out, three quick swipes on the swoopy parts of my head, and hello, normal hair! It's a beautiful thing. And it only cost $15.

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Guess what I just spilled all over the couch. Yeah, that's right. Pickle juice! It will go nicely with the milk I spilled there three days ago. The cover is washable, but a little of each got into the cushion itself, and I'm sure that's going to be fragrant in a couple of days.

I do not know why I keep doing this (a couple months ago it was a giant glass of water). I set the glass up against the back of the couch and say to myself, "Okay, self, glass of liquid on the couch. Remember not to tip it over." And then five minutes later I kneel over the back of my couch to get a cord for my laptop, or I lie down, or I gesture expansively, and whoops! a couch baptism!

Moron.

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I had another dentist appointment last Monday. And I enjoyed it. These people are made of magic. And my teeth feel beautiful and shiny. Wales Dental Arts, people.

(Not in the UK. Wales, Wisconsin)

Oh, and I now own 47 toothbrushes and samples of floss and toothpaste. (If I brush my teeth seldom enough and have to keep going to the dentist, we will end up saving money, yes?) And the hygienist gave me a kid's toothbrush just because I mentioned that The Child is obsessed with the things.

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You may have noticed that I have not mentioned The Child's sleep habits yet. That is because I do not want to jinx anything. Not that I'm superstitious.

(But I kind of am)

Ten hours of sleep!

(wrote this first part about a week ago)

The Child has discovered the joys of blueberries. They were on special today, and I am helpless in the face of fresh berries. So is The Child, apparently. I put some on her high chair, she started snarfing them up like lines of cocaine, and two minutes later I heard retching. There's Grace with 47 blueberries crammed in her mouth. Way to go, kid. Now, she has learned to chew and swallow each bite before the next one comes; I guess blueberries are just so freaking amazing that clear airways suddenly become strangely unimportant.

Oh, but it is the funniest thing ever when she gets a sour one in her mouth. I wish I could get a picture of that face. It's like if a lemur ran face-first into a brick wall and then his face stuck like that, and then he ate a lemon.

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People, I am already in maternity clothes. Starting at 8 weeks. This is insane. For now, it has more to do with what I eat and how much, but still. There is a pouch. I could wear normal clothing, as I don't really have a baby bump, per se, but I do have what looks like a beer gut. Or an I-eat-way-too-many-doughnuts bump. See, I still have weird postpartum stomach pouch, and even though my belly itself is not yet sticking out, I still can't suck it in anymore.

I very much want to buy a whole package of white tank tops and some cigars and cans of cheap beer and hang out on my front porch with them arranged around me. I should probably also get some aviator glasses.

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We got basic cable a few months ago, and now that all my evening shows are no longer in season, I never watch TV. The only things on are soap operas (yuck), infomercials (sometimes fun, but usually too shouty), Spanish-language TV (which I love, but is strangely exhausting), and religious programming. And then! I discovered MeTV. All the Matlock and Hawaii Five-O a girl could ever want.

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I am very sorry, but I completely forgot to document Grace's atrocious haircut. Now she's grown into it, and it looks pretty cute. In a few days or weeks I'm hoping to finally feel myself again, and then we'll be back to the crazed photo-snapping of yestermonths.

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My sister is in the area this week, which is the best thing ever. Today they are going to a baseball game, which was not my cup of tea at the moment, so I'm staying home today. My sister is awesome, but it's nice to have a break from driving to and from the Milwaukee area to visit. I crashed last night at 10:30 and woke up around 6:30/7:00. It was GLORIOUS. I feel like a million dollars today.

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I'm starving. I need to go hunt down something I can eat. Aversions and nausea have been much, much better (times a thousand), but it's still something of a quest to discover the day's Holy Food Grail. I think today it is fruit (as usual) and potatoes of any variety. We shall see.