Priceless

Standing in the dinner line at Kripalu, tray full of veggies and something made with seitan. One one side is Lunchboy, who is, I guarantee, the only person in the room wearing a T-shirt that says "Body by Nintendo." On the other side is a Swami. A real Swami. I find this out when someone across the buffet says "Hey Swami, how's your day been?" And he says, "Fine, thank you."

Unprepared

We are out in the Berkshires for the long weekend and it is so lovely here. I took Lunchboy to Kripalu yesterday. We had yummy, healthy food and walked around and just being there relaxed me like it always does. Until I noticed that the trees are starting to turn. Not yet!! I am so unprepared for fall. It feels like the summer raced by and I guess it did -- I think I slept it away. Lunchboy keeps reassuring me that I'll be generating lots of extra heat this winter and that will make the cold weather more bearable but I just want summer to stay!

We're off to go laze by a lake today. Maybe we'll go back to Kripalu again later on --I really didn't want to leave. It's such a special place to me but usually I'm ready to go home after a few days because I miss my love, but when he's there I could stay for a long, long time. Though I think he'd lose his mind over the lack of meat and the restrictions on cell phone and computer use. He ate dinner happily last night but under his breath he kept muttering "so where's the Burger King? Why can't I turn on my phone?"

And a big round of applause for privacy

After years of obsessing about curtains and fretting over whether our weird and nosy neighbors could see into our house, we finally pulled the trigger on some grownup window treatments for the bedroom and living room. Lunchboy had some fun with the top-down bottom-up feature. Heh.

When you come up for air

I went to my first prenatal yoga class on Sunday night. This was something I'd been thinking of doing for a few weeks but usually by 7pm on Sundays I am semi-comatose on the couch and the idea of getting myself to anything other than bed is kind of a stretch. This, however, turned out to be only part of my procrastination. When I walked into the studio, it was immediately clear to me why I have been feeling ambiguous:

1. I was by far the least pregnant person in the class.

2. All the other, more-pregnant ladies were very in touch with their developing maternal selves. They talked about doulas and nurseries and feelings and such.

3. My primary motivation was that my lower back had kind of been hurting.

4. I do not have a doula.

5. I have not thought about the nursery. In fact, we are really unsure about where we are going to put the kid period.

6. Pregnancy really is a club. I used to think that, like fashion, one day you were in and the next you were out, but no this is not true. Even when you are technically in, you are not necessarily in. Or at least I felt very much like I was sitting in the audience rather than walking the runway (and now I leave that analogy alone).

In all seriousness, the class made me realize that I've been focusing almost to the point of exclusion on the physical side of this and have not allowed myself to think at all about the emotional side. This was not easy to realize because it came along with the awareness that I also have not really accepted that this is actually happening. I still feel like every day is just that--one more day, a gift, something to be experienced in the moment, but I haven't let myself plan at all. It's much easier to make fun of the planning in my head because frankly it feels like it's happening to someone else and I am simply a ravenous, exhausted observer who somehow needs maternity pants. But there I was, on my mat, surrounded by people who were so happy to be putting together their new crib and I spent the entire class on the verge of tears.

The instructor kept telling us to put our hands on our bellies and connect to the baby, but I still have trouble connecting a baby with what I feel right now. They seem like two different things. I am hoping that will change in two weeks, when we find out what we're having.

Finally!

Window before:



Window after:

A post in which I do not whine about food

I was about to get all hormonal and apologetic for being so whiny in my last few posts and then I read this. Now I say, whining will happen. Am I happy and grateful to be pregnant? Hell yes. Is it always comfortable? JHFC no. I will let Fluffy say the rest, as she is way funnier than me.

Also, I love watermelon.

Fooded out

I am sick sick sick of food. Food is my master. It rules my day (and sometimes my night, too). I am supposed to eat what feels like a ginormous amount of food every day but am doing a poor job of it. This is partly because I am sick to death of the foods my body continues to crave. Yes, I am having an intimate and almost erotic relationship with cheese these days. But even that's starting to get old. Lunchboy jokes that we should just buy a few cows because other than peanut butter, the things I seem to want most are beef and various dairy products. Please tell me my stomach will expand its horizons because the idea of 5 more months of this? I am not sure how people stay on Atkins.

In the midst of our Olympics-watching this weekend, we caught a mini-bio of Michael Phelps that focused less on his bod than on his crazy training and diet requirements. Really, I think Bob Costas just has a huge crush on Michael Phelps. A few weeks ago, he did a pool-side interview with Phelps in which, after commenting on how Phelps swims like a fish (bet he's never heard THAT one before), he asked whether Phelps could also communicate telepathically with fish. Needless to say, that's when I lost all respect for Bob Costas.

Anyhoo. Mr. Phelps there spends 5 hours a day in the pool and says he is supposed to eat "between 8,000 and 10,000 calories a day." This was so hard to comprehend that I think it broke my head. If I had not just hoovered as much black bean beef into my mouth as possible moments earlier, this might have sent me to the kitchen, filled with renewed inspiration and determination. I do not think I could eat that much even if I was trying very consciously. Maybe if there was an In-N-Out Burger on the east coast. Mmmm, cheeseburgers. But still. Swimming schwimming. Michael Phelps is my new food hero.

It's all in the timing

Kid is due two days after the Superbowl.

It's raining and I'm cranky

The possibility that pegged jeans are being forced back into fashion is making me cringe. I didn't get the pegged thing even when it was big in the 80s. Not only did the cool kids peg their jeans, they knew HOW to peg their jeans and I definitely did not. I needed someone to sit me down and show me that you had to fold the cuff over itself before rolling it up. But no one ever did, so I just rolled up my cuffs and winced as they swished around my ankles. I was that out of it when it came to clothes.

It's entirely possible that I'm feeling sensitive about the pegged jeans thing because right now Facebook is bringing up all kinds of memories and baggage from the past that I am now remembering I left behind me ON PURPOSE. Hormones and high school were a bad mix then and they aren't doing me any favors now. "Join Facebook!!" everyone said. "Join my mob on Facebook!" They didn't mention that seeing the names of all those people I went to college to get away from would inspire several nights' worth of high school nightmares. Thank you, hormones. It's so much fun dreaming that the cool kids are being spare in their friend invites and very picky in the ones they accept--I love feeling inadequate because of a website. And yes, I'm just a little oversensitive!


Things I would like:

to never hear another word about Brett Favre

to fit into my pants again

to leave all those stupid freshman year hookups where they belonged--in freshman year, not in my inbox attached to a friend request.


Now I would like another grilled cheese, yespleasethankyou.

Backlog

1. If you ever happen to find yourself knocked up right before a cross-country road trip? I highly, HIGHLY recommend staying home. Unless you are one of those lucky women who somehow doesn't find themselves saddled with morning sickness. I am not one of those women. As excited as we were about the drive, we discovered quickly that 24-7 exhaustion does not mesh well with long days of driving. Also, sitting in a car for 10-14 hours a day when bloated? Less than comfortable. I won't even get into the peeing thing except to say that it's hard to make progress when you're stopping roughly every 75 miles (though it does make for a scenic tour of statewide rest stops). Then there's the food thing. Morning sickness + road food = very, very interesting. I pretty much subsisted on french fries and milk shakes until we hit South Dakota, when we came across a Perkins (like the IHOP of the Midwest), which was a godsend because then I could stuff myself with pancakes and eggs for dinner as often as possible. Let me say again how much I loved Wisconsin and its plethora of Interstate cheese shops. When we finally got home I slept for two days. It was a lot.

2. You know that weird sense of guilt you get when you switch hairdressers and you feel like a total traitor? Changing OBs feels the same way, except your hairdresser doesn't get to look at your uterus. Also, hairdressers don't usually give you a line about how popular their practices are and how important it is to create a relationship with your provider. Bite me. Anyway, last Thursday I broke up with one doctor (this time we shopped around and decided on one of three really good people) and then bumped into my old hairdresser on Boylston on my way to get food. Matilda cut me hair for like 8 years but I got sick of driving to Arlington. "Where have you been??" she asks. "I've been thinking about you!" eeeep. Double guilt.

3. The eating for two thing is no joke. Though the morning sickness is mostly gone (thank god), I seem to have lost my appetite. Everyone says that your appetite gets better in the second trimester but so far I just feel full all the time. This makes eating in general, but in particular eating the voluminous quantities I am apparently supposed to be eating, kind of hard. I am basically force feeding myself on an hourly basis. On Friday I found out that eating only when you're hungry is not only wrong, it will f* you up. As in, get incoherent, faint, and feel like your blood pressure is sky high. The doctor said go home, elevate my feet, and eat as much protein as possible. Lunchboy giggles whenever the subject of protein comes up, but at the risk of TMI, I will say that when having a toothbrush pass your lips makes you hurl in the sink, putting anything else in there is only asking for something ugly to happen. So peanut butter it is. I feel like a goose with a funnel down its throat, being primed for fois gras.