Thursday, August 16, 2012

weary

I am so tired that I feel hungover, but I assure you that I've not had anything to drink in months.

I'm rolling into my third trimester without much poise or grace.  I can feel the chronic fatigue starting to set in, and although I know from experience that this, too, shall pass, it's really hard to focus on that when you're in a fog.

Being tired makes me cry.

When I yawn my eyes water.  This is not pregnancy-related; I've done this all my life.  I looked it up once, figuring I was just plumbed wrong.  Turns out there are little muscles in your eyes that contract when you yawn, wetting your eyes with tears.  Mine must be the most tone muscles in my body because it ends up making my eyes drip tears all day long.

Some people flex muscles and look amazing.  I flex muscles and it looks like I'm crying.  (I think this is irony, right?  I'm too tired to access that nook of my brain right now.  I think it's cosmic irony, which artsy-fartsy literary types argue isn't really irony at all.)

I've been up since about 2:30 with Baby.  I made every effort to stay in my bed until about 4am, at which point I was just mad that I couldn't sleep and moved to the living room couch to try to rest.  This wasn't one of my brighter ideas, but you can't expect genius when your exhausted brain is running on fumes.  I tossed out here for about 45 minutes before I decided to forget it and just be up for today.

I learned in my last pregnancy to just try not to look at the clock when this happens.  Looking at the clock just makes me mad because I roll over thinking that it's got to have been 30-40 minutes since I last looked at the clock, only to see that it's only been about three minutes instead.  I know this, but I looked anyway this morning.  I can't make a direct correlation that this was the only reason I'm awake, but I am well aware of its contribution.

PSA:  The most stupid, insincere thing you can say to a pregnant lady who is exhausted is that this is good practice for being tired after the baby comes.

I read an article once that said pregnant lady brains actually shrink in the third trimester.  I can't remember if it was hormone-induced or fatigue-induced, but it was verified with MRIs.  It wasn't a huge shrinkage, but it was real and it was documented.  I remember after my last pregnancy Baby was about 5-6 months old before it hit me one day that I felt normal again.

By my calculations I've got about 12 more weeks of sleeping poorly related to the pregnancy.  Then the baby will be born.  Afterwards I'll still sleep poorly, but I'll be better rested and sleep better when I do get to sleep.  Then by May-June of next year I may feel human again.

Time to wake everybody else up.  This morning it will take a conscious effort to do this task with kindness.

Sunday, August 05, 2012

artsy-fartsy

 We never really had a "theme" to Baby's room, other than girl stuff hand-me-overs and hand-me-downs.  This bothered many of our friends, but not us.  We wanted to wait to see what Baby was into to give her some say in decor.

We've decided to put Runt and Baby in a bedroom together.  It'll take a little moving around, but we are hopeful that it will work out.  We've also decided it's time  to consult Baby for ideas for a theme... and we've all agreed on female super heroes.

The Hater is a comic book nerd and couldn't be happier.  I'm excited that it's empowering.  Baby is picking up on our excitement but really doesn't get it yet.

The problem is that official super hero wall art is out of our budget range, so we're having to be creative.  I'm super excited with what we've come up with so far:



Baby painted these by herself.  I still lack sealing them - and I've not decided if I want to go over the letters with glow-in-the-dark paint or not.  The part of me who lived with a theater major for several years in college keeps whispering, "Less is more!", but it's met with the part of me who thinks glow in the dark paint would make it awesome.

I have one more canvas, but haven't thought of what I want it to say.  Plus I have a big piece of foam core that I plan on using to actually incorporate the super heroes.

This is pre-nesting.  My parents will bring the crib and baby sundries in September.  And I'm not in the mood to start washing Baby's things in the baby detergent for Runt yet.  So here we are.

Another exciting weekend at home.  There is no paint on the kitchen table, qualifying this as a great success.  On the other hand we do have a little bit of glitter everywhere...