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Tonight Michael and I had the little neighbor girl sit in our house while we went for a nice little trail run. Our neighbor is in eighth grade and it was her first real babysitting gig… of course Magnus and Hunter were in bed before she arrived, but that still counts, right?
Best money we’ve spent in a long time.
I found this to be disturbing.
Very disturbing.
Three twenty-six in the morning and I am awake. Primarily because I am so congested I cannot breathe. I may have called poison control to make sure that I didn’t damage my lungs by breathing spider poison spray that we sprayed in the kitchen yesterday. (Hundreds of baby spiders had hatched behind the cable outlet cover and spread themselves out from there…) Of course I only did that because a google search led me to some articles on the effects of inhaling poison gas during World War I and I am too tired to be completely rational.
I hear my son. He is awake in his room playing with the spinning toy that we attatched to the outer edge of his crib to fix the flat spot on his head by redirecting his attention. He’s only recently realized that he can control his hands.
I’m worried that he’ll catch this cold because it feels like it’s going to be a bad one.
I’m also annoyed. Where would I have caught such a thing? I have limited contact with the outside world, and, I wash my hands like a fiend. Probably from Magnus’s well-baby check. I hate the doctor’s office.
The hot water with lemon is helping… am going to try to go back to sleep.
Last night, Hunter achieved a new milestone… she has learned to throw up in a bucket. (If she wakes up in time and/or we arrive in time to help her out of bed…)
Why do stomach flus always strike children at night? And how many times are we going to be barfed on in the course of our parenting career?
The good news is, we don’t think it’s H1N1 Influenza A (a.k.a. Swine Flu, a.k.a. Mexican Flu, a.k.a., North American Flu, a.k.a. I forgot what the dumbass P.C. Euros are calling it…) as Hunter doesn’t have any other symptoms. Though there was that moment of, we did go to San Diego a couple of weeks ago, and this sort of thing would happen to us… And who knows, depending on how she does this morning, I may yet take her to the doctor.
I should also add that my husband and I are patriots. We did exactly what President Obama told us we should do… we washed our hands after every contact we had with our sick child. It’s a really good thing he suggested this because otherwise it might not have occurred to us to do so. Sadly, it seems we may be raising a bit of an insurrectionist… Hunter had to be reminded to cover her mouth when she coughed.
I think we may also consider following Vice President Biden’s sage advice and not go anywhere, ever. (?!)
Hunter sure is a trooper though… not once did she cry, and when I’d stand there and stroke her face, she’d stare up and me and smile, saying things like “I love you too” and “Sweet dreams.”
Oh, what will the rest of the day bring?
“There is a tide in the affairs of men…” That’s what my OBGYN said when he broke my water shortly before I gave birth to Magnus. He thought he was funny and he knew I would get the reference. He followed that little joke with another, “Gives new meaning to the phrase ‘wet spot’.” Nice.
In this, the fifth month after giving birth to a giant child, I find that there are still tides. In the beginning, I noticed that I was having less trouble with uh, leakage, after giving birth to Magnus than I did after Hunter. It occurred to me, only recently, that Magnus probably damaged something that gave things the illusion of working better. But they don’t.
Let’s just say this: I’ve noticed that running first thing in the morning before consuming copious amounts of liquid is good and that running any time in the afternoon, regardless of liquid consumption is bad. New meaning to the phrase wet spot indeed.
So the hits just keep on coming. Not only is the realignment of hormones after childbirth absolutely thrilling… the flirtation with depression, the fact that my hair is falling out by the fist-full, the seventy pounds that is not shedding itself. But there are things that will never be the same again… bladder control, the alignment of my hips, the fact that my feet have grown, or spread, rather. And depending on how all this ‘breastfeeding’ works out, a breast augmentation is not off the table.
The point is, having children is hard on your body and bad for morale. And while I can finally fit into some of my pre-pregnancy “fat” clothes (ah, zippers and buttons, how I’ve missed you…), I still have a long way to go.
Yay.
My husband and I have made a deal. We’re going to do our best to be back in shape by our anniversary at which time we are going to take some sort of a swimsuit mini-break.
To that end, Michael has been dieting and working out, already losing nine pounds. I am choosing not to diet, but, have decided to add some structure to my workout schedule… i.e., having one that includes more than occasional walks with a fifteen pound weight strapped to my front.
Yesterday I started my default weight-lifting program. It’s a short hand weight workout that I found in a Shape magazine years ago. Hits all the major muscle groups and I can do it in my living room. Of course, as often happens, the mind remembers more than the body is capable of doing and I am probably weaker than I have been since I was twelve years old. Not probably. I am weaker than I have been since I was twelve years old.
Long story short, I can barely move this morning.
It is official. I am definitely pregnant.
I can no longer fit into any of my pre-pregnancy clothing. I have a not-so-thin layer of fat over my entire body, the integrity of my belly button is beginning to be compromised, and these huge things bolted to my chest are not mine.
Walking and gardening are beginning to feel like exercise, and, I have stopped carrying my giant daughter up and down the stairs. I’ve also been getting headaches, which I never get, and, do not enjoy.
This baby is much different from Hunter. Unlike his sister, this one doesn’t like spicy food, and, actually gave me the first case of heartburn I have ever had in my entire life. (Of course I did eat a meatball sub with jalapenos shortly before the occurrence… but still…) All this baby wants to eat is blue berries, plain yogurt, plain pasta, and bread. I keep forcing spicy food on him and he rewards my efforts with stomach aches.
But perhaps the biggest indignity of being pregnant is the fear of the sneeze. A fear made all the more pertinent by the fact that my summer cold (which my doctor told me would take twice as long to clear up in my “condition”) is causing me to sneeze with regularity. The problem is that the expanding uterus puts pressure on the contracting bladder, and, well, sometimes, during a sneeze for example, the liquid in said bladder cannot be contained.
One of the big things that no one mentions about having a baby is how likely it is that you will never be in command of your bladder again. Am finding this phenomenon to be much worse with the new pregnancy, and, wetting yourself while sneezing after you just went to the bathroom is enough to reduce a hormonal woman to tears… much to the chagrin of my husband.
Only twenty-three more weeks to go…
I’ve had a sore neck. A sore neck without remembering any sort of trauma. That, coupled with five minutes on webmd, and I became convinced that I had meningitis.
Michael assured me that I did not have meningitis, and, I am not prone to freaking out about things like this, but, something was definitely wrong. If I had meningitis, what about Hunter? What about the sea monkey?
I woke up later that night alone in our bed with a really sore neck. I could see just enough blue light coming from downstairs to know that Michael was on the couch scouring ebay in the wee hours of the morning. I went downstairs for a glass of water and insisted to my husband that something was wrong with me. After some discussion, (“I have meningitis.” “You don’t have meningitis.” “Something is not right.” “Do you want to go to the hospital right now?” “No…”) he started his own websearch on meningitis. Webmd wouldn’t load, and, I decided to go back to bed.
I must have fallen back asleep because I awoke to Michael taking hold of my hands, then reaching under the covers for my feet he said, “If you have meningitis, your hands and feet will be cold.” Feeling my feet, “Your hands and feet are not cold.” He then questioned me about headache and nausea, felt my forehead for fever and told me about the black rash I might have that wouldn’t go away if pressed with a glass. “Do you want to check for the rash?”
Two o’clock in the morning and I strip down in our bathroom so my husband can inspect my skin for a rash.
Turns out I just have a sore neck. Maybe I slept on it wrong.
At least my husband thinks I’m funny.
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