Yesterday was my birthday. I am 31. This terrifies me somewhat. Friday is the end of my work week--and the beginning of my leave. This excites me. Next Tuesday I'll be 37 weeks. Full term. Not sure what to think about this. I am on auto-pilot until then. Wishing I could just hit fast forward.
Photo by M. Brott.
Motherhood
This love /
Bean is sick. Since starting preschool it's been a nonstop barrage of sick all winter--for him, for me, for everyone in our family. It makes my heart ache whenever he's sick. I want to just wrap him up, snug him into a pocket like a kangaroo; keep him close. Right now he's next to me on the couch breathing faster than usual, eyelids heavy. My little boy. ***
On the way home he looked out the window at a passing church. "Who lives in that castle?" he asked.
"That's not a castle," I replied, "It's a church."
"What do they do there?" he asks, earnestly, his question empty of irony.
How do you answer this to a four year old who hasn't gone to church? It's not that I don't want to bring him--it's that I haven't found a place that feels right, that feels free and expansive and generous and un-dogmatic.
I grew up with so much faith in my house--my father was a minister in fact, in a small esoteric church whose brand of Christianity was at once both utterly progressive and utterly archaic. Religion saturated everything my family did in some way: from church on Sunday among a forest of adult knees and elbows; to the way we celebrated holidays, or said grace over meals, or prayers before bed.
On one hand this certain web of faith held me, buoyed me up, carried me through childhood with a certain cyclical rhythm that was satisfying and uncomplicated. On the other, it made me feel like a pushpin stuck into a map. You are here, this is the way--the right way--possibly the only way. Rigid, certain, definite.
As an adult, it didn't quite fit--nor did anything else. I feel closest to God in the middle of nature; when the sky is the color of melon and ice and opal; when the grass is wet with dew; when, sitting very still, I am witness to wild animals speaking to each other or shooting stars falling.
"They talk to God," I answer.
Bean is quiet for a moment. Then he says, "Do they see God there?"
"No," I say. But then I change my mind. "Maybe they do."
Who am I to say? Who is anyone? As Rumi says, 'There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth."
Bean nods. "God is in all of the churches."
Now it is my turn to nod. "You're right," I say.
"But I can't figure out if God is a he or a she," he says almost as a question. Then after a moment. "I think its a she."
I exhale. On the telephone wires above a faded red barn, pigeons, silhouettes against the paling sky. "I think you're probably right," I say.
*** We listen to Feist, side by side in a pale circle of light. His fever climbs. He falls asleep. All I want is to stay home with him tomorrow, to hold him close. He is fitful. Wakes. Turns to me, eyes glassy, lashes long. "I love you," he whispers.
This is the part you can't even begin to convey to someone who isn't a parent. This, this breathless wonder, this enormous love.
35 Weeks /
In the meantime everything feels like it's been taking place in slow motion. Everything takes effort: putting on winter boots, painting my toes (yes, I still can), vacuuming. Mostly I am counting the days--9 to be exact--until I am done with work. I am eager to be on leave. Eager to be home, nesting, puttering, blogging regularly. I know I've been a terrible blogger. I miss it, but I feel like I'm on energy saver mode, trying to get through these last couple of weeks at work where twenty-two kiddos are trying to devour me daily.
I need distraction. What are some new blogs you've been reading? Or some favorites (not already listed on my sidebar.)
Wondering: /
Why are people compelled to say things like: "You had better enjoy the last few weeks with just one, because two is not the same. It's so much harder."
Our holiday in photos /
I keep wishing that my thoughts could somehow be automatically transcribed here so that I could record all the good and delicious moments that have happened over the past couple of days. I am hoping a handful of photos will serve for the thousands of words that I could write, were I to be inclined (but am not.) Firstly, here is the Advent Box I made for Bean this year. Remember the one I made last year? This one was significantly smaller and at his height--so that he developed the ridiculously adorable routine of waking up and running downstairs first thing (dragging his blanket no less) to find out what the Advent Fairy brought. I made a note with a tiny little envelope and a vintage stamp for every day that came along with a small gift or treasure. Some major hits were: a Chinese Yo Yo, a small wind-up bulldozer, heart shaped post-it notes, a single large sugar-coated gummy candy, a music box that played The Pink Panther theme song, and a sparkly yellow pen with a little fluffy duck at the top.
Next, I achieved the unimaginable this year--and baked, from scratch, an entire gingerbread train--something Bean saw in a magazine and swooned over. All three of us decorated it together in the kitchen, getting frosting on our fingers. DH and I kept harping on Bean about eating the icing--but then we looked at each other and realized, who are we kidding? It's Christmas and the kid is decorating a freaking gingerbread train. He's going to eat the icing. DH made the heart out of candy canes on the caboose.
Bean got sick a few days before Christmas. Woke up with a blazing fever, and spent the day on the couch feeling rather miserable. Still, we did end up going out and cutting down a tree, and decorating it made his entire day. The way he oohed and squealed as he unwrapped each ornament made it almost as fun as Christmas morning. Then he quite artistically clumped all the ornaments together in arrangements of twos and threes on the lower portions of the tree.
Christmas morning Bean woke up later than usual. We were expecting not-even-light-out early, but he slept until about 7:30 and then came into our room (dragging his blanket again) for a snuggle before sitting straight up and asking, "Did Santa come?" We made him sit at the top of the stairs while we went down & turned on the tree lights. When he came downstairs, the look on his face was wide-eyed. I think it's the first year he's actually really gotten the idea of Christmas. We let him open his stocking while we went about preparing coffee and fruit salad and dried cherry scones to tide us over during the real business of unwrapping once the grandparents arrived. (Note his awesome pink bunny slippers--as per his specific request.)
By afternoon, we snacked on imported dried salami, fresh mozzarella, and aged vinegar and lounged. Bean was more than content to spend hours with his new remote control fire truck, which was his number one request from Santa.
I was also more than content to play with my goodies. DH was beyond generous and lovely this year, and spoiled me rotten. Soo many fun goodies, including a little Olympus Stylus 1030SW so that I can have a camera with me at all times. Not even close to replacing my beloved Cannon EOS20D, but fantastic to slip into my pocket and take along on trips downtown, or to document impromptu sledding adventure.
All in all, it's been such a good couple of days--and I'm off for several more, which thrills me to no end. I am nesting. Washing baby clothes and setting up the crib.
How was your holiday? What are five things that you loved?
Stubborn /
What do you do when your almost four year old refuses to: A) EVER blow his nose under any circumstances, especially when he desperately needs to and is suffering from a head cold
B) Wear a sweatshirt/sweater even though it is already in the thirties here and COLD
C) Eat anything offered to him including any and all foods he used to willingly eat
Because right now Bean is doing all of the above, and it is making me crazy.
Guess what? /
It's a boy! I'm thrilled. I've always pictured myself being the mama of boys.
Exhibit A: Bean will clearly be the world's best brother.
Exhibit B: Indubitably boy. (His leg is tucked up under him. It's a direct crotch shot...which I thought twice about posting on the Internet, but then I thought about the 5 months of nausea and general malease he's caused and I felt perfectly fine with it.)
Gratuitous cute ultrasound pic: thumbs up!
Fumbling /
I’ve been fumbling my way along the frayed thread of balance lately. Trying to keep keel down in the turbulence of being a full time mama and a full time teacher and sometimes a writer too, although words are getting a fragment of my attention these days.
I’m not quite feeling better. Not worse, certainly, and much improved, but still not the hale and wholesome self I was before this small sprout took up residency in my uterus. It’s draining in this abstract way I can hardly pinpoint or explain. I’m making a baby. Even though I am not actually responsible for orchestrating any of it, thankfully.
Inside the growing curve of my belly I harbor a tiny vermillion fish of a being. One that flips and flutters and kicks at the least expensive time. Apparently, it’s the size of a tomato. Next week I find out what, so it can no longer be it.
And there is something about this process that is draining, or, well, more like an alien invasion. A part of me has been taken over, my energy diverted.
Bean senses this increasingly now, I think. In the past two weeks he’s suddenly gotten more needy, more vehement in his tantrums, more urgent in his desire to cover me with butterfly kisses and snuggle on the couch.
Or maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the baby and everything to do with the fact that two days a week he’s a school kid now, and he’s never been one. Two days a week he’s one of many, not the only one; and while he’s there away from me and from DH he’s also discovering that if he can leave us, we can leave him.
It’s a fluttery, unsure time for the both of us. And as a result, there are days where every single thing is messy and tangled and unpleasant. Where tears spring when the wrong spoon is offered, when a sweatshirt is suggested, when snack has to be one of the two choices offered and not cookies or Bunny Grahams or any of the other delicacies he’s requesting.
But there are also days where he wraps me in gorilla hugs. Where he sees that I’m tired and that guests are coming and the house needs cleaning and he quietly goes to his toys and starts putting them away without being asked, and then follows me around closely doing whatever I ask him to do. Every single moment of parenting is like this, isn’t it? On the one hand utter sweetness; on the other anguish.
Things I want to know: /
... If every 3 ½ year old goes through a phase of DISAGREABLE that involves rejecting every choice and every option presented to him, and also often involves throwing himself to the floor in sobbing dramatics when told that those are his only choices, or even, at his very worst, saying, No Mommy! You listen to me! when told to listen. And also…
If the rest of the world really thinks Palin is a charming and gorgeous as Pakistan’s president does (ick.)
Why anyone in the world really thinks Palin would make a good VP, or, god forbid, the president.
Why McCain thought smirking endlessly during the debates would make him come off as anything other than an ass.
Why anyone really would vote for someone who has voted for 90% of the things Bush has voted for. Seriously.
Why I am still feeling indigestion/nausea/ridiculous unpleasantries when I am 18 weeks pregnant.
cool kid /
Tonight we went on a run. As a family. All three of us. Granted, my current version of running is more of a run-walk-galumpf than a real run... Still, Bean was thrilled. He put on sports socks and sneakers and kept up a good pace for almost a half mile before he needed a rest in the running stroller. DH went on ahead of us for a while, but I was content to slow-jog with Bean as he spent the next mile and a half periodically resting and clambering out to run along side me.
Once while he was sitting in the stroller slurping water he said, "Mommy, did you know that tummies make water into blood for our bodies?"
"Really?" I asked. "Who told you that?"
"No one," he said confidently. "I just figured it out."
Pretty cool thinking for being three, huh? And so fun to run with him. So fun.
Surly. /
I have been in a catastrophically bad mood. All day. I have tried, desperately to shake it, but it seems to still have the better of me. I convinced DH to haul Bean on a hike up the mountain through the first fallen red leaves. I took note of the bright blue sky. Munched a fresh-picked apple and ate potato chips on the bank of an old beaver pond. Watched the light angle through the quivering leaves. And still, I felt like crying. Everything makes me cry. Everything makes me surly. Every word angled carelessly in my direction. Everything, including the bin of maternity clothes DH fished out of the basement for me, and all I could think as I looked through them was, "dear lord, these are all hideous fat clothes." Even though they're not. Even though there are some pants in there I entirely forgot about that are not half bad at all.
To make matters worse, Bean has been a monster today. There have been maybe five days in his entire life where I didn't like him very much, even as I love him desperately to bits, and today was one of them. Everything I asked him to do was met with tantrums. Sweatshirts have become a heated issue. He hates them. Yet he must wear them. It makes going out of the house a royal pain.
The only redeeming thing about Bean's mood (which matched mine, I know, this fact is not lost on me) was that he drew a picture of a monster today on his easel, and the picture could just as well have been a self portrait with three googly eyes, a whole mess of teeth, a big slobbery tongue and four ears. Oy.
I have resorted to ice cream. I have not yet eaten said ice cream, but it is my only hope that any small shred of the day might be salvaged.
Milestone /
The end of moments where his orbit is only family; the arc of his moods, willy-nilly with glee or tumbling with gloomy sorrow at some slight wrong, only ours to witness.
Now he's out there in the world, navigating friendships and expectations and the contents of his school lunch box. And it makes breath catch in my throat.
He has the sweetest teacher imaginable (who, by the way, volunteered to email me every single day to let me know how his day went--because I can never come to pick up to read the daily journal. How awesome is that?) And on his school days he wakes up early and full of smiles like bright slices of oranges.
Still.
And also, I think I'm feeling flutters of the baby kicking--but not regular flutters---and I am wondering when it's normal to start feeling regular movement? I can't remember what I felt last time--in fact the only thing I remember about my last pregnancy was my gag reflex in response to the smell of catfood; my hatred of maternity clothing, and very little else.
I want to remember this /
As I'm working in my new studio, Bean is in his new room playing with his new trains. He's been playing for the past 45 minutes. From the hall I hear is soft little voice floating towards me, as he talks to himself, and sings songs about trains to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He's gotten so big and independent suddenly, with this shift to sleeping in his big-boy bed all through the night. Now he runs down the hall to tell me that the "engines are all in the roundhouse and the cars are all outside." Then he adds, with a sneaky little grin, "one of the engines can fly!"
Seeing my paints set up on my workbench, he says, "I want to paint!" I remind him that I've set up an easel in his room, taping a large piece of butcher paper to the floor with painters tape to make a kid-friendly workspace. "Oh yeah," he says, and runs off to fill up a jar of water. The next thing I hear is him singing, as he puts bold brushstrokes of purple and turquoise onto the paper.
This new maturity and independence makes me think that yes, possibly, I will be able to parent two. I'm still terrified of it, even as I feel the first fin-fluttering kicks of the baby in my womb and grin. It seems so three-ring-circus. So non-stop. So topsy-turvy to have two. But then, watching Bean, I know he will be a great big brother--and he's so thrilled to be having a sibling soon. He draws pictures of our family "and the baby."
Things will be different this time, for sure. We're not newbies. We're parents already, comfortable in our roles. When Bean was first born for the longest time I felt like I was an imposter. Especially pushing his stroller. This is not my life, I'd think. Still, I can hardly imagine those first months again. Those months where sleep is a mosaic of fragments. Where the days are blured and sharp edged. Moments of milky breath, dolphin squeaks, and gummy grins.
Will I ever feel ready before it happens? Or is it like diving, you only know you can do it, after you've leapt, sailed through the air, and broken the surface of the water below.
Small big things /
It was our unnoficial anniversary yesterday (first date.) Nine years. We ate Mexican on the waterfront, with a perfect sunset and perfect weather. Now the remnants of hurricane Hannah bring rain and thunder. I'm so in love with my man. Still. More than ever. He's like good wine.... He's aged well. He's hotter, more confident, kinder, and more thoughtful than when I met him. In other small big news, we just got back from buying lots of track and trains to add on to Bean's collection--a reward for the momentous milestone: he's slept in his OWN BED all night for the past five nights. We moved his room--and his new room (my old studio space) is so cozy and snug and fun. He loves the bright sepia walls, the gabled ceilings, and a new soft rug to play on. And remarkably, he was game to sleep in his bed the whole night--waking up to check that his nightlight was on, and then going back to sleep.
This is huge. This is beyond huge. At the beginning of the week, after his first successful night, we celebrated with cupcakes (homemade, from Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess) with purple frosting. I figured: anything to sweeten the deal. And it seemed to work.
But perhaps underneith it all, he was just ready. He was like that with all his milestones: throwing out his pacifier for good at 10 months; weaning at 16 mos; potty training effortlessly at about 18-24 mos. It's something to remember about him--when he's really ready, it won't be a struggle.
Isn't this true for everyone though? So much of what makes things a struggle daily is that we don't feel ready, we feel rushed, croweded, over-booked, over-worked, frazzled. If we have adequate time to wrap our heads around things, it's not so hard to get everything accomplished, and then some. Or at least that's how it is for me. And this is partly why I took a blogging break. I needed more time in my days.
Time to just be with my guys, and to settle into the pace of teaching again. Time to treat myself gently (I'm still feeling iffy, the nausea still creeps up every day at some point.) Time to make purple cup cakes and redecorate and take naps with DH while Bean is at his grandparents house. And it's been good. I needed to slow down, though it's not something I do naturally.
Still I missed blogging. Missed teasing out little snippets of my day into the yarn of sentences, the fabric of paragraphs. I missed the quirky dialogue that takes place here in the comments (the Internet = my only source of parenting advice, for one.)
And today when we hauled a huge bag of clothing to Plato's Closet to try and sell them, we were told, "These [five items] are the only ones we could take. The rest are too mature in style." And immediately, I thought of you. Because who else can I go to and whimper: THE LADY AT PLATO'S CLOSET JUST CALLED US OLD.
Am I old?
Damn. I guess I am. Old enough that my bag of cast-offs (lots of unwanted gifts from well-meaning relatives) aren't trendy enough for a second hand store. Oh well. Goodwill was happy for them, and either way, my closet has way more space.
I'll stop whimpering immediately if anyone has any good tips on where to buy maternity clothes that don't cost boatloads? Because my belly is popping out (way faster than with Bean) and even the Bella Band I'm starting to feel like a sausage.
what do you do? /
What do you do when your kid is over tired. You know this as surely as you know it's raining. He skipped his nap. Falls apart before dinner over a cracker, over putting his sweatshirt on, over cleaning up his blocks. What do you do when you make every attempt to put him to bed early on time, and you give him an extra long bath because it should calm him down...but by bedtime he is tightly wound. Over tired. Stubborn. He doesn't like the songs you sing. He kicks his legs in your general direction. He wails when you leave after your promised one song and a snuggle. He gets up and follows you to the door, screaming, sobbing. Do you give in? Do you go back and calm him because you know he's tired? Or do you insist, and not give in--this tantrum likely to lead to others. Bedtime already prolonged enough. What do you do? Because I don't honestly know lately. He's at this new stage, and its requiring all the patience I've got.
Snapshot /
Two years ago today I was watching gold finches and feeling rain. I was moving from rumpled sheets to shower, feeling my body linger on the cusp of sleep deprivation in the midst of Bean’s early toddlerhood. One year ago I was eating peaches and watching finches and feeling ready for anything. It’s funny, having a blog. It makes you return to your former selves, finding where you were at on this day or that, a year ago or two. It snares small moments in the weft of life; keeps them there even after memory grows fickle and occupied with greater things than the small fragments of a day.
I’m in such a different place this year, my body doing this crazy and miraculous thing. I’m sensitive and distracted and sporadic. Everyday is like the twirling flight of the bats I watch every evening. They come from within the eaves, darting about in the melon colored light of after sunset.
I’m unsettled, even as I’m content. I have this ridiculous urge to nest, to dig in, to just be in this small corner of land, and it feels so out of character to just want to be here. But the thought of traveling makes me want to tuck my knees to my chest and move closer to the softest pillows on the couch.
Here is all I want, with my cat curled next to me, her gentle purr making the air vibrate along my thigh. Yet I am hungry—for more than just this: curling towards myself, protective and quiet.
Hungry for art. I’ve spent so long without it, I feel an unfamiliar resistance at the thought of gathering up glue and scissors and paint. Hungry for running, and while I’ve gone for several runs recently, the days are too unpredictable and filled with nausea to make any of it a routine. Hungry for good food.
Inexplicably, I feel like I’m in a state of limbo now, a nine month limbo waiting for this little one.
Will it always feel this way? Like I’m holding my breath, like the two small lines of the pause icon have been stamped across my days? I am holding my breath, waiting, at the very least for this nausea to stop. It makes me a husk of myself. I linger in bed mornings without the gusto to rise.
It has also been a summer of rain which has left us always on tiptoe expecting summer to start. The grass is verdant and waist high in the meadows, but the air is always damp. Every day thunder. Every day out the window I watch the rain come up the valley towards us: a steel gray cloud against the paler blue of the summer sky. It arrives quickly, thrashing the leaves and pelting the windows.
And the garden, well, it’s rampant and wild. Tomato plants as high has my shoulders; little orange cherry tomatoes as sweet as sugar; beef steaks still green, and five other kinds, all in various stages of ripening. Beans by the colander full (should I blanch and freeze them?) Basil to be made into pesto; empty beds waiting where the peas and broccoli were—waiting for late summer seeds and early autumn crops, while I stay indoors writing, a deadline and a trip to Colorado for more writing with Pam before the month is out.
In late June the sky was light at nine. Now at quarter-to the sky is already indigo and the insects rattle their warning: summer is ending. Already, passing over the bridge at the end of the road, I saw the first red leaves on a maple. My heart flutters at this so soon turning. The ache of last season’s winter still clings close.
What were you doing last year, or the year before? How have you changed?
a bumpy start /
I woke up with a crazy tension headache: the kind that makes everything seem like it the world should be painted in shades of pale blue. Made mint tea and sugar toast, and still I felt like crying. The sun is out this morning though the ground is soft from too much rain. I am trying, trying so hard to will myself up off the couch and head outdoors with Bean to plant things in the garden, or take a walk with the camera, or even go upstairs and paint something, but so far all I can do is sit here feeling like a collection of glass shards in a paper sack
Bean is playing ‘hospital’ by himself in a nook across the living room. “I have to see if your heart is bumping mama,†he says with a pretend stethoscope in hand.
I turn away so he cannot see my eyes, suddenly hot with tears.
roots /
It was the kind of rain that made me loose all resolve to do anything worthwhile. The sky smudged gray, the ground already full to saturation, streambeds overflowing everywhere, the brown water spilling out into fields where last week new hay was cut. It was a day of naps and feeling sorry for myself.
I’ve been noticing how my moods fluctuate lately. One day, I’m feeling like this kid is going to be the best thing ever, and the next, while I’m staring at the contours of the toilet bowl, I’m wondering how overpopulation is possibly a problem. People do this? Multiple times?
When the nausea slips away from the foreground though, lingering only like a dull haze between here and the mountains, I feel content with the way things have turned out. A year ago might have been different, but now, DH and I are closer than we’ve ever been. In the three years since Bean, since moving to the end of this long dirt road, we’ve grown up a great deal. Having Bean felt like a gamble, and even after, there were long dark months of winter where things were uncertain and fragile between us. Maybe it’s just the summer sun that’s made the difference, but I feel like we’ve worked hard to reach this new place of camaraderie and passion. For us, growing up and growing a family have happened like dominoes: the one and then the other a tipping point.
But then there are days where all I know is that winter will be back, and with it the new baby and sleep deprivation. These are the days when every single food tastes offensive, and if DH tousles my hair I get hot flashes and feel annoyed.
The thing is, I’m trying to learn how to ride the waves. It’s something I think I’ve always struggled against. I’ve always been a planner, a long-term-goal-keeper, a girl with a map and an escape route tucked into the back pocket of her paint stained jeans. But lately I’ve started to feel like these things might not serve me any more. Fleeing no longer seems like an option, sensible or not, simply because the desire is no longer there. Is this what becoming rooted to a place means?
I’ve planted roses this year. For the longest time I’ve always thought that planting roses was a signal of something, because roses with their exquisite blooms and sharp thorns are things you can’t take with you. They don’t like to be transplanted, and here, at the front of the house, along the narrow walk by the door they’re thriving: bursts of canary and crimson that make me smile every single time I walk by.
So I’ve planted roses, and maybe I’m starting to put down roots. Together, we’ve worked to mediate the ache and wanderlust; finding find a balance we can both live with of a life that fills us up with adventure while still holding us snug in the palm of this moment here, on this land, where the wild grasses and black-eyed-Susan’s flatten in the wind. It’s taken years to reach this point, longer than the time we’ve spent living here for sure.
When we moved here I was still grieving the death of my father. I felt him everywhere: in the boards and the hammer; in my son’s middle name. Now, time has softened the sharpness of that loss, and home has started to mean something different than what it was growing up among grape-stake fences and dry summer grass on my parent’s land.
So I’m feeling like I’m ready for this. Like we are. Except for the damn nausea and stomach pain that lingers perpetual and invasive. Sometimes that makes me just want to curl up in a ball and cry.
You know you're pregnant when... /
Your three year old gently pats your chest and asks, "Are dees bigger mama?" True story.
It's only the beginning /
I’ve grown accustomed to being hunched over. Hunched, as in, knees up, back rounded, almost fetal. This is the way I spend my day, curled on the couch, attached at the hip to my laptop, mostly, between tentative forays into the kitchen, and occasional attempts to be useful in any way. It isn’t pretty. Remember when I used to be a runner? When I wake up, for a split second as I’m lying there in bed, I think I’ve maybe just been having an unpleasant dream (one that involves lots of dry heaving and vomit.) I lie perfectly still on the apricot colored sheets and feel the wind blow through the open window above the bed, cool on my cheeks, and my body feels simply there. Toes, knees, arms heavy from sleep. Usually, DH has already gone to shower, but Bean, who crawls into our bed at sun up, is snuggled next to me, and I still like the smell of his hair, so I curl towards him and nuzzle in.
Eventually though, I must stand, shower, and begin the ridiculous process of trying to put food in my stomach while my stomach furiously tries to expel it. Banana didn’t go over so well this morning. Peanut butter, which I can barely stand in ‘real life’ is one of the few things that sticks without complete offense. If I eat every two hours, I seem to be able to avoid vomiting. Sort of. According to the doctor, this is all good news. She told me this with a grin, while she measured the blur of black and white with a fluttering heart rate on the ultrasound monitor. Due date, February 24.
Yesterday was miserably hot, which only increased my discomfort. Over night though, the humidity was squandered in big fat raindrops. Now, the grass is dew-dimpled and silvery. Everything is a tangle of green, the meadows are waist high with grass. The goslings have tripled in size. In the garden, the cabbages like fat purple jewels are tucked between pewter leaves. The tomatoes are ramshackle, taking over an entire bed. The radishes have gone wildly to seed, but I leave them in place, their tiny white flowers calling for honey bees.
Last night, in a rare moment of inspiration devoid of nausea, I made peach grunt with a pile of almost spoiled peaches. Easy peasy. Cut up peaches and place them in the bottom of a pie pan with a few dabs of butter and a sprinkle of sugar. Mix 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1-1 ½ cups whipped cream together until it becomes a sticky dough. Place dough in mounded spoonfuls on top of peaches and bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and the peaches are bubbly.
We ate it with whipped cream. The dough bakes into this lovely scone-like confection. Really quite delicious, even while nauseous.
Now I am hunched on the floor beside Bean who is drawing with scented markers. Of course, he thinks they are the coolest things in the entire world. I think they were invented to torture women afflicted with the all day version of morning sickness.
While I’m genuinely excited about the idea—the idea, mind you and not necessarily the actuality—of two kids, the fact that I now must be pregnant for the next eight months is painful to me. And depressing. I hated being pregnant the first time around, and I hate it no less this time. I also hate all those women who virtually sparkle the entire time they are pregnant. Who act as if it is the best thing in the universe. Halley Berry types who say they wish they could be pregnant forever.
Am I the only person in the world who hates being pregnant?