Whinging

photo by Alan

If you’re in a chirpy mood, skip this post. I have a man cold. I’m grumpy.

I’m pretty sure the week before last – the one where I had all the energy and glowiness – was all I’m going to get of that amazing second trimester the books talk about. The “Ugh, I feel yukky” first trimester lasted until about 21 weeks, and now, at 26 weeks, I’ve hit the “I am perpetually uncomfortable” third trimester. I have pain in my groin (? or pelvis? the part where my legs join my body) when I start to walk, which makes me never want to walk anywhere ever. I should probably ask someone professional about it, if only for an anatomy lesson.

I’m still feeling ridiculously heavy. I can’t stand up or sit down without saying “Oof.” You know how on The Biggest Loser they always have that day where the contestants trek up a mountain, and the trainers add weight to their backpacks as they go, and then they reach the top and drop the bag and cry and hug and reflect on the meaning of life? I feel like I’m two thirds of the way up that giant mountain; I still have three months of climbing to go. This is not helping with the grumpiness.

Moses fell through the gap between the train and the platform the other day, and I keep replaying his frightened squeal and panicked look in my mind. Fortunately I was holding his hand; I immediately pulled him up and into my arms as if he weighed nothing, and it wasn’t until later that I had a chance to think through what had happened, and what could have happened. Now it haunts me every time I lie down to sleep. Plus, Alan and I are rehashing the same fight we’ve had for the last seven-or-so years, just to see if it’s more interesting this time around. IT’S NOT.

And now I have a man cold (it’s just an ordinary cold, but I’m not coping with it very well), so the two positions I’m comfortable sleeping in are out because my nose needs to be on exactly the right angle in order for me to be able to breathe. (When it tilts up, snot stores up. And when it tilts down, snot comes down. But when it tilts only halfway up, snot goes neither up nor down.) Trying to get some sleep is just a hoot right now.

So I’ve been wanting to write positive posts about seasons of life and discipline, but my efforts have been terrible because all I really want to do is rant. Dear John is a stupid movie, I don’t care what the girls in our youth Bible study say. Yes, I cried at the dad-son-bonding scene, but that’s because I cry at all dad-son-bonding scenes. The rest of it was stupid.

It annoys me when people smugly tell you that they don’t watch TV, only to reveal moments later that they watch DVDs of TV shows instead. How is that any different to watching TV? Can you be justifiably smug if you’re still wasting the same amount of time minus ads? I don’t get it. Don’t dis TV, man. TV introduced me to Portlandia, and that show was one of the few things that made me laugh this week. TV’s my friend.

Also, why is it okay these days for people with smart phones to pull them out and do things on them at any point during a conversation? I thought that doing anything on your phone during a conversation was rude, but I’ve noticed it’s only users of dumb phones who act like this rule still applies. Also, there’s inevitably a point now in every gathering, about four-fifths of the way through (I’ve been studying it), when every person with a smart phone will pull it out and a conversation about apps will begin. I thought this was a teenager thing; turns out it’s a smart phone thing. Smart phones suck.

Colds suck. Accidents suck. Fights suck. 

This week sucked.

Writing about boring life stuff

 

I turned 30 at the start of last month, which was a fun milestone to pass. I’d always looked forward to both my 27th and 30th birthdays; it’s strange now that they’re both over. At first I was thinking about celebrating the big day by inviting a bunch of loved ones to our place for a partay, but as the date drew near I realised that the best birthday present I could give myself was to NOT have to plan for a bunch of loved ones to come over. Instead, Alan and I dropped Moses off with his grandparents and whizzed into the city for a night on our own. It was my favourite birthday ever. I decided to NOT take a photo of us smiling over our (very yummy) meals, but couldn’t help pulling out the phone to take a picture of this sign (Alan reckons everyone’s over this joke. I thought it was hilarious [although that may just be the hormones]):

We'll get you, Bill Posters!

So I’m 30 now, and one step closer to my ultimate dream of becoming Maggie Beer.

In more recent news, I’m currently gestating a huge and very active baby girl. The kickiness is wonderful – not only has being pummelled from the inside kept me occupied throughout some long waits and otherwise-boring situations lately, it’s also a precious reminder that I’M PREGNANT! It still amazes me. I sometimes glimpse my silhouette or reflection and think, “Hey! I didn’t think I’d ever look like this again!” It’s pretty cool. The hugeness, on the other hand, does not excite me quite so much. The friendly guy at the fruit shop looked at my belly and declared, “Not long to go now!” His face fell when I told him that four months kinda was long. There are women who look this big JUST BEFORE THEY GIVE BIRTH. There are women who are so tiny THEY DON’T EVEN REALISE THEY’RE PREGNANT UNTIL THEY GO INTO LABOUR (I watched far too many episodes of I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant on Foxtel at my brother’s place over Christmas). I am not one of those women. 

Apart from strangers preparing themselves to catch a baby every time I waddle by, the problem with the hugeness is that it’s HEAVY. I would give anything to detach this belly and carry it on my back for a while, in a little pack. Or pass it over to my husband for a bit. It’s exhausting. And there’s a lot of growing yet to be done inside (I’m blaming the bigness of the bub here, because it’s easier than admitting I have extraordinarily lazy stomach muscles). I’ve been going through longish phases of feeling wonderful, followed by a week or so of feeling constantly hungry and tired and HEAVY. Last week I was practically bouncing around, and am pretty sure I managed some glowing; this week I just want food and sleep and things to sit/lie/lean on. (I realise only now I should have written this post a few days ago, while I was still on a high; sorry about that.)

Whines aside, I’ve discovered as a result of my heaviness that I really enjoy swimming! I go to a 25-metre heated pool not far from our place which is frequented mostly by old people who walk laps and swim so slowly you’re not sure if they’ve died between strokes. I feel very much at home there. I’ve bought myself a swimming cap and some goggles and some too-big maternity swimmers that sag at the bottom when I get out of the water (garage sale, $2). I go each Tuesday, and I look forward to the 45-or-so minutes of weightlessness the water provides. 

I go on Tuesdays because Mo’s started Family Day Care with a beautiful carer called Kerry. At first he was signed up with a carer closer to our place, but after meeting Kerry I realised that my fears about him starting with the other woman weren’t purely because I was a snob (her program included dancing to Hi-5 and she said things like, “Play with them toys, love!”) or not yet ready to leave my child with a stranger, but just that we hadn’t met The One. Kerry’s The One. She bakes bread with the kids each morning (which they eat together with/for lunch), they plant vegies, they share their morning tea and they play dress ups. Moses blows distracted kisses to me as I leave and cries when I come to pick him up because he wants to stay forever. There was a point last year where I despaired of his ever leaving my side; I’m enjoying his new independence (it arrived some time in January). In other Mo news, he’s now sleeping in a big bed, wearing underpants and saying things like, “Thank you, Mummy! You’re a good helper!” and (talking about me and him) “We’re best friends like Gaspard and Lisa!” He’s such a little boy now! What do babies need again? I’ve completely forgotten.

As for Alan, he’s shaved his head again, which means that a) he looks more like the guy I married and b) our next airport trip will almost certainly involve a bomb test. He celebrated a birthday last week, and we all cooked a choc-chip and apricot cake that turned out to be extremely good*. He’s also started coming up with name suggestions for the baby, which is both surprising and scary. When I was pregnant with Moses the best he ever offered was ‘Harvey Norman’ (followed by “Heh heh heh!”), and the joke went on for so long that we ended up quite liking the name Harvey (it’s Mo’s middle name). This time he’s offering valid name ideas, very seriously. I like none of them. I’m freaking out.

And that’s pretty much us at the moment. Hopefully this stint of writing has broken my stint of not-writing, and I’ll be back again soon with something more interesting. We’ll see...

I’ll leave you with two videos that very nearly made me pee my pants, as a congratulations for making it this far (apologies to my Facebook friends, who may have seen these before):

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* I’m sorry, this is going a bit far, isn’t it? I’m reminded of one of the sketches from The Sketch Show: “There’s boring and then there’s boring, but that’s just taking the piss.”

Writing about not writing

from here

When I first told my mum I’d started a blog, she asked me what the theme of it was, what it would be about. I told her it didn’t really have a theme – it would just be a dust-free place to store any thoughts I bothered to write down, as well as a creative outlet to remind myself that I still had a brain, despite the fact that my baby cared more for my boobs. From the beginning I’ve written about things I’d like to read about, which means I’ve tried to avoid simply documenting life’s mundanities – “My son did his first poo in the toilet on Sunday!” or “How did people ever get by without dental floss?!”– unless I find them hilarious and/or interesting.

Unfortunately for this blog, my life at the moment is entirely mundane; each week flies by much the same as the last (including my regular “IS IT THURSDAY TOMORROW?!” moment, which happens, without fail, at around the same time every Wednesday afternoon), which means that if I stick to the funny/interesting rule, I have very little to report here. (I’m not complaining; I actually enjoy times like these, when I have space to stop and smell the proverbial roses and take each proverbial day as it [proverbially] comes.)

Another reason for my absence is that I’m finding movies particularly entertaining at the moment. Every one I’ve watched over the last month or so has been amazing, including two Adam Sandler movies – Adam Sandler movies! It was my thorough enjoyment of these two in particular (Just Go With It and Spanglish) that made me realise that perhaps there was something hormonal going on rather than being a giant coincidence that every movie I watched was the funniest/saddest/cleverest/best one ever. I especially loved The Switch (with Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston); I’ll have to watch this one again post-baby to figure out if it’s truly as gold as I currently think it is. Keeping up with my movie cravings has meant I’ve spent more time than usual scanning the TV guide for my next fix rather than trawling the internets and finding inspiration for blog posts.

I know I loved writing once upon a time, approximately 23 weeks ago in fact, and recently a couple of people have sent me links to lists that have made me wonder if I should make more of an effort to rediscover that love by writing more, so I’m writing. Here I am, writing away. Writey writey write. And now that I’ve finished explaining why I haven’t been writing, I have nothing left to write about besides the boring life stuff. So: how good is dental floss?!

I’ll try to keep it bearable, although don’t read tomorrow’s post if you hate that kind of thing...