Friday, March 29, 2013

Things I forgot about pregnancy #7

I had a lot of anxiety in my first pregnancy. I think that's pretty normal, impending life changing event and all that good stuff. But I forgot how pervasive it is. Sometimes it's all consuming. It probably doesn't help that both of my pregnancies have had complications, but it's more than that. It's a deep, underlying terror that at any given moment disaster could strike.

When I'm not worried about terrible, awful things, it's the silly ones that plague my mind. Like, "What if I don't love this baby as much as I love M? How can I be a good mom to more than one child?" As if I'm the only person who has ever had more than one baby. I can usually deep breathe my way back to rationality fairly quickly, but you know I'd really rather not have the fear at all.

91 days and counting!

Friday, March 22, 2013

Things I forgot about pregnancy #6

It's cold and flu season! You know what that means during pregnancy? Being highly susceptible to every damn virus making the rounds. I was doing really well this time around avoiding it and thought I might actually make it out of the winter snot-free. And then right before our family mini-break I woke up to a massive sneezing fit. Sneezing fit when your abs are already stretched out by a growing human? Ow.

Dust churned up while digging out the suitcases? Wishful thinking! It was a cold. A mild one, sure, but turns out it was just the first of many. Once my defences were down from the first virus onslaught, I got hit one by one by every fucking bug that has been laying in wait since the beginning of the season. It was just like scene Star Trek - shields are fine, shields are holding, BOOM! Alarm bells everywhere! This is made extra fun by the inability to dope myself to the gills with Nyquil and crawl into bed.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Overcoming childhood fears

Every day a different child is appointed the helper at daycare. They help the teachers with transition times, announcing when there is five minutes left of free play, when they start circle time, etc. One of the perks of being the helper is bringing a toy from home for "Show & Share" time. M loves to bring toys to daycare but she's usually not allowed so she was always very excited to be the helper.

And then one day I asked her to pick her toy for Show & Share the next day and she said no. I didn't think much of it and carried on with our evening routine. She said no the next time and the time after that too. The Husband was away for a few days this week so M and I had lots of one-on-one time. Over dinner last night I finally got around to asking her why she didn't want do Show & Share anymore. Turns out my gregarious, fun-loving, sociable little girl is *terrified* of public speaking. "Mommy, I freeze and I don't know what to say. I'm really bad at it."

Oh. My. God. My poor baby stopped bringing in toys because she is afraid, and I totally brushed it off. For weeks. Worse still, she truly believes there is something she is bad at! Now, I realize not participating in Show & Share at daycare isn't likely to alter the course of her life, but it's a lot easier to address these fears at 4 than at 14 or 40, when a small issue can turn into a big problem. So we made a plan to boost her confidence and get her back in the Show & Share game.

1.  Flutteryshy, 2. A Pegasus pony, 3. Caring for animals

First I told her there is nothing she is bad at, there are just things she needs to practice more than others. Then we picked the toy she wanted to Show & Share the most. Surprise! It was a My Little Pony. Then we came up with three things that she wanted to say about her:
1. What is your pony's name?
2. What kind of pony is she?
3. What is her special talent?

We went over it again and again pretending I was her daycare class until she was completely comfortable with what she was going to say. Then I told her she had to do it, because the best way to get over something you're afraid of is to do it and learn it wasn't so bad after all. Now, I want to raise a confident kid as much as the next person, but I won't be cruel about it. Yes, I was going to (attempt to) make her do it, but I wasn't going to make her go it alone. I wrote down the three questions and talked to her teacher at drop off. She agreed to ask the questions if M froze up at Show & Share time and even offered to let her sit on her lap for the presentation.

How did it go? My brave little monkey did it! I'm so proud of that little girl. I asked how she felt after it was done and she said she was never going to do it again. Clearly we have more pony practice in our future...

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Remembering the way we were

Remember St. Patrick's Day when you were young and able to do foolish things without much fear of recrimination? That's OK, my recollections are fuzzy at best too. My friend and I reminisced about how we used to spend this holiday many moons ago as we were doing what we do now instead. Then I got a little older, a stranger vomited on my shoes at a bar (true story) and I came to view St. Patrick's Day with the same disgust I hold for New Year's Eve. Piffle! Who wants to be out with the masses for amateur hour at the bar?

This friend and I have known each other since kindergarten. Instead of keeping a shine on the bar with the sleeves of our coats and jigging until we fall over, we took our gaggle of girls to Disney on Ice's Rockin' Ever After. Good time for us? Well, it was something. Good time for the girls? They're probably still smiling in their sleep. Many years from now, they'll probably spend St. Patrick's Day the way we did in days gone by, dancing and laughing until side-stepping the vomit becomes too much. I hope we're helping them build the kind of dear friendships that will take them through the all the ages and stages of their lives.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Things I forgot about pregnancy #5

Most of the things I forgot about pregnancy are... Let's just say they're less than fabulous. OK, I pee when I sneeze. That's somewhere between "not fabulous" and "kind of awful." Obviously after everything we went through to have this baby I'm thrilled to have a pregnancy to bitch about. Lots of things about it are really gross and uncomfortable. I could throw myself a pity party damn near every day. But there are some things about pregnancy that are fabulous, and I forgot about those too.

For instance... Can we please take a moment to talk about the fabulous mane that is my hair? It is full. It is bouncy. It is shiny. It takes very little effort to make it look fantastic in the morning. It is grows really fast so by the time I have this baby, my pictures of us together will feature long, flowing hair! Sure, the rest of me will look like shit, but dammit! I will have amazing locks!

Sure, it means the hair everywhere else is growing at a really fast rate and I won't be able to manoeuvre around the giant belly for much longer to keep it in check, but I'm not going to talk about that today. Today I'm going to AC-CEN-TU-ATE THE POS-I-TIVE! Most notably my awesome head of hair. I'd take a picture, but then you'd see that the rest of me really does look like shit and that's not very positive, is it? You'll just have to take my word for it. 

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The one where she talks about joining the cult

You hold off for a really long time. You don't want to admit that with a growing family some things just end up making sense, no matter how hard you fight it. "That place is not a place for cool, hip people like me! That place is for soccer moms and tinfoil hat wearers who need to keep a lifetime supply of toilet paper and canned meat on hand for the zombie apocalypse. Urban people like me shop a couple of times a week at street markets on the way home. We eschew the car and take reusable bags along with us. Because not only are we cool and hip, we are totally saving the environment!"

And then one day you realize you simply do not have time to keep up the trips to the little corner market, quaint though it may be. You've got to get your kid to swimming and, tired as you are while growing another kid, getting a decent meal into her before that class is hard enough. It sure would be easier to have more things on hand. Ah, the worm has turned. The next thing you know, representatives are at your office bringing new inductees to the cult selling memberships. With the workplace visit discount and the free movie passes, it pretty much pays for itself. Now you've gone and done it! You've joined the cult Costco.

The first trip is overwhelming. Peanut butter and jam sold by the bucket tend to have that effect. Once you get the hang of it your days of keeping things simple and small are over. Your tinfoil roll is roughly the size of a microwave, you will never run out of fruit cups or goldfish again. And the meat section... You finally understand why you bought that freezer lo many years ago. It's like you had a premonition that you were going to end up here some day. Suddenly your lonely basement freezer is filled to the brim with a month's worth of delectable meats you bought in bulk and individually vacuum sealed with the fancy new gadget that you bought at... That's right! Costco.

Perhaps it's a good thing your tinfoil roll is huge, because you'll need it to make your hat once you head over to the toilet paper aisle.


This post is written as part of GBE2 - Week #95 word prompt: In the freezer. For more info about GBE2, click here.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

My day in point form

  • My kid had a rough night. She was up three times between midnight and 5 AM. I don't know why.
  • Of course she was, because I was sleeping comfortably for the first time in weeks.
  • We are both tired and grumpy.
  • On a probably related note, fuck Daylight Savings Time. Fuck it right in the ear! 
  • I officially hate IKEA, but every time I try to get away from shopping there I am reminded they have stuff that's "good enough" at a quarter the price of stuff I really like elsewhere. I just can't bring myself to shop elsewhere for stuff that doesn't need to be durable.
  • It's the first nice, sunny weekend we've had in many, many months. I really wanted to spend more if it outside, but it's not quite warm enough to set up a lounge chair in the backyard. 
  • I need to buy one of those outdoor heater things. 
  • Oh who am I kidding? I'm too cheap to buy furniture at places other than IKEA. I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on a super-sized kerosene lamp.
  • I don't think my kid is the only one who is going straight to bed after dinner.
  • I'm excited about that. She's not.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Things I forgot about pregnancy #4

I didn't have any panicked trips to the Labour & Delivery triage during my last pregnancy so I don't feel too bad about the one I had recently. Since blood is an irritant to the uterus, one of the risks of a subchorionic hemorrhage is premature rupture of membranes. When I felt trickles all day I thought it was just one of those weird things about pregnancy. Until it turned pink. Then I freaked the fuck out. It was the Friday before a long weekend and I was at work, a mere block from the hospital. My OB's office had already closed for the weekend.

I could take a wait and see approach and call my doctor on Tuesday, or I could go get checked out. Hi ho, hi ho - it's off to L&D I go! Everything was fine. The spotting was just the stupid clot acting up. I should be used to that by now. And the little trickles I was feeling? Oh, that's just stress incontinence.

Yeah, you read that right. I did not have this problem the first time around, I maintained complete control over my bodily functions until the better end. I wasn't sure it was an accurate diagnosis until I sneezed while I was already seated upon the throne. Fuck. My. Life. Dudes, I peed a little when I sneezed. I thought I was slowly turning into my grandmother when I heated up my tea in the microwave, but this? This clinches it.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Breathe into your back body

When I was pregnant with M I started prenatal yoga at 12 weeks. There's a long list of supposed benefits of these classes, but really I just do yoga because it feels good. This time around, I was on bed rest for most of the first trimester with bleeding from the SCH. I wasn't cleared for a long shower, let alone a lot of time in downward dog. After my anatomy scan showed the clot had been stable for over a month I was cleared for "gentle" exercise and prenatal yoga fit that bill.

I started classes at 20 weeks. Holy shit, a few weeks flat on one's back does some really bad things for flexibility! And strength! And balance! And starting when there's already a bump to work around adds a totally different element to the workout. I spent months getting into better shape before I got pregnant. It took weeks to completely undo all my efforts. I spend most of the class grunting unsexily as I attempt to get into something that vaguely resembles the correct position. There is usually some joint cracking to add more sound effects to the fun. It still feels good to be there, but I'm super happy there are no mirrors in the room.

Now that I know that months of hard work are undone in a few weeks of sloth, I feel confident about my decision to not even bother trying when this kid is out. If anyone is looking for me a few weeks postpartum, I'll be the one on the couch with the glass of wine the size of my ass. Feel free to join me!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Things I forgot about pregnancy #3

There is a thing in the middle of my back. A persistently itchy, very annoying thing. Right in that spot that can't be reached no matter the degree of contortion. It's also right at the top of the waistband of my goddamn maternity pants. That's the official name for those pants, by the way. A quick glance in glance in the mirror after more contortions lets me know it's a skin tag. Awesome! My neck is covered in them around the necklace I wear too, and let's not get me started on my under bra collection.

They're harmless and can be easily removed... after delivery. Until then I just have to live with it. And keep reaching objects to help with scratching at hand at all times. Oh, I've also got a couple of shiny new moles in interesting places. These are piling on to the ones I acquired in my last pregnancy. I'm starting to look like a toad. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, helpful website. Normal this, common that. WILL THESE PLAGUES OF THE SKIN NEVER END?

My palms are normal in colour, my face is as-yet unscathed, and my belly button is still very firmly an innie. All good news! But I'm not going to start counting chickens just yet.