I'm All Knocked Up

Yep, there's a bun in the oven.

Second pregnancies are different from first one, in ways innumerable. First off, my first pregnancy was totally textbook-normal. But I can't seem to get it through my head that this one is also "normal" but is different, so I wonder... Anyway, the main difference between the two is that, while I was well overweight for the first pregnancy, I started off this one about 13 pounds heavier... I was told to not gain more than 15 pounds the first round, and my OB-GYN laughably told me THIS time to not gain more than 10 POUNDS... That can be accomplished in one sitting, given good bacon and if you know where to find the right buttercakes...

So, at my 2nd OB-GYN appointment, whilst standing on the scary scale, I closed my eyes, then flashed them open, purely out of morbid curiotsity, to find that their scale weighed me almost 3 pounds heavier than at home. Bracing myself for the nurse's scathing remark (which never comes, she's way too nice for that), she informs me that I'm DOWN a pound or two. WTF?!??!! Sure enough, according to their charts, I was down a pound. So for the first time in my life, my doctor, hell, any doctor, enters the room and practically high-fives me for a "fantastic job on the weight gain!" Thus began my current obsession. Which probably should have started 10 months before I got pregnant again.

There are things the books don't tell you. Sure, sure they say "you may be feeling more emotional than usual." I'm sorry, "more emotional?" This means I'm tearing up while watching the end of Independence Day, and finding really, really poignant moments in episodes of Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. Again, I say, WTF?!?!?!! I personally cannot handle too many cathartic moments in one day, or I feel like I'm starting to lose my mind. My mom's best friend recently passed away, and while damn-near having an anxiety attack regarding her family's impending loss, I had to keep reminding myself, "This is not your family, this is not your mother, this is not about you." I tend to internalize WAAAAAAAAAY too much, and nothing good comes from it.

Among other things, I can't stand the feel of my own leg hair on my legs while lying in bed at nighttime. My feet hurt on the outer edges and my heels throb. My face itches, and I have a strong desire to scratch my hair, although it's not like my scalp actually itches... It's beyond me. Smells still bother me, things still taste funny. A lot of what I experienced before, somethings more intense than the others.

One thing that hasn't changed: my boobs are still enormous. They reached near epic, circus-proportions while I was nursing my son, but now they're back to being mere triple-Ds, as usual. Yay me.

So with that, the bun is in the oven. Elvis has not left the building. And I need to shave my legs.

Father's Day Quandry...

My husband is a saint. An honest-to-goodness, patient, tolerant, understanding, won't-hold-it-against-me but holds-my-purse-while-I'm-in-the-bathroom kinda guy. And seeing as our little boy just turned one this week, Daddy gets to celebrate his 2nd Father's Day this year. And for once, I'd like to get him something that would be useful and meaningful.

Useful and meaningful -- that's a tall order, to find a giftie for a man who pretty much has most of what he wants, and if he wants sometime in particular, he's pretty particular so it's usually best if he gets it himself, otherwise it will take me about 4 trips to the store to get it right... And so, keeping this challenge in mind, here are some ideas and my thought processes on whether or not they fit the "useful and meaningful" criteria:

1.) Noise cancelling headphones: He's mentioned numerous times that he'd like a pair, and we've even tried them on at a Bose store. But they're damn expensive, and honestly, he's such a resourceful man that he's already found the cheaper alternative -- earplugs. He wears them at night now because since being pregnant the first time, my nose swelled up the size of an eggplant and I was stuffed up for the entire 9 1/2 months, and even one year after delivery, I still snore. A cacaphony of sonic booms, if you will. Bless him, for he hasn't moved out of the bedroom, yet. Anyway, while I was pregnant, he'd gently wake me in the middle of the night (because I didn't wake up enough on my own to pee) and tell me that I was snoring. I think his idea was that I'd just roll over, change position, and the snoring would stop for a while. Life, and sleep more importantly, would go on. Nay, nay! I couldn't let it go at that -- instead, I always had the good sense to argue with him in my sleep (because I never seem to remember it ever happening) that I in fact was not snoring... At any rate, these ear plugs come in very handy in other occasions, such as when he's reading and is really, really into his book and doesn't like to be interrupted, even when I have something interesting to share, such as, "I smell catshit" or "Do these shoes make me look like a man?"... So maybe we'll forego the Bose headphones for another year. He's got that covered.

2.) Tums: For when I cook. Wait a minute, I actually don't cook a whole helluva lot. This is how wonderful my Lambkin really is -- again, when I was pregnant, but even for months thereafter, he would come home from a long day's work, aching feet, hole burning in his stomach because he was so hungry, and he would fix ME dinner. Even this year, while I'm taking the year off to stay home with our son and should conceivably have the entire afternoon to get dinner ready (those with small children know that without the afternoon nap happening, getting dinner ready is a crap shoot), he still makes me dinner. And sometimes even feeds the kid. I think I broiled some chicken last night, and that was a major accomplishment. So I guess he doesn't need the Tums, since he does almost all of the cooking (still) and he's an excellent cook!

3.) Cattle prod: What's it going to take for me to get my ass out of bed??? Here's another wonderful thing about my husband -- when our little turkey wakes up anywhere between 6:00-7:00 am, I bring him into our bed with us, nurse him and then attempt to go back to sleep with a wiggly, giggly, jumpy and yumpy little squirt wedged between us, who will invariable attempt to climb the wall or insert his pacifier into one or both of our mouths. Who in the hell, may I ask, can sleep through this? Proudly, I say I can! But only so long as someone else is awake with the boy. Around 7:00 am, Daddy gets up, showers and takes little Bucko with him into the kitchen, feeds him, changes him, gives him his vitamins and flouride, and plays with him until Daddy is at least 20 minutes late for work, JUST so I can sleep in a little longer... The truth is, my Lovey understands that I require what I refer to as a "Gentle Wake Cycle," which means I need innumerable soft-spoken, soothing reminders that it is time to pull my sleepy head off the pillow so we can all enjoy our day... This still a backlash against my father's idea of effective child-waking practices: flip the lights on, snap the covers off the bed, and in a caffeine-induced perky voice bellow, "Wakey-wakey time!" (My inner armchair-psychologist is telling me this could be why I didn't have the closest of relationships with my dad.) So my Honeypot is sweet and loving to me when slumbering and while riding the rim of the toilet bowl of consciousness, before plunging headlong into the swirling mess of the morning... Why would I want to change that?

4.) Sex: Nah.

5.) Auto-detailing: It would be useful and meaningful, but judging by the number of finger and toe-nail clippings I find on his nightstand, I'm not sure I want to know what's hidden under his floormats.

Hmm, I am losing steam on this whole giftie-thingy for Father's Day. Perhaps I'll do what I always do for such occasions, when I can't decide on a gift: purchase many, many cards, most of which should never be read by my mother-in-law, and get him a small box of nice chocolates to go along with it. If I were a father, that's what I would like. And if a woman is happy with it, a man is bound to be happy with it as well. At least that's the twisted logic I'm sticking with, because this post is going on far too long, and if I don't quit now, I won't get this posted until after Father's Day.

Any ideas are GLADLY welcome!!

ADDITION TO POST: I just made my husband sit down and read this nonsense. He laughed and said, "Well, you make me sound as pussywhipped as can be." So I'm thinking, maybe I should just give him his balls back instead?