Bubbles

When you're pregnant, the first few movements of the baby are very exciting.

Last night I was awake for a long time.  I was restless and I lay in bed feeling the baby move all around.  Little fluttery movements.  Almost like pushing.  It was amazing.  And weird.

In that moment I had a revelation.

Pregnant women have a lot of gas.  (That wasn't my revelation .... that's a pretty well known fact.)

Let me go back a bit ....

When I was younger and having a lot of pain in my back I went to a chiropractor.  The chiropractor ordered some x-rays and later sat down with me to explain what was happening and where the pain was originating.  It was all very stimulating.

As he was pointing things out to me I found I was less concerned with my spinal dysfunctions and found myself much more concerned with some light and dark splotches that I could see all over the area of my body displayed on the x-ray ... my lower torso basically ... and asked the chiropractor what the spots were all about and if I should be concerned.

He said no, I shouldn't be concerned at all .... it was just "all the gas bubbles."  He had a thick Swedish accent so it sounded more like "ahhhlll de gaz buebbels" ...

I - apparently - had a major gas problem.  Not embarrassing in the least, I assure you.

Fast forward to last night.  Feeling the baby squirm about it suddenly dawned on me why babies and children like balloons so much.

When in the womb they must play with all those pockets of gas.

I'm sure part of the movement a pregnant woman feels comes from the baby pushing and playing with bits of gassy air as it floats past the uterus.

So ... it would logically follow that infants and toddlers would be comforted by the sight of a balloon, right?

It's almost like they're back in the womb playing with mommy's gas.  It's like, the best thing ever!

Because really ... what is a balloon?  Rubber filled with air.  A dried pea is more interesting.  There has to be some other explanation for the fascination.

And it totally explains why Bruce Lee calls balloons "bubbles" ...

Ask Tina Fey ... she knows ...

Every once and a while a movie comes along and I think as I watch it that is totally me ... this movie is about me.

It was like that with "Girl, Interrupted".  Back when I was a little crazy.

There are others of course ... but ... well ... I'll just leave it at there are others ...

Curtis and I watched "Date Night" the other night (for a date night ...) and the entire time we just kept looking at each other and thinking ... this is totally us.

From the mouth guard, to drawers being left open (in our house it's doors), to being too tired to actually want to go out for the night without the kids, to doing the same thing every time we DO actually go out ... right down to the names of the kids ... the boys name was Oliver, the girls name was Charlotte.  The very two names we've chosen for baby number three ...

I know ... weird, right?

Even Tina Fey's meltdown in the car scene where she confesses that she sometimes she fantasises about being alone.  I've totally had that fantasy. 

(And let me just pause here a moment to sing Tina Fey's praises.  I think she is beautiful AND hilarious and just so no one is confused, I'm not saying I'm like Tina Fey ... I'm not that conceited ... only that while watching the movie I just kept thinking that her character was totally based on my life.)

I no longer fantasise about finding myself accidentally locked in a bakery overnight with Johnny Depp ... I fantasise about having a quiet room all to myself.  With a big bed.  And a TV where I control the channels and no sports or sports news shows are on.  Ever.

Where I could shower for forty-five minutes or even an hour with no interruptions or thoughts of children laying underneath a large piece of overturned furniture. 

Or read a book and get through a paragraph without having to find a toy or get a glass of water.

Or be able to sit in silence and not talk.  Or listen.  Or have to plan dinner.

I was watching Tina Fey thinking you are so right ON.

So of course I said something about how right on she was.

And hurt my husbands feelings.

And felt like a jerk.

So I had to explain all about how I just got what she was saying about needing time and space and that I knew exactly what it felt like to work all day in a crazy office and then come home to plan and make and clean up dinner and bathe the kids and then get them in bed and then do the laundry and then tidy the house a bit ... and then have energy to talk and be there for him ...

And then, just like in the movie, he said "I try to help."

It's true.  He does.  And I find it hard to let him help.  It's easier for me to just do it myself.

And when I do let him help I'm totally just waiting for him to screw up so I can jump in and say "fine, I'll just do it myself."

I am a horrible person.

He is an excellent husband and an excellent father and I need to make sure he knows that ...

So ... I'm sorry baby ... tonight you can totally do the dishes and the laundry and clean the bathrooms and I'll just sit back and read my book.  I'll let you help.  And I totally won't even look in the cups to make sure all the milk crusties are gone.

I love you that much.

Ode to the Neenish Tart

Round and yummy.

Full of gooey jam and creamy cream.

You melt in my hand.

Shiny icing - all colourful and playful.  Pink and brown ... a little of each.

Chewy and soft. 

Crispy and flaky.

Fun to eat and pretty too.

I miss you every day.

Why oh why are you so far away ...

My dreamy 

Neenish 

Tart.

Biology 101

Once, when I was younger, I remember waking up with a horrible taste in my mouth.

It tasted like the smell of mothballs.

I don't know how else to describe it.

I was terrified and thought for sure I must have chewed something awful while I was sleeping. As I was telling my friends at school that day one of them said that I must have chewed a spider and that we eat something like thirty spiders a year in our sleep.

I almost died.

We. EAT. Thirty. Spiders. A. Year.

What?????

With my desperate fear of spiders at the forefront of my mind, this news was terrifying.

(The actual statistic is more like seven to eight spiders a year ... but I didn't find this out until I was a bit older.)

Last night I woke up with a similar taste in my mouth. And I was coughing.

Not just coughing ... choking.

When I realized that I had probably had an encounter of some kind with a spider, I got out of bed as fast as my pregnant body would let me and rushed as quickly to the bathroom as I possibly could without waking Bruce Lee. I drank a lot of water. And rinsed my mouth out for a good ten minutes. And then I went back to bed.

But I couldn't get back to sleep.

I just kept thinking about the fact that I could very well have swallowed the spider whole. And that the spider could be poisonous. And that he (or she) could be swimming around in my stomach. And that the spider could bite my uterus and kill the baby.

Yup ... that's what I was thinking.

That's the thought and the scenario that kept me awake for a good forty-five minutes after my bathroom dash.

Obviously my stellar biology skills were not kicking in to ease my mind in any way - in my defence it was three-thirty in the morning and I was really, really sleepy - but still ... a little dose of common sense and I may have been able to get back to sleep.

Or, had I been able to convince myself that poisonous spiders are terribly rare where I live (unlike Australia where there is any number of deadly and poisonous creatures just waiting to kill you ... I have no idea how people survive there ...).

But no ... I was kept awake by the dreadful thought that the poisonous spider I had just swallowed whole was swimming around in my tummy trying to eat my placenta and kill my baby.

And I'm one half of the team in charge of easing my children's irrational fears.

They really have no hope ...

Morning

I crawled into bed with Bruce Lee this morning and was greeted with a soft kiss and a tiny little hand on my cheek.

"Hi Mommy."

"Hi baby ... good morning."

"Mommy? What's the song 'where they grow'"?

"Sing it again buddy ... I'm not sure ... sing it again for Mommy."

In his little voice he sang, perfectly in tune, "ummm ummm ... where they grow."

"I'm sorry baby ... Mommy doesn't know what you're singing. Do you want to sing something else?"

"No."

"OK ... sing it one more time. Mommy will listen really hard and maybe I'll figure it out."

"Laaaa laaa ummmm where they grow."

"Oh! I know what you're singing. Are you singing (croaky attempt at six o'clock in the morning singing) 'Down by the bay, where the watermelons grow, back to my home, I dare not go'?"

Big BIG smile.

"Yes!! Sing with me. Sing with me Mommy."

"OK."

So we sang:

Down by the bay,

Where the watermelons go

Back to my home

I dare not go

For if I do

My mother will say

... together.

And then he waited to see what I would say.

So I sang:

Did you ever see a bear wearing pink underwear?

And he howled with laughter. Big belly giggles.

"Do again. Sign again."

So we sang together again and I finished with:

Did you ever see pigs wearing really big wigs?

More delighted peels of laughter from Bruce Lee.

I didn't want it to end.

I started again:

Down by the bay

Where the ...

"Um Mommy?"

"Yes baby?"

"I have to go pee."

And instantly the magic moment is over and the daily routine begins.

But magic moments are not soon forgotten ...

Of Mice .. and me ...

Oh my gosh ... a mouse just ran behind my desk. Well not so much behind as beside my desk. When I'm facing my computer it's behind. When I'm facing my desk it's beside.

Like two feet away from me.

There is a section of my office - a tiny little cubby under the flight of stairs - that I've been meaning to sort out. It's become a bit of a junk pile.

Cleaning this area was going to be my project for today. I swear it was.

But that is so not going to happen now.

Because there is a mouse living in the cubby under the stairs. Making nests and all kinds of nastiness in old boxes of files and toner cartridges.

There is a book by John Irving ... a children's book ... called "A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound." It is a wonderful, terrifying children's book. The children in the book are being terrorized at night by an awful, horrible sound.

The sound is a mouse.

This week I've been hearing a rustling, scratchy, burrowing sound and I had convinced myself I was hearing things.

I was not hearing things ...

I am currently being terrorized by the sound and sight of a mouse ... in my office.

Where I'm trying to work.

I can't work now because I need my computer to work and when I'm working on my computer my back is to the mouse and I can't function knowing that at any moment the mouse could run up behind me and run across my feet ... or run up the back of my chair and into my hair ...

And I can't turn around and wait for the mouse to reappear because then I'm just sitting turned away from my desk staring at a wall and a printer and everyone will think I'm totally insane.

I'm now sitting in my chair with my legs up in front of me trying to type around my knees ... because that's totally less insane than staring at a wall.

Our office is under attack. So far this summer we've had bed bugs, cockroaches, epic amounts of fruit flies ... and now mice.

I know what you're thinking ... I need a new job.

One with less rodents and bugs.

I agree.

I remember one summer at our family cottage our family was staying in the boathouse. It was a tiny little one bedroom apartment. My parents got the bedroom and my brother and I stayed in beds in the dining/living room.

One night I was sleeping peacefully when I felt something plop onto my sleeping bag and then proceed to skitter down and off the bed.

I was attacked by a mouse.

After calming me down my Dad set a trap and we eventually went back to sleep. Sort of.

I didn't sleep. I was under my sleeping bag.

After what seemed like hours we heard a loud snap followed by several minutes of flipping and flopping.

The mouse was caught but the flipping and flopping didn't stop. It just kept going. Like some torturous punishment for attempting to kill one of God's precious creatures - we all just lay there in silence listening to the mouse slowly and painfully dying.

Finally my Dad had to get out of bed again and take the mouse down to the water to put it out of it's misery.

I think at the time I felt bad for the mouse.

I feel no sympathy for mice now.

I have to use the bathroom and my legs are numb (on account of being up on my chair) and I'm hungry.

I don't want to have to deal with a mouse.

... and I am totally not cleaning out the cubby today.

Cankle ...

I have "Cankles."

I've mentioned this before.

The Urban Dictionary defines Cankles as: The absence of a defined ankle on a person - whereby the calf of the leg merges directly into the foot. The calf appears to replace the ankle ...

I'm so self conscious about my "cankles" that I often include a disclaimer when I meet people for the first time.

"Hi ... my name is Erin. I'm a mom and a wife. I have cankles."

It wasn't long ago that I asked my family doctor if I could have plastic surgery on my ankles to try to improve the shape and size.

He told me I was crazy and that there was nothing wrong with my ankles and that they were perfectly lovely ankles and that I absolutely did not need plastic surgery on my ankles.

He was wrong ... I know he was wrong.

I have lived with fat ankles for my entire life.

There are certain types of shoes I can't wear. I can't wear shoes with straps or any kind of strappy shoe really ... they make my ankles look bigger.

I can't wear cute ballet flats with any kind of skirt.

I can't even get certain styles of ankle boots on my feet.

(Nothing boosts your self-esteem like grunting and sweating in a high end shoe store while trying to pull on a cute pair of ankle booties and having the seventeen year old sales girl suggest that perhaps a nice pair of orthotics might be a better fit.)

Once, when I was younger someone told me I had really cute legs. I was all like ... really, THANKS! And then he said ... "yeah, you have cute Charlie Brown legs."

Charlie Brown doesn't have any ankles.

He doesn't have any knees either, but that's not the point.

My point is that I really hate my ankles.

At a very recent visit to the doctor I was forced to see another practitioner in the office as my - wonderful - doctor was away on vacation.

After tearing a strip off me because of my weight gain in the first trimester (during which she implied that I had perhaps indulged in one to many Lemon Meringue Pies) she had the balls to ask me if my ankles were already swollen.

I sighed ... "No ... my ankles always look like this."

She looked right at me - in disbelief, void of all sensitivity - and said, "oh" ...

That's it. Just "oh".

What kind of a monster doesn't try to make a pregnant woman feel better about her cursed cankles?

My entire life I've felt alone in my quest for a better looking ankle. I've lived with the fact that people thought I was insane for dreaming of plastic surgery to fix the disfiguration.

Until I found this ...

http://media.abcnews.com/GMA/story?id=8161899&page=1

I am not alone.

There is hope.

All I need is four-thousand to eight-thousand dollars and strappy shoes here I come!

Box of Smarties 1, Erin 0.

My plan to have a few Smarties to try to satisfy the chocolate craving at two-thirty this afternoon seriously backfired.

I started with a few in my hand and left the box on the table. I figured in doing this I would avoid eating the entire box because I would have to get off the couch to get more thus preventing me from eating more because really, who wants to get off the couch?

After sucking the last small candy - held in my hand only moments before - to a state of non-existence I caved and practically ran to the table. Clutching the box in my hand like my life depended on the contents, I returned to the sofa to eat the remaining Smarties in comfort and total bliss.

Now I have the guilt.

The guilt of eating a box of chocolate candies.

The whole box.

This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if my day hadn't started with a massive cherry cheese danish ... and possibly some kind of cinnamon twist pastry as well.

(Back off ... it was pastry day at my office - unofficially of course - and pastry day is sometimes the only thing that gets me through.)

But even as I sit here experiencing the "guilt" I am telling myself over and over that it's OK because I will exercise later.

Like a tape in my mind ... Don't worry, you can exercise later and work off all those extra calories.

Exactly. And besides, how is the baby supposed to grow and be all healthy in the womb and whatnot if I'm not eating my quota of fluffy melt in your mouth pastries and boxes of candy coated chocolate.

Right.

Riiiiiight.

And the guilt is back.

But the tape kicks in again and says ... Don't worry, just remember the elliptical machine you bought. You CAN exercise.

And suddenly, the guilt is gone.

I CAN exercise and work off all those extra calories and build strong muscles and keep in shape during this pregnancy. I can work out at home and I'll probably be thinner than I've ever been by the time I go into labour.

In fact ... I should make sure I have my pre-pregnancy jeans with me when I go to the hospital to deliver the baby because I'll be wearing them home ... with a belt to hold them up.

Maybe I should even treat myself to a new pair of jeans to take to the hospital. Some cute skinny jeans.

The only problem I can see in this whole scenario is that while I've bought the elliptical machine, I don't currently have it.

It's at a friends house ... waiting to be picked up.

It has been "waiting to be picked up" for about seven months now.

Actually, it was recently moved to a new location to make it that much easier for me to get. It's literally like across the path. I can see it if I look out my kitchen window and up at my friends apartment.

Sadly, the closer proximity of the elliptical machine only adds to the delusion I've created that in purchasing the equipment I'm somehow burning calories.

I act - and eat - as though the machine sits in my living room waiting to be used every night promptly at seven o'clock ... for forty-five minutes.

I will literally indulge myself on some deliriously good sweet or salty treat because in the back of my mind I know I bought an elliptical machine that I can work out on.

I see myself on it ... working hard ... sweating. And somehow I've convinced myself that I'm burning calories.

It's beyond insane. I know.

But I'm pregnant and my ankles are swollen already and I get winded walking up the stairs.

Working out in some random daydream is really the closest I'm going to get to actually working out ... and if I've somehow managed to convince myself that I can eat whatever I want because I can burn calories by imagining myself on an elliptical machine that I own (more or less) but don't currently have and this allows me to eat delicious and satisfying treats ... well ... I choose to stay insane and happy.