The Final Countdown

I have reached that stage of my pregnancy where, on a given day, I might get an irresistible urge to paint the entire house, plant an herb garden, or sew a complete set of crib bedding from scratch (note: I don't sew); yet I am officially too big to even put on my pants by myself.  Some call this urge the nesting instinct.  I call it panic.

See, at thirty-six weeks and counting, you suddenly realize you only have about three or four weeks left to be an actual human being (albeit one with a rather large, energetic parasite that starts doing water ballet about 11p.m. each night) before being plunged back into the world of feed, spit-up, poop, feed, spit-up, poop, feed, spit-up, poop -- a world where you exist in such an exhaustion-induced stupor that when you finally come to, you realize you haven't showered or brushed your teeth in six weeks.  (Incidentally, this is the part of motherhood you conveniently forgot when you started to consider getting pregnant again).

Yeah, it's beginning to dawn on me that, unless I act quickly, the crayon mural my two-year-old created on the sliding-glass door will still be there in a year and a half, along with the drips of orange juice on the wall behind the kitchen table, and the twenty-some-odd boxes in the basement labeled "Stuff" left from our last move.

So I've written up a nice long list of impossible tasks to complete before the end of June -- things like cleaning out all the cupboards in the kitchen, organizing the storage room, and finishing the novel I started six years ago.  And I'm all geared up to accomplish every last one of them -- something that would seem so much more achievable if only I could see my shoes.

Pride and Pregnancy

Have you ever noticed how, when you're pregnant, your body kind of becomes public property? It's like, just because your stomach happens to protrude a few inches (or feet, as the case might be) further in front of you than usual, it has suddenly entered the public domain.  

I mean, the first few months of pregnancy, sure, you're sick as a dog and feel as if Mount Vesuvius will erupt if you get the tiniest whiff of a cooking pork product, but at least it's a private agony.  Then suddenly, month five or six hits and your belly pops out and you become a one-woman petting zoo.  One of my little piano students rubs my belly enthusiastically every time she comes for her lesson, announcing matter-of-factly, "Yep!  It's getting bigger!"  And quite honestly, eight-year-old piano students are entirely preferable to the random strangers in the supermarket who get this irresistible urge to touch my stomach and comment on its size (something nobody would dare do if, instead of being pregnant, I had just overdone it on the twinkies and doughnuts).

And sometimes the comments are worse when they're trying to be nice.  Like the sympathetic friends who try to make you feel better by asking, "Oh, are you pregnant?  You're so tiny, you hardly even show!" when you know for a fact that this morning you split the seam on your hugest pair of maternity pants and you've started wondering if they make maternity clothes in size "Hippo".

Then toward month seven or eight you know it's getting bad because instead of asking "How are you doing?" people start asking in this sad, concerned voice "How are you feeling?" and what they really mean is, "Holy smokes -- you've bloated up like a whale.  You must feel awful!"

So between all the comments and belly-rubbing and weekly doctor visits, by the time you're ready to deliver, you've completely lost all inhibitions regarding your pregnant body.  When Will was born, I had been poked, prodded, and checked by so many random doctors, nurses, groups of interns in training (and I'm sure there was a janitor or two) over the course of twelve hours of labor, I felt like getting on the hospital P.A. system and announcing "ATTENTION HOSPITAL VISITORS, IF ANYONE ELSE IS INTERESTED IN CHECKING TO SEE HOW FAR THE PATIENT IN ROOM 475 HAS DILATED, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO SO AT THIS TIME." 

To tell the truth, though, most of the time it's not so bad.  It's kind of sweet the way, when you walk into the room, people look at your belly before they look at your face and it makes them smile (Or laugh out loud.  Or dive out of the way like a steamroller's coming through).   It's nice to know that just a glance at my stomach can brighten someone's day.  Hey, I try to do my part to make the world a better place.  And if all it takes is looking like I've swallowed a giant beach ball, so be it.

My Two-Year Old, the Sugar Addict

 I can only blame myself, really.  I mean, with my first pregnancy, I was so careful.  I followed my "What to Eat When You're Expecting" book to the letter, shunning all sugar and white flour, concocting incredibly healthy and incredibly foul-tasting cauliflower soups, and eating muffins made with enough wheat germ to make them taste like tree bark. 

But with my second it all went out the window. 

I bought boxes of chocolates and virtually inhaled all the ones I liked, then nibbled the chocolate off the outsides of the ones I didn't (honestly, who decided lemon cream was okay to put inside a chocolate?)

The arrival of each new holiday signalled a new adventure in my sugar indulgence -- at Halloween, it was candy corns; Christmas, those foil-wrapped crispy chocolate bells;  and Valentines, conversation hearts.  The rest of the time, it was basically just chocolate: chocolate bars, chocolate frosting, and chocolate chips dumped into the peanut butter jar and scooped out with a spoon.  I know, I know -- the "What to Eat" folks would be appalled.  But really, who wants wheat bran/carob chip brownies when you can have a pint of chocolate chip ice cream? Especially when your belly's huge and your ankles are swollen and you feel like some sort of mutant hippo?

So I shouldn't be surprised that my now-two-year-old has some kind of sixth sense when it comes to candy.  All it takes is the faintest rustle of a plastic wrapper and his little face lights up: "I want some!"

Case in point:  a couple of weeks ago, I sneaked a bag of those Whopper's Robin's Eggs into the shopping cart at Wal-Mart (obviously, my diet's not much better with this pregnancy!).  They made it into the cart under the radar, and they even made it through the cashier and into the grocery sack without incident.   As we drove home, I turned up the radio and at a stop light gently pried the bag open.  I carefully slid my hand inside and pulled out an egg.  I turned my head to the side so Jack wouldn't see me putting it in my mouth.  Crunch.

"I want a Whopper!"

He's like the little "Sixth Sense" kid that sees dead people, except he sees candy -- through cupboard doors, in my purse, in the top drawer of my dresser -- he's always managing to find my secret stashes (of which I have quite a few, I must admit).  One day I walked into the kitchen and found him sitting on the counter, one hand up to his wrist in my sugar bin, the other shoving a handful of the stuff into his mouth.  "I yike sugar!" he cheered, delighted with his discovery.

I imagined my dental bill climbing into the thousands.

I can't even buy cereal with any sugar in it -- he eats the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms, the frosting off of the Frosted Mini-Wheats, and even digs out the sugar-coated raisins from the Raisin Bran.  I've created a monster.  And it's all my fault -- it's like he was fed a direct line of corn syrup in utero.

But then again, who needs the guilt?  So, next time I find him reaching into a bag of chocolate chips, I'll probably just grab the peanut butter jar and a couple of spoons and join in.