Pregnant Brain

Even under the best circumstances, I'm pretty much the biggest airhead alive. I'm not entirely sure anything I do can be blamed on being pregnant, because it's all really typical behavior.

But seriously? Today I went to the doctor. Checked in, got handed a cup. Went straight to the bathroom. Went to grab toiet paper, and saw my cup. Empty. Sitting three inches from my face, I completely forgot about its existence. The best part of the story is that I walked into the bathroom, thinking about how weird it is to pee in a cup every month. Five seconds later, poof, gone from my head.

This is my life. This is how I am ALL THE TIME. If it's going to get worse, I am so screwed.

Today's Lesson

Today at work, a group of us were talking, and I learned something I never knew before.

If you ever go to prison? You can have a portrait taken to commemorate the experience. I mean, complete with a backdrop and the pose of your choice. And you can order copies of the picture to send to your loved ones.

I thought, at first, that Shnee was messing with us. I mean, normally when she says something that surprises me, I think, "Um, okay, never realized that," but this? I'm sorry this is WEIRD, and I thought for sure she had to be lying.

So she called another person to the desk, struck a silly pose, and said, "What's this that I'm doing?" And the person said, without missing a beat, "That's the penitentiary pose!" Then she and Shnee showed us all the most popular poses. It was funny, I guess you'll have to take my word for it though, because I'm really not telling this story well at all.

I asked her, why on earth would you want to commemorate THAT? And she said, "Kathy. Some of those people are never getting out! They need pictures to send their family!"

Right. I don't think of these things.

My Sister's Keeper

This book kind of sucked.

Okay, it kept my interest and distracted me while I was waiting to hear if we got an offer on the condo (we didn't, of course, but that's another story for another day). She tackles the ethical dilemma from an interesting angle- of course,we all wonder and worry about children conceived for the purposes of providing their siblings with cord blood for stem cell transplant, but she goes further, and wonders what would happen if the sibling continued to need tissue from that sibling.

Having said that, Jodi Picoult's oeuvre (for lack of a better word, sorry) reads like a list of Afterschool Specials or Very Special Episodes. This shouldn't have any bearing on this particular book, but that knowledge is really irritating to me. I'm not precisely sure why that is.

The most bothersome aspect of the book, for me, was the mom. I'm SO tired of authors writing about families struck by tragedy, with mothers that fall apart and fathers that are left to put the pieces back together and salvage the family. It's incredibly tiresome and this book is no exception. Yes, women are hysterical and irrational and men are caring and bewildered but always able to see the full picture and keep the family chugging along. I mean, it must be true, because all the books I'm thinking of were written by women, and wouldn't they know? (sigh.)

The subplot with Anna's lawyer was incredibly obvious to me, but maybe not to people in other professions. It was also, um, not an exact copy of Dr. Zhivago, but very...derivative.

The ending was a total cop-out, and while I didn't see it coming at all, it was still stupid.

I didn't like this book. I'm not sure what I'm reading next, but I hope I like it more than this one.

Drama Freaks

The big MS Drama Freak Lovefest going on at Facebook is trippy and weird and brings back all kinds of complicated high school feelings, but at the same time, is really a lot of fun. Because I hated my actual graduating class in high school, for the most part, this is most likely the closest I'm ever going to come to a reunion. I feel like we're going back to school after a reeeeally long summer break. The faces are the same, with the addition of spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends/kids, but everyone has become someone else. I mean, sort of. We're all adults now.

And the weird thing is, in spite of all being adults, I know that a lot of us, if not most of us, are thinking the same things we thought in high school. Does she like me? Am I cooler than him? If I do that, will they think I'm lame? And it's sort of frustrating, because I'd like to think people outgrow those feelings. I think we do, for the most part, because I don't feel this way in my everyday life. I don't go to work and worry if the nurses like me (...which is a good thing, heh).

The only other thing in the world that brings out the same feelings for me is getting ready to be a parent. Part of me can't believe how sensitive I am, and how easily I feel judged by snide comments, rolled eyes, or judgemental responses in general. Another part of me can't believe how many people feel compelled to act that way. I mean, I have definitely overreacted to people, no doubt about it. I blame the hormones, because I like to think I'm not usually THAT sensitive. But it's not just me, and it's not just the hormones, some people really are just snotty. I'm trying to tell myself that it's more about them than me- their insecurities and sometimes their jealousy- and that usually works in other areas of my life, but here, it's just not working. I guess because I know some of it is just inadvertent, and I'm also sure that, at some point, without meaning to, I did the same thing to someone else. So then I feel bad about that, too. There's just something about the topic that makes us all really sensitive and really opinionated, all at the same time.

I also hate that it makes me feel this way, because it makes me feel like a drama freak. Like I need constant validation and can't handle any kind of criticism at all and just generally like the most sensitive person on the planet, which I hate.

I don't really have any grand conclusion about it, I'm just thinking about it today.

Dreams

I read somewhere that a pregnant woman's dreams about whether she's having a boy or girl are typically more accurate than chance (I don't remember where I read that, probably somewhere stupid, to be honest).

For the last month or so, I've been solidly convinced I'm having a girl. Initially I was sure it was a girl, then I thought boy, and when I first went back to girl, I thought, ok, now you're being silly. But I've thought girl for a long time now, long enough to say it out loud.

Then, two nights ago, I had my second dream that I had a boy. So now I'm questioning that again. I mean, that's twice now.

On the other hand, the same night, I had a dream that someone was trying to kill me so they could eat me, so maybe my dreams aren't telling me much about reality.

avoid-avoid

Isn't this supposed to be the worst type of conflict? When you have two choices and you don't really want either one?

It doesn't even accurately describe this conflict, because I have an option I DO want, I just can't have it.

We have to move. Absolutely. There is not enough room here for a baby. We have our room, and we have the second bedroom, which houses Stephen's online business. And that's it. There's nowhere else to put the business, and there's nowhere else to put a baby. And that really sucks because I could live in this condo for the rest of my life.

I really love this place. I love the kitchen, I picked everything out myself. I love that it's big enough for us, but small enough that it's easy to clean. I love the washing machine in our unit- and we're all on one level, so no carrying laundry up and down stairs. The fact that someone ELSE mows the lawn and shovels the snow and fixes the roof and calls ComEd when the power goes out. I love the gym in the building. And wow, I REALLY love this neighborhood.

Unfortunately, so does the rest of the world, since the single family homes in this neighborhood are the most expensive in the city. This isn't really surprising, I'm a lowest common denominator kind of girl. But it's not just that, it's also the fact that things like easy access to the Brown Line (by far the best El line in the city), cute little stores, awesome restaurants, friendly bars, and lots of grocery stores make for good places to live.

So we have to move and we can't stay here. And that really sucks. But at the same time, we HAVE to. The condo has to get sold, we have to settle on a house (which we mostly have, I think, unless it sells before we sell our place), and we have to leave. So I find myself desperately wanting the condo to sell, scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees, folding and refolding everything in the closet, and buying new towels so the bathrooms look nicer, hoping someone will love it as much as we do. At the same time, I think, well, if it took a long time, that wouldn't be such a bad thing...

Ugh.

We have to sell the condo and we have to move. I just wish I were more excited about that.

photographic evidence of my awesomeness

Since Henry looks so much like Tim, I thought maybe looking at pictures of myself as a little kid would give me a hint what this kid will look like (please god, all I ask is that s/he gets Stephen's teeth...). I don't know if I learned anything more about what the kid will look like, but I do know more about myself as a kid.

I was, um, not exactly ladylike?

For example, Christmas when I was six or seven years old (we don't have a scanner right now, so these are digital pictures of pictures- not the clearest, but you get the idea):



The best thing about this picture is that I guarantee you my mom insisted I leave my shoes on because the feet of my tights were dirty. So, you know, at least you can't see that.

But a year later, I was a year older, and I had learned...right?



It would appear the only thing I learned in that year was how to convince my mom that it didn't matter if my tights were dirty.

And in case you think I'm overreacting, neither of these pictures is any big deal, and really, I was quite ladylike, well, I leave you with this: