Jul
9
July 9, 2007
I occasionally do some freelance writing for a Large Producer of Consumer Goods, typically short articles that get published on one of their websites or sent out in newsletters. The topics are always parenting related, and I often find myself producing all sorts of expert advice on subjects I know almost nothing about. Once I wrote a whole chirpy piece on how to curtail the mess caused by small children—as though my own house doesn’t look as though a Toys R Us exploded in the living room, as though my kitchen floor doesn’t show the remnants of a thousand dropped banana slices, as though we don’t rely on the bottom of Riley’s shirt to keep his nose clean. Please.
My latest assignments have all been pregnancy-related, appropriately enough, and the article I was working on over the weekend had to do with pregnancy weight gain. So, I ask you to imagine a women dealing with her own personal blend of first-trimester discomfort, which features a constant overwhelming desire to eat anything and everything remotely foodlike that might contain 1) sugar, 2) salt, or 3) fat in vast quantities, possibly by upending an entire bag of salt n’ vinegar chips into her gaping maw and following it with a massive glug of banana milkshake, mm-MM, and maybe throwing some “tropical” flavored Jelly Bellies in there too, what the hell, and oooh, how about a peanut butter sandwich, oh yes, yes, yes, YES! . . . uh, and anyway, in the midst of all that, writing an article that includes the ugly little factoid that it’s not necessary to gain any weight in the first trimester, and in fact even later in pregnancy you only need an additional 300 calories a day, which you can easily obtain by having an extra glass of milk and some lowfat yogurt. It’s like being ON FIRE and having to write a helpful piece on how it might seem like dousing yourself in water is the best solution, but have you tried prenatal yoga and eating more greens, because that’s really more healthy in the long run.
In related news, my diet is out the goddamned window. Oh, I had good intentions a few weeks back, I had grand plans to continue to eat a restricted—but totally healthful—diet throughout this pregnancy, and I would remain exactly the same size everywhere except my belly.
Ha ha ha ha HAAAAAA! Seriously. You’d think they gave me a lobotomy along with that C-section.
I forgot how the combination of all-day nausea and food cravings results in an absolutely unstoppable desire to eat certain kinds of foods, and sometimes those foods are Cheetos. Certain other foods—the Spicy Shrink-Yer-Butt Salad I loved for so long, for instance—are unacceptable to the point of triggering a tiny little cat-hork gag in the back of my throat. White beans and lettuce, together? Huurgh.
I’m fearful of instantly gaining back the weight I lost before I can even start blaming it on the baby (I’ve already put on a few pounds), but I guess I’m nowhere near concerned enough to actually limit what I’m eating in any significant way. Pregnancy is the only time I’ve ever experienced this sort of crazy lustful relationship with food, where the right thing—and yes, sometimes the right thing is motherfucking Cheetos— can actually elevate me to a higher plane of existence, a place where angels are singing and my tastebuds are doing a happy little hoedown and sparkly unicorns are blowing heart-shaped balloons from their lifted, rainbow-y tails.
Once, many years ago, I got really baked with a friend and we sat for hours ecstatically eating Hershey bars dipped into a jar of peanut butter. It was so delicious I was sure I could actually see the joyful food-appreciation molecules bouncing around us (singing “Yellow Submarine”, no doubt). I don’t want to say pregnancy is like being stoned (except maybe for the long-lasting brain damage), but there must be some kind of chemical trickery going on to make certain foods taste so freaking good.
Food cravings, headaches, low-grade nausea—like being carsick—gas, and a belly that’s vigorously straining the confines of those new size 6’s (solution: elastic hairband looped through the buttonhole. I am a knocked-up MacGyver over here!). Despite all the symptoms, I keep having this sensation of disbelief: am I really going to have another baby? Too early to say for sure, maybe, but I had my first prenatal appointment today, complete with ultrasound—and holy shit, there he or she was, in grainy black and white. My kidney-bean-shaped baby-to-be, with the tiniest heartbeat, beat beat beating away.
Jul
5
July 5, 2007
There is this episode of Blue’s Clues that I’ve seen about a million times—including twice today on the long drive back up from Oregon, thank god for laptop-based portable DVD entertainment but somebody please hand me an ice pick so I can gouge the “Now it’s time for so long . . . but we’ll sing just one more song . . .” part of the soundtrack from the depths of my skull where it is PERMANENTLY LODGED—where Steve makes a sock puppet and then he coaxes the invisible watching toddler audience to make their own puppets using their hands (this puppet is to be called, wait for it, “Handy”, which always makes me think helpless creepy thoughts about Handy the Children’s Puppet Which is Actually a Hand, Mommy I Don’t Like Handy), and then there’s a longish portion of the show where Steve repeatedly makes his hand open and close while saying “HELLO” while an invisible toddler’s voice repeats “HELLO” in a goofily deep tone, and anyway that’s sort of how I feel right now, like a probably-friendly but possibly-dirty hand puppet saying “HELLO”. So: hello!
We had a very good vacation, and I’m semi-tanned and mostly exhausted and my house is a total pigsty— I hate that about coming back home from a trip, how the floors are always gross and the fridge smells eerie and the entire house looks wrecked from our chaotic departure, and let’s not even discuss the incoming laundry situation—and I’m happy as hell to be sleeping in my own big comfortable bed tonight, and tending to my ablutions with some goddamn decent toilet paper (I will never, ever understand my in-laws’ preference for one-ply, why not wipe your ass with something more substantial, like a COBWEB?).
A few photos from the trip — the whole set is here:
Beautiful weather last week on the coast in Coos Bay.
Riley and JB splashing in the Umpqua River yesterday.
We spent a lot of time on this swing.
Toddlers don’t particularly care for lifejackets, I’ve learned.
The view from the cabin, which greatly helps make up for the travel time to get there.
So tell me, did you have a good week? What did you do for July 4, if you were celebrating?
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