In the swim

Damn it, I hate it when people are so fracking right. This swimming thing? Brilliant.

Yeah, it makes your back feel a bit funny because you have what feels like a second ass dangling from your belly button. But your arms and legs are free and cool and strong. I'm also managing to cut back a bit on the calories.

The most annoying part? It's all making me sleep better, feel better, endure the hellish heat better, yadda yadda.

This time, the midwife is serious (pg mentioned)

So, one more appointment down, and though she's kicking my now pudgy ass, I love my nurse midwife. Let's call her the CoolWife.

She really cracked the whip with me today on my weight gain. It's a strange thing for me--I'm usually a real stickler for maintaining my weight, which, while not nearly the struggle it is for gals facing things like PCOS, has never been an easy task, ever. But the beast has gotten away from me, and CoolWife is not happy.

But she taught me something: I won't harm Bruiser if I count calories a bit. So I'm supposed to hit no more than 2000 a day, and the hot-dog barge must set sail regularly at the Y pool. The added benefit, according to CoolWife, is that, and I quote, "swimmers just pop their babies right out, in my experience."

Here, here!

As you can tell, I'm one lucky bitch that this is all I get to report and complain about. We had a great u/s, Bruiser is measuring several days ahead, and he's doing the Electric Slide non-stop in utero. Six months, here we come.

My personal verdict (pg mentioned)

This is no fun at all. There, I've said it.

I'm not an ingrate--I am so eager to parent this Bruiser dude--but I just can't get into my current state all that much.

Okay, maybe I could if it wasn't 90+ frigging degrees outside with 90+ percent humidity. When outside, I feel like a barge made of swollen hot dogs. My wedding ring is acting as a finger tourniquet.

I've never loved air conditioning more in my life.

And even now, my brain still seeks out soothing milestones after which I can supposedly stop worrying, like 28 weeks. In short, I'm a grouchy, bloated, anxious, short-tempered mean old bundle of fat lady who's complaining about something she begged and pleaded for for years. Hilarious, aren't I?

"Jesus Was Breastfed"

Yesterday, my dear man called me as he walked to work, remarking on what he felt was the stupidest bumpersticker he had ever seen. It exclaimed "Jesus Was Breastfed." Of course, it was not alone in adorning the bumper of a minivan. There were others about being a homebirthing mom or something. Just to put the sticker in context.

My guy suggested we print up and add some stickers of our own, something like, oh, "Pol Pot Was Breastfed," just to put the issue into proper perspective.

It made me think about the emotional difference between a strongly held, benign belief that someone may share with friends or acquaintances or use to guide their life, and a belief that someone feels they can proclaim to the world on the ass of their car. In the later case, the belief becomes ideology, becomes universally proclaimed and applied moral standard.

And all the women who can't breastfeed even if they'd like to--the deadbaby mamas, the adoptive moms, the women who just don't have their milk come in for some reason--may feel hurt.

Is a bumper sticker really worth that? Has that thought ever crossed hippy mom's mind?

I Married a Visigoth

Yesterday, my husband finally set out to boldly tackle the Pit of Despair that is our garage. Coming from a family that never throws anything away ever, even stuff that is obviously trash, he has his work cut out for him. It's taken a bit of convincing to get him to agree that disgusting old termite-eaten den paneling is garbage and has no absolutely no use value.

After a while, he comes out of the Pit, sans cast.

He somehow (he refuses kindly to tell me how) removed his own cast. The cast he needed because of something I've been sworn to secrecy about, but let's just say it involved showing off for a group of guys at work and way too much collective testosterone (no battery or assault involved, though).

So, please, if you have any rival tribes you need decimated, give us a call.

Perspective

So, it's been a far stranger past few weeks than I've been letting on. My husband broke a bone in his hand at work in a truly ridiculous way that I am not at liberty to divulge, and is currently in a cast. I sprained my ankle, having struggled with my new awkward bulk and taking nose dive into the grass in front of our local museum. An older, ill relative passed away (he had been suffering for some time, and had a very happy, long life, so it wasn't heartwrenching, just sad for the wife and children left behind).

A year ago, this all would have felt like extra wood for the "woe is me" fire. And that would have been a legit reaction, of course. But it just doesn't feel that way anymore. Naturally, there's one big reason it doesn't, but there are also a ton of small reasons, too.

These little things are all the moments I appreciate everyday: that I can cook good food, that I have a wonderful life partner, that I'm surrounded by caring friends and family, that our yard is filled with plants, bugs, and animals in all their glorious forms. The anguish, grief, coping, and rooting around in my subconscious has paid dividends.

More on Indian food

There are lots of good cookbooks out there (and so-so hippy American versions that are still pretty tasty). Right now, we're obsessed with Yamuna Devi's Lord Krishna's Cuisine. It's basically an encyclopedia of veggie Indian food, with tons of recipes learned in India but adapted to US conditions (i.e. most of us don't cook over charcoal braziers, for instance). It's also like a crash course in cooking: precise directions and explanations, fun little stories about how Devi learned the dish, recommendations for various approaches if you don't have certain equipment or ingredients.

Anyway, check it out. And please, do stop by for dinner sometime (so long as you don't mind nibbling the experiments). :)

Enough of that

Whew, sorry. I almost feel like I need to tell some sort of bad joke to clear the air after that post. Can you tell I'm a bit on the cranky side of late? I never knew it was possible to be very happy, and yet oh so cranky.

There is absolutely nothing of interest here. I'm obsessed with Indian food--could a certain someone be expressing previous life preferences? Fortunately, the man is currently fascinated by learning to cook Indian food, which saves me from months of unrequited longing, as the Indian restaurants in town are profoundly mediocre, at best.

Longing again for a farm, and to live out in the country. We recently discovered a place that sounds awesome, but alas, again, the timing's not right. Someday, though...

And to beat this dead horse...

Sorry, dears, I just wanted to clarify: I am one of those folks who dislikes abortion intensely, but feels it should be a medical option available in close, thoughtful consultation with a health care provider. My wish is that we someday reduce unwanted pregnancies dramatically and promote adoption as an option by improving both women's health care and the child welfare system.

I respect people with differing opinions, so long as they don't spit vitriol or insult women trying to use the legal services of a clinic. (A family member was berated by truly disturbing protesters once on her way to a D&C for a missed miscarriage--wonder how often that happens?)

A fish in the percolator

Warning: rant ahead.

So what do we do with this family values stuff? Especially when the party that once claimed them so desperately as their own can't seem to make the darned things fit into their grand scheme of things, into their ideas about the relationship between government and private companies. It's like the fish in the percolator: Family values are out of place and stinky and unwelcome in the brewing, bubbling world of business.

Case in point: this morning, NPR carried two items back to back. One on new legislation proposing four weeks paid parental leave (ooooh, how generous!) started out with nice statements from both sides of the aisle and I thought, so maybe all this talk about bipartisanship and all of us wanting the same things is true. Then NPR talked to some Texan tool who talked about parental leave as if it were a deadly threat to the American economy and our society.

Next came a disheartening piece on the murder of Dr. Tiller, the Kansas physician who was shot for performing about a dozen late-term terminations of pregnancies over the last ten years, ALL mind you to save the life of the mother or prevent her from having to deliver a baby so ill or deformed that it would die immediately in agony, as required by Kansas law. This is underreported in the media, unfortunately. Anyway, it just seemed sad that after hearing the virulent condemnation of paid leave for federal employees, we get to hear more about why many people equate abortion with murder, and why some real wackos feel that justifies cold-blooded shooting in churches.

Thus, from some Republicans' perspective, as a woman (or a woman's devoted partner), you must have that baby, but you get zero support for doing so, except a flimsy guarantee that for 12 weeks with no income, you won't be kicked to the curb by your employer. Same goes if you want to adopt the baby from a woman who decided abortion wasn't her way. This in the richest nation in the world.

It's just pathetic. If we want to advocate for "family values," let's hear some plans to actually support families. If we want to support the unimpeded ability of businesses to cut costs and manage human resources, let's just say so, and screw the families.

Nothing to see here

Really, there's nothing going on here.

I'm wrestling with ongoing angst about my dissertation and those "what am I going to do with the rest of my life"-type questions. I'm starting to bore even myself.

I'm also wrestling with new personality traits that have developed as my abdomen swells. I've become totally uninterested in working, exercising, and really into watching television shows (via the internets), sitting in air conditioned rooms, and eating crappy, fatty, sugary, gooey foods (though my midwife's stern warnings have helped me resist temptation). I've finally become a real American!

That was a joke, patriots. No need to get in a tizzy.