There comes a point every summer, usually in about late July or early August, when I become more or less incapable of coherent thought or productive activity because my brain is melting from the heat. It is not that hot outside yet, but late pregnancy (37 weeks tomorrow!) is having the same effect on me.
I won’t claim that this blog ever rises much above navel-gazing – but you can expect that to be about 10 times worse in the weeks to come. I apologize in advance.
It’s just that when there is a tiny human kicking and stretching and hiccupping in your midsection, it becomes very difficult to think about much else besides said tiny human.
These days, I’m primarily fixated on her position. Ruby was breech, and so I keep expecting this baby to flip head-up at any moment. I am so consumed by this worry that Ruby last week actually said, “Mommy, I want to pretend that I’m pregnant,” and then shoved a baby doll under her shirt and said, “Oh, God, come here and feel: Do you think this is her head or her butt?!”
I am still keeping up at work, but when I get home at night, I am basically the world’s laziest parent. Ruby and I used to play hopscotch or jump rope before dinner, or sometimes we’d engage in a three-way Nerf swordfight with my stepson. On the weekends, we’d go to the zoo or the Children’s Museum or have a picnic at the park. Now we mostly play one of two games in the evening. One is “Hospital,” in which I lie in bed while Ruby pretends to run tests on me. When the novelty of that wears off, we play a game that I invented out of sheer desperation called “Tattoo Parlor,” in which I lie in bed while Ruby draws on me with washable markers. And on the weekends? We play these games for even longer stretches of time, supplemented with watching almost every program on The Hub and Cartoon Network. Thank God for the My Little Pony royal wedding double episode; I have watched this enough times now that I know all of the words to “Big Brother Best Friend Forever” as sung by Twilight Sparkle to her brother, Shining Armor, as well the lyrics to “This Day Aria,” a duet of sorts between the real bride-to-be, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and her evil doppelganger. And I will probably watch it again tonight.
Normally, I try not to let Ruby watch that much TV, but I am so far past caring, and I don’t foresee this getting better in the near future, either. In about six more months, when (oh, please please please) the baby is sleeping for longer stretches, Ruby will be in for a rude awakening as I attempt to wean her back down to an hour of TV a day, but for right now, I am in survival mode.
I should be nesting, I guess, and I am to some extent: I washed all of the cloth diapers and buttoned them down to the newborn setting; I assembled the Pack ‘N Play (or OK, I supervised my mom and husband as they assembled the Pack ‘N Play); I’ve washed and folded tons of tiny pink clothes. But that surge of domestic energy that compels enormously pregnant women to scrub the baseboards with a toothbrush or cook and freeze dozens of meals – yeah, I’m still waiting on that to hit me. Right now, my hormones aren’t compelling me to do anything beyond pee every 10 minutes, eat a pound of pasta as an afternoon snack and lie on the sofa while my daughter Crayolas my legs.
Anybody have any tips for waiting out the last few weeks of pregnancy?
