Being pregnant is weird. I mean, it's a fantastic experience, sure. And I've been really lucky with both pregnancies so far. No morning sickness, vomiting, painful symptoms (beside my batshit emotions the first trimester). I have gas, sure, but that's because I'm not supposed to eat cheese (and man, do I love me some cheese!) so I can't blame the pregnancy on that one. I can, however, blame the dogs.
But yeah, being pregnant is weird. And even though I kind of enjoy it (when it's not 200 degrees and I'm not 200 pounds) it's sort of like purgatory in terms of getting anything done.
Twenty-two weeks pregnant and lazy as a muthafucka.
When I was pregnant with Archer my entire creative self was put on hold. Far too busy was I sitting on my ass reading US Weekly when I wasn't working to pay the bills, muttering to myself incoherently about Who Wore it Best.
I'm starting to feel the pull toward nothingness. I told myself I would finish my pilot-script and new book proposal by the time the baby came, which isn't actually that tough of a goal. Script is almost finished and book proposal is, well -- I have a title started it.
It's just that suddenly I'm having a hard time concentrating on my work. My usual five-hour days at the coffee shop have in the last few weeks, whittled themselves down to two.
Two hours working at the coffee shop and all I want to do is go home and stare at the ceiling fan or my chipped toenail polish or the television. Seriously, though. How can one possibly get her work done when there's HGTV!? It's like porn for pregnant chicks! People nesting 24/7 --What more could I possibly want for my girl-boner?
Of course, by the time Archer comes home from school I'm wrecked and totally exhausted from my two-hours of work that I can't possibly imagine doing anything but sleep. Unfortunately, Archer has other plans for us. And they don't involve HGTV or trashy magazines. Bummer.
Of course, I should be enjoying every minute of my two-hour-work-day life while it still even exists. When this baby comes, I'm pretty sure it's going to be near impossible to get much of anything done. As for Archer-Mommy quality time? This is it for us and that's enough to get me off my tired ass for late-afternoon field trips but man if I don't collapse on the couch after tucking Archer in bed, ready to rock out with What You Get For the Money.
I'm sort of like a ticking time bomb, except instead of hauling ass to get my shit together before I explode, I'm, well, not hauling ass to get my shit together before I explode.
But man if it doesn't feel good.
........................
In other news, how the hell does one explain to a child how to tell boys from girls at this age? And I don't mean "boys have penises and girls have vaginas" because at Archer's school, as I assume it is with most schools these days, everyone wears clothes. Seriously, I dare you to try to differentiate boys from girls without sounding sexist. I mean, shit, I totally can't.
GGC
31 comments:
I've always wondered if I would get away with being super lazy during a second pregnancy like I was during my first. I'm glad to see that the answer is: sort of. Good enough for me!
You're pregnant. What's my excuse?
After my last pregnancy, my husband said he wanted to send our couch on a vacation because it started to sound wounded from being so intensely lounged upon for nine solid months.
Enjoy it honey. The work will wait for you, but the pregnancy is fleeting.
"How can one possibly get her work done when there's HGTV!? It's like porn for pregnant chicks! People nesting 24/7 --What more could I possibly want for my girl-boner?"
Best.line.ever.
You rock.
Ah lazy pregnant days...miss them so. Take advantage while you can cause once there's two, well, there just isn't much time for being unproductive and lazy. *sniff*
As for the "boys are different than girls because..." question, it's actually really funny when the oldest little person starts asking the question. What's better is coming up with a good answer. I stumbled ass in mouth for a while with that one!
I'm sure you'll come up with a good and creative answer for Archer!
Yeah...pretty tough! We had to answer that question sort of "after the fact." When my oldest was in preschool (and this was EVERYONE's first experience with preschool)he came home broken hearted one day. He was in the "kitchen" play area....playing. One of the little girls in his class told him he had to leave because only GIRLS were allowed in the kitchen. My husband is a stay-at-home dad so a "guy" being in the kitchen is the norm at our house. Needless to say it was hard to explain.
Oh man. The difference between boys and girls without sounding sexist?
My best guess would be to go the very directest route and make them ask: "Are you a boy or a girl?"
I remember going through the scattered, can't focus stage of things...and then towards the third trimester I had this insane reversal where suddenly I worried that Oh my God, I'm going to be IRRELEVANT. That's when I think I got more work done than ever before.
Enjoy the US Weeklies now. You'll get your mojo back when the time is right.
Yes, but how do I explain being lazy as a muthafucka when I'm so NOT pregnant?
I think I have a wicked case of inertia.
Hey Rebecca!
I have a question: I hope you don't mind me asking, but I notice you have a tattoo on/near your hip and I wanted to know how it's been faring with pregnancies. I was interested get one there but I didn't know how it would be effected by 9 months of continuous expansion. It looks great but I thought I'd ask your professional opinion. (c:
Julia
I remember having to take the oldest to school, which also meant getting middle kid ready to leave when I was pregnant, I was so tired, I'd pull into the driveway, hand middle kid toy and then nap for 10 minutes or so. I was pathetic.
As for the boy/girl question, I have NO clue.
Hey Julia!
Re: tattoos and pregnancy. I've had no issues with either of mine. I have a big piece around my waist and down my hip (there's a flower underneath the quote and the petals fall down my thigh) and a tattoo on my LOW stomach and neither stretched during pregnancy or even changed in the slightest. People told me that my tattoos would get jacked but I think maybe that's some kind of urban be-afraid-of-tattoos legend? My friend had a tattoo around her belly button and it was also find during and after pregnancy. All the best and happy tattooing!
OMG...I didn't realize my pre- and post-natal obsession with HGTV was part of a phenomenon! I was going to post about it too, actually. And as for the creativity-sucking aspect of pregnancy, I was deep into that. I didn't blog for almost the whole 9 months. I look at pregnancy as a very internal thing - literally and figuratively. I read a lot of books and was content to store things up inside myself. Then comes the baby, and the slow bleed of all that acquired inspiration. It's a process.
My prego TV obsesh was with TLC. Everything about babies from birth'in them to bringing them home!
I know this post wasn't SUPPOSED to influence people to get preggers, but man if I don't want to be knocked up right now. Knocked up & on my ass.
You look great! I was wondering about your hair, I love the bangs, want to cut the bangs, afraid of the bangs. Hard to style? I have kind of a smallish forehead...pain in the ass to grow if I look stupid....am I stalkerish to obsess about your bangs...how often to you get them trimmed...still won't look as good as you if I cut the bangs SIGH
Bangs are easy as punch if you have straight hair. I don't do anything to mine at all.. The occasional flat-iron if I sleep with wet hair but other than that... Although I can't speak for curly-haired peeps. Also, I cut my own hair (and bangs) pretty much consistently. (I have a hair girl I go to once every six months to clean my hair up.)
I cut my bangs every three weeks, usually but it's super easy! The trick to bangs is to keep them at eyebrow length. Bangs look great on all faces at eyebrow level, in my humble O. Good luck!
So you're lazy while pregnant and I'm just lazy all the time...darn!
I've always wondered that about tatoos as well. Now I want to get another one! I always thought I wouldn't be able to get one htere because of the stretching! Hmmmm....
Curb Appeal. Hands down my favorite.
Telling boys from girls, huh? Most preschoolers assume other children share their own gender. A boy calls all new acquaintances "he" and a girls calls them "she." It's part of that whole egocentric thing. i.e., I am a boy therefore everyone else in my class/play group are boys.
Shrill denials on the part of the incorrectly identified tot usually straighten it out: "I'm not a BOY!" Followed by dirty looks and muttered asides.
You can tell them boys have short hair and girls have long hair but that's not always true. I remember with horror the "pixie cut" my mother inflicted on me when I was three.
Fortunately, clothing is a relatively sure clue to a child's gender. Girls, either due to their own desire to resemble pretty, pretty princesses or to the fashion tastes of their mothers, are frequently clad in pink and lavender. With sequins. And maribou feathers.
Boys wear camo and shirts giving homage to sports teams and dinosaurs. Trucks are also a popular motif in male toddler clothing.
When all else fails, check the accessories. Girls have My Pretty Pony or Disney Princesses lunch boxes and backpacks. Their ears are often pierced and there is nail polish inexpertly applied on their little fingers and toes.
Behavior is another tipoff. Boys do lots of stamping and growling. They clumsily perform kung fu moves and throw punches at invisible bad guys.
Girls wave pretend wands and they talk much more than boys. Much, much more.
If all else fails, ask them "are you a boy or a girl?"
-Palmer
I had a wird thing happen with a hip tat after my first pregnancy, actually - it was fine for about a year after, and then it sort of ... slipped. Like the outline part moved slightly to the side of the shading part. But it is also very old, so after this next one, I may have to go get it touched up.
As far as the lazy goes - we started our house reno in December, about when I got pregnant. Guess what's still going on because we're too tired/lazy to get on it? Yikes.
And I'm not sure about that last question - pumpkinpie tries to tell me about things like hair length, but I tell her that's not really true, because people CHOOSE that. I would guess body shape and facial features are how most of us tell, but it can be hard to define in explanation HOW you know.
Oh yikes, Kittenpie! Hmm... So I guess the tattoo weirdness is case by case? I may have to post a survey about the pregnant tattoo situation.
Pretty much all of the kids at my kids day care look EXACTLY ALIKE... whether or not they're boys or girls. And they're all named Casey or Cayden or Willow, so that ain't no help either.
Yikes, pregnantness. So much of it in the bloggy world. You fertile Myrtles need to keep your pheromones away from me because I'm done having kids. Two and Through!
Caity's preschool has er..OPEN...washrooms for the kidlets...they SEEEE everything.
So biologically they GET the differences...
and with clothes....em..girls scream louder!!???
and you look great.
I had such a great first pregnancy and then the second one seemed soooo hard. I had a two year old to keep up w/ and I was just exhausted by the end of the day. Most nights I would fall asleep w/ him in his little bed and my husband would come get me in the middle of the night and lead me back to our bed. It just seemed much harder physically and emotionally.
But, don't worry about not being productive. You're getting loads of work done just lying on the couch - whether your mind is engaged or not.
On the gender issue..my 5 yr old is clinging to the long hair/short hair and girl colors/boy colors. This is usually pretty accurate until we turn on the tv.
Ahh, you are so pregnant when you start really needing to , coughcough, REST! It's okay. It's okay to veg a bit. It might be the last time you ever do. : )
As for boys/girls, at my daughter's preschool there are no doors on the stalls in the bathroom (I thought that was state law actually) so the penis/vagina thing was the perfect explanation as they often saw each other peeing and could see there were obvious differences. Another route to go is to say girls can grow up to be mommies and boys can grow up to be daddies. I know some people are never parents but to kids this age, they tend to view adults as moms or dads, so it was a good explanation.
YOU LOOK FAB!
I totally agree about HGTV - I'm a messy organizing freak (I just blogged about it) and it's like crack for me. TG I don't have Tv connection so I can watching HGTV only when at hotels or something :-)
unrelated comment on baby names: I was at the beach the other day and overheard a mom calling her kid... wait for it... X-RAY. yes. As in "X-Ray, stop throwing sand! X-Ray, come here!" It cracked me up and made me think of your baby name post... original names are great, but I dunno about X-Ray...?
although come to think of it they probably spelled it Exreigh or something.
My kids were 9 years apart so I never had to worry too much, I was able to be as lazy as I wanted especially when he was at his dad's for a few days. Also explaining the boy/girl diff-9 yr olds luckily are quick on the draw.
As for HGTV-holy crap I just became addicted last couple months, ESPECIALLY House Hunters. My only question is, will they let me on the show AND buy the house for me??
Sorry to hear about the cheese thing, man that and apples are all I ate for a while with my daughter. No wonder she loves both of them. hehe
(oh yeah, I just bought your book a couple days ago so I'm planning on starting it tonight!! Sooo excited)
Me being the kind of anti-binary person I am would maybe say just don't bother telling them how to tell boys from girls? I mean, I'm not a mother, or an expert. But I'm trying to think of a reason that it's important who's a boy and who's a girl that isn't sexist or heterosexist, and I can't really come up with one.
And, just to throw this out there, not all girls have vaginas, not all boys have penises, and not all people have only one or the other...so that even makes the genitalia distinction sort of pointless. I mean, I guess if your a trans-positive person. Which I am.
OMG Jen! Househunters? My second favorite after "What You Get For the Money"... Love, LOVE Househunters and it's on, like, all night long. Thanks for picking up my book! xoxoxoxox
And MFK -- Exrai is solid. Just... wow.
I'm late to the party, but I just wanted to tell you how I lost all creativity for the entire nine months of both pregnancies and for both years of nursing. I think the hormones do really strange things to your brain and maybe something else works on your spirit.
I don't even think I was lazy, I could barely get off the couch. It was beyond lazy.
And HGTV, oh yeah.
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