Note to self

At 23 weeks one should not sit on a floor for several hours watching a rehearsal. That is all. Ow. Oh. And I can’t get up. Oh dear.

Baby Dreams

We all have special talents. Mine is sleeping. I’m really, really good at sleeping. WELL KISS THAT GOOD BYE MS. FORTY – YOU’LL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN! And that’s why I know am speaking with a public defender and attempting a Stand Your Ground defense based on Mommy-shaming and the fact that I managed to kill someone by hurling a canister of Tums at their head. (It is Florida, I have a better than average chance of being acquitted). Seriously, I’m a champ at sleeping. Last night, Mr. Forty put Tiger Balm on my chest, because I’m having a “time.” It seems nothing in my person is working. At all. I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I can’t word, I can’t get off the couch. Everything hurts, or feels weird, or is annoying the shit out of me. And critter, who is being still today, decided yesterday to scope out his entire treehouse and basically had the Zooms non-stop.  (The Zooms, alternately, the Rips, is my term for when the dogs suddenly decide they need to be everywhere in the yard/house/car at once). After Mr. Forty put the magic creme on my chest, I went night-night. Immediately. Really, less than a minute I bet. And I had dreams. Pregnancy dreams are the best – they’re very real and lucid and bright. I have been enjoying them very much – even the disturbing ones are still so profound and rich with symbolism. Last night was the first time I dreamed about Critter as a baby. He was very small and, in dream-like logic, often morphed from baby to puppy without me feeling a bit concerned. It was also not a bit disturbing that I had fashioned a car seat for him out of pizza boxes and metal pizza pans. He seemed quite content strapped to a silver disk and riding around in the car.  He was obviously a newborn, but his eyes were wide open and he was smiling quite a lot (neither of which rank high on a newborn’s resume).  He also was talking. Not complete sentences, but attempts at basic questions with some gibberish thrown in for good measure. We had a lively chat. Mostly about how old I was and what should he call his grandmother.  Then he lifted his arms up and I picked him up under his arms and stretched him out – much like one of our cats likes to stretch. All perfectly normal I’m sure. Then he morphed into a teenager.  I’ve had a few teenager dreams about him, so I knew immediately who he was. Currently, he looks quite a bit like his father (when I met his father at 17).  He was in a band and Mr. Forty and I were very proud to see him do something artistic and creative (Mr. Forty plays guitar and I hope Critter picks it up at some point. It would be best if he played it I suppose, but if carrying around a guitar gets him laid, why put in the effort I guess….).  We asked Critter what the name of his band was and he said, “Try Age.”  We asked him to spell it… he spelled it t-r-i-a-g-e. I woke myself up from fear.  Oh god I hope he isn’t an...

Efforting

It’s one of those idiotic corporate-speak words, “efforting.” As in, “Efforting is being made to show an improvement in negative profitability by inverse hiring.” Truly, it’s a magical, stupid language, something that should be preserved for all time as an example of the frailty of human enterprise. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about vacuum-brained corporate drones. Just a brief observation tonight: it seems like my entire existence these days – and I mean this in an entirely positive way – is based on scouring my brain for anything that has ever given me pleasure or reduced pain in order to combat the myriad tweaks and discomforts that comprise Ms’ current existence.  I mean, she’s not, or doesn’t seem to be, a walking pile of fail or anything. She’s remarkably fit, limber, and energetic. For anyone, I mean, not just for a pregnant woman. But she’s suffering any of a number of system failures these days. Low blood pressure? Tingly sensation around her solar plexus? Foot pain? It sends me into this overdrive mode of “Ok, I need to fix this NOW!” She noted last night that I’ve become awfully protective lately. And it’s true. She doesn’t need protecting. She’s tougher than I am in every way. But I figure we’re dealing with some pretty hard-coded genetic imperatives here.  It makes me chuckle. Now off to figure out whether Tiger Balm will give our baby...