The New Girl

Before I Go And Either Turn On The TV Or Blow My Own Head Off.

Let me just say that I am WAVING THE WHITE FLAG, universe. 

We've all been been beaten down here by various and sundry illnesses.  Yes, there's still the [all-day, everyday, pregnancy plauge] morning sickness to contend with. (BTW, the Vitamin Water is tasty but it DOES produce The Spitting Effect from the sugar aftertaste.  I KNOW.  Sick! I'm sooorry.)  And there's been a touch of insomnia, during which I'm up from say, 3:30AM until..uh, it's NIGHTTIME again. 

But then TLNG came down with WHATEVER and WHATEVER she comes down with is invariably kicked off with spiking a fever and throwing up in the middle of the night. (Whoever it was that gave me the lasagna-the-bed trick deserves a Mothering Medal.) So, there's been THAT.  This round, only one episode of Nightmare Pukefest, though, glad to say.  There was even a little comic relief, what with The Man adding half a container of BAKING POWDER to the laundry, instead of baking SODA and with me trying to, uh, wash a PILLOW.  In the WASHING MACHINE.  (I'm blaming the pregnancy.  Have you ever done this? Let me just say that after, oh, MULTIPLE attempts to SPIN the TEN THOUSAND POUNDS of water out of it, I gave up and hauled the sopping mess into a trash bag and threw it outside.  In the MIDDLE. OF. THE. NIGHT.)

Then I came down with the WHATEVER and have added hoarse! and congested! to the list of unwelcome adjectives that describe my current feeling state.  I broke down and took medication because seriously?  I CAN'T TAKE IT. It was on my doctor's list of medications and all, don't worry, it wasn't like, OPIUM or whatever (can't I take just a liiiiiittle of that?)

So, there you go.  Sunshine and roses and it makes such a pathetic post, I know.  Don't even comment, really.  How awful for you to read this mess.  It's like when someone is walking down the hall and you give them the old, rhetorical, 'How are you today?' And they're all:

'I'm morning sick and I can't sleep and my kid is sick and I tried to wash a pillow and it didn't work and then I got a cold and Vitamin Water makes me have to spit.'

I hate those people.  I mean, really. 

Why can't they just say I'M FINE, like everyone else?

Fun Fact Friday!

* I am determined to come up with some Fun Facts, despite the UNfun fact that I was both up late last night and very too much early this AM.  I am also determined to do something UNpregnancy-related.  After this, though:

* Tell me MORE, Pregnancy-Induced Vitamin Water Drinkers.  What flavors did you prefer?  Does it leave a sugary after-taste? (Which, btw, in a really super UNfun bizarre pregnancy symptom way, makes me need to SPIT repeatedly, throughout the day. AWFUL.  I know.  I'm SO sorry.)

* One summer during college, my friends and I went to a shore town and I got a job working on a marina at a bait and tackle shop.  I also worked at a restaurant on the same marina.  Since the jobs both required us to serve the charter fishermen there, I had to be to work at FIVE IN THE MORNING.  Some party summer!

* That whole experience is filled with a cast of characters that would make an entertaining novel.  Or, you know, an amazingly successful reality show.  It included a short order cook named Skeeter (shit you not) who was, perhaps, a heavy drinker and who would, occasionally, have to be roused from his resting place of the dining room floor so that we could open.

* For the bait and tackle shop, I had to participate in measuring all the [carcasses] catches for the state-sponsored contests.  I saw amazing creatures (hanging upside down from the hook), sail fish, tuna (they are effing HUGE, I have NO IDEA how they fit them in those little cans) dolphin fish (not, you know, the mammal), and all manner of sharks.  It was a little creepy to me and I always felt like they were going to flip up on the hook and bite my hand off.

* I secretly loved it when a [fish killer] sportsman came back bloodied from the fight. (I'm KIDDING. notreally.)

* As a kid, our family's fast food of choice was McDonhelld's or Arby's.  I never ate in a Burger King, I don't think, until college.  While I attended, the town acquired both a Burger King and a Taco Bell to add to their one McDonald's, Perkins and their three or four successful family-owned after-drinking-all-night food joints.

* The college I went to was in a very rural environment (as in, during the spring, you could smell the [cow shit] fertilizer on the fields from any point on or off campus. Even, you know, in your kitchen.)

* Speaking of kitchens, one time, when Skeeter couldn't be sufficiently roused to, ah, man the searing hot equipment, my friend and I had to take over the griddle.  It was the first time in my life to ever encounter the substance called Scrapple (horrifying!) and one of the customers had to tell me how to cook it. (You slice that nasty shit thin, yo, and make it CRISPY, so it doesn't seem like they're eating ears and lips and butt-holes and whatnot.)**

* I haven't eaten meat in about 15 years and have never once wanted to eat it.  For real.  I don't like it and have never, ever missed it.  It was a relief to me to find that I could live the rest of my life and not ever cook or eat meat again.  I don't even think about it. So, how is this for weird?  My last pregnancy I craved, uh, an Arby's Roast Beef Sandwich.  And this one?  I actually thought, for the first time since college, that a Whopper sounded good. 

[Edited to add: GO JONNIKER!  HAVE THAT BABY!]

**I apologize to my Scrapple Eater Readers, if I have any.  But it's, you know, CALLED SCRAPPLE.

In A Nut-House, Err, I mean Nutshell.

Here's what's happening here, in a nutshell:

* I feel not so much pregnant as SUFFERING some interminable plague and/or receiving treatment of an awful kind for an equally awful disease.  I hesitate to post much [these days] about it, lest the gratitude [trolls] police find me and put me in YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY YOUR OLD-ASS OVARIES ARE EVEN WORKING jail.

* Since I'm lying prone, pretty much wherever I go, (which is really awkward at, say, story-time) The Cute Nephew has taken to asking me (every 3 minutes): 'Tatie, you feel good?' To which I reply, 'No, Nephew, I don't feel good.'  To which he replies, 'You're not happy?' To which I reply, 'I'm happy, I just don't feel good.' To which he replies, 'You're happy? You feel good?' To which I reply, 'No, I don't feel good.' To which he replies, 'Tatie? You got a big baby in yer belly?'

* The Littlest New Girl has been talking up a storm and it's super-amazing-incredible to me.  This is the time that I was WAITING for, during all those hours bouncing on that damn exercise ball.  I loves me a trying-to-figure-out-the-world toddler.

* She also is sharp with a keen little sense of humor.  And she is EXTREMELY EASILY FRUSTRATED.  I am wondering if this is STAGE or TRAIT specific. Ahem. I can see ahead, folks, to the third grade homework and it's a SCARY, SCARY THING.

* I still feel conflicted about the amount of tv that she is watching.  It's not so much GUILT, really, as I'm very limited and so are my choices.  But it's hard for me to know that we used to be doing OTHER THINGS during the times that are now filled with [crazy-ass-muppets] Sesame Street.

* On the upside, I gotta tell you that she counted to eleven yesterday and I just about FELL OVER.  I mean, you know.  We COUNT and all.  But I swear.  I DON'T TUTOR HER IN COUNTING.  I blame Big Bird.

* There are about 5 or 6 foods that I can eat reliably.  Other things rotate in and out..depending.  Last night, I dreamed about eating a pizza, though.

* Work has been extremely slow. E X T R E M E L Y.  Which is not all bad, considering.  But it does seem to make my life smaller, somehow.  So does going to bed DIRECTLY after putting your toddler down.

* After two unfortunate incidents with cottage cheese, it has been swapped out for cream cheese.  So, half a bagel with cream cheese is breakfast.  And often dinner.

* Regardless of how it appears, I really AM grateful that my old-ass ovaries are still working and that conceiving was relatively easy.  I just, you know, am questioning my decision-making skills right now.