Mommin' It Up since 2004!
Date: 1/02/04
To: Emily
From: Jenny
Subj: I’m huge!!
This baby is going crazy with the rib-kicking! And I’m officially GINORMOUS. Em, I can barely cross my legs anymore. What am I going to do? I NEED TO CROSS MY LEGS!! And my pantyhose are rolling down my pelvic area…gotta go take care of that. I’ll write you later when they’re resting comfortably right below my bra again.
Please take a trip back in time with me, to last spring when I was about ten weeks pregnant with my daughter. I was having a rough time, and I journaled about it…enjoy!
My unborn child is TRYING TO KILL ME.
UNCLE! UNCLE I say! You win, baby! You’re the boss! I keep trying to tell this kiddo that mommy is bowing to his/her authority, but Baby will not listen. And so I must assume that he or she is going to me much more rascally than Joshua. Even though I puked my fair share with Joshua, it was nothing like this. That was a freaking BREEZE. It was mostly in the morning and I could still function. This week I’ve been throwing up morning, noon, evening, night, and middle of the night. And when I puke, I don’t even feel better! I still feel sick! So I’ve pretty much been on the couch or in bed nonstop, when I am not at work. Poor Joshua has not had a very fun mommy and like all good mommies, I feel extremely guilty about that. Although, he does laugh when I throw up and says repeatedly “That’s funny!” so maybe I am a little bit of fun after all.
When I am laying on the couch or the bed miserable, I pretty much concentrate on NOT thinking about being sick. You know, not thinking about how many times I’ve puked, how many different places, how many different types of receptacles. (Example: Monday: Number of pukes: four. Number of places: three – once at work, once at my brother’s house, twice at home. Types of receptacles: two – three toilets and a trashcan. Grossest puke: in my downstairs bathroom when IT SPLASHED BACK UP IN MY FACE!!!!!)
You can see why I try not to think about these things, but it’s nearly impossible! It’s also impossible not to think about FOOD, cause when I do get hungry, I’m usually REALLY hungry but have no idea what I want. When I finally pick something I usually only eat a very little bit and then get turned off. So it’s very frustrating.
I will also say that one of the joys of being pregnant and having a toddler at home is that the smell of Joshua’s stinky poo diapers regularly sends me running to the nearest ralph-friendly receptacle. And THEN, after a few minutes, I have to actually CHANGE the thing. Yikes, that is a pretty big challenge, because I don’t want to a) throw up on my son or b) leave him diaper-less while I again run to the nearest Spewing Depot. It’s quite the quandary.
I sure hope this baby hears my cries of surrender and gives me some relief soon!
Because potty training is such a major milestone in both a child and a mother’s lives, I’ve decided to regale you with yet another tale from that era of my life. I started potty training Joshua a year ago, when he was about 27 months old. I gave up (the first time) three months later, partly because he just didn’t give a crap (pun intended) WHERE he peed, and he preferred to poop in his pants. Actually, truth be told, he preferred, while we were potty training, not to poop AT ALL, and he became chronically constipated from trying to hold it in for three months! So I set out on a quest to get him regular again. Yes, another thing I can blame myself for: my son’s inability to push one out. Ahh the mother’s guilt! It’s so constant it’s almost comforting….oh wait no it’s not.
To prepare for “Operation: Poopshoot” I went to my favorite book, Toddler 411 and got a list of fun fiber foods to go grocery shopping for. I hit Kroger’s, got the stuff and that evening I was “rewarded” for my efforts with a slightly softer than normal poop from Joshua. I could see that he was going, and he looked at me and he said “It’s ok if I poop in my pants.” (Which is what I had been telling him ever since we ceased potty training. Cause I just wanted him to POOP!) And I said, “It sure is, buddy, you go for it!” So anyhoo, a few minutes later I had to change this bad boy, and it was RANK!! And then I tried to cover it up with Lysol and it almost made it worse! Rank poop mixed with Lysol is just not pretty. Yee-ikes.
The next night, my husband Bobby and I got to “reap the fruits” of his high-fiber diet once again when we were enjoying a family dinner at Boston Market (I was ginomrously pregnant and NOT COOKING at the time) and he LAID ONE ON US. Of course being the stellar parents that we are, we had no diaper bag with us. So then we had to go to Home Depot to get some stuff for the baby’s room and Joshua stunk that place up, and by the time we got home, Bobby’s car was smelling pretty….um…toxic. My husband earned big “Daddy points†by changing that poop when we got home. Here are his comments on that event:
Bobby: “That was the nastiest poop I have ever changed in my life.”
Me: “Was it less hard than usual?” (Meaning: “was it a constipated rock poop?”)
Bobby: “It was very soft, and he pooped through his diaper. And despite my best efforts, I got poop on the floor, on my jeans, and on his jeans. And there’s no way you could’ve changed it without barfing.”
Thus began “The Clean-Out,†as I refer to it. Mmmm…misty water-color memories. After that, Joshua began pooping normally in his diaper for SEVERAL more months until he was finally trained. And by finally, I mean ten months after I originally started training him. As a side note, I’d like to say that Toddler 411 didn’t come out until August 28th, 2006. If it had come out earlier I would’ve realized earlier that Joshua just wasn’t ready for the potty yet. But then I wouldn’t have had such a glorious tale to tell, either