girlfiend

The baby is getting bigger. I started feeling movement around 13 weeks, but now B can feel the baby move too. If I wasn’t so unenthusiastic about taking care of another child it would be exciting.

I hate that I feel so blah about this. I wish that I was able to feel happy. I’m more than 20 weeks into this pregnancy and I’ve gotten used to the idea of it, but it’s still not something I’m thrilled about. It would be easier if I could just skip the pregnancy part and go straight to the baby. I’m sure I could muster enthusiasm about a baby, but there’s nothing pretty about being pregnant.

I hate being pregnant. I hate the congestion and the asthma and the not being able to get a little bit drunk now and then. I hate the indigestion and the lack of appetite and my lack of interest in anything remotely healthy to eat. I hate the neverending exhaustion.  I hate that all maternity clothes are either too big or two small and seriously, maternity designers, what the fuck is up with all of the 3/4 length sleeves? I don’t particularly care for the length when I’m not pregnant, why do you think I want them now? And the belly. It just keeps getting bigger. It gets in my way when I wash dishes, put the baby in his crib, read stories to my kids, squeeze through small spaces. And my belly button is just gaping open. It’s disgusting. I hate being so clumsy and the way my ass is always hanging out of my pants. I hate that I have to pee two minutes after I finish peeing.

Maybe I should try to find some good things.

This pregnancy isn’t as bad as my pregnancy with T. The baby, unlike his older brother, actually sleeps so I’m not feeling the sleep deprived desperate depression I felt during my last pregnancy. I don’t have terrible heartburn at the moment. I haven’t gained a billion pounds. I think I’m only up about 15.  The doctor at our 20 week ultrasound told us that I’m farther along than I think I am- I’m probably closer to 23 weeks than I am to 21.

I like babies. I like newborns. I don’t mind the lumpy, sleepy, nursing all of the time stage of the first three or four months. I’m lucky the baby is going to be a spring baby, not a dead of winter or a heat of summer baby. I’m lucky I’m not having twins.  Or triplets.

I’m so tired. I’m not even halfway through this pregnancy and I’m done. My standards keep getting lower and lower. My house is a mess, we’re pulling wrinkled clothes out of the clean laundry baskets, and we’re eating fewer vegetables in a week than I used to eat in a day. My temper is short, my kids aren’t getting enough of my good attentions, and I just want to get into bed. My refrigerator is nearly empty, we’ve run out of all of the breakfast cereals my kids will eat and I think they both had bread and butter followed by cheese crackers for lunch today. After we stopped for cookies at the bakery.

The Fiendling is still sleeping in our room. He manages to stay in his “bed” on the floor one night out of five. The rest of the nights he ends up in our bed and keeps me awake most of the night. He’s still being a bit of an asshole, but I think, and I hope I’m not getting ahead of myself or jinxing myself here, but I think he’s snapping out of it. When I give him specific instructions with definite consequences in advance he tends to be cooperative and not throw a complete shitfit when it’s time to leave someplace that he’d like to stay. That’s not always the case. Yesterday he ran away from me twice when it was time to leave the (cold, deserted) playground and I nearly fucking killed him after I had to drag him kicking and screaming to the car, but that was the first time it happened this week, not the fourth.

When he’s not yelling at me, refusing to eat, making unreasonable demands, fucking with his brother, or otherwise being 3, the Fiendling has been awesome. He’s taken to snuggling with me sometimes in the afternoons while T naps.  He likes to sit on my lap while I watch Friday Night Lights on Netflix. He also likes to play with flour when I can bring myself to bake. He drives his engines through it, narrating stories about crashes at the flour mill, snow storms and other disasters. I think he’s pretty close to reading too. He’s been sounding out words and has been even more interested in letters and their sounds than he was before. He likes to take the scrabble letters and spell the words he knows and the names of his engines.  And 9 times out of 10 he wipes his own ass without asking for assistance.

The baby, who is in the middle of the 18 month sleep regression, is mostly sleeping through the night again, but refuses to go to sleep and screams for an hour most nights before bed. He’s taken to throwing tantrums too, biting, hair-pulling, pushing and screaming when he doesn’t get his way, and I can’t tell if it’s because of his age or because he’s not talking at all and his inability to communicate is frustrating him. I’m sure his brother isn’t helping matters much, snatching toys away from him and yelling at him for playing. When T pulls F’s hair, pushes him or scratches his face I have to remove him from the situation, but secretly I like that my baby is fighting back a little. I hate to say it, but F deserves it a good portion of the time.

Tantrums or not, T is the sweetest kid.  He has finally (and I say finally because I feel like F started much earlier) started to bring me books and sit on my lap so I can read them to him.  He’s been so snuggly and sweet and generous with kisses that it almost makes up for the scratches on my face. And he can blow his own nose. I appreciate that in a child.