Anything Said: June 2006

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Three things of questionable note

Thing the first:
I am dying of a blood clot in my leg. At least, that's how I have diagnosed myself after much soul-searching and internet research conducted on websites with pop-up ads offering me free college scholarships. Two nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night with one of those mind-blowingly horrific leg cramps all the pregnancy books have been warning me about. I'd been blowing off those warnings, all "leg cramps? please. let's talk about contractions or something." But the leg cramps? Ouch. No, seriously: O-U-C-H. They feel like charley-horses on steroids. The one I had the other night was really bad -- so bad that I've been limping around with what feels like a pulled calf muscle ever since.

Now, I have been assured that I do not show any of the symptoms of a blood clot. I have no swelling or discoloration, my skin is not warm to the touch, the ache in my muscle is not sharp or constant, etc. It's much more likely that I just stretched or pulled something while in the act of desperately trying to shake off the demon cramp. But the internets are full of highly qualified professionals with dot-net web addresses and they tell me that I have deep vein thrombosis, gangrene, placenta previa, and liver cancer. Also, scabies.

The internets are very rarely wrong on these matters. But just in case they are and I'm not, in fact, dying, are there any other moms or moms-to-be reading this who have experienced these leg cramps, and can you share a miracle cure? Heat and exercise seem to be helping, but waaaaay too slowly for my taste.

Thing the second:
Last night's hormone-infused dream was particularly choice. The husband and I went to a CD-release party for a singer/cook we knew who looked like Chef from South Park. The name of the CD was "Hide Not The Christmas Greens." It was a collection of recipes for cooking greens, set to music and recorded as songs. When we got to the party, there were all kinds of raw salad greens being passed on trays. I couldn't stop stuffing spinach leaves into my mouth. Like, I actually couldn't stop -- I just stood in a doorway for what felt like hours, eating spinach like my life depended on it. The husband was off schmoozing with other guests.

Thing the third:
The Danbury Mint has some special plans for what I should do with my paycheck. They keep sending me mailings to outline their ideas. Two of the most recent are shown below. I'm having trouble deciding, so I ask for your vote: which one should I purchase to add that extra touch of class and subtlety to the baby's room? It's either one of these or a family of gnomes...

The Pug Stained Glass Lamp: "One of America's favorite dog breeds featured on a stunning, Tiffany-style stained glass lamp." Or...

The "I Love Pugs" Montage Throw: "A superbly crafted blanket that captures all the endearing charm of the Pug." Not just some of the charm, people. We're talking ALL the charm. Can you put a price on that?

(Answer: yes. $75)

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Saturday in the park

I think that I am too curmudgeonly for outdoor concerts. Last night the husband and I went to see "A Tibetan Mozart Requiem" -- essentially a choir and orchestra performing the requiem with Tibetan monks busting out between movements to talk about world peace and emit low, guttural chants -- at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. The concert was a part of a series of free summer shows in the city, where you can bring a blanket and some snacks and get your picnic on under the glow of stars and sky-scrapers.

Sounds delightful, right? Right? Well it was -- except for the fact that I have deep social and emotional problems that cause me to hate crowds, the elderly, gray-haired suburban men who drink Coronas with their pinkies extended, and high-backed lawnchairs. All of which were present and accounted for last night.

There is a great contradiction built into the structure and setup of the phenomenon that is the free outdoor urban cultural event. On one hand, it is the great equalizer: free music for the masses! Everyone is welcome! The arts are for the poor and rich alike! Yet on the other hand, it's nonrestrictive set-up comes with built-in barriers to access -- meaning: he who shows utter disregard for all of those around him gets to see the show. Everyone else? Not so much.

Concerts at Millennium Park take place on a fancy stage, raised up in front of a huge expanse of lawn where audience members can sit. About ninety percent of these audience members, myself and the husband included, gamely spread out on blankets, munch picnic dinners, and chat their way through the shows. The other ten percent, however? Perch themselves high in their lawn-chair thrones, shield themselves from the sun with standing umbrellas, and dictate their autobiographies into their cell phones at top volume, all the while completely oblivious to the fact that no one else within a 30-foot radius can either see or hear anything that's on the stage.

The husband and I spent half of our time at the concert staring at asses -- specifically, the asses of the polo-shirt-clad men and the posse of senior citizens who insisted on standing up for periodic ten-minute intervals in order to secure a better view. Never mind that rows and rows of people were seated behind them; never mind that I'm pretty sure I learned better manners in grade school; and definitely never mind that waving around an unlit cigar at a Mozart performance just makes you look uninformed and a little bit desperate. They. would. see. violins!

Throughout the concert, I kept glancing at the couple seated directly in front of us. The woman was young and pretty and red-headed, and her companion was a pleasant-looking guy drinking Sam Adams and eating hummus. Everytime their view of the show was blocked by Granny McNeedstostand or one of her associates, and by that I mean every five minutes or so, the red-headed woman would simply glance over at the hummus-eating gentleman, smile widely, and roll her eyes as if to say "what a funny and ridiculous situation which we cannot currently control but about which we will share many a hearty laugh down the line." I felt jealous of the woman's calm demeanor, and a little frustrated, like: come with me and be filled with angst, my flame-haired friend! How was it that she could remain so unaffected by the obvious slights to common courtesy and decency being thrown all around her?

And that's when I realized -- or rather, remembered: curmudgeonly. I am just too curmudgeonly to leave the house. Why doesn't someone remind me of this before I attempt to partake in social offerings? Maybe I need one of those invisible electric fences from time to time, to keep me secured in my happy place...

Thursday, June 22, 2006

What's with all the crazy?

Would you ever, in a million years, consider doing the following:

- Calling the public library reference desk, asking the librarian to read you an entire journal over the phone, and then - when she politely refuses to do so - screaming, "This is bullshit! Things are gonna change around here, lady! THINGS ARE GONNA CHANGE!!!!!" and hanging up in a huff?

- Playing Solitaire on one of the library's public access computers for three hours while drinking soda straight from a two-liter bottle; then, when you are ready to leave, throwing the empty bottle on the floor and spitting on it before walking your classy ass right out the door?

- Screaming at the reference librarian for fifteen minutes about how useless the library is, how they have a terribly deficient collection of materials and consistently deliver sub-par customer service; asking the librarian why she bothers getting up in the morning and coming to work; then, five minutes later, meekly coming back to the reference desk to ask for a stapler?

- Calling the reference desk to ask for your own phone number?

- Calling the reference desk to ask, "Do you think Oprah would like this book?"

No? Just checking. Me neither, by the way.

Monday, June 19, 2006

I will be your father figure, put your tiny hand in mine

For his first Father's Day yesterday, my husband got breakfast in bed and a touching American Greetings card from Cletus the Fetus. He seemed pleased that the unborn was considerate enough to fry up some bacon and eggs for his dining enjoyment, and even more pleased that he was able to eat said treats in bed, in our newly air-conditioned bedroom, in front of the World Cup on television.

(Of course, I'm not at all bitter about the fact that for Mother's Day last month, Cletus apparently advised her father that "the best way to honor mommy and the sacrifice of her emotional and physical well-being for our happiness is to stop by Whole Foods on your way home from work and pick up some cheese and crackers." No, because if I were bitter about that, I would have to be bitter about receiving two used Elton John CDs wrapped in a paper bag still containing the store receipt for my first wedding anniversary, or about getting a sleeping bag for Christmas one year when I thought I was getting an engagement ring. But I'm not bitter, because the cheese and crackers were tasty, and the sleeping bag was nice and warm, PLUS my husband is hot and hilarious and yesterday he figured out how to make the slipcover fit on the couch, which is like some kind of Mensa puzzle or something.)

I'm super-psyched to find out what kind of father the husband is going to be. I'll be honest: part of me is worried that he's going to put me to shame with his mad skillz. He's just a much more patient and nurturing person than I am, in general. I know they say that all that stuff kind of "kicks in" once you've given birth and your body starts responding instinctively to your baby's cries and movements, but I don't know -- it's hard for me to picture the huge shift it would take for me to be as gentle as he is.

My own dad has never been what you would call "gentle," but I grew up desperately, DESPERATELY, wanting to make him proud of me. For several years as a child and teenager I tried to accomplish this by molding myself -- my gangly, uncoordinated, painfully bespectacled self -- into an elite school athlete. My dad loves sports and I am his oldest child; I saw it as my duty to give him something to cheer for. I was on the track team, the volleyball team, the basketball team. This was mostly in junior high school, where just showing up on the first day of practice was enough to make first-string. My dad showed up for every game and competition, smiling silently from the sidelines as I -- well, as I choked, repeatedly and horrificly, in pretty much every possible situation.

I tripped over my too-big feet coming out of the starting block in the 100-yard dash. I failed, again and again, to get my serve to go over the volleyball net, until finally they had to stop giving me do-overs and call "side-out." On the basketball court, the coach kept me in on defense on account of the fact that merely raising my gangly arms could keep the cute little curly-haired point guards on the opposing team from scoring. Nobody ever threw me the ball. The one time someone did, I was so surprised that I clutched the ball to my chest, surveyed the expanse of hardwood in front of me, and decided that the appropriate course of action was to simply sprint the entire length of the court without dribbling. That was the first and last time I touched the ball all season.

Despite all this, my dad kept coming to my games. He attended pretty much every one, until I wizened up in high school and decided to start trying out for plays and singing groups instead of teams. To keep him interested in me, I started watching sports with him on weekends, figuring that if he couldn't cheer for me he could at least cheer with me. This actually turned out to be a really good move, as I developed my love of basketball through staying up late to watch Bulls games with him on the couch. I learned to mimic his expressions of righteous outrage and superior disgust over bad calls by the refs; when he shouted at the TV, I joined in. I watched him out of the corner of my eye to see how I should react until, eventually, the reactions became my own.

Now that I'm a full-grown adult-type person, I know that my dad loved me and was proud of me throughout the entirety of my awkward teens, that he would love me and be proud of me as an adult no matter what. He likes that I married an athlete, if I couldn't be one myself, and I think that he enjoys sharing analyses of NBA games with me over the phone. Honestly, I think so highly of my dad that if we didn't have that shared interest to connect over -- even though I know that he's perfectly fine with the uncoordinated geektastic "women's libber" he now knows me to be -- I would probably still be out there on a basketball court somewhere, pregnant and panting, trying to convince someone to pass me the ball.

I know that my husband will be just as thrilled to watch his daughter compete in some kind of brainiac scholastic bowl or spelling bee as he will be to watch her follow his lead and race the 400-meter hurdles. And really, the other part of me -- the part that's not busy worrying that he'll be better than me at this whole parenting gig -- is relieved to know that out of the two of us, at least ONE will be guaranteed to have that necessary parental sweetness. If I don't end up developing it to the same degree that he possesses, that will just free me up to tackle other important mommy duties. Like making sure that our daughter receives more than celebratory cheese and crackers on her first birthday.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Currently obsessing like a fiend over...

...Round Ligament Pain. Why do most pregnancy books and websites refer to this as "discomfort"? Friends, I have known discomfort. Discomfort is your leg falling asleep under the weight of the dog sleeping in your lap. It's your husband hogging all the couch space, leaving your pregnant ass to curl up awkwardly in one corner. Round ligament pain is NOT discomfort. Round ligament pain is pain.

...My dog's gimpy eye. My dog is an 11-month-old pug puppy. Her eyes are mad-googly. They stick out, like, two feet from the rest of her face, and they're constantly getting dirt and hairs and little pieces of god-knows-what stuck in them. Yesterday I came home from work to find the dog's right eye squinted almost completely shut. I took her to the vet, who performed $100 worth of tests on her and subsequently diagnosed her with Anterior Uveitis. Who knows how she got it? But we have eye drops to help treat it now, and if they don't work she has to go back in for bloodwork and oral meds, which we will probably have to finance with our firstborn, all Rumpelstiltskin-style.

As a side note, the eye-drop that the vet prescribed is an anti-inflammatory that's actually intended for human eyes, so I had to go to Walgreens to get the prescription filled. You have not known hilarity until you have stood in front of the stone-faced Walgreens pharmacy clerk, answering questions like "Has the dog been to our pharmacy before?" and "Would you like us to give her a call when her prescription is ready?"

...Mean, bewildered old people at the library. The husband and I recently made a pact with one another. We vowed that we each would do everything within our personal power to prevent the other from becoming a) snarly, anxious, and cruel, b) out of touch with the world, and c) batshit crazy upon reaching the golden years of life. We understand that unforeseen circumstances (Alzheimer's Disease, him leaving me for someone who's better at household chores, etc.) may get in the way of this agreement, but we thought it prudent to make arrangements, just in case. I just canNOT abide by the thought of either of us becoming That Person who is so bewildered by and angry about technological advances that (s)he berates and verbally abuses the courteous stranger who is trying to help her/him navigate them, the person who screams "Well what DO you know? I thought you young people were supposed to be such computer experts!" at the librarian who is trying to explain the difficulties of checking one's email when one does not know one's own email address.

...MTV programming choices. Namely, how am I to follow the progress of Lauren's fake-internship with Teen Vogue if MTV insists on replaying the exact same episode of The Hills over and over ad nauseum? I mean, come on.

...John Mahoney, eating dinner at the restaurant down the block from my house last night. The husband came running into the apartment, breathless, announcing "John Mahoney's standing across the street smoking a cigarette!" Celebrity-crazed, I ran outside to catch a glimpse, but he had already retreated into the restaurant. We contemplated going over for dinner (it's a fancypants place we've been saving for a special occasion, like when we win the lottery or rob a bank), but decided against it, mainly because the husband wasn't sure that he could keep from shouting out "I'm INCARCERATED, Lloyd!!!" upon getting within a few feet of Mahoney.

...Pregnancy blogs. Love them or hate them, these things are pregnant lady crack. What could be better than comparing your progress against that of your peers (how come she's feeling strong kicks already? how come her belly is bigger than mine?) and judging yourself harshly as a result? Although today in my surfing I came across a personal journal written by a woman my age who had just suffered her fourth miscarriage, and another by someone who was put on bedrest at 26 weeks because of preterm labor. All jokes aside, this is the stuff that makes you realize: as long as Cletus the Fetus gets herself born healthy, one way or another, I'm doing ok.

Even the mean old biddies won't be able to touch me once I'm rocking the wonder-spawn.

Monday, June 12, 2006

No sleep for the pregnant

Curses! I am no longer able to sleep on my back, which is by far my sleeping position of choice. It's just become far too uncomfortable, so for the past few nights I have been sleeping curled up on either side like a little kid. I toss and turn and am just generally restless. This morning I woke up with a wicked cramp in my neck and memories of the following crack-fever dreams:

1. I was hanging out, uninvited, in Britney Spears' rustic lakefront cabin with my friend Jessica Simpson. Britney's cabin had deer-heads mounted on the walls, a wood-burning stove, and an inflatable hot tub. Jessica started to inflate the hot tub and fill it with water, but I was nervous that Britney would come home and catch us invading her turf. Jessica forged ahead, unafraid. Suddenly Nick Lachey and his brother Drew came barging through the door. Jessica was embarrassed and tried to deflate the tub, but she couldn't figure out how to do it correctly so Nick had to show her. He was very agitated and, as I remember, was wearing lots of heavy gold rings. I told him not to worry about it, that I knew how to deflate the tub and that he could just leave.

2. I threw a big party. In the evite I sent around to my guests, I specifically requested that they all bring drugs. Everyone showed up with pills and dime bags, and one guy, this really popular guy from my high school named Pat, showed up in a big whaling boat. And suddenly we were on the water. Pat took a group of us out on his boat, and not ten minutes into the trip Pat threw out a fishing line and pulled in an eel, which attacked him and left him bloody. Everyone else on the boat sat in shock while I tore up blue pillowcases to wrap around his wounds.

3. I went to see the doctor because my pregnant belly had completely disappeared. The doctor was an unfamiliar man I had never met before. He examined me and then told me he had "good news and bad news." The good news was that I was "5% effaced." I remember those words exactly. The bad news was that he couldn't tell if there was still a baby inside me or not. He said it just like that, completely matter-of-fact. And I was very calm, all "well, I guess we'll just wait and see." Then I went home and ate waffles.

I kind of miss your standard "falling into a hole with no bottom" or "chased by a faceless man" dreams. At least with those, you knew what you were getting.

Friday, June 09, 2006

B-ball and babies

The husband and I have been watching a lot of basketball lately. Usually I don't really get into the NBA, or at least I haven't since I was a teenager and the Chicago Bulls were starting to win championships. It's all just so flashy and money-grubbing: big, rich babies who cover themselves in gold jewelry and tattoos, beat their wives and assault random women, and then threaten to go on strike when they get paid $49 million a year instead of the $50 million they need to support their crack habit. I don't like how the game is a veritable feast of corporate sponsorship, and I really don't like how it rewards kids for skipping or abbreviating college and going straight from high school to the pros. It's like: if you're that good a player, you're going to get drafted eventually anyway, so why not take the opportunity that THOUSANDS of kids would die for and accept one of the 20 full-ride scholarships you will be offered and get yourself four years worth of free education, so that later when you're in the NBA and being interviewed on TV you won't sound like such a big fat freaking idiot, Shaq.

This year, though, there was a really fun Western Conference lineup in the playoffs, with two teams in particular playing really interesting games, each led by funny-looking nice-guy stars. There was Phoenix, whose star is Steve Nash, a man who looks like he might share a joint with you before fixing your car. This is a guy who has been named league MVP for the past two years largely because of his assists: meaning he's awesome at passing the ball and setting up shots for his teammates so they can look like studs. Phoenix got knocked out in the semifinals last week, but the team that beat them is Fun Team #2, Dallas, so it's all ok. Dallas is the husband's favorite team; he's devoted to them. They are led by this giant 7-foot-tall German named Dirk Nowitski, which totally sounds like the name of a character you would make up for your satirical story about, I don't know, German schoolboys or something, not the name of an NBA star. But he is awesome, dwarfing everyone else around him while running around the court shooting layups like a little point guard. And he's always got this goofy grin on his face, like he just really, really loves playing basketball.

Anyway, the point is: the finals are on now and you might consider checking out a game if the thought of watching sports on tv doesn't make you break out in hives. It's Dallas vs. Miami, Dirk Nowitski vs. Shaq, Good vs. Evil. Last night was the first game. Dallas won, and Shaq missed like 75 free throws in a row. Here's my philosophy on free throws: a free throw is you, standing completely unguarded on the basketball court, being asked to throw the ball into the hoop. For a person who gets paid millions to play professional basketball, this is your core skill set stripped down to its most basic level. It's like me and, I don't know, shelving books. The way I see it, if you are an NBA player and you miss a free throw, the most basic and essential of standard qualifications for your job, you should have to pay some kind of fine, or donate to charity, or do some kind of public penance. Because, please. That would be like me trying to shelve a book and, instead, just throwing it on the ground.

But I digress.

Other idiot box delights I've been taking in during this, the beginning of the summer television doldrums? Fortunately, not much -- although I have been watching WAY too many episode of crap like "A Baby Story" on TLC. Why do I do this to myself? In like a zillion episodes, I think I've seen maybe two non-white families, one non-intervention home birth, and zero gay families featured. Apparently only straight white women with epidurals have babies. And yet I watch, because I am obsessed right now with thoughts of labor and childbirth and I want desperately to know what is in my future. YES, I KNOW that watching "A Baby Story" only fills my head with birth images that are contrary to the natural, non-intervention process I have "planned." YES, I KNOW that baby-related shows on TLC are sponsored by formula companies, the episiotomy-lovers association of america, and the devil. And. Yet. I. Watch.

TLC also has this other show on these days called "Bringing Home Baby." I'm less familiar with this one; I think it's new. It follows a family around for the first 24 hours after they bring their newborn home from the hospital. I've only watched a couple of episodes, but they both featured a lot of crying, spitting up, pooping, and jaundice. Also, lots of "friends from church" coming over to drop off casseroles. Maybe we should make some of those? I do like casseroles...

Monday, June 05, 2006

Things that go bump in the night

In bed last night, I started obsessing about dying in childbirth. I have always been a nighttime-worrier. Things can be fine and dandy during the day, but as soon as my head hits that pillow I start seeing visions of creepy crawlies and knife-wielding murderers and everyone I love perishing in a mass of sudden, bloody violence. I work myself into a frenzy without even realizing I'm doing it, and before long I'm shaking the husband awake to make sure he's still breathing or I'm up stifling sobs in the bathroom over some imaginary tragedy.

As a kid, my night panic mostly centered around visions of my family's house burning down. I was completely positive that we were doomed to suffer a house-fire -- so sure that I regularly made my parents check the batteries in the hallway smoke detectors and secretly kept a small container of water by my bed so that I could use it to help douse any small flames that might happen to, you know, pop up randomly in a corner or something. Any Very Special episodes of my favorite television programs featuring fire-related tragedies (Albert burns down the blind school on Little House on the Prairie; Webster burns down his family's apartment by storing his science project in the closet; etc.) I would watch over and over again, horrified yet transfixed, imagining how I too would walk through the rubble of my family's home once it finally and inevitably fell to the ground in a pile of soot and ashes.

Eventually my fire-obsession tapered off somewhat, making way for wide-awake nightmares about my loved ones passing away. These fears were at their strongest when I was a teenager. Many nights in bed I would imagine all kinds of horrible, painful scenarios: my parents dying in a car crash and me and my siblings having to attend their funeral before being split up into separate foster homes; my best girlfriend getting kidnapped and killed; robbers breaking into a house where I was babysitting and murdering the children on my watch. I would go over every horrific moment of each scene, in detail, in my mind, envisioning them so elaborately that it was sometimes hard to remember they weren't real. My parents would catch me sobbing in bed and, understandably, would have a hard time believing me when I told them nothing was wrong.

As an adult, I've managed (for the most part) to get these night fears in check. I no longer create full-scale imaginary horror shows before falling into fitful sleep. But I do spend a lot of time in bed worrying: worrying about that upcoming airplane trip I'm about to take; worrying about my parents' road safety during their recent drive from Indiana to Texas; worrying about not being able to hear my dog's cries over the loud whir of our new air conditioner. From all these worries and night terrors you would think that I was a person who had suffered some kind of great trauma or personal tragedy, something so painful that it put me in a state of permanent fight-or-flight. But the truth is exactly the opposite: my life thus far has been almost ridiculously charmed. My family is healthy, my parents are still together and happy, I've never been seriously ill or injured. I got married young, my husband loves me, he's healthy and supportive and doesn't care whether or not I shave my legs. The only losses I've ever suffered have been a high school acquaintance and my paternal grandparents, and I wasn't particularly close to any of them. It's almost as if it's the very lack of trauma in my life that has created this sense of paranoia in me, this feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's like my insides are warning me: life can only be lucky for so long.

Pregnancy and impending motherhood seem to have opened up a whole new avenue in this Worry World. First, it was: will something go wrong? Will I have complications? Will I have a miscarriage? When I started bleeding at nine weeks and had to go to the ER, I found myself approaching the situation with a kind of eerie calm. This is it, I thought to myself as we drove to the hospital, as I got into my paper gown and put my feet in the little stirrups. This is the other shoe dropping. This is the moment I've been preparing myself for all these years. I'm going to miscarry this baby. When everything turned out to be fine, I didn't know what to do with myself, how to feel. It was as if I had been given a second chance, but at the same time godDAMN if that Other Shoe wasn't floating back up above my head again, waiting.

Now at night, my head is filled with thoughts of babies: crying babies that I can't comfort, sick babies that I can't soothe, tiny fragile floppy-necked babies that I can't figure out how to hold or carry or clean. And then last night: a sad lonely baby, left alone to be raised by her sad lonely father after I died a valiant fighting death on the maternity ward operating table. Seriously, what is wrong with my head? I rolled over and asked the husband, "what if I die in childbirth?" And he countered with "You won't die in childbirth." To which I replied, "but what if I do?" And he hugged me, thought a minute, and said, "I would be an empty shell." Which was totally the right answer, by the way.

All I know is if I start having visions of two-headed babies or man-eating babies or babies that turn into Gremlins when you feed them after midnight -- or worse, babies that burn my house down -- I'm not going to bed. Ever. Again.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Like a puppy swimming in custard

That's a colleague of mine's description of what it's like to feel your baby moving around inside your belly for the first time. "Have you felt your offspring move yet?" she asked me about a month ago. When I told her that I hadn't, and that I had been warned that the first "flutterings" of the fetus can sometimes be confused with gas bubbles (of which I had been feeling no shortage, let me assure you), she said, "Hmmmm. No, I wouldn't say they feel like gas. More like...like.... you know. Like a puppy swimming in a big vat of custard."

I blinked a couple of times, then nodded and smiled politely and turned back to my computer, all "um, whatever, allow me to remove your name from my list of potential dog-sitters."

But then a couple weeks ago I started to feel stuff. Weird stuff. Now, I'm not saying it felt like a puppy in custard, because so help me I can't conceptualize that particular brand of crazy, but it also didn't feel like any kick or poke or prod I've ever felt before in my life. More like: a blunt bump against an internal organ or two, or that feeling you get when you're riding a roller coaster, right when you go over the top of the tallest hill -- not the fullout stomach churning of the descent, but the little wavery jump your stomach makes as you start to make the drop. It's some alien shit, people, and it's like crack: you don't always like what it's doing to your body, it makes you feel way unstable, but when you don't have it you crave it like a fiend. Analogy courtesy of my raging prenatal drug habit. What? Like you don't have one yourself.

The way I see it, Cletus the Fetus wants to be like her mama, so she's working on perfecting the moves at which, genetically, she is predisposed to excel: namely, the Roger Rabbit, the Running Man, and the admittedly played-out "swing the lasso/rope your partner" hot mess from the early 90s. She finds it most to her liking to work on these moves a) after I eat a meal, so she has fresh energy to bring the funk, b) in the car, where I am usually blaring music loud enough so that even the babies I have yet to conceive can hear and enjoy, and c) when I am resting in the evening, so she can be assured of my full and rapt attention.

Sometimes it hurts, sometimes I wish Cletus would just hold still, especially when I'm trying to give my Felicity DVDs the devoted attention they so deserve... but then when I haven't felt her move for a couple of hours, or when it's been a slow baby-movement day overall, I find myself poking my belly to try to coax her to respond, or eating a snack in the hopes that she will wake up and start throwing some yoga poses. It's a slippery slope; I can see that now. I was so anxious to feel those first little baby movements, and now that I have, I'm doubly hyper-aware of when I'm NOT feeling them. Hyper-paranoid that something is wrong, that maybe my puppy doesn't like custard. But then again, if I were forced to swim in it, neither would I.