Weekend update

Katie is having quiet time in her room right now (which perhaps may become a nap), and Geoff is taking a nap, and I am eating root beer float ice cream.  It is DELICIOUS.  This is the second gallon I've plowed through on my own...TODAY!  Ok, kidding, no.  In the past two or three weeks.  I am pretty sure I'm the only one eating it, though, and the second gallon is almost gone.  As I was just dipping myself this cup of ice cream next to me, I was thinking, "WHY didn't I just buy two gallons the last I was at the store?  That would have been so smart!"  But alas.

(I don't really have the energy or focus or skill set at this time to write an entry here that is polished and related to a single topic.  I'm just going to babble for a little while.)

I am reaching the end stage of pregnancy now, as far as how I feel.  Bending over is still not so bad, because I tend to squat instead of bending straight over, but getting up from a prone position has a tendency to make me feel like a turtle on its back.  And OH, my aching back, if I walk for any length of time, especially at the end of a long day.  Geoff and Katie have started walking to her daycare almost every weekday, now, and on Wednesdays, when I work from home, I've walked with them.  It's a little over a mile away (even longer since we usually try to stay away from the busiest streets, which would be the shortest rout).  For Katie, this means if she walks there and back, she's walking two miles in a day, which we figure is a lot for a four year old; perhaps not surprisingly, she has been accepting bedtime and sleeping through the night so much better the past couple of weeks.  But for Geoff - and for me, if I come along - this is over four miles in a day.  On Wednesday I was a little tired on our way home in the morning, but by evening, I was HURTING.  And yesterday I walked to the el in the morning, which is around three quarters of a mile, and that was fine.  But walking home from the station at the end of the day damn near felt like it was going to make me collapse.  When I got home, I walked up the stairs one step at a time; I just didn't have the energy to climb them any faster.  Today we walked to Ihop (and back) for brunch, and by the time we climbed the stairs at home, I was just about as tired, practically limping up the stairs. 

We had a nice Easter.  When I thought about Easter this year, I thought often about what I wrote here, back in 2001, about how often we live in a Good Friday kind of world, where dreams are crushed, and where despair triumphs over hope - where the worst possible outcome is the most common kind of outcome, and where hard work and a good heart don't seem to get you much of anywhere.  The past year or so has been that kind of year, and it put me in that frame of mind.  For awhile, I've been a pessimist, or at least much more than I ever was before.  But this year, as Easter rolled around, I realized how much better I have been feeling lately.  I am feeling good again, feeling once again like my future still holds promise, feeling both that I am blessed to live in this world and that the world is blessed to have me in it.  The pregnancy has helped with that, of course, and even though I'm still aware that huge things could still go wrong with that, I'm willing to bank on things going right. 

If you haven't, I wish you could meet my daughter, because she is seriously awesome.  She's smart and funny and imaginative and sweet.  She tells me out of nowhere that I am beautiful or "simply lovely."  She tells us stories and wants to play pretend with us.  She has started requesting a napkin at the start of dinner, if we've forgotten to give her one, instead of wiping her mouth on her sleeve.  She has stopped fighting bedtime lately - when I tuck her in and leave her room at night, she is often smiling at me.  She is really excited about being a big sister, although she does seem mildly concerned about what exactly is going to happen that will get the baby into our lives.  I've explained to her where the baby will emerge, but she keeps worrying that my belly is just going to burst open at some point. 

I sure hope not, but there have been some days lately when I've been a little worried about that myself.  This baby kicks and wriggles harder and more often than Katie did at this point in the pregnancy; Katie's movements, while frequent, never actually hurt me.  I can't say the same for this time around. 

So, overall.  A good week.  A good month, even.  I'm happy.

Comments

[charlotte]

Wow, Katie is simply precious. And she's right: You ARE lovely! Glad that the pregnancy is progressing well ... I still remember the pregnancy blog that you kept when Katie was underway (it made me think differently about my ovaries, trust me!).

[Miss Wisabus]

It's so wonderful to hear that things are looking better now. And Katie is going to have the BEST time being a big sister. I know when I was her age I loved it. Keeping your family in my thoughts.

[jana]

Charlotte's not yet two, but she and Katie sound like two peas in a pod. I love reading what she's up to.