I started arranging the washcloths at Restoration Hardware today – they were messed up and I was compulsively correcting them. Hopefully that is a good sign!

I shopped today. People thought I was due weeks from now – flattering. Bought clothes that I’ll get to wear soon – or now if I’m stubborn about it.

I keep trying to connect my heart with Alex’s. It sounds sweet, but the majority of my communication from my heart to his is “please be born, please be born, please be born now.”

Oh boy. “Overdue”.

Big whoop. I’m so relieved to have a couple of days off so I don’t have to deal with people from work and all the comments. I think Scout’s ready for me to stay home just so I don’t come home and complain.

One of them started asking me the routine list of dumb questions yesterday at 728am, (when I’d woken up at 647am), before I had made it to my desk, taken my coat and scarf off, and had a sip of coffee.

Okay now, remember Dawn in the morning. Factor in 40 weeks pregnant. I actually yelled at her, halfway through the sentence where I was actually yelling at her I stopped talking, took a deep breath, and repeated myself in a nicer (ER being the operative part of THAT word) tone. One would think that one would take a clue when one had been yelled at. But oh no, she continued to ask questions. All required the response of “I don’t know” which I just kept repeating as I got my cup and walked away from her. I then spent the next FOUR hours going nowhere near my desk because I knew she would keep asking questions and I thought it was only fair to protect her from the wrath of the the pregnant woman.

In other news, I get to go “shopping” with Steph today. I say “shopping” because the real purpose is to walk a lot and try to shake Baby Schu on out of his warm little nest. And soon so Steph can see him tomorrow and still make it to work on Monday : )

Kristen and I just got off the phone. She is in week 18. I am in week 118. No no, week 39 I mean. We each asked each other the questions of death -

Me: Boy or girl?
Her: Don’t know, had to reschedule the appointment. Do you have a baby yet?
Me: Not yet.

We likely asked each other the very same questions that many other people have asked us and then pissed us off by asking – but somehow we didn’t feel the inclination to kill each other. Curious.

Now, Scout and I were born during snow storms, so naturally I assumed Alex would be too, even though Scout scoffed at me because his due date was April.

Now I’m here to tell you, it looks like freaking Winter Wonderland outside … WHERE is my baby? Snug as a bug in my tum. What a man.

Came home, had contractions (little ones), had back ache, took nap (three hours), woke up, snowing in April outside, no contractions, no back ache, still crazy tired.

Dorothy and I talked about the dissolving of the good girl complex and how nice it is to have the strength and the scapegoat of pregnancy to justify the being bitchy. I should really spend some time chatting about that, it’s absolutely one of the BEST perks of pregnancy… But for now, must stretch hip and eat some food : )

Me: “I’m afraid my kid is going to come out as a combination of the Arby’s menu, chocolate pudding and frozen peaches.”

Ivy: “Well at least you know he’ll be something you love!”

“You’re here?”

“You’re here!”

“I wondered if you’d be here today.”

“What are you doing here?”

“WHEN are you due?”

All comments heard all freaking day from anyone who I remotely regularly talk to at work.

Along with the follow up question:

“Do you think you’ll go early?” (because clearly I’m fucking omnipotent and have compwete and tow-tal contwol over dis pwegnancy)

Advice from Heidi at work (unfortunately she gave me this advice after it was too late – but I SOOO wish I could have done this):

Tell everyone your due date is a week later than it actually is. By the time people start making all these comments to you, you will actually be past your due date, it cuts down on well meaning, but still annoying questions.

Easter.

Still not loving Easter.

Today was meltdown day again. Scared. Scared of change, scared of what could go wrong, really not happy that after 10 months of sheer bliss I’m rewarded with some hella pain to make the 10 months of sheer bliss end. I mean, really, wouldn’t a tantric orgasm covered in chocolate really be better payback. And I mean an orgasm like a guy has one – something easy, not this female must work hard and concentrate on it to make it happen after losing it three times shit.

Off to go take a bath. Must return to work tomorrow. Normally I’m all sad at the end of spring break, but it’s not like I have to go back to work for long, just a few days. Okay, maybe 10 days, we’ll see.

I’m processing. I’m being really really honest here. We aren’t Pollyanna’s here – we don’t do trite, this is probably as far from idealistic as I will ever admit to being.

I have one of the worst jobs on the planet to have while pregnant. Early on, there were just a couple of people at work who seemed to understand that. Most people when they hear I’m a special ed teacher and I express my concern over having a special ed kid go “ooooh but you’d know what to expect.”

Yeah, exactly. I’d know what to expect. I know all about the preschool like tantrums thrown by teenagers, I know all about the bruises on the teachers from having to restrain students, I know about the constant snot, the never quite toilet trained 100%, the gross dry desert lizard skin, the verbal outbursts, the booger eating, the bizarre vocalizations, the drooling, the seizures, the bad teeth, the feeding tubes, the failure to communicate, the constant head bobbing or tapping of hands or feet, the outright refusal to move, the social ineptness. Let’s get more honest – these kids often aren’t attractive, then they sometimes get really obese on top of not being attractive to begin with.

I know these things would never really get better, these kids will never be independent, they will never live alone, they will never sit and share stories about crazy shit they did in college, they won’t get married, have kids …. Meanwhile, as much as we all think about having kids, we also think about ourselves – we still want our me time, our we time, we don’t want to be 24 hour caregivers until we die.

I’ve seen children who can’t move on their own, can’t communicate much at all, and can’t eat on their own. Every time I work with a child like this, the song “Pets” goes through my head – you know the one “They’ll make great pets, they’ll make great pets” etc etc. I’m not proud of this, but there it is. I’ve seen parents and grandparents come in with their child pet and it’s sad. And I don’t mean to say these parents are doing a thing uncalled for – they love their child pet just like we love our Rolli, Tavish, Winston, Fran …. all of our pets who we cherish and adore and feed and spoil. These people are doing the very best they can, don’t get me wrong. I mean, I love my cat, but I want a child, not a pet. I look at these children and I feel like somehow we’ve trapped their soul inside this body that wasn’t meant to stay here.

I think about Alex and the unknowns that still haven’t worked themselves out. I’m still on conditional love status. I feel him move and I think “I love my boy”. And then I realize that I love an idea. I love this vision of this boy growing inside me, causing me pain, giving me stretch marks and mega boobs. I have conditions on this right now. I have played the game with God of “I can totally handle learning disability, language disorder, hearing loss… there’s a whole bunch of things I can handle, so if you need to give me some kind of burden to carry, any one of those will do – just don’t give me more than I want to handle”.

See that, “more than I want to handle”. How’s that for an honest statement? I don’t want to find out how much I can handle, to hell with that, I’ll put the limitations on what I can handle and you just stick with that God okay? Cuz you know crappy things never happen to us right?

Pausing while y’all laugh your asses off as you think about a broken neck, a two year old with leukemia, a dash of colitis, never knowing your father, wishing you didn’t know your father …..

And then I take all of this and contrast it with Laura’s boy dying the week before he was supposed to be born. Which is a whole other hell that I try to not spend too much time thinking about. Which is the blessing? Which is better? Which would fit more nicely into “what I want to handle”

Where in the hell are the adults who are supposed to be in charge?

So we’ve had two showings of the house on Monday, we got a call this morning that the very first people who looked at the house want to come back and look tonight. Scary. Good Scary, but Scary.

My husband is 34 years old (I think….)

His mother just put HIS baby clothes in the mail for us to use.

Okay, so there are a few perks to being pregnant.

1. You can eat as much as you want and really never feel guilty
2. Watching the baby move in your stomach – I could do this for hours, like a cat watching a fishbowl
3. Getting a laugh out of the midwife who said she didn’t need to “check” you at your visit – her comment “if I can’t see the head, I don’t care if you don’t”
4. You can say whatever you want, people just go ‘oh, the poor pregnant dear’ instead of ‘what a bi-atch’ (at least within your hearing
5. When someone calls to see how you are doing, “shitty” is a perfectly acceptable response – especially when it’s someone else who’s already walked this walk
6. I’m pregnant and look better than Kelly Osbourne http://icydk.com/2007/04/03/kelly-osbourne-is-hot/
7. Cute baby clothes
8. Cute baby bedding
9. Using the word ‘cute’ and not feeling bad about it
10. Food

Okay, food really isn’t that huge of a deal, but it seemed like the list needed ten things on it.