Pregnancy Sleep.

Coming to you live at 6:23 a.m., it's me! Tired and confused over broken sleep that abruptly ended around 3:30 this morning. Yep. So I've been surfing the internet and washing dishes. I've heard this nonsense lack of sleep in a random unfathomable pattern is nature's way of ensuring I'm accustomed to the sleep deprivation that is new parenthood. Well, colour me used to it. I am, in my way. Don't much care for it, but I can deal.

I'm not really expecting to enjoy motherhood at first. I'm not doing this because I think 2-month-olds are charming and fulfilling companions. Oh, I'm sure I'll love my baby, but what I'm really looking forward to is having a smiling baby who is learning words, and more than that, a child, one that can walk, talk and dress him or herself and say silly shit. This is not the fun part, and nor will the immediate future be either. I consider it all an investment in my future joy.

Yesterday I found a glider rocking chair on Craigslist for $200. I haggled it down to $175 and the Dude picked it up and now it's in our nursery. I'm too lazy right now to take a picture of it in the room, so here's the picture from the ad:

It also came with a matching ottoman.
Chair normally retails for $500 before tax.

I have this lamp en route:

From Lamps Plus.

And this nightstand will be the last item I require.

Sears item. Handy for holding my water, snacks and Kobo reader.

It's taken a lot of work to find sales, but the savings has been somewhere in the neighbourhood of $600+. Not to say we'd have spent more without sales (We wouldn't have), but we would have had to sacrifice quality. We've borrowed a few things, like a Jolly Jumper and a bouncy chair. McPal gave us his old rug. The diapers were a sale item, as was the crib, car seat and lamp. The stroller was both a gift and sale win. The glider is possibly my biggest coup. I feel very satisfied with my shopping, all of which, and this is no exaggeration, was done online. I don't know how anyone can haul ass around the city looking for sales and not lose time and patience (and of course the best prices). I love the internet.

Today is the Dude's birthday. There are literally no special plans afoot. He wants to order in Indian food, watch TV and open a present. That's it. I'll make him a morning coffee in a couple hours and also some pancakes. Maybe we can have nachos for lunch. He's not much for his birthday, but he certainly enjoys a day of having nothing to do. Since those days will soon be behind him, I can understand the day of laziness he's asked for. I was hoping we'd go out for steak, but it's not my birthday.

In order to have today be free of responsibility, he re-organized the kitchen yesterday. I can't even believe it. The fridge, once a haven of expired random shit now looks empty and gleaming. Under the sink is now debris and garbage-free. The cupboards are clean and organized. There's actually storage space available now. Someone's nesting in this apartment, and it ain't me.

6:21 and all is well

Nearly 6:00 a.m. I've been up since 10:00 p.m. Yes, that sounds incredibly odd, but there you are. I'm now sleeping in roughly four-hour increments. I fall asleep quick and randomly when my body allows for it, when my stomach isn't sour and acid isn't shooting up my esophagus. Sometimes it's in my bed, other times on the couch when I had no intention of napping.

There is a weird guilt about being up all night. Despite it not being a choice and regardless of the fact I'm just doing what I can to rest and keep going, it makes me feel immature somehow, as if I'm unemployed and spending my nights watching infomercials.

I am really looking forward to having my body back. My sleep is not likely to improve while caring for an infant, but not having heartburn ruining my every day and all my rest, I think it'll be a welcome relief to just have my baby already. It'll be a joy to hold and interact with the reason I'm doing all this for.

The Dude and I spent New Year's eve at the McPal house. It was right up our alley. Quiet and intimate with friends and food. It was our last year being childless. Next New Years will not likely see us going out. We don't go out too much now, being homebodies, but what going out we do will soon be significantly curbed.

I shaved my legs for the first time in months yesterday. What an ordeal. I think I'm just going to quit with that whole thing till it becomes sensible to bother again. There certainly is a temptation in general to just let my whole self go to seed. Broken sleep makes one feel slovenly.

20

Sleep has taken over and ruined my life. My patterns are nonexistent. If I need a nap, there's no waiting till later, there's no fighting it off. Coffee does nothing (And though I haven't given it up, I've reduced the amount I drink, so piling coffee into my system each day would be stupid).

Yesterday the Dude and I went out for brunch and grocery shopping. I was dead beat from this, despite sleeping in until noon. So around 4:00 I took a snooze, fell into a deep sleep and didn't move until after 6:00. So, not only did I literally sleep away my day, but I also guaranteed today was going to be significantly spent in bed due to the domino nature of big-ass naps. I got up at 1:30 p.m.

I'm not sure what to do about this. I have a job. I have gym classes. I can't be living this way, and yet here we are. Also, I think my body is lacking iron. As I typed that, the baby kicked like, "Eat some steak!"

But seriously, I think I'm having iron issues. I can't seem to keep up with my body's new needs. I should be eating steak. I'm occasionally dizzy and forgetful, which is a bad sign of iron deficiency.

I'm 20 weeks today, which means I'm halfway done cooking. Or something. I could have anywhere from 18 to 22 more weeks to go. I have occasional fits of HolycrapwhathaveIdone?! But more often I am just excited about meeting the kid who's been feeding off of my nutrients and then kicking me in thanks. When you think about that, a fetus is certainly rather rude. I guess we all are savage creatures, really, deep down. We definitely start out that way.

I mostly wonder what sort of a person I'm going to raise. The Dude and I are so incredibly similar in many ways: introverted, artistic, sensitive, quirky. He's more of a people pleaser than I am, and I have more willpower. He's got an addictive personality and I'm a scatterbrain. He's able to focus on things longer and has a good technical mind and I'm articulate and think ahead.

I take a lot after my mother. I look like her, certainly. She was a little quirky, herself, and also artistic. I think I am more of those things than she was. She was also introverted. She recharged by reading and playing Tetris. Our old Nintendo was set up in her room and I used to watch her play at level, like 99 or something zooming shapes into crevices to stressful music. And then she commandeered my Gameboy and kept draining the batteries to play Dr. Mario before bed. She was also allegedly terrible at math, something I strongly relate to.

But I'm like my father too, in a way. The Dude likes to tell me I'm my biggest fan, possibly because I love laughing at my own jokes, something my mom always told me I shouldn't do, perhaps because my father, also his own biggest fan, loves to laugh at his own jokes.

I suppose I'm not expecting an extroverted math prodigy with no sense of humour. I'd wonder where such a kid came from. But it could happen and it's fun to guess at the possibilities. And that's what gets me the most excited about motherhood. Not the cute clothes, not the sweet baby giggles, not even the love (though I'm really jazzed about the love, don't get me wrong). It's the discovery of who my child is going to be.

To think that right now a brain is developing that will contain who my child is, and it's happening inside of me, kind of blows my mind, even though it happens every day all over the planet. Making life truly is one of the most banal and commonplace miracles in the world. But this one is my miracle, damn it.

Go to Bread. Bed.

I'm, like, just dying to go to bed. But alas, the Dude threw clothes in the dryer. The dryer is right beside our bedroom and it dings incessantly for the last 10 minutes of its cycle. It's loud and maddening. So I wait. And for once my body is aching to sleep at a reasonable hour. Go figure.

Last night I had this massive allergy attack. My sinuses had left me in peace all through my honeymoon and as soon as I got home, WHAMO! Sneezing, wheezing and suffering. Nothing would help. I held off taking an allergy pill all day because they knock me out.

When I was ready for bed, I took a pill, only it wasn't an allergy pill. For some reason, in my stuffy stupor, I took a Gravol. Gravol is quite the sleeping pill for me, but it obviously does nothing to make the nose stop running, so I still had to take an allergy pill.

Both make my mouth dry. So I took a glass of water with me to bed, fell dead asleep and yet awoke every 40 minutes to quench aching, dry thirst. I'm not sure when I woke up this morning, but it was obscenely late. So frankly it's a damn miracle I'm even remotely sleepy.

A few things before I toddle off to bed and brave the loud dings:

- My burn has become a tan. I'm getting compliments on it, but all I can see is skin damage. I may be the one person alive who shuns getting a tan. I like them on other people, but I prefer my own skin milky. Looks nicer with the red hair I love so much.

- My kittens were upset we left them for a week. McPal's fiance came over to feed them while we were gone and on Friday he discovered a shit in the middle of the kitchen. Cats express themselves in very obvious ways.

- We're trying out a new grocery delivery service starting tomorrow. Yes, I work from home and grocery delivery is something we're going to try out. Why? Because. That's why.

- I am in desperate need of a trip to the hair salon. I have almost two inches of roots, and I can't find my tweezers and there's about four gray hairs I really need to pluck out.

That is all. Bed. Goodnight.

Quel Dommage

One day I'll develop the sleep a normal person enjoys.

Who am I kidding? No, I won't.

Last night I had a lovely time at a joint birthday for friends, who are a married couple the Dude and I know and love. It was meat, cheese, wine and an amazing dance game on the X-Box that the Dude did surprisingly well in. Me, not so much, but I burned some calories, which alleviated my guilt in eating a quarter wheel of brie. Plus it was amazing fun. I love my friends.

We got home late and were in bed by 2:00 and I never was able to fall asleep, despite being tired. My moon time started and woke me up around 5:00 with aching cramps. I had to make several unrelated-to-moontime trips to the bathroom. Sprinkles caught me up around 6:00 and by 8:00, I had no choice but to go upstairs and feed her and Bea. I went back to bed and sweat under the covers and that woke me up, too. Now it's noon, I've been officially up since... I'm not sure, and I feel mentally disconnected.

I have a manicure/pedicure appointment soon, which will be nice. But then the Dude and I are going to the Eaton Centre because we both need shoes/boots. And that won't be nice. It's a Sunday a couple weeks before Christmas at the largest mall downtown Toronto. We're talking zoo central. But I have no winter boots. My only pair, which were three or four years old, developed holes in them by the end of their second winter. I kept wearing them and avoided puddles.

Some women love new shoes. I... don't. I look at every new pair as something new and pinchy that will hurt my feet and scrape skin off my toes or heels. My feet are also 1/2 a size different from each other, so finding a comfy and attractive pair I can afford, which fits both feet properly is a pain the ass. So I hang onto footwear as much as humanly possibly, mostly until they disintegrate off of my feet. And that's what happened to the boots. The soles broke off the front and were catching on escalators. And I looked like a hobo in them.

So before the snow comes, I must get a new pair. And I have to venture out there into the hell that is Christmas shopping season. Quel dommage.

Maybe a movie would be good after all this. My aunt called me to leave me a message telling me that the child in Hugo reminded her of me very much. Call me narcissistic, but now I'm intrigued.

Day one

Day one of the new sleep plan. So far? A modest success. I was in bed before midnight, I fell asleep and I woke up at a reasonable hour. I was relatively alert all day, although right now I am sleepy. And Smokey's being cuddly. Try and remain awake through that. Cats actively support napping all day, especially senior cats.

I had this big plan last night, all laid out. I had a vegetarian dinner with no tea, got home and immediately got ready for bed: teeth brushed, faced washed, pyjamas and everything. When sleepiness hit, I'd be so on the ball. I refused to look at my laptop all night and when I got tired, the Dude read aloud to me from Gods Behaving Badly. It's a good book, but I'd read it already so it helped me doze off.

Success. Sleep. But I woke up about half a dozen times and didn't feel fully refreshed. Maybe it'll take a couple weeks for better sleep to catch up with me.

Incidentally, the Dude's subscription of National Geographic arrived yesterday, and in it was a lengthy article about sleep. No one knows why we need it other than that we do. If we try and fight it, sleep wins. And if we don't get it, for some reason we die. Crazy, right? There's a genetic syndrome that you can develop in your 50s that eventually prevents you from sleeping altogether. It's called FFI, fatal familial insomnia. I mean, the word "fatal" is right in the name. That's pretty much right to the point, isn't it?

So I guess my insomnia could be worse. At least it's not that. I've always thought Parkinson's and Alzheimer's were the worst ways to go. "Awaking" to death sounds pretty ass.

Hoo-ha!

So I managed to get a few people with my last post. Weeee. My work here is done. McPal texted me to make sure it was a joke because he was very excited at the prospect. Sorry, buddy! My uterus is currently unoccupied.

I saw a lot of pregnancy updates on Facebook and an engagement. They were funny in an unintentional way, as they were all lined up on top of each other in my news feed.

I'm in my hometown. Last night I was at a good friend's house and my wacked out sleeping schedule managed to keep her up to all hours of the night. She was a good sport. I really hit a huge burst of energy at 2:00 a.m. I think it was around 3:30 when we went to bed. Really looking forward to getting this BS fatigue/sleeping issue looked into with my doctor.

Tomorrow is the 1-year-old birthday party of my cousin's kid. I bought a dress at Baby Gap. I do love shopping there for other people's kids because it's an excuse to be frivolous. I mean, it's not my child. I can waste money on something she'll grow out of in no time if I want to. And it's cute!

I feel off and out of sorts. And as such, I have little of value to say. So I'm going to try to sleep, on the off chance this strange new feeling is sleepiness at a reasonable hour.