Welcome Home, My Beloved.
I have been thinking about birth a lot lately. It’s probably because I am about to give birth, and every time I try to look at the floor, I can’t see it because my belly is in the way. The computer I am typing on right now is balancing on my belly as well. I can feel Milam rolling around in my womb, punching my organs, and bringing on an uncomfortable but not painful tightness called Braxton Hicks contractions. Birth is all around me. Literally. All around my middle.
The Stages of Hard
Let me just state for the record: being pregnant and having a toddler is hard.
More like HARD.
More like I-am-not-sure-how-I-am-still-alive-right-now-HARD.
Eat Me
There have been changes afoot in the Bethea house. More than usual, even. Which is why I haven’t sat down to write anything since July. In reality, I haven’t sat down since July for any reason. But change is a-comin’ and that is worth writing about.
Foxhole Nausea
Written July 13, 2011
Disgusting. I am disgusting. Only 6 weeks pregnant, and already I hate my life. For the past week, my activity schedule has been horribly similar to someone Oprah has to bring in a team for to cut out of her house. I lay around on the sofa and watch TV for most of the day. This is not because I love TV. We don’t even have cable. It’s because if I stand up or move around a whole lot, I feel like I am going to be sick. If my stomach gets empty or close to it, I feel like I am on a boat in the middle of a storm after drinking a gallon of expired milk. So my only option is to watch Bob Ross and Ellen and sip ginger ale all day. It reminds me of how I spent my summers in elementary school. And I don’t like it.
Three to Four
Written June 27, 2011
You could make an eternally long list of the things Chris and I are horrible at as a couple.
Let’s Hear It for the Iguana Snatchers!
I had a very interesting dream last night. I dreamed that I was in a traveling company of some musical and we had been going from city to city performing. Along the way, in one of the fabulous hotels we were staying at, I happened to meet the actor Ryan Gosling (you know, that guy from The Notebook) and he put a large iguana on my head. He told me it was his special pet and he needed me to take care of it, and then he left. I stood there for a little while, but then I decided that I was very tired of keeping this iguana on my head, so I tried to find him to give it back. He was nowhere to be seen. I looked and looked and looked all around for him, while the iguana licked my ear and dug its raptor talons deeper and deeper into my scalp. Finally, I ran into him hitting on another cast member from the company in a dark hallway somewhere.
Life as a Stegosaurus
A quiet war had been raging in the Bethea household for a few months. Under the roof of a seemingly normal mid-century ranch style, on a peaceful tree-lined street, an epic battle had been waging where blood was spilled, tears were shed, and the sanity of one young mother hung in balance like a spider on Jonathan Edwards’ fireplace mantel.
Jesus is the Juan
Every day, something reminds me why I hate living in the Bible Belt.
Church signs are usually the culprit.
Quarter-life Crisis Lessons from Anna Nicole Smith
I am going to go ahead and declare it to the world….
I am having a quarter life crisis.
I joked that this may happen, back when I slept a full 8 hours a night (hasn’t happened since before Christmas), when I was still on maternity leave, and when my boobs were still enormous. Basically, for the first three months of Eloise’s life, I felt like a less tragic version of Anna Nicole Smith (before OldGuy died). My maternity leave was what I imagine her love affair with OldGuy was like. It was blissful, but I knew it was going to keel over pretty soon and I would have to go back to work. I could sleep as much as I wanted and be as crazy as I wanted. People brought me meals. The world was my ice cream sundae and Eloise was cherry on top.
Scam-a-Lam-a-Ding-Dong
It has been said that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
It has also been said, “There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.”