35 Weeks: How should my tombstone read?

“Died peacefully under a mountain of clean baby socks.”

-OR!-

“Died after being tackled by a grocery store security guard who was suspicious that she was shoplifting a watermelon.”

-OR!!-

“Died in fits of inappropriate laughter at childbirth class.”

-OR!!!-

"Died from shame in trying to combine three short blog entries into one way too long entry."



Let me start at the beginning (of the week): Death by Baby Sock

There was a time when I would roll my eyes at the cliches of pregnancy.
Pregnancy brain? No, you’re just an idiot. Sorry.
Bitchy Pregnant Monster Hormones? Whatever. You’re in a bad mood. Don't use your baby as an excuse to be a douche.
Cravings? You just feel like eating. Don’t complain to me when you can’t lose that extra 100 pounds two years later.
Nesting? It’s called productivity. You’re not special. Way to not be lazy!

I am probably rolling my eyes a bit still, but The Nesting.
Oh. The Nesting.
You can call it whatever you want if you don’t like the term nesting. It started out with wild, uncontrollable list making. Long, detailed, orgasmic lists of things to do! To look into! To remember! To CROSS OFF!

Then, after I had the longest list ever written, I started doing things and then adding more things and then AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHZZZZZZZZZZZZ…….

But I didn’t know that it wasn’t bad yet. I was naïve in thinking that I just needed to write things down to remember all of the things I need to do.

After both of my baby showers, I decided to organize all of the stuff that we got. Normal? I think so. I took everything out, threw away the packages, bought an organization unit with pink baskets, and rode that closet like a pony. It looked sexy and clean and organized.

Until I went to update my Bump Pregnancy Checklist, and realized that I should be packing my hospital bag this week, which means that I should be packing baby clothes, and none of my baby’s clothes had been washed and would probably make her skin peel off and OMFG PPL I NEED TO DO LAUNDRY.

And Laundry I did.

I woke up at 4 a.m. on Wednesday and I washed every item of clothing in Cupcake’s closet with a size of 0-6 months, including socks, sheets, Boppy Covers, burp cloths, blankets – if it was washable, I washed the shit out of it. With Cheer Free, because I think that Dreft is bullshit.

Once I did all that laundry, I needed to assemble the Pack and Play, the Travel System, and the Bouncy chair and wash all of the parts of those. Then I washed all of the bedding. THEN I did our laundry, because hell, I was already the laundry wench so what was another three loads, you know? Why bother relaxing - I can relax when the baby comes. (HA!)

I did three days of laundry. And on the fourth day I rested. It was all very Genesis, except I didn’t really do anything monumental like creating heaven and earth – just mental, like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. I was, like, two Prozacs away from hanging lists all over the shed in our back yard.

Mid-Week: Death by Tackling
35 Week Belly Picture: Could I possibly look more like a Watermelon Smuggler?



That is my 35 week belly, and my new expensive camera. Because, you know, I have to take pictures of the baybee and they have to be high quality. And look, my hand briefly grazed over a fancier $1200 camera before it turned black (like my heart) and blew away in a million ashes, so we should all be happy that I bought this camera and not a different, more expensive, less necessary one. Now I just need to learn how to use it...

Let me end at the end (of the week): Death by Belly Laugh
Then, you know, it was Sunday. And we had to go to our Childbirth class. Normal people have no issues with this. I do.

I was kind of looking forward to this week's class because we were told that we would learn breathing and massage techniques for labor. Sounds useful to me, right?

We put our blankets and pillows on the ground and are told to sit facing each other. Then, the instructor came around and gave the moms-to-be lotion...or, more accurately, shot wads of old person scented imitation cum lotion into our palms.

Yes.

This was enough to make me giggle. Then, Mark had to rub this shit into my hand while we listened to a "guided relaxation video."

And this is where it all went wrong. Horribly wrong. Colossal middle school fail type wrong.

Sometimes I tend to start laughing and then I can't stop. And not just annoying giggling, but, like, gut busting laughter that cannot be stopped no matter the consequences. One time, I laughed like that at a funeral because my friend asked why they were using potpourri at a funeral, and for some reason I found it hysterically funny that he was calling incense potpourri, and it got worse when he was all, "what? I've never seen potpourri at a funeral before!" And the more I think about how I need to get a damned grip, the more I can't stop laughing. It's bad.

So, the instructor tells us to close our eyes and try to follow along, and I think that most people would be able to do this but I am somewhat socially inept and so this would be a Big Big Problem.

First the video says, "Imagine your baby floating in a deep blue sea."

My eyes fly open, and I see Mark struggling back a guffaw. I start a silent belly laugh. A controllable belly laugh.

Then the video says, "Ask your baby questions, like, what do you want from me baby?"

Then I died.
I was laughing so hard that I was crying. Tears. Lots of them. Tears, and snorting and snot flying out of my nose from trying to hold back maniacal laughter. And grunts and sweat and the possibility that I will need to run from the room and far enough away to literally LOL right in the hospital lobby.

I'm sure that the purpose of this exercise was to picture yourself as some sort of fertile earth mother birth goddess. But all I could picture was myself wild-eyed, red-faced and sweaty in my 20th hour of painful labor yelling, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, BAYBEE?!" followed by something really eloquent, like "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!!!!!!!!!!"

FINALLY, after a million years (or one minute, twenty three seconds of pure torture), the exercise ended, and her presentation moved on. Then we came to another slide that showed a relaxation exercise, and I could feel my insides start to quiver with potential laughter. That's when the instructor says, "Maybe we will skip this one, because it is really cheesy, and I might lose credibility."

I can only imagine just how cheesy it was. And just how big of an asshole she thought I was.


Death from Shame
I am so tired. SO tired. I think of something to write, then it is gone. I even wrote on a sticky at work when I had an idea, and I lost it. I am sure it's stuck to the back of some important client paperwork somewhere, and I'm sure it said something really exceptional, like "My Vagina is Tiny: So, How Exactly Does This All Work?"