Someone who hadn't seen me in a while came up to me the other day and asked if I were pregnant. I said, completely straightfaced, "No."
On other occasions, I have been known to accuse people of mocking my beer gut.
Am I too much of a smartass to be a good mommy? Occasionally I wonder. Although smartassery seems to be the way to handle certain aspects of this whole parenting thing. Like when kiddo is careening off the walls at 8 a.m. and DH asks, "What did you feed him?" and I say "Crystal meth." Which is a lot simpler than saying, "I have no idea why a whole wheat mini-bagel and blueberries have caused him to run around in circles at 50 miles an hour for the past 10 minutes."
Sentimentality is a tiny bit foreign to me. I hate chick flicks, on account of the female lead characters always seem to be idiots (and the male leads always seem to be cardboard, and also idiots). I bawled at "Bridge to Terabithia," sure, but I dare you not to. I never read romance novels, unless you count "Pride and Prejudice," and you shouldn't, because it's a comedy of manners and transcends the genre and don't you dare insult Ms. Austen.
However it is an expectant mother is supposed to be acting, I'm probably not acting like it. I'm too busy cracking jokes in the corner.
And clearly I'm about to have competition there. Kiddo distinctly smirks when he crawls under the dining room table and announces "Hide!" And when we count down to 1 to get him to stop whatever it is we don't want him doing, he deliberately waits until 2, or 1, before he quits. Like a defused bomb in an action movie.
Ah well. Smartassery is a family trait.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Sure, I'd love to not eat for 15 hours, thanks
So I failed the one-hour glucose test for gestational diabetes, which instantly qualified me for the needle extravaganza otherwise known as the three-hour test. "I have to fast for 12 hours?" I said faintly.
Yes, said the nurse, and then we take your blood once an hour for three hours and you still can't eat until after that's done. Just what every pregnant woman wants to hear when they get hungry, oh, once an hour.
And still I might not have flipped out much were it not for the family history of Type II diabetes. GD leads to Type II later on in life for something like two out of three women. Oh great, I thought, I didn't escape after all.
Which is mean really. The family members who have it seem to manage pretty well, between medications and dietary restrictions. Properly managed, it shouldn't wreck your life or even get in the way much.
But still. Type II has the added bonus of being brought on, usually, by weight or diet issues. So I wonder if there isn't the feeling of having failed somehow, of not trying hard enough to be healthy. When people are diagnosed, do they start mentally ticking off every single doughnut or soda or piece of pie they had in the past year, trying to figure out which was the tipping point? Because I did that before I even took the three-hour test.
I grumpily dragged myself into the OB's office, drank the lemon-lime sugar-shock bottle (I hate to admit it, but I didn't think it tasted that bad) and sat in the waiting room and wrote. Yes, I was the freak with the little notebook in the corner. There's a short story I'm working on -- I do write fiction, in the delusion that it will be published someday -- and I figured, why waste three perfectly good hours of writing time when I never get three hours of writing time? Anyhow the magazine selection in the waiting room is weak at best. I read the same one two visits in a row once.
There was another woman there taking the same test and we ended up on the same needle schedule; the nurse would call us both back at once, draw her blood and then draw mine. Funny in a way. Then the nurse would ask me, "How are you doing?" and I'd say, "Well, I'm pretty hungry," because I was on the verge of pretending every object around me was a turkey leg like they do in the cartoons, and she'd say cheerily, "Well, you've got two more drawings to go," which is two more hours if you're keeping count. And I'd grump my way back out to the waiting room.
I wasn't allowed to fall asleep, she said, just so they'd know I hadn't fainted.
A couple other patients came and went -- a young Indian couple with a most adorable toddler, a couple of whitish-haired older women, a younger one in hipper-than-thou jeans -- and my glucose buddy and I stayed, she on her Crackberry, me on my notebook. One of the workers came out from the back and made a snappy comment about how we seemed to be camping out there, or something like that, and I wanted to take an outdated magazine and swat her upside the head with it.
Final insult to injury: The last drawing took forever because my veins decided they'd had it and wouldn't give up any more blood (this was on top of the one-hour test the previous week, in which the woman drawing my blood couldn't get a vein, stuck me again, remembered afterward, oops, forgot to get the hemoglobin!, stuck me again, couldn't find a vein and ended up using a tiny needle on the back of my hand to get it done. She hadn't drawn blood in a while, she said apologetically). So a few extra tries later, we were done and I looked like I had track marks inside my elbow. And I ate the fastest lunch you ever saw in your life.
And the final result was ... normal. Completely normal. Which was a relief, but also a surprise. I really figured I'd flunk this one. I felt a little guilty over all the angst. What, I'm better than my diabetic relatives? I don't deserve to live their life?
Didn't stop me from having celebratory ice cream though.
Yes, said the nurse, and then we take your blood once an hour for three hours and you still can't eat until after that's done. Just what every pregnant woman wants to hear when they get hungry, oh, once an hour.
And still I might not have flipped out much were it not for the family history of Type II diabetes. GD leads to Type II later on in life for something like two out of three women. Oh great, I thought, I didn't escape after all.
Which is mean really. The family members who have it seem to manage pretty well, between medications and dietary restrictions. Properly managed, it shouldn't wreck your life or even get in the way much.
But still. Type II has the added bonus of being brought on, usually, by weight or diet issues. So I wonder if there isn't the feeling of having failed somehow, of not trying hard enough to be healthy. When people are diagnosed, do they start mentally ticking off every single doughnut or soda or piece of pie they had in the past year, trying to figure out which was the tipping point? Because I did that before I even took the three-hour test.
I grumpily dragged myself into the OB's office, drank the lemon-lime sugar-shock bottle (I hate to admit it, but I didn't think it tasted that bad) and sat in the waiting room and wrote. Yes, I was the freak with the little notebook in the corner. There's a short story I'm working on -- I do write fiction, in the delusion that it will be published someday -- and I figured, why waste three perfectly good hours of writing time when I never get three hours of writing time? Anyhow the magazine selection in the waiting room is weak at best. I read the same one two visits in a row once.
There was another woman there taking the same test and we ended up on the same needle schedule; the nurse would call us both back at once, draw her blood and then draw mine. Funny in a way. Then the nurse would ask me, "How are you doing?" and I'd say, "Well, I'm pretty hungry," because I was on the verge of pretending every object around me was a turkey leg like they do in the cartoons, and she'd say cheerily, "Well, you've got two more drawings to go," which is two more hours if you're keeping count. And I'd grump my way back out to the waiting room.
I wasn't allowed to fall asleep, she said, just so they'd know I hadn't fainted.
A couple other patients came and went -- a young Indian couple with a most adorable toddler, a couple of whitish-haired older women, a younger one in hipper-than-thou jeans -- and my glucose buddy and I stayed, she on her Crackberry, me on my notebook. One of the workers came out from the back and made a snappy comment about how we seemed to be camping out there, or something like that, and I wanted to take an outdated magazine and swat her upside the head with it.
Final insult to injury: The last drawing took forever because my veins decided they'd had it and wouldn't give up any more blood (this was on top of the one-hour test the previous week, in which the woman drawing my blood couldn't get a vein, stuck me again, remembered afterward, oops, forgot to get the hemoglobin!, stuck me again, couldn't find a vein and ended up using a tiny needle on the back of my hand to get it done. She hadn't drawn blood in a while, she said apologetically). So a few extra tries later, we were done and I looked like I had track marks inside my elbow. And I ate the fastest lunch you ever saw in your life.
And the final result was ... normal. Completely normal. Which was a relief, but also a surprise. I really figured I'd flunk this one. I felt a little guilty over all the angst. What, I'm better than my diabetic relatives? I don't deserve to live their life?
Didn't stop me from having celebratory ice cream though.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Kiddoese-to-English glossary
Ba-bus -- The sound a bus makes.
Beep -- Car.
Da-doo -- I would like something to drink.
Dandy -- Daddy.
Dinner -- Every single meal.
Elmo -- Every red Muppet on "Sesame Street."
Ni! -- Yes.
La la la -- What three singing pigs say. *
Hide! -- I realize you are trying to put me to bed, but I much prefer laughing at you from under the dining room table.
Pe pe -- Percy. (See "Tee tee.")
Pees -- Please.
Ride ride beep! -- I would like to ride in the car.
Rideriderideride beep! -- I would really like to ride in the car.
Tee tee -- Train. Specifically Thomas.
Tee tee boom -- I seem to have pushed my train off the coffee table again.
Teet! -- The sound a train makes.
Ten -- Every number over ten.
Tick tock -- Clock.
*OK, that one's our fault. It's from a Sandra Boynton book.
Beep -- Car.
Da-doo -- I would like something to drink.
Dandy -- Daddy.
Dinner -- Every single meal.
Elmo -- Every red Muppet on "Sesame Street."
Ni! -- Yes.
La la la -- What three singing pigs say. *
Hide! -- I realize you are trying to put me to bed, but I much prefer laughing at you from under the dining room table.
Pe pe -- Percy. (See "Tee tee.")
Pees -- Please.
Ride ride beep! -- I would like to ride in the car.
Rideriderideride beep! -- I would really like to ride in the car.
Tee tee -- Train. Specifically Thomas.
Tee tee boom -- I seem to have pushed my train off the coffee table again.
Teet! -- The sound a train makes.
Ten -- Every number over ten.
Tick tock -- Clock.
*OK, that one's our fault. It's from a Sandra Boynton book.
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