Silly Little Girl

Differences

Pregnancy #1

No morning sickness
Weird pregnancy dreams about babies of all sorts starting around 10 weeks.
Manageable sciatica in the 3rd trimester
No Braxton Hicks contractions
Incessant need to pee starting in the 3rd trimester
No sleep disturbances
Mild back pain in the 3rd trimester
Blinding, but ultimately painless, ocular migraines in the 2nd and 3rd trimester

Pregnancy #2

Despite some general nausea and a few bouts of actual throwing up, I still apparently fall into the 5% of women who do not get morning sickness
I had my first baby-related dream last night. I dreamed the baby was kicking the shit out of me and Nik through my belly.
Crippling, limp-inducing sciatica that started around 13-14 weeks
PAINFUL Braxton Hicks contractions. Dude, I did not even know you could get them this early. But I looked it up and apparently they can start at 6 weeks? Bizarre.
Incessant need to pee every single day all the time OMG I HAVE TO PEE AGAIN.
I wake up 3 or 4 times a night. Once or twice to pee, and once or twice just because I'm in so much damn pain.
MY BACK. IT HURTS. LET ME CRY ABOUT IT.
Headaches, every damn day, starting around 3pm. Always. No matter what.

Also new this time around, which I find odd since this is a subsequent pregnancy and isn't this shit supposed to be less nerve-wracking? I have a blinding, mind-numbing fear of something going terribly wrong in this pregnancy. 15 weeks in and I am still not convinced that this is going to end in a baby.

Most people seem to think that the glaring differences in the pregnancies indicate that this time around, I'm carrying a girl. Despite my earlier feelings that it was probably a girl (as I felt in the beginning of my first pregnancy) I'm pretty firmly entrenched in the "boy" camp now. I keep calling it a "he" and everyone*
 keeps (ANNOYINGLY) screeching "SHE" in their most punch-deserving sing-song voice.

Stay tuned for news regarding the most clusterfuck wedding you ever heard of.

*By "everyone", I of course mean my mother.

Cycle of Madness

I took my son to the beach for the first time yesterday. We ventured down to Nik's parent's house in Jersey, swam for a while in their development, and then hit the beach and boardwalk in Ocean City for a few hours.

There were so many wonderful moments of that day....so many firsts, and so much delight in seeing my son enjoy himself so much.

But what do I mostly remember? Mostly, I remember taking out my venom on my 5-year-old son because I was frustrated and upset and insecure. Mostly, I remember picking fights with my boyfriend because I couldn't be bothered to control any of the rage and doubt swirling in my own head. Mostly I remember ruining what could have been a perfect day.

And that is what MOSTLY what I remember these days. Times that could have been spent cuddling or playing and enjoying that were ruined by my plethora of issues and problems...my madness.

I am overwhelmed, and I'm stretching the limits of my sanity as far as they will go, and at a great cost.

It's been pointed out to me that I only have this problem at home. I do not lose control at my job. I do not lose control with my friends. Even my mother, who stretches my patience to unimaginable limits, does not see the worst of me. So, naturally, Nik has assumed that I choose not to treat him kindly and with patience. That I choose to stretch the limits of our relationship on a daily basis. I cannot blame him for this, nor can I explain why it is this way.

My best guess, and that is not worth much right now, is that with no one else do I feel so vulnerable. I am not afraid that my boss will hurt me. I am not afraid that my mother will walk out of my life. My friends are not privy to the deepest, darkest parts of me. With those people, I do not constantly run the cycle of "does he love me? will he leave me? Of course he'll leave me..."

And cycle it is. I can break it down into breathtakingly simple parts - someone along the way I started to hurt. So I hurt other people. Then I regretted hurting other people. Then my regret made me feel so much worse, so I hurt more. And I hurt other people more. And so the cycle continues, and here I am a good 10 years later, no better, no smarter, but with so much more to lose.

I read something today that I related to so clearly that it felt like a smack in the face. "My tumor left me disfigured. He loved me anyway. It was my insecurities that drove him away."

I am so flawed. Physically, emotionally, mentally...and he loves me anyway. And if I lose him, it won't be because I wasn't perfect, or because I wasn't pretty or thin or because I didn't have the best job...it will be because I couldn't get my shit together enough to love myself so that I could accept that he loved me.

I am tired of ruining things. I am tired of regretting all my decisions. I am tired of the venom that comes out of my mouth. I'm tired of my son looking at me with adoration and unending forgiveness, and knowing that I did nothing to earn it. I'm tired of hearing my boyfriend say "I love you" and knowing that I didn't earn that either...and secretly wondering what it will take to make it go away.

I want to be better, I want to find ways to work with myself, understand more and worry less. I want to be ok with who I am, and know that I deserve to have people love me. I have no fucking idea where to start, but I want to keep my eyes open to figure it out.

Hopefully the longest post EVVVAR...

...because length always equals quality, right? RIGHT? COME ON. CAN I GET A RIM SHOT HERE?

The first order of business is to go ahead and say that despite the fact that I'm now officially and firmly implanted into the second trimester, I still feel spectacularly shitty. I can blame...no one but myself on this, unfortunately. I am not exactly taking great care of myself. I have a list of things I need to improve, but jesus god it's just so haaaaarrrrd.

Firstly, I seriously need to start eating better. My eating habits have taken a plunge for the enormously fucked up, and my body I think is screaming in protest.

Up until a few weeks ago, I would buy something in the morning to eat on the way into work, buy something for lunch around 1pm, and buy something again at dinner. Nik is never home for dinner and I feel the task of cooking for one is so damn arduous. I am unhumanly lazy these days. This little routine of mine wasn't so great to begin with, as it resulted in a lot of frozen dinners and wawa prepackaged crap. But hey, it was sustenance nonetheless, so I counted myself ahead of the game, there.

But, alas, there happens to be a pesky wedding looming in the near future to pay for, and $20 a day to pay for all my meals seemed rather frivolous. So I figured I'd get my ass to the grocery store and start packing some shit. HAHAHAHAHA.

The grocery store, dude. It's just so BIG. And you have to like, WALK AROUND. And CARRY STUFF. I am too fragile for this! So I slowly slid into the following routine...

I started skipping breakfast. I didn't actually..intend to. But I'd forget to bring something, and then refuse to buy something, so there goes breakfast. Then when lunch time rolled around, the oppressive heat keeps me from leaving the office. My desire to eat apparently did NOT outweigh my desire to not DIE IN THE SUN OMGZ. The heat, ya'll, it is seriously KILLING ME. So, most days...there goes lunch. Then I would come home, and either, you guessed it, hit a drive-thru, which is miraculous in and of itself as I hate fast food with a passion, or stop by Wawa, which is only a single step up on the gross-non-food chain. Some nights, I actually fall asleep before exerting the energy to eat, and that right there is a supposedly a big fucking no-no. I suck at this gestating crap.

So I am guessing, because I am no scientist here, that this is the major contributor to my unending feelings of general shittiness.

As an aside, I also feel like shit emotionally. And when my emotions are nosediving into the "neverending unease" category, it almost always transcends into a sense of physical listlessness and lethargy.

AND SO...there ends my litany of complaints...someone come kick my ass, please. Also, clean my house, cuz it is fucking filthy in here.

********************

And then I answer weird questions that I get in emails.

So...I noticed that I RARELY get any comments around this bitch anymore. Which is fine, except for the fact that I am getting a TON of emails. Why...aren't you people commenting? Is it so shameful to show that you like what you read here? If it is..I'm sorry. I have always been on the geeky side, the side that no one wants to actually admit they like. I am like a bad reality TV show, like that.

At any rate, in these emails I get a lot of what I consider to be oddball questions. Not like, "what do your panties smell like" oddball, just...unexpected. ANd so, because I have no real literary inspiration whatsoever, I will answer these questions.

One was - "Do you talk the same way you write?" The general answer to this is yes. Yes, I do. Complete with run-on sentences and CAPS lockish exclamations. I am very dry and sarcastic and self-deprecating when I speak, and I have a tendency to draw things out into overly long stories and explanations similar to the way I write tons of drivel to make a point such as "I feel like crap." The exception to this is work - I speak entirely differently at work. I'm extremely articulate, my vocal intonations take on an almost monotone quality, and I don't do the CAPS lock thing unless I'm REALLY freaking out.

And then (and this one seems bizarre) - "What kind of skin products do you use? Your skin is so clear..." And to this I say, HAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, you silly girl.

This is a perfect case of the "grass is greener..." cliche. I HATE my skin. However, all through high school, and even now into my twenties, it is still the object of envy for A LOT of people in the 12-35 age bracket.

I do not get acne. I never have. My face does not, and has not ever had what you would generally call a "break-out". Pimples, on the rare occasion that they come, come in groups of, at absolute MAX, three. Usually, once every two months or so, I get one on my nose or something. And they are of the very tiny variety. No big red postules over here, just little tiny whiteheads that go away, or get popped with no scarring, within a day or so.

HOWEVER. My skin is EXTREMELY dry. I am prone to awful fits of eczema. My neck, chin and upper lip have been known to chafe and chap so badly that I typically have pieces of dry skin just flaking off like fucking psoriasis or something. In addition, my complexion is horribly uneven and blotchy. My cheeks are terribly red at the best of times, and require a full face of foundation to even out. This problem has recently been solved, actually, because I switched my cleanser and makeup brands after months of reading the Smackdown. Let me explain...

I used drug store brands of EVERYTHING my entire life. Makeup, cleanser, whatever. I never even HEARD of primer until I started reading the Smackdown. And, in fact, as gross as it may seem, I didn't start washing my face regularly until about a year ago. It seemed whenever I tried to use a cleanser, my skin would just have a fucking fit and get so red and irritated that I'd eventually just say fuck it. I used cetaphil for a bit, and while it didn't make my head want to explode, I can't really attest to it's actually cleansing power. But lo, I read about so many women taking Amalah's advice on proper skin care, that I decided eventually to just suck it up, and dropped about $140 on new makeup and cleansers.

So let me start here and jump on the Philosophy bandwagon....BUY IT. IT IS FUCKING MIRACULOUS. First of all, I use the Purify cleanser, which not only strips my skin of dirt and makeup and excess moisturizer, it does not leaving feeling like it has ACTUALLY BEEN STRIPPED. Secondly, and this is sort of an underhanded endorsement, but the When Hope Is Not Enough moisturizer is the closest thing I've ever come to using a non-Eucerin moisturizer that actually works. I still ended up sticking with Eucerin (my skin just can't handle anything less or the dryness gets insanely uncomfortable) but the Hope moisturizer was enough to at least not scratch my fucking face off all day, which is REALLY saying something as far as my skin and moisturizers go. I imagine if you have normal to exceptionally dry skin, MINUS the eczema, it would rock your world pretty steadily.

I switched from Cover Girl to Smashbox primer and foundation. The primer, let me just go ahead and tell you, is genius in a fucking pump bottle. Even in this unbearable heat (did I mention the heat is killing me?) my makeup still stands up as long as it's started with the Photo Finish Primer. I'm equally in love with the foundation. It's buildable, but only takes about a pump and a half for full coverage, meaning it lasts next to forever. All in all, COMPLETELY worth the seemingly ungodly amount of money I spent on it.

And finally - "What's you 'style'? You don't post enough pictures to really get the idea of it, but I bet it's pretty wacko. In a good way!"

Oh, man. You want to know the truth? I'm actually pretty ashamed and unimpressed with my style. The truth is...I have none. Literally, none. I am the most average looking chick you will ever see...I am the type of girl that you forget about five seconds after you see me.

My "style" varied in the years between age 13-18 and officially ended by the time I was 20. I went from baggy pants generic "alternative" chick that listened to y100 religiously, to Hot Topic brand punk, to Hot Topic brand goth, to...nothing. By the time I was 18, I dressed like an average human being but still had "wacky" hair...my hair's been every color of the rainbow, and I'm pretty sure I made up a few along the way. It's been dyed well over 200 times, and I am paying for that now. It is horrible and damaged and unstyleable.

I am a creature of comfort and habit. My "style" consists of jeans, every single day, and whatever plain t-shirt happens to be clean at the time. Occasionally I mix things up by wearing a hoodie. That's...it. My makeup is average looking, my hair is average and unstyled, and I am profoundly boring looking. And this? This annoys me.

I am not trendy. I am not alternative. I am just...there. But if I had a style? If I didn't have an office job to go to, if I wasn't tired of my parenting or general responsibility being judged by how I look, I would probably look something like this:

triplesix.livejournal.com

I LOVE her style. LOVE IT. Right down to the dreads and drag queen makeup, but minus the leg warmers. I think she is absofuckinglutely fabulous, and I give that chick mad props for pulling it off. However, I have no balls, nor any many to spend on fabulous dread falls, nor do I really want to stick out from the pack because of the way I look. I'm content with blending in, actually. Like I said, crazy mad props to those who do, but defining myself by how I dress or do my makeup is not my cup of tea, I'd rather do it by the blither I write on the internet.

And this brings me to the end of possibly the longest post I've ever written, and I'll thank you NOT to remind me that size does not count.

Titles are for pussies

So here we are. 13..um, maybe 14 weeks? Life is moving along, as life has a inexorable tendency to do. The wedding is in, Jesus God, fifty one days, and I feel terrifying unprepared. Dude, linens. Why the hell didn't anyone remind me about linens? Christ. Is it kosher to register for supplies you need for the wedding? No? Fuck that.

However, I am secretly getting excited about the whole to-do, but don't tell anyone, because bitching is more interesting, ok?

In other (non)news, I got a Sidekick. I'm pretty thrilled about this, and it has rocked my socks continuously through stupid trainees, pointless melodrama and a few days of horrible cramping and back pain.

...Oh. THAT. Yeah. About a week ago, I started getting some moderate cramping and back pain. Mild cramping is kind of par for the course at this point, along with the sharp ligament pulls and twinges I feel if I move too suddenly. So I took some tylenol and tried to find a more comfortable sleeping position. It continued on, and then Tuesday...well. I'm stupid. Tuesday I lifted some heavy boxes that I had NO business lifting. So, you know, Wednesday, the cramping and back pain got exponentially worse. I called the doctor in the morning after the pain passed "discomfort" and proceeded right on to "having trouble sitting up" and because there was no bleeding involved, they just advised ice, tylenol and rest. A few extra strength tylenols later, and it was back to manageable. I have an appointment on Tuesday, wherein there'll be an ultrasound, and I'm sure everything will be kosher till then. Beyond then, in fact.

So keep on keeping on we shall...when I get around to typing the insanity out, I'll tell a couple funny stories about my new trainee. Lord, I'll bet you didn't know it was humanly possible to be SO stupid.

On pregnancy insanity:

I just watched the last quarter of the fifth Harry Potter movie, which I've seen six or seven times. One of the last scenes, where Harry is possessed and there is a montage of scenes depicting love and friendship...well.

I fucking LOST it.

But, if I'm being honest, I lost it a few minutes before that. I watched a scene I love where the Order of the Phoenix zoom into the Dept. of Mysteries in clouds of white smoke. As I watched a number of my favorite characters leaping into action, I realized that two years later, they would all die. And that's when the waterworks started.

I blame this firmly on pregnancy.*

*In actuality, when I read the 7th book, I cried myself to sleep and was depressed for several weeks. I have no problem admitted that I felt a genuine loss and grief** for some of those characters.

**Yeah. I'm an asshole.

Remember when I didn't suck?

Feeling nostalgic today, I hit up a bunch of old friends for a hot round of "Remember when?"

I'd planned to detail my remembrances here, I even typed out a few before I got backspace happy. However, they're all silly and stupid, and essentially moot. Also, destructive. I talked to a few people I shouldn't have, friends and relationships I have no business reminiscing about. Bad decisions that seemed fun at the time, stuff that ended up hurting in memory years later. They still hurt to think of now, but it seemed this morning that it was better than contemplating the future.

I'm getting married in two months. I'm having another baby in six. Most of the time, I'm thrilled about these things. I've been with Nik for four years, and though it was a rocky, hard road, I'm grateful we toughed out the bad times and ended up where we are today. Though I wasn't exactly ready, I always knew I wanted to give him a child. As everyone knows, life has  a way of turning and twisting at the most seemingly inopportune times, and then eventually giving way to fortuitous glory. I don't doubt that everything will be fine, great, even. But that doesn't really stop me from being absolutely terrified.

I've avoided this website for a while because my ramblings have a tendency to reach unintended eyes and ears. I hate having to second guess what I write, wondering who will hear it and how it will affect them. But if I don't chronicle this here, it may just eat my brain. That's what happens when you have a small social circle, you have to turn to the internet for validation and a listening ear.

My fear has a lot to do with my current "condition." Not pregnancy, mind you. My mental condition. I'm off my medication, not in therapy, surrounded by people who are growing increasingly weary of my attitude. Not that I blame them - I'm exceedingly difficult to deal with right now, moody and irrational, insecure and needy. I keep reaching out for validation and coming up empty. Not because it's not there, but because I can't see it. Every answer is followed by another question. Stupid, insecure, non-issue questions, but questions that are taking over my brain.

"Do you love me?" - "Yes." - "But do you love me as much as you loved HER?"

"Am I doing ok?" - "Of course." - "But I am doing as good a job as I used to?"

"Am I pretty?" - "Yes." - "But am I as pretty as HER?"

"Am I smart?" - "Yes." - "Then why do I feel so fucking stupid?"

Writing it out like that, I see how ludicrous it is. I KNOW, MAN, I KNOW. But knowing something and feeling it are two different animals. I KNOW my boyfriend loves me, I KNOW he wouldn't betray me, I KNOW I'm good at my job, I KNOW I'm a good mom.

But..you know.

I FEEL like why in the hell would anyone ever love me? I FEEL like dude, I would cheat on me if I were him, I suck and I didn't live up to my part of this relationship. I FEEL like I suck at my job, and I FEEL like I am permanently fucking up my kid by existing. And now I FEEL like I need to shut the fuck up, stop bitching, and give an update about shit people might care about.

*********************************

JOB: All my bitching there is because I got promoted. Totally cause for bitching, right? My own fancy office with a WINDOW, new responsibilities, etc. etc. The only glitch? I do not have a damn clue what I'm doing, and I may end up accidentally suing the President or something. Which, in theory, doesn't sound all that unappealing. Defamation of this country's character, I think. Because of you, the rest of the world thinks we're all giant, illiterate assholes. Pay up, fucker.

WEDDING: I caved and just ordered invitations online, despite all my lofty assertions that I was going to do 'em myself! I am RESOURCEFUL and THRIFTY. Turns out, I'm just lazy. They should be delivered today, and I fully intend to hijack people with better handwriting than me to address them.

BABY: I am 12 weeks pregnant right now. At the risk of internet mutiny and cries of "TWINS", I will post a photo of the belly. It is covered, and shall remain so in any other pictures that end up on here, because I'm still hanging onto remnants of my last pregnancy, i.e. STRETCH MARKS AHHH DIE.

Granted, I wasn't all that skinny to begin with, but I certainly didn't have the protruding nonsense that's going on now.

I have my first officiall Dr's appt in two weeks, and don't even get me started on why it's so damn late. Insurance, shitty office practices, and a professional may have actually said that "it's not really that important that you see a doctor anyway."

And that concludes the post that will probably eat the internet due to it's suckage, please join us next time for a live webcast of me losing my shit. For like the fifth time that day. I figure that's the next step in showing the internet how fucking insane I am, right?