Back to the normal topics

I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised at how popular my last post turned out to be. 14 comments (not counting mine)! I never get double-digit comments. Very fun.

But now I need to return to the regularly scheduled whining about being pregnant (today: with bonus viral illness!) and then tell a funny-but-resigned story about motherhood.

So, first of all, pregnancy: Man, it stinks, eh? Especially when you combine it with a mysterious viral infection that I have dubbed "Entire Body Hurts Except For Your Arms Disease." Because that's pretty much what it is. I'm not stuffy, feverish, nauseated, or congested, I just hurt. Everywhere. I've had a headache for three days, and my back feels like someone has been beating me with a large, heavy stick. I went to the doctor today and they took a throat culture (negative) and some blood (will likely be negative) and basically said, "Yep. Sucks to be you." If I were being fair, I'd admit that I'm paraphrasing their kind words of sympathy, but the essential take-home message was the same: Nothing we can do but wait it out. And dammit, I was really hoping for some magic pills.

So then I went to my mom's and my parents took the kids to ice cream for lunch with their cousins and I took some Tylenol and slept for a while, and fortunately Andrew got home minutes after we did, so I didn't have to do any child raising today. Technically, the TV raised the children this morning, because I am ONLY HUMAN. And now I am lying in bed, internetting, while Andrew wrangles the children into bedtime-readiness. Part of me feels really guilty about listening to him wrangle without helping, but most of me is too distracted by Entire Body Hurts Except For Your Arms Disease.

Part of the wrangling included a discussion on what Andrew would have to do if Nora's poop (which she naturally did in her overnight diaper, after having already used the potty and gotten into her PJs) rolled off the changing table and fell behind it. (Answer: Andrew would have to move the changing table to clean it up.) The shape and texture of the poop was also a topic, and I was reminded of the last time I went to my sister's house. I told her how, back in the day, I used to think it was just so tasteless for people to say "I have to pee" instead of "I have to go to the bathroom." I was far too classy to ever explain what I would be doing in the bathroom. I always just said I had to go there, and left it at that.

But times change, and now I spend about 40% of my day telling people to check for pee before we leave, don't poop on the floor, you only get ONE M&M for pee in the potty, etc., etc., ad infinitum. I have therefore become the kind of person who announces "I have to pee" every time I have to pee. It started as a way to set an example and became a habit so ingrained that I actually once sent out a Tweet about how I had to pee but was trapped in the office because the kids had forgotten I was there and I didn't want to remind them. A Tweet! I, the high class one, essentially announced "I have to pee" to the ENTIRE WORLD.

At any rate, mere minutes after I sighed to my sister about my lowered standards, I told Jack that we were leaving as soon as I got out of the bathroom.

"OK," he said. "Pee or poop?"