November 20, 2010

"To sleep, perchance to dream- ay, there's the rub."

insomnia.  not complete and total insomnia.  sort of, intermittent, insomnia.  temporary, i guess.

every night i wake up.  if not of my own accord (cursed is the bladder of the pregnant woman), then by that of my children; up at some point in the night:  the potty break, the thunderstorm, the croupy cough.  last night the coughing had Slim up.  upset that we could not hear him calling in his hoarse and almost non-existent voice, i decided to sleep the rest of the night on his floor next to his bed.  perfect for falling back to sleep.

bedding on the floor aside, even left back on my own comfy pillowtop, i am destined to lay awake for at least an hour or sometimes two, pondering this new life as "mother of three," or contemplating the mountain of laundry needed to be done, or suddenly gnawed by the thought of the report I forgot to submit at work that day.  also perfect for falling back to sleep.

tonight i may lay awake, excited to be going to New York tomorrow with some girlfriends.  i have this sort of "bachelorette" feeling--a last hurrah of sorts.  when your two oldest are eight and six you occasionally have the opportunity to go somewhere without them, and feel wholly like someone's friend, like a pal, like a woman who doesn't not (for once) need to hold up the other end of a conversation about ear infections, school lunches or poop.  tomorrow i will be that woman.  in six months I will not.  at least not for another 5-6 years.

so tonight i shall try my best to sleep (although it occurs to me that this is usually the least effective way of falling asleep).  whether or not i dream?  who cares.  sleep is the thing.  sleep.
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November 12, 2010

it all comes out in the wash....

another baby-doctor appointment today.  twelve weeks.  May seems so far away and yet I already feel like I have been pregnant so long.  the midwife I saw today warned that she might not be able to hear a heartbeat right away but that she would get out the ultrasound to check the baby if we could not find it.  she had barely touched down on my stomach with the wand and bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum at 150 beats per minute in that squishy-sounding watery rhythm.  life.

I am at the back end of the first trimester and seeming to feel better in the past few days.  less of the constant nausea, maybe a little more of the ravenous hunger, but generally better.  not quite so tired ALL the time.

so I have finally pinpointed my greatest fear in all of this.  it is not labor (a third go-round passing another likely 9+ lbs of tiny human).  it is not the sleepless nights or even revisiting diaper-changing.  it is the increase in laundry.

I HATE doing the laundry.  occasionally I find it therapeutic to get lost in folding:  watching some show on the DVR, folding, organizing piles, matching socks.  but mostly I hate the process.  turning the loads from washer to dryer, carrying them upstairs, finding the energy.  and even if I get some strange pleasure out of folding things, I absolutely can't stand putting it away.

well now I'll be having even more fun.  tiny things that are barely able to be folded, let alone folded into neat piles.  and stuffing them into shallow drawers?  I can hardly wait.  and not only is folding this stuff a pain, but it really should be washed separately, creating some crazy exponential increase in the entire operation.  for one tiny being:  onesies, teeny socks, blankets, bibs, burp cloths, hats.  all in need of their own laundry side job.
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