8 Weeks Remain Folks!

I have been so busy at home and at work I have really not had much time to pay attention to the fact that I'm pregnant! Work is busy as ever and I am really feeling wiped out by the time I leave for the day which, of course, is when my other full time job of being "mom" picks back up with no rest for the weary. At home we have several projects inside and out we are tackling, as well as moving Elliot to his new room and new bed and dealing with some periodic unpleasant changes to his behavior. Sigh.

In that vein, terrible twos should be called something else. On one hand, they're great. He's extremely verbal and very funny and loves to help with household tasks and show us how he can do things all by himself. On the other hand, I think he is sometimes a pod person who likes to defy what I say just for kicks and enjoys melting down in Macy's because I won't let him bang on a cool glass table that makes a really fun and loud noise when it is struck. So, maybe it should be pre-adolescence, or the "preview" twos. Challenging, trying, funny, heartbreaking, inspiring, and frustrating, yep. Terrible, I'll reserve judgment on that for now.

Meanwhile, pregnancy has made everything really difficult at this point. It is just so damn hard to come home and deal with all the physical stuff of having a toddler while shuffling and limping because A: I'm tired as hell, and B: I am in so much pain. What was an inconvenient and almost "cute" quirk of my last trimester with Elliot has been a nightmare with the second pregnancy. I developed pelvic pain early on which, coupled with muscle inflammation due to an unstable pelvis, pretty much makes doing anything - walking, laying, rolling over and getting up - really painful. Since I like to consider myself someone who just "powers through" that's what I've done. But it is getting worse all the time and I don't know how much longer I'll be able to take our nightly family walk. We used to go a couple of miles, now going to the end of the street is a once-a-week kind of occurrence. We did that tonight and as I sit here it feels like I am breaking in two. I don't think I could ever be pregnant again because my leg might just fall off. In Target the other day I was incredibly tempted to just hop on one of those scooters . . . I really was.

Oh one more thing. So Elliot has really come to love looking at my belly and hugging it, asking me "Is that my baby in there?" He also loves to blow zerberts on it. This is all very cute and lovable - at home. But the other day we were in a store and he apparently wanted to see the baby and my bellybutton (which he loves because it popped out). I was so distracted trying to find what I was looking for on the shelf that I didn't even realize that he was lifting up my shirt until I heard a "BBBBrrrrraaaappppp" coming from my midsection. It sounded like a super loud fart and my stretch marks were out there for everyone looking. Classy. Elliot thought it was hilarious.