Tuesday pregnancy musings.

My biggest craving this pregnancy has been seaweed. That should give you some indication of the state of my brain because let's be honest, WHO CRAVES SEAWEED? And if we want to take it one step further, who orders Costco-sized packages of dry, salted seaweed and inhales them with such force and excitement that little seaweed flakes can be found all over her body for days to come? This is weird and leaves me with only one conclusion, I can't be trusted. Take everything I say for the next month (and everything I have said for the last eight) with a grain of sand because anyone who prefers sea foliage to chocolate cake and ice cream just can't be standing on two steady legs.

Speaking of, standing on two steady legs I am not. I've been doing the sciatic shuffle the past couple of weeks and just when I thought things were improving after a particularly painful spell my right leg gave out on me this morning as I was walking down the stairs. Although I didn't fall and drop that precious Quinny in my arms I thought to myself, again, I can't be trusted. That sciatic pain is really something else. The biggest problem, from what I can gather, is that the baby is doing a headstand with what I can only imagine is a typical (ginormous) Wigginton noggin directly on the sciatic nerve which runs directly under her home/my uterus. The 2nd biggest problem is that relief from sciatica during pregnancy is hard to come by--stretching, exercising, resting, yoga and massage just don't cut the lightning bolt pain. I saw a chiropractor when I experienced the same pain with my Talmage pregnancy, but it didn't help and let's be real, ain't nobody got time for one more appointment. The 3rd biggest problem, and this one's a doozy, is that last week I went to the gym locker room to stretch out my poor be-hind and found a middle-aged woman laying buck naked on a yoga mat doing some stretches of her own. I can't for the life of me shake the image, and the mere thought of using any yoga mat in the whole darn Y now gives me the eebie-jeebies. So even if stretching did help, I mean, she kinda ruined it for me. So there's that.

In other pregnancy news, I finally fit into the pregnant zebra dress again and even though it is clearly the most unflattering pregnancy dress in existence I find myself wearing it super often because it feels like a nightgown and I LOVE SLEEPWEAR!!! I also love to sleep, but that's just not my lot in life at this point. And you wanna know a fear of mine? I'm super afraid that by the time my kids are old enough to realize that long, lazy mornings are blissful I will be so programmed to wake up early with them that my body will wake up whether I ask it to or not. Depressing. So back to the dress, Chase said I looked like a pregnant zebra when I wore it during my Everett pregnancy and the name just stuck. In his defense as I looked at the pictures of me wearing the dress compared to pictures of me at the gym from the week before and the week after I was appalled to see that it adds a good 20 pounds to my figure. But hey, I could take a nap in it like whoa and zebra mamas are pretty cute, right? I've also been wearing a whole lotta parachute pants which James calls MC Hammer pants and Talmage calls pajamas and neither think are attractive but, yep, they're a staple and I love them.  I'm far bigger this pregnancy than I've ever been and not much is fitting these days so I'm just happy for anything that doesn't show any unsuspecting strangers my mid-drift. It's harder than it sounds.

Let's see, what else. You want to know a really awesome part about being pregnant? Pregnancy boobs. Those raging hormones are doing something right!!! I'm not one bit embarrassed to talk about it because for a woman that post Quinny was told by a reputable bra manufacturer that she might fit in a training bra, filling an A cup is like winning the lottery. I know there are more important things in the world, but is it wrong to pray that my boobs don't shrink again post baby? And at the risk of making you feel awkward, you mind praying for them as well?!

Half my head is baby hair right now. I can't even wear my hair in a pony without a whole slew of hair falling from every direction. It's growing in fast and thick and in the wrong direction of every part I've ever known. A mind of their own, these baby hairs have. James jokes that I should be grateful that my hair decides to grow back instead of peacing out forever like his, and I am, but it's a bit silly. The other day in the car I was trying to control the fuzz and noticed that I must have gotten some tinsel on my head. Maybe from preschool? Maybe from my craft cupboard? I couldn't figure it out. I got the tinsel off of my head, root and all, because you wouldn't believe that what I thought was sparkly silver tinsel was actually my first gray hair! I laughed and laughed and saved it to show James and even joked that I was going to tape it into my journal. Since finding the first, I realized that there is actually a sea of silver hair coming in with the brown babies. The point is that my baby hair is actually quite old and you know what, I'm not sad about it at all. 

Let's finish this novel off by stating the obvious, in a little over a month I am going to have four kids. FOUR KIDS! We still live in a 2 bedroom apartment and you should see the tetras we've been playing in our minds trying to figure out where an extra crib, extra clothes and extra baby are going to fit in a room that is already bursting at the seams. I met a woman a while back who asked if I was pregnant with my first baby. I laughed and told her it was actually my fourth little friend. She looked at me with wildly shocked eyes and said, "You don't belong in an apartment, you belong on a farm!" Some may have been offended by her comments, but I was like, "Yah, I know! Do you know of one that's close to my husband's work and doesn't cost 5 million dollars?" We do kind of belong in a place with more space but hey, we live in LA and this is what city life is all about so I'm trying to come to peace with the chaos that our closeness causes. Still though, if praying for my boobs is not your cup of tea maybe a prayer for a house would suit you? I'd be ridiculously grateful!

Random pregnant post done, here are a few pics of my extra large middle section:

I have no idea how many weeks I am (35ish?), but these are in order from the past couple of weeks. Grey shirt first, then zebra dress (see what I mean?) and just a few days ago I took that picture in the red shirt. If my protruding belly button is really a turkey timer as James often jokes then I think this baby might be ready to come out, but I'm hoping that she'll continue cooking as long as possible!