The only thing I hate more than blowdrying and flossing? Doing my kegels!

You might be tempted to wonder how I could combine blow drying, flossing and kegel exercises into 1 blog post, but don't. This is the mind of a pregnant lady and there is no rhyme, reason or rational. And in fact, I'm sure that by the end of this post, you'll know why I'm targeting all 3 at once.

Let me start with the least offensive, and most necessary evil on my list - flossing. The thing is, us humans are hardly confused as to why our dentists continue to beat us over the head for not doing this enough. We understand the importance of it, but we hate it so much we'll actually risk losing teeth over it. Teeth people, you need those (unless you're my dog but that's another story) to eat, and not look like a freak. You also need them to ensure you don't whistle and spit while you talk, and to help keep your tongue in your mouth..... or so the vet told me about my dog.

Anyway, it's not that it's hard or painful, and it's not even that it's that time consuming, it just sucks. It adds another step to your daily routine, and frankly you don't see the immediate benefits. The only thing that ever prompts me to floss on a regular basis, is the idea of having to listen to my Hygienist AGAIN detail how and why I should floss. So quite frankly, I'm good at it for approximately 4 months per year - 1 month before each cleaning, and 1 month after when I'm all jacked up on fluoride and free toothbrushes, and I truly believe I have the power to have a positive impact on my smile for my senior years. Then I start to realize I don't even  know if I CARE about my seniors smile. Even though I'll be getting cheap McDonald's soft server and eating the $8.99 early bird lobster special at 4pm, so I'll have a lot to smile about, am I really going to care if those smiles are full of teeth? I suspect not.

And really, my grandparent's wear dentures and I've got to say, there are appealing parts of that scenario. Regardless, I hate flossing and I only do it periodically out of bare necessity. And now that I am pregnant, with all this excess blood volume and puffy bleedy gums, I'm even less interested. Why floss when I could use those precious moments for sleeping...or better yet eating? And that's my rant on flossing. If I could pay someone to do it for me, I might consider taking it back up.

This of course brings me to my next problem, the loathsome task of blow drying. Now some of you are saying "oh it's not that bad" while others are thinking "well if you hate it so much, why do it?". And to you I answer this: It IS THAT bad, but I'll get into that in a second. But why do I do it? Because I don't enjoy looking like a poorly washed poodle or an overzealous Q-Tip, and the only way for my head to look any form of put together is for me to engage in excessive heat styling. This requires the blow dryer AND the straight iron, but I heart my straight iron and wouldn't DARE ridicule her publicly. She might retaliate and break, and then I'd have to lose my shit.

My hair is curly, or at least it thinks it might want to be. It's not curly in that "wow that girl has got gorgeous curls" way, nor in that "hot I just came in from surfing" sort of way. No, it's curly in that "it's kind of big on this side, with a front load of frizz and a whole lotta wrong". So I must tame it. At least in part. On ugly stupid Sundays, I can get away with just a crown and bang dry, but on a daily basis, it requires an entire blowout. This process takes me on average 25 mins. 25 hot, sweaty and unbearably obnoxious minutes, where I stand in the humid bathroom, and blow hot air at my head with a gun shaped device. Having just got out of the shower, I generally find the profuse sweating which accompanies the blow drying down right offensive. Add to that the fact that my goddamn bangs will never ever EVER do the same thing twice in a row, and it's a recipe for a pregnant lady meltdown. I've only cried during blow drying once since I got pregnant, but I've thought about it a lot. That, and the irony of the fact that the gun shaped device I'm holding up to my head, is making my want to hold a gun to my head.

And I'm pregnant, so I'm hot. I'm hot, and not so much nimble anymore. Maneuvering around between the shower and the sink, praying for a bit of bounce or shine, and cursing the Pantene Pro-V girls is not a great way to start the day. But prancing around with stringy, limp curls with a side of "was she electrocuted?" is also not a great way to spend the day, so I chalk it up to the lesser of 2 evils. And that is why it is THAT bad.

Which brings me to my kegels (if for some reason you don't know what these are, you're probably a man and may want to stop reading). The reason I started thinking about the three of these things together in the first place was, I started trying to do my kegels, while blow drying, after flossing. My theory was, if I am going to be in hell ANYWAY, I might as well get it all out of the way at once. Like a bandaid, rip.

The flossing thing, well I gave that up before I started, but the kegel/blow dry combo I'm still working on. It doesn't make blow drying any less trying, but it kills two squawking birds with one stone.  And of all of these evils, I think kegels might top the list in terms of necessity. I can live without teeth, I can live with a poodle-do, but what I can't live with is peeing in my pants with every sneeze or laugh from here on out.

That's right ladies and gents, having a baby spring forth from your body, existing out your vagine doesn't only hurt like hell (ok I ASSUME this one), but it wreaks havoc on your internal workings. One of those workings holds your pee. And I for one am quite happy with the amount of control I've got over my pee, and am not prepared to give that up just yet.

Actually, that's a lie, even at this stage in the pregnancy, sometimes I fear the worst, so it ain't going to get any better. I'd love to sneeze, laugh and even walk to the bathroom on particularly urgent days without leakage, but with a human on my bladder, that's not always the case. And what I don't want is to end up wearing Depends at the tender age of 30. That's right, I'll forgo my teeth but not my big girl panties. So I do my kegels.

I sit, and concentrate, and clench in and out, and do them. I do as many as I can before I have to stop, I take a rest, and do some more. I curse each one, but then silently thank it for keeping the pee on the inside, until I tell it to come out. Holding my pee is no longer something I'm going to take for granted.

And I've talked with enough of my mommy friends to know that the pee issue, is not the only one. Men fart in yoga because they are men and men are gross. Postpartum women fart in yoga and it's not a result of last nights broccoli if you know what I mean (and if you don't, then you're better off not thinking too much about this one).

And so, I kegel. I hate them, they suck. But Imma gonna do em. Every day. Until I once again control my pee.