Oh blog, how I've neglected you!

The fact of the matter is, I'm exhausted. The problem with being the hostess with the mostess, while also being 6 months pregnant and suffering a recurrence of exhaustion induced pregnancy rhinitis is, you get run the hell down at the site of overwhelming, and stay there for days. Buried under a pile of down comforter and tissue with lotion, only to emerge at the tail end of your blissful holidays, slightly less exhausted but still full of snot.

So here I am today. I've got a lot of blogness to catch up on. I've got feeds to read and comment on, a WHOLE list on the SITS site to peruse, and a few new bloggy commenters to stock read up on. It's a tall order, ESPECIALLY when the hubs is still on holidays and I'm required to participate in daily outings and entertain him. Not that I mind, I'm just not used to this. Lucky for me, he likes to sleep much later than I do (and I go to bed much earlier than he does so, it's a fair trade) so I can sit here this AM and entertain you all (nice of me to assume I'm at all entertaining) with my ramblings and whinings.

I'm a little bummed that the holidays are over, and I feel like I missed them in some stress induced amnesic fugue. We had 20 people, 2 babies and 2 dogs over for Christmas dinner (ok well, one was the resident dog and if you count children in utero, there were 3 babies). Christmas Eve was spent with me cleaning like a mad person, and making 2 types of potatoes, fresh cranberry sauce and 2 other types of vegetables. Then the hubs and I ran out to my mothers for the Christmas Eve festivities, which was AWESOME. Awesome because, I got to lay on the couch the entire time while my mother doted on me, and then went to bed at 10pm. It was fantastic, I so needed it. But then, up at 830am (not that that's EARLY but I'm sick yo!) and it was pandemonium after that. Present opening with my mom, step dad, sister, BIL and niece, brunch with them and my BILs parents then a mad dash home, to get ready for the guests.

And not that I mind but upon home arrival, I found my father and step mom hanging out and manning the turkey. I thought they were dropping it off and coming back later, but no. They were here, ready to get thier Christmas on. So mad dash some more. I threw on some make-up (it wasn't pretty, and I'm generally good at this make up biznas), and spot cleaned the bathrooms (so I left 1 chore for Christmas day, sue me) and then the hubs and I had to open our gifts...since we'd had NO time to do such things yet. Then it was right on into party time. Setting up tables, organizing food, trying to figure out how to get 10 dishes into the oven...the whole shebang.

Before I knew it, there were 20 people here (mom and step dad, sister and BIL, grandparents x 4 aunts, cousins, friends) and the house was PACKED. And it was stressful. Everyone else seemed to enjoy themselves but somehow, I feel like I missed all the fun.Did I mention everyone missed my BYOB memo and since I'm PREGNANT and can't partake in the delicious alcoholic festivities, I'd forgotten to pick up ANYTHING. This quickly became my problem, even though I could in no way solve it. My parentals all came stocked and I had a mishmash of things we could drink, but there was a serious drought on CHRISTMAS DAY! And nothing was open. Hostess MEGA FAIL.  And before I knew it, dinner was over, and people were heading home. As happy as I was at the prospect of bed, I was bummed that I was too sick, tired and overwhelmed to enjoy the holiday season.

I am not complaining. I did have a wonderful holiday. I just feel like it was over too fast, and that I didn't take the time I should have to stop and appreciate it. I should have been less concerned about the Hubs random beard hairs around my bathroom sink, and more concerned about the smile on my nieces face when she opened her gifts. I should have focused less on arranging the tables just so, and more on it being Christmas. But I didn't.

The thing is, I'm an overachieving, A-type personality who thinks she is wonder woman. I'm no good at asking for help, or admitting defeat, and I am certainly not going to let someone witness a beard hair gone awry in my sink.I take care of everyone, including the dog and I do it with a smile and a "no, I'm not tired at all". And I am starting to regret it.

I'm not looking to do a retrospective post about the last year, but if there is one thing I've learned, and which I am going to continue to focus on, is that I am only one person. That, and no one else cares about a beard hair. I need to SLOW down, and focus a little more on myself and a little less on the orientation of the towels in the bathroom. I need to take care of me, so that I am able to take care of my daughter. I need to grow up and relax.

I don't know if it's the impending motherhood speaking, or simply the proximity I am sitting to age 30, but I do know that my one and only new years resolution is to learn to say NO, and stick to it.

Step one, keep sitting on this couch...all freaking day!

Leggo my Preggo, my brain is an Eggo...

Ya so, the Books tell you that it’s the hormones that do it to you. In fact, the books blame everything on the hormones, but that is beside the point. Wait, what was my point? Right, preggo brain. Also known by some as “pregnancy insanity”, it is the process by which a seemingly normal and together woman is rendered completely incompetent by the 1cm blob affixed directly inside her abdomen, that will one day be born and grow up to think you’re weird.

It’s an odd side effect of pregnancy I didn’t know a whole lot about until I found myself “with child” as one of the many euphemisms for pregnancy states.

Any way it goes something like this….

One day, you’ve got it all together. You know your work and personal schedule without the need of a blackberry or even a pen. You know when your appointments are, how long it takes to get there, what time you need to leave your house to make your morning meeting and exactly what things you do and don’t need when you enter the grocery store. You know your husband’s schedule so well, he calls you to ask when he’s got to see the dentist, and you even know that your BFF has to get a PAP done in 3 weeks, and that your mother has Spin class on Tuesdays, and TBA (that’s Thighs, Butt and Abs for those of you lucky enough not to know what that stands for) on Thursdays. You know when all your favourite shows are on, you know 3 days in advance when the dog is going to be out of food, and you know the dates of all the leftovers in your fridge. You are in essence, just any old gal with her head screwed on right.

Then you procreate and everything goes to shit. You’re suddenly the girl who not only runs out of dog food, but who forgets to feed him for 3 straight days after that, only to realize he’s following you around hoovering up crumbs to fill his little belly in case you never come to your senses again. You’re also the girl who puts her cell phone on the basket at the grocery store, walks aimlessly around for 45 mins. only to leave with a bag of Oreo’s, 6 liters of soda water and milk for the cereal you forgot to buy. Then gets home and goes to call your husband to pick up said cereal, only to realize your cell phone is still in the basket at the checkout, and you’re at home. You go to work with makeup only on one eye, you forget to pack underwear for a 4 day business trip, and worst of all, you’re so damn confused about everything all the time, you barely recognize that all these things are happening.

This is around the time your husband will start to wonder if you’re ever coming back. And what I’ve learned from a few of my already mommy friends, is that it’s not likely for a few years.

I don’t know what happens, but your brain just melts. That part of you that was once so sharp, so overly capable of retaining information, multitasking and thinking logically has been replaced but what I can only assume is something that looks like an Eggo. You know, it sort of functions. It functions enough for you to get out of bed, make yourself mildly presentable and get to where you need to go eventually, even if you’re sweaty and crying when you get there. And the reason I think it’s like an Eggo is that, I’ve always found their design tolerable at best as well. While the waffle is designed to make pockets of warm melty butter and syrup, it’s not designed to keep those pockets full. Once you try to put it to work – you know, transferring from flat on the plate to squarely in your mouth, the design all but fails. The tasty, yummy concoction of salty butter and sweet sweet syrup run out of the pockets, and either drip onto the edge of your plate, or onto your lap.

This is like my preggo brain. Things appear to sink in, just as usual. It looks like it’s going to work, that I am going to function, that this time I will be victorious over the confusion, only to, at the last minute fall apart like a sticky pile of syrup. Your brain just can’t retain what it needs. It can lay there and accept it, it can fake retention, but as soon as you put it to work, all you’re left with is frustration. Just like my morning Eggo.

And sure, they blame it on the hormones, I get it. I guess somehow, the insane amount of estrogen, HCG and progesterone that has been surging through my body the last 11 weeks, fighting it out and seeing which one could screw with me more, made these holes in my brain. The book says it, so it has to be right, doesn’t hit (ha ha ha).

What I think? Well I think that the lovely little creature that has taken up residence squarely in the centre of your body has now started to control you in each and every way. Think of it as practice for their teenage years. Like any alien force that enters a host body, the purpose is to make that host body act according to their plan. And for my little bean, this plan seems to be turning his mama whacko before she hits the tender age of 30. Sitting snug and warm, protected by the amniotic fluid that MY body had to create, this 40 week gestating creature (the only species I know of that gestates longer is an elephant, and no wonder, look at the SIZE of that thing?) has decided that it might as well start ruling now.

I don’t really mind that my fetus tells me when and what to eat, when to gag or dry heave, when to pee, and on occasion if you’re one of the lucky ones, when to poop. And I even don’t mind that it tells me when I can sleep, for how long and how well, I don’t mind any of it. I just mind the things that cause me to act like a total moron with waffles for brains. I mind the things that have me incessantly searching for my cell phone (which after 12 successful years with one has never been lost before), or driving in circles because I honestly forgot where I was going. I mind the things that make me wonder how long it will be before I am the evil mother who drives away with her baby accidentally on the roof of the car…because only someone with Eggos for brains could truly be that daft!