Mental Multitasking

I’ve been lying wide-awake in bed for the past hour. *Note: It’s 5 a.m. and we go to bed between midnight and 1 a.m. I’ve never been a morning person so I’m sure it’s Mother Nature’s way of preparing me for many sleepless nights to come. In my wakefulness, my mind races, ping ponging from one random scenario to another. Reminds me of being in a hotel room and the jerk next door turns on the TV at some ungodly hour. The volume is so loud, so intrusive; you can hear every word, every jingle. That’s my brain pre-daylight. Somebody call the front desk already.

As I try and get mentally comfortable, I wrestle with continual physical discomfort, the effect of months of sleeping on my left side. My limbs are taking on quite a bit of water weight now and I painfully drag my soggy parts to the loo a few hundred times throughout the night. My hands swell to the size of my doctor’s (he has huge hands, something I considered to be an asset until he started doing the cervical exams). I can barely bend them but can make an awesome sign language letter “C”. So, in the midst of my mental pre-dawn jibber-jabber, I was lying there thinking about how I would defend myself if someone broke into the apartment. My water-logged limbs are useless. Effective kicking and punching would be out of the question but I thought, “Hey, I could muster one hell of a slap with these giant hands of mine! They’re like water balloons on sticks. Just beat’em senseless, wear ‘em down with my frightful paws ‘til they’d beg for mercy." That's some quality programming in that head of mine, by the way.

So with that thought out of the way, I spent some time listening to the A/C click on, click off, click on, click off. Hubby, in the meantime, was snoozing contently, softly breathing, and I grew envious of his obvious comfort level. At some point though he started twitching his lower extremities like he was stepping on hot coals. He was probably dreaming of tiny Chihuahuas nipping at his ankles and feet again. He has this dream frequently. I think it has something to do with being from Laredo.

Of course, I spent most of my mental energy thinking about my baby who is due in 3 weeks! This month we go to the doctor’s office every Wednesday to monitor progress. Last week, doc claimed the child had a disturbingly large head and we might need to put a c-section on our radar. He even wrote in bold letters “large head” in two places on my chart. The c-section chapters are the ones I skipped in all of my baby books! I looked accusingly at my sweet husband who did have quite the cabeza when he came into this world and his mom had to have a c-section with him. “Tweety Bird,” I think he was called as a child. I missed that fine print somewhere. Thankfully, yesterday’s appointment revealed that Junebug isn’t unusually large in any way but having the baby sooner than later was highly recommended. I’m taking suggestions on how to get this delivery thing jump-started, by the way. He also told us that I’m 1/2 a centimeter dilated. Whoo-hoo! That’s about this…----…big. Not monumental but it’s a start. Finally, we’re finishing up this phase of this beloved endeavor.

Speaking of endeavors, did I tell you that an over-zealous army of drunken drag queens attacked our house one night and assaulted its exterior? See for yourself!!!



Can you scream “garish?” Yeah, so I agreed to a version of these tones but damn, don’t things look different when they’re life size? Hubby actually loves it and that’s enough to make me just fine with the cartoonish dwelling. I’m sure the neighbors have already phoned the neighborhood association though. What’s the prognosis on a date of completion? I never got a complete answer from my contractor yesterday, come to think of it. Internally, it’s still only walls and concrete. I’m guessing six weeks, maybe? Insert Serenity Prayer here.