In favor of highlight reels

I've seen a lot of articles lately criticizing the Instagramming of parenthood. (No links, but if you know what I'm talking about, you've likely seen some of the same articles.) There's even an account (which I follow) that promotes honesty in Instagramming. No filters, no glossing over the "low" points, just truth in parenthood.

I'm all for reality, don't get me wrong. But I also appreciate the highlight reels. Because I have a lot of days like yesterday, in which I awaken after too little sleep to things like this:

Discovering your kid didn't wipe when she says "ew" while cleaning the poo smear off the upholstery. That's my morning.
— Nicole (@nmb74) January 29, 2015

And you get to the point where too many days like that really take their toll on your morale, if not your sense of humor. So it really helps to have an Instagram full of things like this:

Missed Mommy.

A photo posted by Nicole (@nmb1974) on Jan 26, 2015 at 7:35pm PST

And this:

Somebody likes chocolate mousse.

A photo posted by Nicole (@nmb1974) on Jan 21, 2015 at 7:43pm PST

And this:

The imp admires her handiwork.

A photo posted by Nicole (@nmb1974) on Jan 6, 2015 at 8:39pm PST

Scrolling through my Instagram feed drives home to me, in condensed format, what an amazing life I lead. And some days, we all need that. Especially when we're scrubbing poop off an upholstered cube with a Lysol wipe on 5 hours of sleep.

The dog days of pregnancy

If it could be said that I had a rough period during my first pregnancy, it was the first trimester. I was so queasy that the only thing I could eat for three months was cheese and crackers. (Christmas fell during this time, and I was crushed to not be able to take part in the festive gorging.) I also got sick -- twice -- in that magical window during which you're not even allowed to take a Tylenol without physician approval. What's worse is I could only complain to people in my inner circle; I could not complain to the world at large, because the world at large did not yet know I was pregnant. I never realized how much comfort we derive from bitching about our little problems, but it really does help. (Or maybe I'm just not one to suffer in silence.)

Oh, I won't say I didn't have rough times after the first trimester. But other than my third trimester coinciding with a particularly brutal summer, it wasn't that bad. I didn't really understand why everyone kept talking to me like I was in agony. I was hot, and in a fair amount of discomfort in the final two weeks, but otherwise I felt fine. Great, in fact. For someone lugging around another human being in her abdomen, bloody fantastic.

Now it's all starting to make sense.

Some of my current suffering is my own fault. I was in far better physical shape last time around. I underestimated the importance of tight abs and strong thighs on the third-trimester belly. My entire pelvis aches every second of every day. Nothing alleviates the pain. It's like Musak.

I'm also bigger than I was last time, because I thought it might increase my odds of a successful pregnancy if I weren't underweight when I got pregnant. And I do think it helped me get and stay pregnant, so I do not regret the decision. But being 10 lbs bigger when I got pregnant has led to me being 10 lbs bigger throughout my pregnancy, pretty much. Which means I am currently the biggest I have ever been, and just keep getting bigger. My body is in shock. As is my brain; I keep running into things with my belly, because I just can't wrap my mind around how big I really am. I'm dangerously close to requiring assistance with putting on shoes.

I'm also tired. So very tired. Not as tired as I will be when the baby is born, true. But still friggin' exhausted. Because I don't sleep. All day long, I could pretty much fall asleep standing up. I can't stay that way, because I'm having crazy pregnant-lady nightmares, but I have no trouble getting to sleep. At night, though...that's another story.

I was up until 1:30-2:00 last night. Not because I wasn't tired. No, I itched. Despite the fact that I'd coated my entire body in lotion after my shower, I itched. Like I had bedbugs or something. Because I was too moisturized. Areas like the tops of my thighs, which apparently are less dry than my shins, would stick together and itch. Finally, I got up and put on yoga pants. Which just shifted the itching from my thighs to my belly, where the dreaded maternity panel sits. I could feel every hair on my abdomen. They all itched.

I folded the panel down. Which compressed my lower belly, making the baby squirm. It hurts when he does that, because quarters are cramped. The pain triggered contractions, which made my lower back join my pelvis in throbbing.

It also made me have to pee. About 5 times in 20 minutes. When I returned to bed the last time, my daughter rolled over in her sleep and put her feet on my thighs. Which made them itch all over again.

I rolled over. The baby rolled over. My daughter put her feet in my lower back. And the cycle began anew.

And then there's the heartburn. I ate dinner -- bland mac-n-cheese and peas -- at 2:30 in the afternoon. I ate nothing after that, and drank nothing but water and peppermint tea. Eight Tums could not put out the fire. I have to sleep sitting nearly bolt upright these days.

When I finally got to sleep, I had crazy dreams all night long. I dealt with them, because I was too tired to wake up. After what felt like 5 minutes, my alarm went off.

I'd have hit snooze, but I had to pee.

I've stopped itching, at least.

Seven more weeks of this. Yowza.

Mommy-daughter craft time

Latest quick-n-dirty craft project: a holder for lone socks.

http://instagram.com/p/yJC0ELL0QH/

The best-laid plans

I am a plan junkie. I've had a plan as far back as I can remember. (Which, considering I have fragments of memory reaching as far back as my first birthday, is a ridiculously long time). For many of the intervening years, I've been unable to sleep if I didn't have the next 5 or so years of my life mapped out. Pathetic, but true.

However, there is something to be said for not having a plan -- for just jumping in. That's how I finally managed to quit smoking, after a couple of decades and dozens of well-plotted attempts. I ran out of cigarettes one day and just didn't buy any more. Didn't talk about it much, either -- obviously my family noticed right away, but I didn't make any grand announcements or anything. (In fact, there are people who may not yet know I quit. I don't get out much these days.)

Being who I am, doing anything without a plan is...well, freakin' scary. I don't go to the store without a plan -- what time and day I'll go, which route I'll take, what I'm buying, what I'm putting off until later. In my current gestational state, I also plan which clothes to wear (comfy shoes, pants with back pockets for my phone that I can keep up with a minimum of fuss even after squatting down to get stuff off the bottom shelves, a shirt that covers my belly, possibly a light jacket if my list contains much from the refrigerated/frozen section). Ms. Spontaneity I am not.

But I am also a firm believer in recognizing when my efforts are failing and trying a new approach, and there are some things in life for which a plan just doesn't work. Like quitting smoking. I'd tried the plan approach before. I wrote out a list of reasons to quit -- all valid, meaningful reasons to me. I replaced my cigarettes with this or that nicotine replacement method. I had an arsenal of distraction techniques and a support system at the ready. I announced to the world that I was quitting. And suddenly, my life became all about smoking. Everyone asked me about it, every day. Every night, I dreamed about it. How could I miss it if it didn't go away?

What worked was just jumping in. I had nicotine gum on hand already, from my last quit attempt. So when my partner announced one day, out of the blue, that he was quitting, I called his bluff. Smoked my last cigarette, didn't buy more. He later tried to bum one off me, but of course I had none to give. We were stuck.

But I muddled through. It took me more than the allotted 12 weeks to kick the gum, but I did it within 6 months. I can't say I never had another cigarette after that day; I did. It was awful. Tasted like dish soap, for some reason. So even though I still occasional miss smoking (mentally, not physically; the physical part is really absurdly easy to kick), I work around those moments as they come. I don't call attention to them or make a big deal of them. I can't even tell you how long it's been since I quit, as I noted neither the day nor the year. A while. The point is, I don't smoke now, and I never will again. I couldn't ever say that before, but I can now.

So. Plans are not the end-all, be-all. Sometimes, plans are just crutches. Knowing that won't stop me from clinging to them, but perhaps my experience with unplanned success will help me loosen up. Just a little.

Random thought

My belly button, after disappearing for a matter of weeks, is slowly reversing polarity due to the increasing size of the passenger in my abdomen. Am I really supposed to care who won the Oscars or the Emmys or the Yummys or whatever the heck awards show my various social media feeds are yammering on about this morning? 'Cause I just don't have it in me today.

Sorry for the brief post. Four hours of sleep. Spent $80 and several hours yesterday learning that my daughter's lingering sinus infection was caused by her shoving a battery up her nose. Two weeks ago. Yet another reason why I am failing to give a crap about whose ugly dress was uglier.

Stuff

If it can be said that I have a new year's resolution, it's that I'm going to deal with all this stuff.

Several years ago, after a breakup, I undertook what I now think of as The Great Purging. It started, oddly enough, with the absence of stuff. When he left, he left all of these little holes. Holes in the bookcases where his books had been. Holes in the closet, the CD rack, the DVD collection. Day after day, these holes mocked me. They were the physical embodiment of how I felt: Incomplete. Discarded.

One day, I decided to at least fill the holes in the shelves. Filling the holes in myself would take more time, but it was really kind of pathetic to come home and stare at half a household. So I went about unstuffing, spreading, rearranging my stuff to fill the extra space.

It felt good. He'd had a lot of stuff. Especially for someone who had spent the past several years living in a dorm room. Really, just an unbelievable amount of stuff. What he moved into my apartment wasn't even all of it -- the rest was in storage back in his hometown. This was just the stuff he couldn't live without. I had to get rid of a bunch of my stuff to make room for his. At the time, I kind of resented it; what made his stuff better than mine? But he talked me into it, and I told myself he was right, that I didn't use the stuff and wouldn't miss it.

As I spread my now-reduced stuff across shelves and drawers, I realized he was right. I didn't miss that stuff. And it was really kind of cool to have all this extra space for my remaining stuff. I could organize it -- I mean truly, fussily, "only things belonging to the category of XYZ will go in this drawer" OCD levels of organization. I sorted my underwear by color.

This took up a fair amount of my empty hours. And in those hours, I knew peace once more. I had a purpose. But eventually I finished. I looked around my now-organized stuff and thought "Now what?"

And realized that, while it was nice, it could be better. Cleaner. Simpler. More photogenic.

So it began.

In the effort to streamline my possessions, to perfect my organization, I called into question the usefulness of every object I owned. Nothing was safe. I got rid of my shower mat, which I enjoyed standing on but hated washing; every few weeks the washer would chew it up, necessitating the purchase of a new mat. So I tossed it. And realized I didn't even miss it. In fact, not having one was nicer; it simplified cleaning the tub, which brought me more joy than standing on a foam cushion while I washed my hair.

Inspired, I tried showering without putting down the bathroom rug first. Turns out that does serve a purpose; upon exiting the shower, I nearly did the splits. The rug returned to its rightful place.

My clothes. I had two closets full of clothes, but wore the same 5-7 outfits week in and week out. So I went through my wardrobe with a ruthless eye; everything that didn't make me feel gorgeous went into a bag for Goodwill. Socks, underwear, and bras were streamlined to neutral colors only; I tossed the worn and donated the merely colorful. Shoes were subjected to the same scrutiny. When I was finished, I could fit my entire wardrobe, summer and winter, into one closet. With space to spare. It was lovely; for the first time, I could easily locate every article of clothing I owned. Hangers slid freely, and clothing hung straight -- no wrinkles. For the first time in my life, I was the kind of woman whose bra and underwear matched every single day. It was oddly transformative.

My books. My books were sacred. I had four 5-shelf bookcases and two 3-shelf bookcases crammed to the gills with books -- many shelves were not merely double stacked, but quadruple stacked. (I read, okay?) I never, ever got rid of a book. But to be fair, I do reread books -- quite frequently, in fact. Still...did I reread all of them? Did I even like all of them? I reviewed my collection critically, and began bagging up the books I didn't enjoy. Then the ones I'd enjoyed once, but would never reread. The college textbooks I'd not touched in ten years. The duplicate Norton anthologies (my ex-husband was also an English major, and for some reason I'd ended up with his Nortons). The books I'd outgrown. When I was finished weeding, I was able to get rid of one of the 5-shelf bookcases; the rest held but a single row of books apiece.

I spent an emotional weekend going through the detritus of my teenage years. For reasons I can't explain, I'd held on to every greeting card, every note, every photo I'd ever taken or been given. I didn't recognize the names or faces on most of them. Out they went. Along with mementos like the ponytail one boyfriend cut off before joining the Army reserves. (A boyfriend I had dumped -- not the other way around. Yeah. I kept his hair. Why? Got me.) And what seemed like every cigarette lighter I'd ever had in high school. I filled two trash bags with the stuff I threw out. The lawn and garden kind.

Months passed, and finally I had my space just as I wanted it. In that time, I'd not only healed, I'd moved on. Met the man I'd end up committing to for the long haul. We fell in love, moved in together, had a baby, upgraded to a bigger place. (Not as quickly as I just made it sound. We're nearing the 10-year mark here.) And slowly but steadily started accumulating more stuff.

We've been in this house for three and a half years. When we moved in, we barely had enough stuff to fill the space; the apartment we left behind was about half the size of this house. But somehow, broke as we are, we've managed to fill it to overflowing. And since upgrading to a bigger place isn't an option right now, it's time to purge again.

Some of it will come easily, in time. Once our son outgrows the baby things, they will be sold or donated; we don't plan on having another child after this. My wardrobe, which now covers a range of sizes, situations, and pregnancy statuses, can be overhauled once I regain my prepregnancy figure. In a few years, we will be rid of the army of plasticware that has taken over our cabinets and can buy new grown-up dishes once again. And so on.

But for now, I'm drowning in stuff. Again. And am eager to rectify the situation, to whatever degree I can.