Anne Nahm

Month 9. While changing this morning, I dropped trou and delicates – once they get past the bump, those items take the elevator express to my ankles – and stepped outside the circle of cloth. Except I accidentally stepped onto instead of past my sunny side up panties.

They stuck to my foot. And then slowly peeled themselves off my heel and dropped to the floor. Like a kid’s paste-together art project that hasn’t quite dried when you tape it to the refrigerator.

PS: I’m seriously thinking about sending in an application to Planned Parenthood. If they could get comfy with my style, I could teach a Sex Ed Class that would kick those old slideshows with close-ups of venereal warts and such right in the ass.

*I was at a party yesterday, and a there was a woman attending who had a four month old baby in her arms. The mom was drinking a glass of wine, laughing a lot, and looking pretty post partum awesome, figure-wise. Also, the baby never fussed once.

I was on the couch, having a hard time breathing with my pint-sized lung capacity and the effort of sitting upright instead of lying across the furniture and farting a lot, when my husband whispered in my ear, “that’ll be us soon.”

And I was seriously all: WUT?

I wheeled my head around, trying to look wherever he was looking to see what he saw that got him all full of sweet, shiny eyed, whispery joy. Still baffled, I went over this checklist – drinking wine? Having parties? Talking about Fresno? Eating hummus off a pea pod?

Until my husband took pity on me and said, “You know. With a little baby.”

I was floored, because omigod inorite?! This pregnancy will most likely end with us having a baby. And then I was basemented (or whatever you call it when you get floored and then you fall through that mental floor and get floored again) to realize this is my third kid, and I am still having difficulty with the concept that huge, uncomfortably pregnant bellies having something in them. I mean, something besides egg salad sandwich from earlier that day.**

*In other news, this Friday was my delayed Friday the 13th or something. Two people chastised my kid over things that (in my opinion) were completely unchastworthy (and also, Stranger Kid Police: Mind your own business or direct your comments to the parent, not the three year old) but instead of having a snappy retort on hand, I had to fall back on my standby wordless scowl to get my point across.

Then my grandmother had a heart attack.

Then Middle sister was leaving her place and discovered Little sister’s car. In Middle’s parking lot. Like Little had come to visit Middle and then just disappeared.

For half a day? No Little could be found. And no Little answered her phone. And we were all about halfway to calling the police when Little finally contacted someone and said by random coincidence, she was visiting someone else in Middle’s apartments and also her phone had died. So we all got to feel scared about missing Little and then embarrassed for practically stalking a 25 year old who has every damn right to visit friends and have her phone off.

And then I went to Target, all pissy and with this list of things that I did not want to buy, but had to buy for the new house. Dish racks and trashcans do not a sexy purchase make. Upon arrival, I discovered I’d forgotten the list, and so I had to circle around the aisles like a some kind of restless shopping shark, OD’d on stupid pills, trying to remember WTF I was supposed to get.

*And finally, in my grand schedule of All-The-Crap-Needs-Done-Before-Due-Date (and allegedly, the baby that will result in that process) I forgot to factor in my calculations the following:During the last month of pregnancy, not only am I always completely brain dead, looking like Jabba the Hut, and only have one pair of pants that fit, but also that I am so huge I have trouble reaching the following items:

• Keyboard sitting on desk from way back here in my seat
• Getting head close enough to bathroom sink to wash my face
• Own butt for scratching
• Brake & gas pedals in car when seat is reclined enough so belly fits behind steering wheel.

As a direct result, nothing is getting done that needs done. It is totally stressing me out. And my butt really itches.

**Which PS? I don’t know all the top ten foods a pregnant lady should not consume prior to being enclosed in a room with others, but egg salad sandwich has got to be one of them.

I was sitting on the couch folding laundry a few days ago when my three year old raced in, yanked up my shirt, and took a big old sniff of my belly button.

I was more-or-less expecting her to drop to the floor and start twitching. I feel like an absolute moose lately – it follows that some barely reachable crevice in my body might smell similarly. However, she remained upright.

Since I like to dance where angels fear to tread, I went ahead and asked her, “what does it smell like?”

“Sugar,” She said. Then she laughed and ran away.

Now I don’t know whether to feel pleased. Or, you know. If I’m living a life where three year olds mess with me.

In other news, we’re still in the <air quotes> moving process <air quotes>. Which (right now) kind of feels like being a rich tourist traveling to some strange foreign country where the customs are all slightly off. For example, the bathroom is stocked with my favorite soap. But is no place to put my towel while I bathe.

It makes you ponder what the natives have been doing all this time. Perhaps I am a prisoner to my American brain, assuming towels should hang off the walls, when really there is some equally good way to secure them if I just opened my eyes to the options? Or perhaps it is not so complicated and the people who lived here before were rolling dry on the carpet.

And speaking of the carpet (which? I am considering never doing so again. Because my gag reflex is nearly taking over right now just thinking on it) Turns out that plumber was on the phone so he could call over a whole second truck of buddies to come see the FUBAR mess that was our pipage.

Guys had a full-on plumber reunion over here. Then they went deep sea fishing down our sewer line all. freaking. day. Complete with laughing, cheers, and one mad five minutes where The Kid of the group yelled, “I got something!” And they all piled on and yanked this thick wire until something gave and one shouted “It got away!” And all the plumbers went “Awwwww…”

It was kind of cute to watch. I mean, especially since we aren’t paying for it.

Also: Blind Watch (heh) Day 8: No blinds.

Days it has snowed during the 8 years I have lived in this town, because: Hello, I live in costal California: 2
Days it has snowed on the morning when we happen to be moving: 1 (and also rain, thanks. And also, clear skies as the movers drove away.)

Children who have regressed into diapers: 1
Times child’s bladder has won the capacity war with said diaper, leaving victory pee in a puddle somewhere: 2

Children who are sick: 1
Parents who are sick: 2
Number of crying jags by yours truly: 2
Number of times I made my own mother cry in past week: 2

Weeks pregnant: 34
Number of contractions since move: a billion
Mucus plugs lost: 1

Indoor Floods: 1 (Donor: Upstairs bathtub, via downstairs toilet. Recipient: Downstairs white bathroom carpet. Bonus: Not just tub water, but a nice helping of whatever else was backed up in the sewer.)
How long it took for me to go from massive dislike of carpeted bathrooms to crippling phobia of same: 10 seconds
Resulting:
Number of showers I’ve managed in the past four days: 1
Number of showers I’ve had with hot water or water pressure: 0
Number of sewage soaked towels currently hanging in back yard to ugh… air out: 7
Number of times laundry has been done: 0
Number of times dishwasher has been run: 0
Number of spoons/bowls left that are clean: 0

On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad I need to poop now that the water is off and the plumber is here: 7
Minutes plumber has been yelling into his phone out there by the curb, presumably RE: our plumbing issue and whatever his camera snake discovered: 17
Number of times I’ve said this in the past week: “I’m going to sit over here and pretend that’s not happening over there, OK?”: 2

Number of trashcans picked up on Tuesday: 3 (trash, recycler, green waste)
Number of trashcans returned to our curb on Tuesday: 0
Number of tiny grocery bag style trash bags sitting in our garage: 12

Days living in this house without blinds: 4
Times I have accidentally flashed the neighbors full frontal style: 1
Times neighbors have come to introduce themselves: 0 – what, they’ve seen me naked, now they can’t tell me their names?

So mystery solved about all the dust in the new house. It has sat empty. For five years.

Honestly, it does not look like that house in the opening credits of Scooby Doo, Where Are You? Although any place that has been vacant so long, especially in California, seems fairly creepy.

(PS, Watching this video totally jonesed me out for Lucky Charms, the Smurfs, and wearing footy pajamas. Damn you adulthood and your corresponding Fiber-Bran-Roughage breakfast and Today Show!)

After five years, I’m kind of surprised there weren’t vines growing out of the carpet and a colony of rat-men guarding the refrigerator. On the other hand, that tree growing in the planting bed is apparently a five foot weed. Maybe that should have been a clue. It certainly helps explain why the neighbors keep walking by, pointing at the open curtains and our car in the driveway.

Anyway, I took your good advice and called property managers back for the cleaners. Got a credit from the landlord to get it done. Yay you and your wisdom! I really should have listened when you piped up earlier and said moving while 7+ months pregnant was a really exhausting/muthereffing stupid thing to do.

PS: I was trying to work in an image about how every time I stand up now, the baby practically pops its head out Whack-a-Mole style. But I dunno. It seems too graphic.

But there it is anyway. Can anyone recommend some type of maternity trampoline lined panties to keep that kid in? Or maybe some kitchen trussing to keep my pelvis together at least as efficiently as a pan roasted turkey? Am seriously afraid that performing kegals after this baby is born will result in some kind of noticeably audible whooshing sound. And zomg, that link to kegals? There is an ‘exerciser’ on the front page that looks like a curtain rod.