Today was not a good day.
I have been seasick all day, feeling as if the floor is swaying underneath me. Everything makes me gag – the freezing prairie wind when I took the garbage out, the garbage can, changing poopy diapers, food of all sorts. Annoyingly, I only get relief when I am actively eating, and then I promptly have to lay down so I don’t spill my guts out on the floor.
The poor Poo has been fed a steady diet of pretzels and PBS Kids, interspersed with a few computer games. I read her only one book and spent the remainder of the afternoon prone and trying hard to stay alert enough to supervise her, if only to prevent injury or property damage.
The house is a disaster, making me scheme about ways in which I can earn an extra $100 a month for a bi-weekly cleaning person. In-home labor seems to be the one thing that is cheaper in Chambana than back East.
But how could I look at myself in the mirror, a cleaning lady when we’re both mostly unemployed? It would be beyond decadent.
Besides, the house isn’t really dirty. It is untidy, rather, gobs of laundry leaking out from the bedrooms and down the stairs, into the kitchen, waylaid on their journey to the washing machine by my inability to remain upright for three hours straight.
I remember this fatigue from The Poo – but I didn’t have a preschooler at home when I was pregnant with her. Now, I am wracked with guilt that her last moments as the center of my universe are spent with me issuing sleepy directives from the sofa.
Mr. C was home for awhile, just long enough to rescue his recently delivered and repaired laptop. He is behind at school – two courses incomplete – and I know what that means. It means that before he leaves for a work-related trip next week that he will be spending all his time in the office.
I wanted a second child. The urge was strong to try again, to make another baby as magnificent as the one sitting next to me drawing faces on her Magnadoodle. I still want a second child.
I know it will get better; I know the second trimester will kick in and I’ll look round and firm instead of squishy and fat. I know I’ll have more energy. I know I will feel better soon and that in the end, I’ll have two kids.
My kids.
But today, with thoughts of opportunities not taken and those lost to time on my mind, I am thinking only of the bedtime hour, when I can finally close my eyes and put body and brain to rest.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
It will get better. I remember feeling just as tired and down when pregnant with Mira, and worried that I was causing permanent damage to Cordy as I left her in front of the TV while I laid on the couch in misery.
This too shall pass. But it still doesn’t change the fact that it sucks at the moment.
I can’t fathom it and never will. I’m at the front door of my own limitations with just one. But my heart does go out to you because nothing feels worse (to me) than being pregnant. To parent a pre-schooler while in that mode would be next to impossible for me. I wish I lived closer so I could at least come over and clean or play with the lovely Poo girl.
It feels like you’re letting the Poo down, but she’s really fine. She probably secretly loves the tv time and a “relaxing” mommy. She’ll lap up the mommy time when you’re more up to it anyway.
We just do what we need to to make it through the day. That’s all that’s necessary.
Tell that silly fetus to give you a break – and get some rest.
Oh honey. How about Aunty Flutter flies out and cleans a little and you sleep on the couch?
We have similar thoughts about what we are currently doing – and if we will miss the life we are leaving behind.
I wonder if we will have time to even realise though…
in a few weeks you’ll have all the energy that shows up, magically, in the second trimester…
so sink into these first trimester weeks. it’s ok.
Yes, first trimester sucks. I am right there with you. The only relief IS eating, and the thought makes me roil. Do whatever you need to, and Poo will be just fine. In her world this is just a blip of time.
Hoping we both improve soon!
My second pregnancy so felt like that. I would fall asleep on the train to work and wake up finding I had been drooling.
I think you can cut yourself a break. Being pregnant and woozy + laid-up, cranky-ass spouse + bad weather behavior = messy house and benignly-neglected children. She’s not having a bad time of it, and you guys need your rest.
The weather will break soon and so will the seasickness.
Is there anything a local can do to help?
Find that one thing that pulls you though. Find a food, an activity, a point of rest, a scent that pulls you through the nausea until you hit that magical second trimester. I remember when the smell of newspaper ink made me want to hurl. Take care!
Hope you feel better SOON!
We pay exactly that for a 2x a month cleaning lady, $100. And here’s what happens. You have to clean up the clutter to make room for them to do the real cleaning, which gives you time to do other things. It’s a shift in the cleaning, really – but I tell you, it’s *beautiful.*
We canceled our cable to make room in the budget for it. And never looked back.
Hope you feel better soon.
Oh, Mrs. C – I have no wisdom or advice for you, but I wish I could be there to throw in a load of laundry for you and take Poo out for an hour. You’ll get through this; the second tri will be here faster than you think.
Oh sweets, it does get better, I promise. And, if I weren’t too ashamed to open my doors to one, I would so get help!
Trust me on this one, get the house cleaner. You’ll still have your fair of cleaning up which will make the guilt less difficult to take, but having someone to just come in and clean your bathrooms? Heaven. Well worth the price. I know of what I speak.
Remember there are months and months ahead yet and the first trimester is often the hardest one. Don’t beat yourself up too much–just be there for The Poo–it will mean more than you think.
You poor thing. (And I don’t mean that patronizing. I just mean that I’ve been there and I remember how ungodly awful it was. Mostly because of Caillou’s whining and the voices of the dragons on Dragon Tales.)
Oh, I feel for you. I remember feeling like that with #2 (and my oldest was just over a year a the time). It will get better.
In the meantime, do NOT worry about the messy house. You think it’s messy now? Wait until you’ve got 2 kids disassembling it every freaking day.
It will get better! The first trimester is so so hard, especially with another little one to take care of.
I was pretty much useless and sick for the first 16 weeks and my son watched a lot of tv during those months. You gotta do whatever you need to do to get by right now.
Hope you feel better soon!
You will forget all about days like these in a few years. I have.
I am a SAHM and I have a biweekly cleaning lady. I love it. My grandmother tries to make me feel guilty about it, but I don’t. I love it.