The Monster Wakes

So, I have a question for all you ladies who have been pregnant before: have your children been in different spots during your pregnancy?  Allow me to explain.

 

Charles was head-down the entire pregnancy, and his bitty legs (which turned out to be chunky, covered-in-rolls legs) kicked up the whole time.  I felt hiccoughs at the bottom of my uterus and feet at the top.  This child, on the other hand, is concentrating all his/her energy at the bottom of my uterus.  I feel this kid kick in the front and back within my pelvis, but never up high.  I’m going to ask the doctor, but until Monday, I’m looking for corroborating evidence that this is normal.

 

I feel the kicks and punches when I am sitting, especially if I slouch or cross my legs or in any other way squish my midsection.  This child likes to have room down there… I wish I could tell him/her to move up for more room.  Just move up, kid!  There’s a whole, large, ever-expanding belly just waiting for you to test its wall strength.  After all, if you don’t, then what is it for?

 

Other than, of course, to trip me up and scare the crap out of me.  The protrusion in my front has become so cumbersome that I can’t do normal, everyday gestures anymore.  I can imagine that there’s nothing quite like seeing a pregnant lady get stuck between two objects, or try to fit into a space that clearly will not accommodate her belly… but the action that takes the cake for me, at least so far, is the inadvertent honk.  At least three times yesterday, when I tried to get out of my car, I would reach over to the passenger’s seat, grab my purse, and swing it across my front as I maneuvered myself out of the car.  But the combination of “not enough space between belly and steering wheel” and “greatly reduced getting-out-of-car speed” caused me to inadvertently honk the horn and startle myself.  A honk when you are prepared for it is loud.  A honk when you are least expecting it is, quite frankly, cause for a heart attack.  I’m sure the shocked expression on my face when people turned to look at the source of the honking was plenty funny.

 

The reaching things is tough, too… I imagine that looks comical to the bystander, as well.  Today, I will attempt to reach things alone, in my own home, as I tackle the grout in the tile on our backsplash.  For whatever reason, the contractor who redid our kitchen three years ago didn’t caulk it, so the grout is chipping away, what with the water that splashes behind the sink and the frequent wipe-downs with washcloths, etc.  I intend to chip the rest of it away and caulk it.  There’s nothing like pregnancy for making stupid annoyances like tile grout a veritable emergency.  The question is, should I uncomfortably reach over the counter or should I use a step-ladder, thus risking a fall due to extreme imbalance?  Decisions, decisions.

 

Speaking of decisions, I have a growing wishlist of things I’d like to do to my house.  Some of them are large (bathroom remodels) and some of them are not.  For instance, I would really like to paint some colors in the bedrooms.  The nursery has a nice, blue wall that I really love.  I think it is soothing, not too bright, and contrasts well with the curtains, toy baskets, and this rocking chair pad I want to order, but keep putting off into my “do later” file (along with everything on my Target registry – since I won’t be having a baby shower this time (who does that? Tacky), I am using it as a repository for all the things I am going to buy.  Eventually.  Sometime before the baby is imminent.  I would use Amazon – lots more selection and stuff – but I get overwhelmed by the variety and the sheer enormity of available child stuff.  Does anyone else experience paralysis in the face of Amazon?  I feel like, unless I know exactly what I am looking for, I get lost.  Too bad, too, because I understand there is a new “Amazon Mom” option that is pretty snazzy.  Sigh.).

 

But Charles’ new room has no paint on the walls.  It is currently a catch-all room for some stuff we have and aren’t really willing to get rid of or store until we move (could be years, could be never).  We plan to move the futon to Goodwinds’ office to serve as a couch because there just isn’t room in the house for it.  Then, we would like to get a brown leather recliner for the living room (after going through Charles’ infancy, I refuse to have another baby without a recliner – it would have allowed me so much more sleep in those first few months, not to mention the extra nights sleep I’ll be able to have when I am extremely pregnant and uncomfortable sleeping on my side in bed (that day will come, I have the benefit of experience in this)) and move the big chair that matches the living room couch to Charles’ room to serve as a reading chair.  It is beige.  We have a nice boat painting, really large, that is also beige and in Charles’ room at the moment as well. 

 

But beige for a kid’s room?  What kind of house is this?  I would move the painting, but all the walls in my bedroom are used up, either by the gigantic bedframe, the window, the closet, or the dresser/mirror.  There is a red painting downstairs (also boats, in front of Venice at sunset – or maybe sunrise) that matches the paint on the walls and that, no joke, Tony found at the dump one day when he took in a load.  So I don’t want to move that, either.  The wall downstairs on which the beige boat painting originally resided is now occupied by the TV, and the other walls have the desk hutch and the windows. 

 

So, we’re out of space, except for Charles’ room.  And it’s a BIG painting.

 

Charles’ bedspread is red, and I think I will get some navy blue (or maybe royal blue?) blackout curtains (I should file that in the “do immediately” part of my to-do list because the world is turning and before we know it, we will be back to early sunrises) for the windows.  He has a multi-colored rug, you know, one of those that has roads and houses all over it.  Like this.

 

So the question is this: should I paint one or more of his walls?  If so, what color?  And if I decide to paint a wall or two in my bedroom, what color should those be?  At this point, it is impractical to paint my entire bedroom because it is inadvisable to move the bed frame.  I mean, it could be done, but I don’t want to.  Then again, I also don’t want to end up with a weird theme in the house where every bedroom has three white walls and one other-colored wall. 

 

When we move, and I am not even kidding about this or merely dreaming about perfect-world situations, we will hire an interior designer to help color walls and coordinate furniture from the get-go.  It is just not my forte, and I think I’ll probably be done with having kids, so there will be no pregnancy motivation for me to use to get things decorated properly.