I wore a bib at dinner last night.
In public. At a restaurant.
My sister-in-law warned me that soon after the stomach so big I need a bib comes the boob shelf. Which might not be a bad thing. I can think of a lot of things to store on a boob shelf – a cup of decaf, a pen, my phone, my growing chin.
In my defense about the bib, I was wearing a white shirt (what was I thinking?) and went for pizza with Chris. I KNOW I am the anti-pizza but…I am also 7 months pregnant and when the man wants pizza, you give the man pizza because you are too big and tired to fight against it. And yes, I ate two small pieces of pizza (minus the cheese, the sausage, the mushrooms, ok I just ate the bread and the sauce).
You’d think my double chin would start catching the table scraps. Not the case. The belly is like a magnet for this stuff. The more you like what you are wearing or the newer it is, the more likely it will stick. When I looked at the pizza sauce and looked at my white shirt, I knew a napkin would become my bib.
Chris tried to reassure me: don’t worry, no one will even notice.
Then I realized I didn’t really care. I’m 7 months pregnant. I think when you get to this point, you get this way. Yes, I’m wearing a bib. Screw your skinny self and stop staring at me! I also had my shoes off under the table – MY FEET WERE HOT!
When I got home, I remembered that JoJo just sent a Baby Bjorn bib today, one of those with a trough that will catch all the food that falls out of baby’s mouth (about 99% of it). I need one of those.
Size large.
It’s been quite the day for embarrassing moments like that. I was at the gym today when I realized that my running shorts really are too small. After swimming, I got changed to lift some weights and thought to myself that maybe I grabbed the wrong pair. You know, because there is some other woman living in my house who stores running shorts in my drawers. I abandoned the extra smalls months ago. And realized that now the smalls are … really too small. Or I’m too big.
Something like that.
I didn’t realize how serious the problem was until I was out on the gym floor with what felt like every old man in the place looking at me. Great. Cookie monster eyes? Nope – both are in the right place. Showing crack? Nope – shorts pulled up, check ….OH MY GOD! In the mirror – THERE! It’s like I’m wearing hip huggers!
My comfy pants, the ones I bought a size too big so I could grow into them…the button popped off the other day. I need new jog bras. Not because my boobs are getting big but because my back is getting bigger. Did you know your boob tissue extends under your arms? It’s like you become one big mass of boob. Everything gets bigger.
My legs. Please. Can we just cover them up until…say…October (that would be NEXT October)?
I’m officially in the third trimester now and it shows. You don’t really “look” pregnant until this point. But I think it is right at week 28 when you look at your reflection in the mirror, realize (and accept) that YES that is me, and then think to yourself wow, I’m really pregnant.
Like, really. Really. Really.
Three more months to go! Someone told me that by Memorial Day I will be sick of being pregnant (is it wrong that I reached this milestone a month early?) and that by July 4th I will be feeling that premature birth is not a bad thing (what’s another two weeks?).
Yesterday, I also noticed that my swimsuit doesn’t fit either. I think I might have flashed my lane mate every time I pushed off the wall. My lanemate was…Tugboat Tom!
I’ve avoided swimming with him for the past 8 weeks or so because there is only so many times one can get lapped by their old lanemate without feeling the intense urge to hang on to their foot to get pulled along at your old speed.
When I walked into masters today he said: haven’t you had that baby yet?
I look that good, eh?
Before I could even get into the lane he had all sorts of jabs and jokes about how I couldn’t do this or that because I’m pregnant. Oh, I’m pregnant, I’m having a baby he would say in a high voice. Of course this is what lanemates do to each other. And then I told him to wait until November. When it would be just me and him again in this lane for a new season of masters. Me making him lead anything under 400 and him telling me to take the lead after he blows up.
We work well together.
I’m really slow now – like, super slow, like I need to put on fins for anything over 300 or else I will get lapped by Tom kind of slow. So slow that even with fins on AND lane line pulling with my left hand I still cannot keep up during backstroke. I could move over a lane but I’ve tried that and realize I don’t speak the language of other lanes. I don’t like standing there while practice goes by waiting for someone to take the lead or debating what interval to go off of or listening to all the reasons why they will be slow today (I lifted weights yesterday, I ran this morning, I’m sore from Saturday, I’m getting out of the pool early)….at least in my old lane I know the intervals and know the swimmers well enough to tell them to shut their piehole about why they will be slow today.
Because unless they’re pregnant, they can’t say anything about slow.
For the most part the swim was fine. It was a bunch of short sets with some fast 25s. I made the mistake of trying to do 6 x 25 fly on 5 seconds rest but it was off of Tom’s 25 free on 5 seconds rest which meant that I really had negative 5 seconds rest by the time I got to the wall.
That was hardest 150 fly I’ve ever done.
When I go to masters and swim in my old lane, I get hungry to compete again. I’m doing all this different stuff to stay active (not fit – I am so far from fitness I really can’t even kid myself) and it’s fun but…it’s missing a purpose. I just want to be better than myself. I realize that with age I will get to a point where I don’t set personal bests any more but I just want to be better than I was the day before. In pregnancy, you’re always getting slower and weaker. You keep doing the work but you keep going backwards.
Didn’t I just spend the last 2 years doing that?
The answer to that is yes and no. And, it doesn’t really matter because I’m so far away from competition still that by the time I get back to it I’ll be like a total beginner again. Probably race with my helmet on backwards and stop to brush my hair in transition.
It’s time for a belly shot. Here I am entering the 28th week of pregnancy. I’m about to eat breakfast and then head out for a morning walk. This is my morning walk outfit. If I put the shirt down, you’d notice that it actually covers my stomach. I broke down and bought some “maternity” workout tops (in order words, scoured the scale rack at the gym). From my experience yesterday it is also due time to buy some maternity workout bottoms.
Due time. I’m due in exactly 3 months from tomorrow. When people ask me when are you due and I say late July they say – oh you still have a long way to go.
(this is another one of those things that people say to you that becomes a precursor to you wanting to slap them after you hear it enough times)
But every day until then is exciting. You learn something new, you get more excited, someone sends something. Yesterday we got 4 monster boxes from BuyBuyBaby. Three were from JoJo. She sent us enough onesies to clothe Max through his 18th birthday. She also sent a vibrating monkey. Everyone keeps asking me about the monkey thing. 1 – I like monkeys, 2 – It’s better than balls and trucks, 3 – Monkey baby stuff is really cute. Baby stuff with ducks – FOR BOYS – is not. Better than the monkey stuff she sent would be the….TUB TOYS! I’ve told Chris that at the end of each week I’m going to throw him, Max and Boss into the bathtub for washy wash time. That and a couple of squirty boats and a reminder to PLEASE USE SOAP. MORE. And they’ll be all set.
I had a dream last night about breastfeeding. Two babies at once. Could there be another baby in there hiding behind Max? Ew. I shudder. It wasn’t as bad, though, as the dream I had where I was breastfeeding my dog.
And now, I’ll walk away from that comment and leave you to the rest of your day.
Cheers to week 28!
