Week 12: Ups and Downs

Ups

1. Sensing I was a little cranky on Friday, and having missed seeing me when he left to go out with friends before I came home from work, Chris left me the sweetest voice mail message. He reminded me of how excited he is for the baby and thanked me in essence for taking one for the team. It may be an uncomfortable couple of months for me, but he's so convinced the outcome will be awesome. When you're in the early stage of a relationship, you put so much energy (and usually money) into wowing the other person and trying to make each anniversary or Valentine's Day more memorable than the last. Why does it take us so long to realize that something as simple as a voice mail message, or an e-mail sent during the work day to say "I love you," can be the most meaningful?

Downs

1. I've heard the term "nesting", where (usually) women go into the hyper organizational phase and go all out in preparing the house for the baby. Contrary, I feel like I'm more in the phase one experiences right before marrying, where one tries to revel in every last bit of freedom. I didn't actually go through this phase before I married, but I'm starting to feel the need to do all these things I don't think I'll be able to do, or at least as easily, once I have a kid. I don't know if this is necessarily a down, because the positive side is I'm forcing myself to be more social, even when it's a challenge to muster the energy. Although my parents traveled a lot with me when I was a baby, I'm trying to plan a trip out East this summer to visit friends and family, not only because it's about time I visit some friends I haven't seen in ages, but because I have this underlying fear that this is the last time I'll be able to do a trip like this. Meanwhile, when a friend invited me to a party last night - in St. Cloud - I went. I laughed at the irony of worrying that once I have a kid, I won't be able to jump at the opportunity to go to St. Cloud.

2. When I lived in Minneapolis, the woman across the hall from me was a kettle ball instructor, and she was ripped. I thought that if I could look half as good as she did when I'm 50, I'd be satisfied. I finally got to try an introductory kettle ball class at Chris's gym on Saturday. I really liked it, and would recommend it to any women who are interested in weight lifting, but are intimited by the weight room (it's the same type of workout, and the class I attended happened to be all women). Unfortunately, I'm so sore that I can barely walk! On one hand, it's nice to have been able to do something while pregnant that actually gave me that good of a workout, but on the other hand, I'm just painfully sore right now.