“I need to drop off this prescription.”

“Okay. Wait – I thought you weren’t going to have to take that stuff until the end.”

“Um…” I gave him a look that meant DUDE.

“What?” Kevin was genuinely confused.

“You do realize this baby is due in like 10 weeks, right?”

He answered with a terrified silence. Not that I can claim to have a better grasp of just how close we are. I pretend to get it but really I’m faking. I have no clue how soon. There are all of the obvious signs that I’m suddenly very extremely pregnant – the contractions and the hip pain and the tiredness and the bumping into things because I forgot that I have a huge thing protruding from my body now. At night I’ve already reached the full-blown pillow fort-building stage of pregnancy – in fact if things progress at this rate pretty soon our entire bed will look like one of those foam-filled pits they use in gymnastics classes. Which oh wow! We should totally do that! And then we can turn it into the boys’ room and they’ll grow up being those kids with the coolest room EVER. No need for beds or anything. Just play until you fall asleep.

See why we don’t realize that the baby is coming so soon? At least one of us can’t stay on a single train of thought for more than five seconds.

So there are signs that it’s all happening soon, but the concept is still very abstract. It’s easy to forget that all of this discomfort and bodily weirdness has a purpose, a beautiful goal, which we are hurtling towards at a horrifying rate. SOON. The baby is arriving very, very SOON.

Last night my brain sent me an entertaining wake up call in the form of a stresful dream featuring famous people playing laser tag. I tried to win against the famous people by faking labor… I was having braxton-hicks contractions and so I told some famous guy from the other team (that guy from good will hunting maybe? I’m so bad at famous people.) that I was having real contractions and that I was going into labor so he wouldn’t shoot me with his laser and make my team lose the game. Genius plan! And it worked too, he was really nice and put down his gun and took me very seriously. Haha, I felt so sneaky and smart.

Except then I saw a big sign that said “Braxton-Hicks or Real Labor? How to tell the difference”
Under real labor it listed things like:
* Contractions lasting for more than 30 seconds each
* Fatigue and thirst
* Frequent urination
* Trouble sleeping
* Intense cravings for peanut butter

Holy shit! According to that sign I really was in real labor. Which is what makes babies.

So I looked at the famous guy very seriously and said, okay I need you to help me. You need to do two things. First, find my husband. Second, go make me two huge peanut butter sandwiches on whole wheat bread. When I went into labor with my last pregnancy the assholes at the hospital wouldn’t let me eat anything for 20 hours and the hunger pain was very annoying. All through my labor with Nicolaus the nurses kept trying to push drugs on me and I’d say no thanks but a graham cracker or something would be great. They’d laugh because silly lady! Food is bad for you! We’re here to offer you DRUGS. It was just like high school only instead of sitting through American Government I got to sit in a bed and feel intense pains shooting through my back and stomach. Way, way more fun than high school.

In conclusion, holy shit this baby’s going to be here soon. Today we drastically simplified my plan to rearrange all of the furniture in the house to make room for the crib and some other stuff. As much as I loved the idea of all the furniture being rearranged, I really REALLY love the idea of having a place for Texas to sleep when he gets here. Under the new simple plan, we were able to clear off the changing table and made room for some baby clothes. Baby! Clothes! Small enough for a BABY.

Wait… a what?

When I heard the *thud* of Nicolaus’ feet hitting the bare wooden floor, my entire body knew instinctively that it was earlier than 7 am. The clock next to our bed is unplugged because we needed the extension cord for something else, but a pregnant woman’s body just knows these things. “Mama, I’m hungry”

I love it when he says he’s hungry. Voluntarily eating food, without prompting or elaborate story telling – such a beautiful gift to give your mother.

But not before 8 in the morning. Have we not been over this?

He headed for the kitchen, where he really shouldn’t be unsupervised for more than 15 seconds. I pulled my feet over to the side of the bed. My hips twisted in pain and my back begged for another two hours of sleep. Which is stupid since sleep is incredibly painful and difficult lately, but my back doesn’t understand that sort of thing. Sleeeeeep. My left leg still ached from the son of a bitch cramp I experienced yesterday. Holy shit! Did you know that pregnancy causes leg cramps? Well it does and they SUCK. Safe sex, kids. Let that condom break and it’s leg cramps for you.

So okay here I come. I’m up. I’m walking. Into the kitchen. What an accomplishment! And I’m a mother and I’m totally on top of it all and I’m going to cook breakfast and here I come, 7am or not.

“Mama?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you just – why are you walkin’… like a train??”

Oh, that, right. Good morning Tiffany, welcome to the third trimester. Your belly is huge and heavy, your hips and knees no longer bend making you shuffle your feet so your kid thinks you look like a train. Cue Elton John singing “The circle of life!”

We went to the Dallas Farmers Market today. Oh wow, so much yummy fruit to choose from. We kind of panicked and went overboard with the fruit buying.

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We're on our way to the Dallas Farmer's Market to look for some yummy organic produce. Mainly to get out of the house. I'll update more later, but wanted to post quickly a few photos of the project I've been working on this week. It's a series of five paintings for a child's room. Each animal represents one of the client's children. The larger painting isn't finished yet, and the pics aren't the greatest but I'm excited and want to share. :-)

http://www.tiffanyard.com/kristina

Oh! And if you're in the market for a piece of crap car, check out my new listing on Craigslist.org:
http://dallas.craigslist.org/car/87898682.html

Forgive me Nicolaus for speaking of your blue car in this way. Please trust me when I say we have to sell it.

I took this while we were out for a little drive in the more rural part of our semi-rural suburb. I have no idea how I did it and couldn’t reproduce the foreground blurred/background still effect if you paid me. Although, if you DID pay me I would probably be willing to give it a heck of a try.

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