spleen production

Yesterday was a particularly trying one. The night before had been restless as usual. The combined efforts of sheer exhaustion and mild insomnia can really whip a girl. Typically I wake every hour and a half for The Pee Break – doing my best to stumble out of bed, make my way across the bedroom without stepping on an errant cat, get to the bathroom, do my business, wash & dry hands, stumble back across the bedroom and back into bed (maybe giving Phoebe just the tiniest nudge with my foot so I can hear her sleepy purrdle) ALL without opening my eyes. Some adventures are more successful than others. So this Pee Break? I figure it is disrupting the much lauded and actually necessary DEEP SLEEP that comes after dreams. Instead, my nights are punctuated by intensely weird dreams, waking every 90 minutes, and then attempting to get back to sleep without watching the clock and thinking Oh-my-gosh-I’ve-got-to-“wake-up”-for-work-in-two-hours. Compounding this thing is Chip and his snoring. I adore my husband – love him to the ends of the world and beyond. He knows this. He also knows that The Snoring is a nightly ritual of which he is a (largely) unaware participant. I get up to pee, come back to bed, and then I’ll hear the dulcet tones of My Honey’s nasal passages warming up. (They do that, by the way: the warming up. I’ve noticed that if I interrupt in the beginning of the song, I’m much more likely to disengage the entire mechanism.) I nudge. I pat. I politely remind him to please roll over. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, as is the case two nights ago, he refuses to move at all. In fact, he told me no. It was a real shocker to my sleep-deprived self. And even though I knew he wasn’t going to remember being a Snoring Gandhi (watch me and my peaceful resistance as I simply REFUSE TO ROLL – the establishment will soon TOPPLE and ALL SNORERS WILL BE FREE) – it still really ticked me off.

The morning wasn’t much better. I was cranky and tired and so so so … burdened, which is truly ridiculous when you think of what’s coming in the next 7 months. And beyond that, when I look deep down, despite the complaints (really), I’m excited to be pregnant! I think I actually enjoy being pregnant! And to know, in the end, we’ll be getting this amazing gift of a baby… wow. But I can lose all that perspective, apparently, in the wee morning hours when Chip is snoring away and I’m laying there in bed, tired and put upon. So yesterday really sucked. I got to work, still feeling weird and out of sorts and sick. I tried to eat through The Quease, but sometimes The Quease is stronger than a piece of peanut butter toast. I did my best to hold it together, to stay focused. I answered some emails and took some calls. I tried to help Officemate K with a project. It was at this point that K asked me what was wrong. I told her last week about The Bean, and she herself has gone through this twice. So she is a Knowing Supporter, which is really nice. I told her I just was feeling very… off. She suggested that I must be “making something”. I turned back to our project and promptly miscalculated some measurements with a ruler, of all things (when the edge of the paper reaches the 5 on the ruler, that means it is FIVE INCHES, not FOUR). K took the ruler from me and said: Go Home. So I did. I went home and Chip brought me tacos from this little place up the street. (Pregnant lady loving Mexican food, but CANNOT ABIDE BEANS.) I ate my delicious tacos and then fell asleep at 7pm.

Today I’m feeling better. Last night wasn’t really any different than the night before, but it felt better, if you get my drift. Sometimes I just think we all need a break, someone to tell us Go Home – even if it isn’t really warranted. Someone to buy us tacos, even if they make NO SENSE with the current NO BEANS rule. Thank you, K; and thank you, Chip. I’ve decided I was making a spleen yesterday. The Bean thanks you, too, for a spleen that will work properly because Mom was able to rest and focus on the organ-production.