they will have to roll me out the door

Thanksgiving weekend is already upon us. Andrew's parents - who are settling into their new lives as island-dwellers nicely - will be coming to the mainland tomorrow for a trip to Ikea followed by dinner with my side of the family at my father's club. Normally I would be embarrassed by the excess, but on this occasion I appreciate that I will not need to cook, clean or play hostess. With a number of aunts and grandparents around, I am even holding out hope that Andrew and I may get a chance to eat a hot meal in relative peace.

The idea of homemade pumpkin pie has me drooling - this is one of my favourite parts of fall family celebrations. And turkey (yes, I am eating meat again) with all the trimmings... mmmmmmmm....

On the subject of food,some of you who have been reading for sometime may have noticed I have stopped writing about cooking and eating good, healthy, fresh food. I am about to confess a great sin - we have been eating mostly take-out and fast-food for the last couple of months. Try as I might I have not been able to muster the desire to cook, and when I do, by the time food is ready to hit the table I don't feel like eating it. There have been blissful days when Andrew has done the cooking and the evenings when I am glad I made chili the night before, because it is so much yummier the following day anyways. So instead we've been eating naughty food, and feeling the effects of it - but finding ourselves mysteriously unable to break the cycle. We're working on it - but with the new babe coming soon I figured it was smarter to just load up on not that great, but still a) cheaper and b) healthier, easy foods. So our freezer is stocked with things like pizzas, perogies and frozen waffles, our pantry with macaroni and cheese (okay, not all of it is healthier), crackers (to be served with cheese or cream cheese), kid snacks, granola bars, pasta and rice (so much rice - I forgot we already had a ton and bought a bunch more), I bought a bunch of single-serve yogurts for Sebastian and some fall veggies for the one or two times I will feel like cooking. It is a small step up.

I am giving myself until the New Year - at which point I plan on us being back to full-time cooking. By that point I will be ready to start getting into shape, we'll be settling into life as a foursome and will be so sick of pizza. Not to mention how unsustainable this kind of eating is - not only do we feel piles of guilt over all the packaging waste, we also simply can't afford it. I spent more on two weeks worth of groceries on this trip than I have since I started keeping track.

But enough guilt. I am so excited for a nice Thanksgiving with so much of our family. As a bonus - Andrew will be working Monday, so will make some awesome OT! I *heart* over time (except when it means I never see my husband).

why can't I get into this pregnancy?

It used to be that when I thought of pregnancy, I thought of people like Gwynneth, Brittney, Liv, Angelina and Katie. This is because I used to spend my days working in a little shop and reading magazines. Sure I read things like Harper's and the New Yorker, I read Bust, Bitch and Ready Made, but my dirty little secret was I also read Star, the Enquirer, People and US.

My addiction started in earnest as I prepared for my wedding - I would pick up the usual wedding magazines for inspiration (really I would just lust over Vera Wang dresses and Martha's cakes) and something on the cover of People or In Style would catch my eye. Suddenly I cared about the lives of people I had absolutely no actual connection to. I started to notice "baby bumps" and marvel at how cool these parents were.

I already had baby fever - I would stare longingly at new parents with their perfect, wonderful little clones. I would sigh and giggle at the adorable baby clothes that were seemingly everywhere. I started noticing all the fashionable accessories babies came with. Funky strollers and diaper bags and shirts that proclaimed cute things like "boob man" and "party at my crib". But now I was starting to get pregnancy fever.

I wanted the adorable pregnancy clothes, I wanted a baby bump of my very own. I wanted the attention of strangers, I wanted that adoration and attention that is especially reserved for pregnant women. But most of all I wanted the clothes, fat clothes designed for skinny people who are only temporarily fat - so much more stylish than typical "plus size" clothes, more "au courant".

Andrew and I really wanted to start a family, I couldn't figure out how to step forward in my life career-wise, so the timing was good. I figured it would make things pretty easy if I didn't have a career to mourn, plus Andrew and I agreed that having kids early would likely mean greater freedom later in life when we would, theoretically, be more financially stable and able to do things like travel. We got married in May and were pregnant by August. I could not wait to look pregnant and to have people notice me as a pregnant woman, I couldn't wait to feel a little life inside me. I read pregnancy books and magazines with the same voracious appetite I had for food. We decided to cloth diaper and have a natural birth, I signed up for weekly e-mails that let me know how big my baby was and what wonderful things were happening inside me.

I was fascinated by the immense power of my body to grow a baby. I had never successfully grown anything before - so this was *huge*. I felt really connected to the life inside of me, everything I did was done while considering the life inside of me. I talked to my little peanut all the time, had conversations with it in my head, played it music and got lots of belly rubs. I spent my spare time figuring out what we needed for the baby, finding the "best" stroller, mobile (he hated it, by the way), clothes, diaper covers, bottles, and breast pump (we cheaped on this and I hated it). I rarely left the house without getting something for the baby or for me. I spent my days on the look-out for perfect names, eventually compiling a very large and detailed spreadsheet (only to pick a name in the car mere days before Sebastian's birth).

Pregnancy was my life for 8 months. Since then motherhood has been my life for two years. I love it, I love my little boy and I love being a mom. I love the fact that as much as we struggle, we can make ends meet with a single income. I love our home and I love the love that fills it, and I really, really want to love being pregnant again.

But I don't. It isn't that I hate it, I don't really feel much about it, actually. I worry about how I will parent a second child, I feel like I can hardly keep up with the one I have. I think about how Sebastian, who we had initially intended to be an only child, will adjust to having a sibling. I also suddenly feel like my life is being put on hold in a way I didn't last time around. Mostly, though, I worry that something will go wrong.

I don't know if feeling ambivalent about this pregnancy is caused by that worry or if I worry because I feel so ambivalent. Either way the feeling, while allowing me to function perfectly well, has left me out of step. I am searching for ways to shake this feeling - and it does leave me for moments or hours every day... and the smart, logical part of me tells me it is perfectly normal to feel like this, especially given the stresses of parenting a pre-schooler, a recent move, the recent dissolution of a very old friendship and the recent minor bumps in my marriage.

It still sucks.

I am having heaps of trouble staying mindful and centred through all of this. Hell, I am having trouble staying showered and fed. I have an appointment with my midwife tomorrow that Andrew will be taking the morning off of work for, and I am at the midway point of my pregnancy - I have a feeling that everyday that passes now will make this pregnancy feel more real.

HE POOPS!

in the potty. Okay, well, he did it once and it was fucking awesome!

I noticed earlier this week he had started to say "mom" immediately before bearing down. So today when he was playing with dad he pulled his "mom" thing and Andrew sprinted to the potty with him to "complete the transaction" they were both beaming when they came out to tell me. In my excitement I picked Sebastian up to hug as Andrew gives me this look I can only interpret as "uh, that was a bad idea, Kate" and sheepishly admits he hadn't quite made it to the bum-wiping part of the process. So my new dress (which is cute as hell, by the way) has been christened and I am back in my uniform of jeans and a tank top.

I don't even care about the damned dress (it *is* cute as hell, though) - I am just so happy to welcome the "potty training" stage into our lives. I hate diapers (and the laundering of diapers) enough to seriously consider going diaper-free this time. We have been using disposables since moving day (nearly two weeks now) and the break from washing diapers is blissful (though I feel awful about the environmental impact- making our current potty endeavour even *more* timely). I have not quite figured out how to do the cloth diapers while using a laundromat, I just don't think it would be cool - even if the owners were okay with it I worry that other patrons would be grossed out by the thought of sharing their wash-space with diapers. Poop is a touchy subject no matter how emphatically you insist there is none present in the diapers you are cleaning. I digress... My point is that I am so very excited to get Sebastian trained and have set an imaginary deadline of whenever the disposables we have on hand run out (a couple weeks, give or take). After that we have some training pants tucked away and can sort something less disposable out for nights that can bee innocuously slipped into our weekly laundry.

In other news, I went shopping today (BAD KATE) and bought some new, uber-comfy maternity jeans. It is amazing how my requirements for pregnancy wear have changed in 2 years. Back when I was pregs with Sebastian I was all about the cute styles and wouldn't even TRY anything with a front panel. This time? Front panels *RULE* and everything I bought has loads of stretch. I do not want to grow out of clothes at the depressing rate I did last time. It is bad enough that I am getting fatter by the day- to then be confronted by a closet full of already oversize clothing that doesn't fit is crushing.

On today's shopping trip I also picked up some amazing chocolate-dipped gummy-bears (I am not ignorant enough to believe they are gelatin-free - just enough of an asshole not to care) and a bottle of oil that promises to soothe the savage child. It smells really nice, if nothing else, but I am hoping it will help during the late-afternoon "witching hour(s)" even if I am the only one it manages to calm.