(Necessary Statement)

So they have the show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" which I think is one of the more ridiculous, hard to watch (because it defies common sense) shows that TLC has to offer.

Dear TLC,

I have another show to offer you. It is called, "I Didn't Know I Wasn't Pregnant." Think about it. Call me.

Sincerely,
Emily

Because there are some days where if I didn't know better, I'd be convinced that I was. I'm not talking about some sort of hysterical pregnancy (a la the crazy wife on Glee) where I want a baby so badly that I mentally manufacture one. No no no no. Sometimes I just feel like I have symptoms. Including:

• Mysterious perceived belly growth and/or lack of (in my opinion) a logical reduction in belly size
• Random surges in appetite
• Uncontrollable urges for pizza
• Heartburn bad enough to take down a thoroughbred
• The mental capacity of a three year old
• Phantom baby movements*

*Note: The books told me that feeling a baby move for the first time would feel "like gas." Once I could identify baby movement, I never remembered gas feeling anything like it. Until now. Now my gas feels like a baby moving.

There is pretty much no chance in nature that I could actually be pregnant, so let's not get excited. As traumatic as pregnancy the first time around was you'd think my body would be trying its hardest to get me to forget about it, not vividly remember and/or reenact it.

So update on last week. GI doctor was OK ... I got him to agree to up her dose of Prevacid, but he didn't seem to think she totally 'needed' it. I am finding him more strange as I have more exposure to him now that we are out of the hospital. Getting the upped medicine wasn't difficult in any sense of the word -- I felt like I could have asked for a gold-plated esophagus and he would have said, "OK."

Really my favorite moments from the appointment would have to be:

• After measuring Bug and telling us she's 98% for height: Where does she get the height from? Who is tall in the family? (Umm, us?)
• Right before I am going to mention that I read something on the internet about GERD (reflux): "People always tell me that they read this or that on the internet -- these Dr. Reflux websites or whatever -- and I just tell them 'keep reading'."

We have a 'milk study' scheduled for Friday back at Children's where Bug gets to drink radioactive milk (no, I'm not kidding) and they get to watch and see how quickly her stomach empties, since she still manages to spit up 2+ hours after she is done eating. I'm not sure what this is going to accomplish, and before you can call me a bad mother for feeding her milk that glows, it is apparently no more radiation that she receives during a chest x-ray, which she had a bajillion times in the hospital. Don't worry, I'll make sure and follow it up with a serving of her Organic Baby Squash. Right before I change her chlorine-free diapers.

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Daycare continues to be harder on me than on Bug (or Matthew). I did drop-off for only the second time today (it turns out that I won't have to be the only one doing it) and it sucked just as much as the first time. What made it even worse today is that when I walked in she told me that the other baby (16 months) has a bit of a cold, which would explain why Bug is sneezing out her nuk 27 times a day. I know Bug cannot live in a bubble and that she is going to get sick at some point and it's actually going to be good for her because hey, I was in daycare at 6 weeks old and when Matt caught whooping cough three years ago I didn't even get a sniffle, but the third day of daycare? It's just a little too real for me. (And in case you're wondering how we get to only the third day, she only went Thurs/Fri last week). This week is a short week for Bug, too... tomorrow we head to the pediatric ophthalmologist, and then Friday I am taking off for the holiday (and her milk study) so she won't be there on that day, either.

But all in all she is doing well, and completely crashes when she gets home. Daycare has not figured out any magical solution to her napping, which makes me feel a little less like a spineless (seahorse? toad? I have no idea) because I just felt like it was me not enforcing correctly (OK, I know I just said she has only been there three days total but it feels like it's been years, and I figured a woman with 20 years of experience would have picked out what I had been doing wrong this whole time that prevented her from napping). She falls asleep sometimes, will completely sleep through the other two kids playing (read: screaming) and the dog barking, but still only for 30 minutes at a time. (Seriously, if I were baking something that could only be in the oven for 30 minutes and not a second longer, I could just go by Bug's "naps." For whatever reason, at 30 minutes on the dot her eyes will SNAP OPEN, regardless of how tired she still is, which sometimes is a lot. I have no idea how to explain this.)

(You know one of my English professors in college would automatically fail a paper if you used parentheses because he thought that if it were in parentheses it was clearly not important enough for the sentence and should just be left out. Clearly I haven't learned. FAIL.)

Is it bad that I stick my finger in my kid's nose to get her boogers out? Nose bulb be damned.

I am actually following through on an "art project" (Matt just fainted somewhere in the house) with the pictures that I have taken of Bug. I wouldn't go as far as calling it a scrapbook because it's mostly just putting pictures into 4x6 plastic sleeves and including some stickers that indicate when a new month happens, but it has required more trips to that damn Archiver's store than I care to admit.

And let me just say, Archiver's is the embodiment of hell to any person that is even borderline indecisive (my indecision made worse, I've decided, by my phantom pregnancy). Like really, I feel like this could be a worse sentence than the death penalty:

1. Go to Archiver's
2. Pick out ONE THING that you feel best embodies/represents, say, Halloween. If you have children, we could up the ante and make it your child's first Halloween.
   
3. You have unlimited time
4. And an unlimited budget
5. But you must only choose one, the decision of which will live with you FOREVER, because it is going to be attached to the pictures that you like to obsessively page through every day.
   

(I had to remove any sort of time or budget limitations because those things might help you make a decision.)

OK, ready, go. The husband waiting room is represented by the entire rest of the mall, and he may very well just abandon you, perfectly chosen Halloween sticker be damned.

Think about it.



Mom, really, that's what you chose?!