Time for toys and time for cheer

As promised, in bed in my jammies watching my new bedroom TV.  No good movies on and too lazy to get up and pick out a DVD, but enjoying a little true crime on the ID channel.  The only thing that would make this more complete is a Hoarders marathon.

Overdid it a bit yesterday but it was worth it.  After the painter guy finished up around 3, I spent five hours hustling to get the house in shape for a small white elephant party.  I went into full event mode – every half hour was broken down into goals: by four I want the bathroom scrubbed, house dusted, and all furniture and knick knacks put back; by four thirty I want the floors mopped and vacuumed; then lunch break, then get dressed and made up, etc etc.  In the end I got to have an hour off my feet waiting for the first guests to arrive.  It’s funny, every time I finish one of those marathon cleaning sessions I always think the same thing, “this is awesome!  I should clean more often!”  And yet this feeling fades amazingly quickly.  Anyway, despite all the stress I’d had about it over the last two weeks (worry about the paint not being done in time, the house being a mess of plaster dust, not having the tree and decorations up that I wanted, etc) the party ended up being really fun.  And it was somehow different.  Maybe it’s just because it’s Christmas and a lot of the people I’d invited hadn’t seen each other in a long time, but there was a lot of good will in the room.  And of course a lot of good will directed towards me, which I am starting to get more comfortable with.  My friends’ reactions to my pregnancy has really changed our relationships and also shed light on our relationships for the past 15 or so years – last night I couldn’t help thinking, “wow, these people really do love me!” 

It’s funny, just hours earlier the painter and I had had a discussion about this – he’s probably about my age and has a four-year-old and comes from the same 90s LA hipster background I do.  He said that having a baby will bring my friendships to a whole new level – that now so-and-so will be aunt-so-and-so or uncle-so-and-so; they become family.  I sort of knew this on some level but never really thought about it in quite that way.  Last night a couple of the moms of grown kids and I were talking and they said when they had their kids they were so isolated; none of their friends were in kid-having mode, they had no support and no network.  I can’t imagine how lonely that would feel.  Honestly had I not been aware of the potential network of supportive friends and fellow new parents around me I might have had second thoughts about doing this at all. 

Today I will attempt to make some headway with my registry, since my friend who’s doing the shower invites wants to send them next week and I figure it’s bad form to send out invites and not have the registries in place (I’m one of those psychos who wants to get on line and buy a present the day I get the invite).  I started a couple of days ago but am completely overwhelmed.  Everyone I talk to says, “if I could do my registry now instead of three years ago, it would be totally different!”.  I think what I need to do is recognize this is one of those situations in life that will just have to be flawed – I am going to register for things I don’t need, forget things I do, and end up getting things I don’t need and not getting things I do.  I should be grateful people are willing to buy me anything at all, actually!  Having to put out of pocket for an entire cloth diaper start-up kit, not to mention all the clothes/bedding/nursing stuff/furniture/toys/educational stuff/travel gear etc could be pretty devastating to me financially.  It dawned on me the other day that this could be the only shower I ever get in my life, so I’d better really treasure the moment!

Right now every muscle in my body aches from all the activity yesterday.  I guess I needn’t worry about not getting enough exercise right now, with all the stuff I’ve been doing lately.  I had a hard time sleeping because my right arm and hand kept hurting – I think it’s that pregnancy carpal tunnel I’ve heard about.  It’s ok now but my hand is pretty swollen.  Trying to drink a lot of water to mitigate that.

In the meantime been reading some blogs about women suffering through morning sickness at this time of year.  All I can say is I hear ya, sister!  It must SUCK to feel like that at this time of year which is all about food and obligations you can’t get out of.  It wasn’t too pleasant to be that sick at the height of summer, either, but I would be very unhappy missing out on all the Christmastime food and parties.  I think it would make me cry, actually.  So for anyone who’s in that place right now, cry if you want to.  Even if nobody else understands, I do.

For now I intend to catch up on some maternity reading – The Maternity Jeans That Wouldn’t Stay Up – and other stories, and I’ve Dropped My Keys and Can’t Pick Them Up, both by acclaimed author I.P. Freely.  Merry Christmas, everyone!