It's 9:00, Time for Bed

A List of Changes Recently Made in "My" Life
subtitled, The Takeover of the Imp

1. It’s 9:00 pm.  I’ve been home for half an hour.  Time for bed.
2. Virgil is desperate to go out and pee.  He is woofing at me softly from his crate.  I ignore him, because it’s time for bed.  Bed time is like a freight train of sleepiness in my mind- there is no stopping it.  If the house is on fire, I will take the comforter and pillows out into the grass and make myself a nest, but I will be asleep before 9:30 pm.
3. I hate eating.  I hate not eating.
4. Gym?  What gym?
5. I can count the number of pairs of pants that fit on one finger.  Oh, you think I’m joking, but I’m not.  However, I learned a trick from my new favorite person Vicki Iovine (Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy), and tomorrow I will be trying to loop a hair elastic through my buttonhole and onto my button to give me more room.  The trick is to find a shirt that will go over it, and I can count the number of shirts that hang that low and loose on two fingers.
6. Laundry?  What laundry?  Which directly leads to – what happened to all the clean underwear?
7. I can totally live with a soap scummy tub, toilet bowl ring, dishes in the sink (or table or couch or floor), and a dirty out-of-inspection car.  Dude, the world is lucky I haven’t given up going to work, which is a daily temptation.
8. I don’t like the attention as much as I thought I would.  Um, coworkers – just leave me alone today, ok?  All 66 of you are very sweet and generous but I am too moody and ill-of-stomach to repeat how I feel today 66 times.  Unless, like my new best friend Richie, you come in and ask if I would like ALL of your wife’s maternity clothes as she just birthed her fourth and final baby and would like to offload them.  YESSSSSSS.  I can make time for you, my friend.
9. My productivity at work has shot through the floor, past the basement, and into the center of the earth.  I’ve always had "those days", but this has turned into "those months," and I live in fear that someone will discover how little I’ve done since early September, and punish me soundly.
10. Anxiety.  My new bedfellow.  What if – and how on earth will we – and oh god, will I feel like this until – etc.
11. I used to be always cold.  Now, I am always hot.  No more do I need to take a sweater to the movie theatre, or remember to keep a lap blanket at work.  And Husband, if you come within 10 inches of me while I am sleeping tonight I will shove you and your hot radiator body away.  It’s very sweet when you half wake in the night and notice I have no covers on and you wake yourself up and tenderly cover me.  I try to wait until you’ve rolled back over and started snoring again before I fling them off with a cry of relief.
12. I dream a lot, about giving birth to random inanimate objects.  Like for instance, one of those Barbie doll heads that’s just a head, so you can play with her hair?  Or, my dog.

Tomorrow – the list of things that haven’t changed.  It will be a short entry.