The housewife’s lament
Sunday, October 11, 2009
6 WEEKS PREGNANT
First of all, wahoo for today! Six weeks pregnant, which means I’m about halfway to the end of the first trimester — when I can start blabbing to people IRL — AND today is Canadian Thanksgiving.
Editor’s note: For my American bloggie friends, sadly, Canadian Thanksgiving is not nearly as cool as American Thanksgiving. We do not have the Macy’s parade, or the Super Bowl, and I am pretty sure Canadians do not eat candied yams. Or maybe it’s just people on American TV who eat yams.
I mentioned yesterday that it’s been really hard to get chores done lately, and that is probably the under exaggeration of my life (OK, of the week).
I can break it down into a formula, to make it really clear …
NAUSEOUS (A) + EXHAUSTED (B) = SLOVENLY (C)
A = Queasy at the smell of dirty dishes and food
B = Too tired to get off the couch
C = A messy house with zero meals
Some people wouldn’t care if their carpets were unvacuumed and their sink was full of dirty dishes. But I discovered long ago that those things make me stressed out. When I’m sitting in a nice clean condo, I feel, 10,000,000 times more relaxed and content. I think it’s called Martha Syndrome or something.
I moaned about this to my mom the other night, and she had some awesome advice, so I thought I would share it with the mommy-to-be bloggie population:
“When you have a baby, you always have to make a choice when they go to sleep: either you clean and cook, or you sleep, too.
And you know what? When you were born, I used to run around cleaning while you were asleep, and I felt like the walking dead.
So eventually I said “Screw it” and would sleep when you were asleep. And I felt a lot better. You have to listen to your body.
You are going to learn this eventually, so you might as well practice now.”
Sage advice. So for the past two weeks, the condo has fell below its usual standards, and I’m trying not to care.
Since the whole feeling-like-crap thing comes in waves, I find myself draped over the couch watching TV for an hour, then spending 10 minutes folding laundry, then lounging for another half-hour, then putting it away.
At that rate, of course, it took Friday evening and all of Saturday to accomplish the amount of chores I would normally do on a Saturday morning. But I’m picking away at things little by little, listening to my body, and taking lots (and lots) of breaks.
Thanks for the advice, Mom.
P.S. They say you get all your energy back in the second trimester – and then lose it all in the third. Maybe I should use those golden three months to load my freezer with pre-made meals, and like, throw out half our stuff so housecleaning is easier? Hmmm.
3 Comments on “The housewife’s lament”
So what do you think?
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Heather's Handmade Life 
The Superbowl is in January…. but they do have football on Thanksgiving weekend!
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you're telling people at six weeks? that's pretty early.
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Oops! Not the Super Bowl, then!
And no, I am not telling people at six weeks. I probably worded it badly, but I meant that I'm halfway to end of the first trimester and THEN I can start blabbing 🙂
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