10.08.04

I�m annoyed with myself today. Heck, lately it�s been hard to find things that I haven�t been annoyed about. I have been dealing with a serious case of the blahs. I have been feeling depressed and detached and kind of all alone. Realizing that all of this is kind of normal considering the current situation, I�m not panicked, just trying to figure out how to fight the funk.

I have nothing new to write about. My life seems consumed with the baby, and while that isn�t a bad thing necessarily, it makes for very bad journaling. And it makes me wonder if all my creativity has gone out the window or will be applied solely to picking out matching cribsets and changing tables. I miss feeling like I was a somewhat interesting person outside of the baby.

Also, I am very, very hormonal.

It�s not as bad today as it has been. I had a nice talking with myself (and, yes, maybe some of it was out loud, SO?) and said, �Self, you need to snap out of this. Get up. See a movie, listen to some new music, take a walk. Do something that helps you reconnect with who you are outside of a baby-making entity.� And so I did, and that seemed to help.

So now I am trying to focus on various Projects, some being finishing our honeymoon photo album before I get started on the baby album, working on the layout for a new website for us and the baby for family members (yeah, like I�d give them THIS address, HA!), and this weekend I am actually going to make myself get up, get prettified, and GET OUT OF THE HOUSE. Yay for Projects.

< tangent >
Speaking of which, I just realized something kind of funny. When I was in college, we used the term �Project� as code to refer to the guy we were currently lusting after. At the beginning of each year, if we were single, we would scope out a �Project� for the semester. We would see how soon we could get our prospective �Projects� to ask us out. It made for great fun in front of the clueless visitor, i.e. �I�m going to go work on my Project now (giggle)� or �So, how�s that Project going? Any good �feedback� yet? (snicker).� Yeah. We were SO cool. And not your typical annoying college socialites at all.

So using the term to refer to, you know, actual domestic PROJECTS is funny.

In a kind of depressingly ironic sorta way.
< /tangent >

ANYWAY, I�m also going to remind myself that I actually like going to the movies. I still want to see The Forgotten (even though I know the reviews said it sucked) and I really want to go see The Grudge, although I�m still not so sure about that one. I mean, I have only watched the commercial and managed to freak myself out when I was home alone just from that. Hormones, intensely creepy movie�not a good combination. And Ladder 49 is supposed to be really good, so add that one to the list.

I am enjoying various and sundry television shows: Lost is intriguing if not a little melodramatic; The Bachelor has once again sucked me into it�s eevil clutches (I just can�t HELP it--the women are all just so horrid it�s like watching a bad car accident); and I continue to be disappointed with Survivor. I tell you, they had better do something to mix things up over there, because we really NEEDED eye-candy like JP and Brady to stay on just a little bit longer. Mmmm. I�m also going to have to add Desperate Housewives to my growing list of distractions, although watching the �Lynette Scavo-mom� storyline kind of freaks me out.

On the body front, I�m getting my hair cut this weekend, so, yay. It is getting very long and very irritating. Shoulder-length, choppy layers ought to do the trick. My stomach is kind of starting to look like a pregnant stomach, and not just a bloated one. Oh joy. But seriously, I�ve never been so excited about an expanding waistline before. It is very freeing in a way, to actually get excited about getting bigger. My nose is constantly very, very stuffy. That�s actually a symptom, did you know? Crazy.

I�m also still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I�m going to be a MOTHER in a few months. I don�t know why I�m having such a hard time actually visualizing this. It just doesn�t seem real sometimes. And it�s like I�m joining this big club that I wasn�t aware even existed before. Example: I went to get my teeth cleaned the other day and as soon as the hygienist found out I was expecting, we were suddenly best friends. Before I had rinsed she had told me her entire birth story, about her son�s struggle with inner ear infections, and all about his first day of school. Wow. I�m so in The Club now.

Overall, things are really good. True, I am really emotional right now, but it hasn�t been anything I can�t handle. I�m just realizing as I get farther along in this pregnancy that motherhood is kind of scary for me. I�m not the most nurturing person in the world, and I have a lot of hang-ups about the whole �motherhood� role left over from my own mother�s very non-traditional participation in my life. I worry. I have a sneaking suspicion that I�m not going to automatically be the kind of mother that I have built up in the archetypes of my mind.

But you know what? That�s okay. I�m going to be okay with that. I�m not going to place requirements on myself. I know that some things will naturally kick in once the baby is born, and besides that, I�m not going to stress. I�m going to take this �role of motherhood� and make it my own. I�m going to have fun with it.

And my children are going to be brilliant, anyway, so what�s to worry about?

before ~ after