Breaking the Trail

I haven't been to this part of a pregnancy before. Baby girl is due in 3 months, or 13 weeks from today. She's got enough uterus time for some serious advantages in life, including a better than 90% survival rate outside the womb if she were born this week. The even better news: she probably won't be born this week.

Which brings me to my point: Suddenly this pregnancy seems to be going on forever, and I'm in the part of it I've never technically experienced. Of course, every pregnancy is different, and this one is doing some strange things. I can't complain about a long pregnancy, but if history has taught us anything, we should know that I can find something to complain about.

It's my sweet tooth. It's been injured. I tend to love sugar. I crave it, I eat it, and I thoroughly enjoy it. Hormones have taken away the two most important parts of that equation. I don't crave sugar. It's the best candy season of the year, and while some of my favorites catch my eye when I walk through Wal-Mart, I just don't have the same desire I once did. On the other hand, I still occasionally buy and eat it. Robin Eggs, Pay Day bars, Cadbury Creme Eggs, chocolate covered marshmallows - and that's just in the last few weeks. It may not be a complete accounting of my indulgences, either.

Full disclosure of my sugar binges is not important; the problem is that though I continue to eat sugar, it has become rather awful. I never wanted to know why some people don't like Hostess products and cheap candy, and I do, and it's terrible. This must be what drug addicts feel like when their regular dose stops delivering a high. And that thought is even more depressing, because I realize how much I use sugar to change my mood. It is my drug of choice.

Now that I'm seeking out snacks and easy foods that don't have tons of sugar, I'm finding out how sugar-infused American non-perishable grocery items are. Even beef jerky, that pinnacle of easy protein, is coated in sickly sugar. Do not want. So snack foods are limited, and since I am awful at keeping veggies good long enough to remember to cook them, and since I am far too lazy to actually cook up a piece of meat when I need to eat lunch, I am seriously struggling with meals.

Yesterday and today: tacos for lunch. Easy because Tim made the meat and everything else is pretty simple. During the week: I find things around the house. Cheese. Crackers. Nothing. And half the time I'm too tired, busy, and braindead to even remember to eat, and then I end up having a nearly-passing-out episode in the middle of relief society. Because I ate a cupcake for breakfast after only a few hours of decent sleep. Depending on the calendar you use this is about the first day of my first third trimester, and I already suck at it.