Anxiety

Do you ever get that feeling like you've forgotten something really important? Like you've left the stove on and you're a six hour drive from home and your stomach bottoms out because you're sure your house is going to burn down and there's nothing you can do about it? I mean, in that case I'm sure you could call the fire department and have them break in and turn it off or something.

But does it ever happen in a dream? Like you realize at the end of the semester that you signed up for a class and NEVER WENT ONCE? And you go running like crazy around campus trying to figure out how you're ever going to graduate, and you can't wake up until you realize that in reality, you got your BA like two years ago.

Or how about in your waking hours—do you ever get that terrible stress feeling like you're about to fail a test or something: your palms are sweating, your stomach hurts, and you think you might pass out? Well, I've been getting that. But there's no test. There's no class I didn't sign up for. There is no emergency, and I'm at home and no imminent danger approaches. There's always the chance I'm afraid I could die at any moment and I'll go to Hell, but though I may not be a saint, I'm thinking it's a little crazy to spend my days in a state of panic over that.

And really, that's what I've been doing. My body has gone stress-mad over nothing. As I type this my family is sleeping, clothes are running through the laundry, the house is relatively clean, and in the end, everything is okay. But my hands are clammy and I kinda want to puke. I'm lightheaded. I'm having that acute stress reaction I'd get for five minutes over a tense meeting or a bad report card.

But my life is fine. Right? Isn't it? Is there a bill I forgot to pay? Are parts of my brain rotting in my skull and the panic is the only way my body can tell me? Or am I just mentally ill? And in case you haven't guessed, asking myself these questions is not helping the stress situation.

*pant* *pant* *pant*

Thank goodness every day isn't like this.

Stupid Things

I saw an ad recently bragging that seven out of ten people who switch to Geico save money. I can't help but wonder what is up with those other three idiots.

Or the iPad. We can talk about the name all we want, but the fact is that Apple made a device that does the same things the iPhone does—minus making calls—with the "advantage" being that it's bigger. Because that's what we all want in our portable devices. Now, people like big screens, but what kills me is the incredibly inefficient use of space. There's room in that tablet to do just about as much as a regular netbook, but instead they've crippled the thing into only running apps and crap. It's backward innovation.

How about yoga classes? I've been looking for a place to get away for an hour or two a week and exercise, or maybe take a mommy and me class and get the kiddo some gym time too. And they're ridiculously expensive. Like $17 for one class, or $15 if you buy a bunch at once. What new mom can afford that on top of the cost of a new sports bra for her giant nursing boobs?

When I Grow Up

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a ballerina or a stand up comedian. Then I wanted to be a writer. Then I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. Then I wanted to write again. And then I wanted to do math. And then I wanted to edit. And then I wanted to do linguistics. I never particularly wanted to be a mom.

And one day I woke up and realized that being a mom was the most important thing to me in the world. It happened before that day a couple of years ago when a doctor first told me I was probably infertile. It must have been some time after I finally met a man whose children I'd be willing to bear. I could say my biological clock just went "ding" or the pressures of living in a breeding culture finally got to me, but I don't think that's it.

There are moments in life when you find your place and everything seems to work out. Like choosing a major I adored, or marrying a man worth marrying. And whatever compelled me to take what has been a rather perilous journey to motherhood, I say I have found my niche. Of all of the lives I have wished for myself, this is the one I still want the most.

I dance day and night to keep baby calm, and tell ridiculous jokes to a rapt crowd of one. I have seen more medical equipment than I care to talk about. I am writing two life stories and teaching a baby to speak. I am changing diapers. I am changing everything (which is also sometimes poopy).

There will never be anywhere else I am so much wanted or needed. This is what I wanted and needed. So I'll just admit it:

When I grow up, I want to be a mom.

Guilt

My first mommy guilt trip is here. This is the reason my MIL says I will hate all future Mother's Days. This is one of those days I will look back on when having a pity party and thinking of reason after reason I'm not good enough. And the thing is, I'm generally really good at giving myself a break. I just can't seem to let this one go.

There's a Farnsworth family reunion in town this week. I love me some Farnsworths. And I knew we'd have to go easy on the activities because of our bitty baby (now like ten pounds). So I had some reservations about going to tonight's dinner activity. But when tempted with free pizza, I gave in. And . . .

*cringe*

. . . took my baby to a bowling alley. With loud music. And people. And germs. And now I'm blaming myself for his not-unheard-of pre-bedtime fussies. His totally normal feeling temperature. His typical schedule of sneezes.

Just when I was starting to get into the rhythm of this mom thing, the self-hate is here. Sigh.

Absentminded

I wore my new jeans today, and it wasn't until I was at the doctor's office strippin' down that I heard the telltale clatter of tags still hanging from the inside of my pants. It wouldn't have been such a stupid mistake except that this was the second time I've worn the things. Oops.

But apparently I'm not the only one suffering from a brain fog—this morning I found a bottle of Finley's milk in the cabinet where we keep his bottles, just sitting there going bad. I swear it wasn't me. Then again, I suppose it's entirely possible that it was, but I think I'll let Tim take the fall.

And speaking of brain degeneration, I bought a trashy celeb-stalking mag today. I was just so disappointed that the most interesting thing in my doc's waiting room was Ladies' Home Journal—whose readers are apparently very interested in failing/rekindled marriages—that I picked up a Star at the King Sooper's when I went to grab more kid supplies.

So I may not remember to take all of the tags off of my new clothes, or properly put things away, but I can sure as heck remember what Miley Cyrus wore in Paris on the first! I'm so glad I don't have any little girls ready to be lead into slutdom by another post-Disney musical whore in the making. Have we learned nothing from Lindsay Lohan?

Seriously?

Sometimes so many bad things happen in a row it starts being kind of funny. And then you get rear ended just days before you finally get to bring your first baby home. Let's just think about the latter part.

I mean, I suppose I've been a mom since I got pregnant. And then more officially at special moments like childbirth, the first diaper change, the first time I got to hold Finley . . . blah blah blah. But I've always felt like I'm not quite a mom until I actually bring my baby home and lose weeks of sleep feeding him in the middle of the night. At the very least I feel like I don't know if I'm going to be even a halfway decent mom until I know I can do this impossibly hard part.

So I'm flipping out a little bit since I have no idea what car I'm bringing Finley home in, and the doctor says that'll be probably Saturday, which I'm hearing as sometime between Saturday and Tuesday. We'll sleep over with him at the hospital tomorrow night, and then pray like mad we all make it through this thing.

Suburbia

I need a book.

It was around 10:00 a.m. when I got the urge to do the dishes. Instead of giving in, I decided to walk to the mailbox. I wasn't shocked by the very suburban rows of trash cans lined up in front of houses (each painted one of four painstakingly bland color combinations). We pay monthly HOA dues to make absolutely sure that (a) the trash is picked up each Tuesday, and (b) nobody paints their house an interesting color.

I was surprised that on my block there were two men at home in the middle of the day and two motorcycles (not lawnmowers) with rumbling motors pulling into separate garages. That the men and the motorcycles should go together is no odd thing—what unemployed man wouldn't have a death wish best fulfilled by a long and bloody skid down the asphalt? Irresponsible vehicle choices aside, I'll hope for the best and assume these people are making mortgage payments by clicking ads online, which I have heard through my television friends to be quite lucrative. And which, I'd imagine, could give someone the same kind of death wish.

And that's the sum of the entertainment happening outside. My stay-at-home motherhood clearly will not be like Rear Window or Desperate Housewives. I've only seen three spiders, so no Arachnophobia here, either. The lawns aren't nice enough for this to be Stepford, and I'm not sure anyone here steps out in their robe and slippers to pick up the paper.

It's after noon and now the trash cans have all been blown onto their backs by the breeze. I tried washing dishes with the window open, but the neighbor's dog wanted a loud cross-fence chat, and I didn't. If I weren't going to leave for the hospital in another hour, I'd bake someone cookies and go introduce myself.

And I know better than to expect some drama from the NICU—it isn't the coma ward after all—unless a set of twins has been separated at birth, or there's a case of mistaken paternity. Or mistaken maternity, which, thanks to IVF, is a thing now, and has provided us with several movie and TV plot twists over the past few years.

You can plainly see that having no book has forced me spend hours honing my mental acuity with BrainAge, which in turn has given me way too much brain power to spend looking out my window for fun.

As a result, I need a book.