The whole pregnancy-induced ability to smell things that dogs can't track is funny sometimes. Most of the time, though, it sucks.
Jesse ran with the dogs on Friday night. I'm super grateful that he's able to give our doggies some love because, with their super-doggie pit bull strength, I just don't feel comfortable taking them out, even for walks. A squirrel rustling leaves could cause me to become a speed bump with pigtails on Fayetteville Rd. Thanks to Jesse, I'm not worried about my doggies going crazy from the boredom of being house bound for 9 months. When he came home, I asked if we could continue cleaning out the closet in Tyson's room and he agreed. I went upstairs to get a jump start, and soon after, Jesse entered the room. Unshowered. In sweaty running clothes. Socks removed.
Anyone who has been around a person (let's say a MALE) who comes in from hard work outdoors knows that funk. Even the cleanest person (MAN) is going to smell pretty nasty. Multiply that odor by 1000 for a preggy and you understand my predicament. I'm standing in a 3 x 3 closet with a 200lb armpit.
I'm not sure how to play this one. I'm grateful that he runs with the dogs and is helping clean, but if I throw up in the closet it will only prolong the cleaning process. Order him to shower and risk losing his help? Politely spray him with Febreeze when he's not looking? Hang an air freshener from his running shorts? I mention that he could take a shower first because we weren't in a huge hurry to get things done that night, to which he replied that he didn't want to move boxes and get sweaty all over again after showering. The message wasn't getting through.
I'll tough it out, I thought. This whole progesterone poisoning thing is something he can't understand, so I'll just suck it up.
Or not.
I had to retreat. Mission aborted. I busied myself with work in the neighboring bedrooms, but the damage was done. The smell was up my nose, coating my nasal passages, and taking over my body. I was starting to sweat. I was sick to my stomach. I had to go downstairs and huff some Lysol, or garlic, or coffee... anything to get the funk out of my nostrils!
Finally Jesse took a shower and I made a lap around my house, striking my best Statue of Liberty pose with Lysol above my head, finger pressing on the nozzle, until I couldn't smell that outdoor-man-funk any more. When he emerged from the bathroom, clean, and choking on Lysol fumes, I explained to him when was wrong... and he laughed at me! Laughed!! I couldn't even eat dinner that night because of the sick feeling in my guts and he finds humor in the situation.
Perhaps he shows no sympathy because he found out I posted his spandex cowboy picture in my last post. Guess we're even.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Mission Baby Room Prep: Take One
I understand nesting, and I'm familiar with that sense of urgency. I'm a terrible procrastinator (proposed and defended my thesis in the same semester while taking 12 hrs of graduate classes and planning my wedding!) because I work well under pressure (I graduated and I'm still married!). The baby situation is no different. The 'what if's' keep you from working too far ahead, and just when you feel assured that you will, in fact, be having a baby, you have less than 15 weeks to prepare your home for another human, for whom you have NOTHING. Pressure's on. I'm 27 weeks prego, so I figure I've got 9 weeks or so of productivity until I'm too huge (um, great with child) to be any help at all. Five of those weekends are booked, so unless the kiddo is going to sleep in a dog crate, Jesse and I have a lot of work to do. That work began this weekend when we cleaned out the closet in what will be the baby's room... well, that's not exactly how it went.
Every household has that closet which is the black hole for those all-important I-might-need-this-again-someday items. That closet is in Tyson's future nursery and it became the genesis of Mission Baby Room Prep last weekend. I do not have any issues throwing things away when the time comes. I already had a full trash bag awaiting Jesse when he appeared upstairs to 'help'. I had this day pictured as a streamlined attack on clutter. Find junk, put it in a bag, eliminate junk - BAM! Clean room. Jesse, on the other hand, preferred to sift through the bags and ask me why I was throwing _________ in the trash. Can't we donate/sell/use/save/re-gift this? So much for streamlined - and that was just my stuff.
WAY TOO MANY MINUTES LATER, we reached 'his' section of the closet. I took a couple of his boxes out for him to sift through as I continued to bag up my items to be thrown away. I like to go item by item, creating 'keep', 'toss', and 'donate' piles (yes, just like Clean Sweep. It works. Jesse should watch more HGTV). Jesse prefers to sit in a pile of trash reminiscing about where each piece came from. Honey! It's my ticket stub from when I got kicked out of a Bills game for throwing snowballs at the ref! BABE! It's my number from a track meet in high school! LOOK! It's an ornament from 1987! WOW! My running tights (from when he weighed 150lbs). If he lived alone, he would build a shrine to his childhood.
After three hours or so, I had to take a break so I left Jesse (and his pile of 'memories') and went downstairs, hoping he was making some progress. Instead, he was engaging in a ritualistic farewell to some of his favorite 'finds' from the black hole closet. I may never get the image out of my head.
Every household has that closet which is the black hole for those all-important I-might-need-this-again-someday items. That closet is in Tyson's future nursery and it became the genesis of Mission Baby Room Prep last weekend. I do not have any issues throwing things away when the time comes. I already had a full trash bag awaiting Jesse when he appeared upstairs to 'help'. I had this day pictured as a streamlined attack on clutter. Find junk, put it in a bag, eliminate junk - BAM! Clean room. Jesse, on the other hand, preferred to sift through the bags and ask me why I was throwing _________ in the trash. Can't we donate/sell/use/save/re-gift this? So much for streamlined - and that was just my stuff.
WAY TOO MANY MINUTES LATER, we reached 'his' section of the closet. I took a couple of his boxes out for him to sift through as I continued to bag up my items to be thrown away. I like to go item by item, creating 'keep', 'toss', and 'donate' piles (yes, just like Clean Sweep. It works. Jesse should watch more HGTV). Jesse prefers to sit in a pile of trash reminiscing about where each piece came from. Honey! It's my ticket stub from when I got kicked out of a Bills game for throwing snowballs at the ref! BABE! It's my number from a track meet in high school! LOOK! It's an ornament from 1987! WOW! My running tights (from when he weighed 150lbs). If he lived alone, he would build a shrine to his childhood.
After three hours or so, I had to take a break so I left Jesse (and his pile of 'memories') and went downstairs, hoping he was making some progress. Instead, he was engaging in a ritualistic farewell to some of his favorite 'finds' from the black hole closet. I may never get the image out of my head.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Baby Etiquette, because someone NEEDS to do it.
As with many areas of life (marriage, finance, nutrition, fitness...) there seems to be a lack of common sense in pregnant women and those that surround them. I'm no parenting expert, but when it comes to the common sense arena, I've been blessed. Since no such manual exists, I took it upon myself to make some guidelines for those who might have lackluster street smarts. I still can't figure out why it's called 'common' sense when it seems so scarce!
#1: The same rules of etiquette you use for the general population apply when addressing a pregnant woman. There is no way you would sit in front of the Great American Cookie Co. at the mall and yell out 'HEY LARD ASS' at the people buying their double doozies and butter cookies. Therefore, you don't need to inform me every time I look larger. Refrain from comments like 'you look bigger than you did two days ago' or I might respond 'you look uglier than you did two days ago'. If you can't say something nice, button it. I'm supposed to be getting bigger, smarty. There's a HUMAN in there. Why comment on the inevitable? No one yells 'HOLY SHIT' every morning when the sun rises.
#2: Pregnant women - don't be dumb. We all have 'oopsie' moments where we do something not-so-smart like picking up a heavy bag of dog food (guilty!) or wrestling down a poodle-hungry pit bull (um, yeah, that was me too), but these are things that we do instinctively or absent-mindedly... and we all make mistakes. The issue I'm addressing here are moms-to-be who TRY to achieve amazing physical feats while pregnant, then post about it on FaceBook hoping for kudos. I ran a marathon, finished in under 3 hours, and had my baby at mile 24! How about expectant mothers who shun carbs or count calories? SERIOUSLY? Ladies, there is a BABY in there. A BABY. Since you peed on the stick, it has been YOUR job ALONE to take care of him. You have the rest of your life to diet and set marathoning records. Can't it wait nine months? Don't be dumb.
#3: Have a little sympathy for pregnancy-related changes, like increased sense of smell or sleeplessness. I had an acute sense of smell pre-pregnancy, and now I could work part time as a drug-sniffing police dog. As a personal trainer, this new-found super power can be a little inconvenient. To make it even more complicated, I work at 5:45am, when some believe workouts can be 'hygiene-optional'. Please brush your teeth and use deodorant. And take Beano, where applicable. I can't explain how bad fart, funk, and garlic smell to me right now. 3 minutes of your life. That's all I'm asking for!
I used to have an amazing ability to sleep thru anything... until the achy-hip-no-lying-on-the-back-constant-baby-gymnastics thing kicked in. Oh yeah, and Jesse took up snoring, you know... just for fun. He, however, could teach folks a thing or two about hubby etiquette. He will send himself to the guest bedroom if he knows he's keeping me up, which keeps me from putting his pillow over his face! THAT is definitely a good thing.
#1: The same rules of etiquette you use for the general population apply when addressing a pregnant woman. There is no way you would sit in front of the Great American Cookie Co. at the mall and yell out 'HEY LARD ASS' at the people buying their double doozies and butter cookies. Therefore, you don't need to inform me every time I look larger. Refrain from comments like 'you look bigger than you did two days ago' or I might respond 'you look uglier than you did two days ago'. If you can't say something nice, button it. I'm supposed to be getting bigger, smarty. There's a HUMAN in there. Why comment on the inevitable? No one yells 'HOLY SHIT' every morning when the sun rises.
#2: Pregnant women - don't be dumb. We all have 'oopsie' moments where we do something not-so-smart like picking up a heavy bag of dog food (guilty!) or wrestling down a poodle-hungry pit bull (um, yeah, that was me too), but these are things that we do instinctively or absent-mindedly... and we all make mistakes. The issue I'm addressing here are moms-to-be who TRY to achieve amazing physical feats while pregnant, then post about it on FaceBook hoping for kudos. I ran a marathon, finished in under 3 hours, and had my baby at mile 24! How about expectant mothers who shun carbs or count calories? SERIOUSLY? Ladies, there is a BABY in there. A BABY. Since you peed on the stick, it has been YOUR job ALONE to take care of him. You have the rest of your life to diet and set marathoning records. Can't it wait nine months? Don't be dumb.
#3: Have a little sympathy for pregnancy-related changes, like increased sense of smell or sleeplessness. I had an acute sense of smell pre-pregnancy, and now I could work part time as a drug-sniffing police dog. As a personal trainer, this new-found super power can be a little inconvenient. To make it even more complicated, I work at 5:45am, when some believe workouts can be 'hygiene-optional'. Please brush your teeth and use deodorant. And take Beano, where applicable. I can't explain how bad fart, funk, and garlic smell to me right now. 3 minutes of your life. That's all I'm asking for!
I used to have an amazing ability to sleep thru anything... until the achy-hip-no-lying-on-the-back-constant-baby-gymnastics thing kicked in. Oh yeah, and Jesse took up snoring, you know... just for fun. He, however, could teach folks a thing or two about hubby etiquette. He will send himself to the guest bedroom if he knows he's keeping me up, which keeps me from putting his pillow over his face! THAT is definitely a good thing.
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