Ranting

Last Friday I took Zoe to the park. It's been awhile since we've gone because it has been soooooo hot and I just cannot tolerate it. I swear I've been chronically hot since April of 2003 when I was pregnant with Zoe. I guess it's one of the side effects of raging hormones. I joke that by the time all the pregnancy hormones leave my body (which can take quite some time), I will be entering menopause. So I may as well just accept the fact that I will be hot from now until Kingdom Come. I'm praying that the climate in Heaven will be akin to Siberia. Perhaps if I be really really good in this life God will grant me my very own iceberg on which to perch for the rest of eternity. I had hoped that having a winter baby would mean I would have the final months of this pregnancy during cooler weather. It's now October and still nearly 90 degrees outside most days. And muggier than the atmosphere of a sauna packed with a dozen fat, sweaty men (not that I've ever been in a sauna packed with a dozen fat, sweaty men...but I think it would be similar).

With my belly growing larger by the day now, hot nights make sleeping even more uncomfortable. I am a back sleeper, which I'm not allowed to do while pregnant. So I flop from side to side all night long, which is no easy feat with my current mammoth size. "Side flopping" requires that I muster a good deal of strength and momentum in order to hoist my body up and then oomph it over in a sort of flipping flopping motion. As soon as I achieve this task, I usually notice that it's time for my hourly bladder emptying. So then I must hoist myself up into a sort of rolling sitting position to oomph myself out of bed altogether and travel the well worn path in the carpet to the nearest toilet. Add to this the hot, sticky weather and all the flipping, flopping, hoisting, and oomphing become even more uncomfortable.

I had one of my "hot fits" the other night after flipping, flopping, and oomphing for a couple hours in bed. Sleep being the never-ending goal that is always just out of my reach. I had already made the trek downstairs to bump down the thermostat a few extra degrees. I think I've worn another path in the carpet between the bedroom and the thermostat. My poor husband, unable to sleep himself with all the commotion of trying to share his bed with a sweaty beached whale, got up and took his own trip to the bathroom. I'm not sure that was his intentional destination or if the grooves in the carpet just sort of forced him to go that way. Nevertheless, during the time he was gone I believe a thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth fat, sweaty man entered the sauna. I begged Dear Husband to go downstairs and turn down the thermostat yet again. I assured him it didn't matter that he wasn't fully awake, and he needent turn on any lights...just follow the well traveled carpet path and it would lead him there. Either that, or he would find himself at the toilet again, in which case would he please empty my bladder again for me. Then I had some sort of verbal catharsis that conveyed something to the effect of "@#$#@!!! it! I am so #$#$#@#@! hot! I don't care if we have to set that #$!@#$ thermostat on FRIGID, and I don't care if the #@#$!@ electric bill is $500 this month, I can't take this @#!#$%@ heat anymore!!!!!!" I'm not sure what Dear Husband set the thermostat to that night, but apparently the temperature finally met my approval because I finally fell asleep for a couple blissful hours and didn't wake up in a pool of sweat on my next trip to the bathroom.

I have digressed dramatically. I was beginnng to share about my trip to the park with Zoe last Friday. The weather had a rare break and a high of 72 degrees just barely qualified it to be cool enough for me to leave the house. So I took advantage of the time to get Dear Daughter out in some fresh air to run and play. A grandmother was there with her grandson, and she was sitting near the play equipment watching. Zoe was having all kinds of fun crawling through the tubes and climbing the stairs and going down the slides. But each time she wanted to pass by the grandmother, she got really shy and would cling to me. At one point she gave the grandmother a cautious look and turned toward me, and buried her face in my shoulder and said, "I'm feeling kinda nervous, Mommy." I laughed out loud, racking my brain for a clue as to where she picked up a word like "nervous" and amazed that yet again she used a complex word completely appropriately in her own context as if she completely understands what the word means.