Wednesday, February 18, 2009

How the Days and Weeks Pass

Sitting here on the couch with my laptop, going over my "Things that MUST be done before the Baby arrives" list for the umpteenth time, I began to think about how the last couple weeks have totally flown by... and as my mind began to wander, I logged into my Bloglines account and began to scan through the latest RSS feeds from Cute Overload and I Can Has Cheezburger, and I realized in a moment of belly shaking (and belly aching) laughter, I've fallen into a strange daily/weekly routine of sorts over the last couple weeks:

Mondays = Hate 'em more than ever! I need this day to recover from my weekend.
Tuesdays = I've ahhhlmost got my game on, almost.
Wednesday = The best, most productive day of the week for me.
Thursday = I want it to be Friday.
Friday = I want to go home.
Saturday = The day starts slow, so I spend the rest of the day over-doing it in an effort to make up for the slow morning.
Sunday = I pace it much better than Saturday, but still do too much.

A TYPICAL DAY:

5am-ish: Around this time, I've gone to the bathroom for what will be the last time before I must actually wake up for the day.

6am-ish: I'm so physically uncomfortable, I can no longer sleep without waking every 10 minutes or so, and I spend 30-40 minutes like this until I finally give up and get myself out of bed.

6:30am-ish: Once I do finally get out of bed, I spend 20 to 30 minutes getting dressed and made-up for the day, and during this time, I'm absolutely incapable of carrying on a coherent conversation. Instead, all I can manage is quiet, subtle moaning noises and looks of confusion if and whenever my honey-man actually tries to illicit any information from me before I've had something to eat.

7am-ish: Before I can have my breakfast, I will begin the first of what will eventually amount to several trips going up and down the stairs. With that first trip back up the stairs, I am hoping I'll remember all the items I'd forgotten to bring with me my first time down the stairs, so that I won't have to go upstairs again. This first effort is generally futile, considering my still empty stomach, and consequently, what little brain power there is up and running... but because of the low brain power, I bother with the initial return trip upstairs anyhow.

7:30-ish: I'm finished with breakfast, and now, with a full stomach, I'm remembering everything else I wanted from upstairs, and I am now very slllowly moving up and down the stairs, retrieving the rest of the items I'd forgotten to bring downstairs.

8am: I should be at work by this time, but more often than not, I am usually not so. Occasionally, I do shock 'em and arrive even a titch early, but those days are now few and far between.

8:15-8:30am-ish: I arrive at work and most everyone who works with me on a daily basis knows that although I can stand there and listen to stories about how so-n-so's last night was, I'm not truly coherent. Mind you, this is NOT an entirely new development. It's a well known fact that until 9am hits, you can't talk to me and expect me to have my shit together, and I'm like this whether I'm pregnant or not. NOTE OF CLARIFICATION: It's not that I'm cranky or bitchy or irritable in the mornings. That's not it at all. I'm just not all that capable of higher mental functioning in the AM.

9am-ish: I am now awake enough that those who work with me can actually talk to me and I can comprehend and respond intelligently.

10am-ish: I've drank at least 44 ounces of water and have already spent at least 20 minutes of the day going to and from the bathroom. And I'm hungry.

10:30am-ish: I've snacked on something and have finally picked up enough momentum that things are actually starting to get done, work-wise.

Between 11am and 3:45pm-ish: I've gotten a lot of stuff done (although some days are definitely more productive than others), and I have snacked on at least 5 different foods: an apple or a banana (or both), a light string cheese or a yogurt or a hard boiled egg, and either baby carrots with spinach dip or bagel chips with hummus (or both), and a very small handful of some kind of nut. And I have drank at least another 44 ounces of water, and have probably gone to the bathroom at least twice every hour, amounting to at least an hour of my day having been spent in the bathroom.

By 4pm: By this time, I am feeling pretty fried. My back really aches, my legs ache, and I may have a light headache coming on. I want to go home. I can't think anymore without some special moment of time granted in order to think clearly before I answer a question - - it's just about as bad as when I first arrived to work. It's not at all uncommon for someone to ask me a question, and I'll begin to respond like I know exactly what I'm about to say, but instead, I completely blank out, and I have to apologize and ask that the question/subject be repeated for me.

By 5pm: If I have not spent the 5 minutes necessary to properly prep myself to be out the door by this time, I could very well wind up in the office past 6pm, "just trying to tie up some loose ends" before the next business day.

By 6:15pm: If I have not eaten something more by this time, my patience with anything or anyone is NON-EXISTENT. I must have food, whether it be a bowl of cereal or a piece of peanut butter toast, I gotta have something to eat or I will explode with crankiness. SIDE NOTE: I don't really eat meals anymore.

6:30 to 8pm: It could be anything.

8pm-ish: Snack time and more water... and if I'm going to take a warm bath, this is about the time it will happen for me, and I will spend at least 45 minutes to an hour in the tub. If I take a bath, the rest of my time before bed will pass by with greater mental focus.

9pm-ish: If I have not granted myself some time to decompress, either by taking a bath or spending at least 30 minutes to an hour of downtime reading or dinking on the Internet, my body will be nearing full-protest mode. However, this hour may very well be the time when I finally lounge with my laptop to cruise my favorite frivolous websites or to catch up with world news. It's no coincidence that this is also about the time of night when I tend to get a bit giddy... uncontrollable fits of laughter regularly happen between 9 and 10:30pm. As does a small before-bed snack and more water.

Only over the last week had I consistently tried to go to bed before 10pm. It worked quite well one night, but the last 3 nights in a row have been hard - - not much sleep. It's now 10:30pm though, and for a few weeks now, I've been trying to get myself settled in bed no later than 11pm... so I gotta mosey up that way if I'm gunna make it. G'nighty night!

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