Nonsensical rant, brought to you by trimester #1

I am officially a giant ball of hormones right now. I cry, scream and whine at just about everything. People (especially rude people) are usually the cause of my annoyance, which quickly escalates into all-out rage with very little instigation, but inanimate objects can do the trick just as well. Case in point: I was carrying a used coffee filter full of soggy coffee grounds to the trash can in the kitchen the other night when the filter ripped and the grounds fell to the floor. If anything like this has ever happened to you, you know that coffee grounds make a mess. And it was in the evening when I am at my most tired (I was prepping our coffeemaker for the next morning -- yes, I am still drinking coffee, I DARE you to lecture me). Anyway, I freaked. I totally, needlessly, dramatically, threw a hissy-fit in the middle of the kitchen floor. My husband got mad at me for overreacting, which only made me fume even more. "Don't even go there, man who got me into this mess to begin with," is what I was thinking.

Combine my volatility towards human beings and inanimate objects alike with the nausea and extreme fatigue I've been feeling, not to mention having no clothes to wear because you are too fat for regular clothes and still too small for maternity clothes and you have one messed up pregnant chick on your hands.

This, my friends, is the emotional rollercoaster brought to you by the first trimester of pregnancy. It is worse this time around and I don't know exactly why, except that I think maybe that I am twice as tired and mixing fatigue with raging pregnancy hormones are a deadly combination. Deadly. They should totally bottle this stuff and use it as a chemical weapon.

There are sappy sweet parts of my emotional rollercoaster, as well. It's sort of like the waiting in line for the rollercoaster in 95 degree weather at an amusement park and no one around you is wearing deodorant and the guy behind you keeps stepping on your foot and pushing you, followed by the adrenaline rush of going down the hill, wind flowing through your hair, butterflies in your stomach, immediately followed by the abrupt end of the ride that takes place seconds later leading you to wonder why the f*&$ you just wasted 45 minutes in a line filled with sweaty, stinky, annoying people for that one little thrill.

I lost the metaphor in there somewhere (even telling a fictional story about waiting in line at an amusement parks agitates me), but the point is I am not always a total bitch (I think that's the point).

Sometimes my hormones cause me to be sweet and sentimental and cry tears of joy (sort of like how I am when I've had too much wine....which I miss terribly). This is almost exclusively reserved to moments when I am with my daughter -- hanging out with her happens to be the one and only way to cheer me up and calm me down when I'm out of control. (You know there's something wrong when not even a milkshake can help me.)

For instance, when Olivia walks across the room, with her little legs and her little pink mary janes and her tiny little butt and her little hands flapping in the air, I just stare at her in awe and it makes me cry. She is just so proud of herself (and I have to say I am too). Or when she comes up to me, rests her adorable little head on my shoulder, gives me a hug, pats me on the back and tells me some little story in her own little language, then I cry some more. But they are good, wonderful, joyous tears.

So yeah, to say I'm emotional right now would be an understatement.

I cry at everything. I yell at everything. I would smack several of my co-workers if I could (if you're reading this, co-worker, of course I don't mean you), I would even smack complete strangers if I could and I would run every slow-ass driver off the road with my car if it weren't completely illegal and totally unsafe.*

I hate feeling like this, but it is really and truly out of my control. And I can not WAIT until it is all over and the breezy second trimester begins when it is all cute little baby bumps, fluttering in the tummy and eating ice cream for dinner.

But the dreaded first trimester won't be over for a while, and before it is, I will have to get through my baby's first birthday without sobbing openly and dripping snot all over her first-ever birthday cake. That will be a real feat and I can't promise I'll be able to do it. In fact, I have a good feeling there will be tears and quite possibly snot. I'll just try not to get it on the cake. That would be gross.

But really, do you blame me?? My firstborn beautiful baby girl is turning ONE YEAR OLD. I know this happens to everyone's children, that all parents go through it and only when it is happening to your own child does it seem so monumental, so dramatic, so unbelievably important. It's like the cliche goes: You don't understand it until it happens to you.
Well, it's happening. My baby is growing up before my eyes.
Everyone warned me that it would happen soon, quickly, that I will blink and she'll be a year old. And they were all right.















See, just posting this picture made me get teary-eyed.

*Disclaimer: I know I'm beyond blessed. I've got this beautiful little girl, I've got another one on the way (an active little swimmer, according to the doctor who chased the little bean around my stomach trying to listen to his/her heartbeat yesterday), but if you have been hormonal, you know this: There is no rhyme or reason. There is no justification. You aren't able to see through the cloud of progesterone and estrogen to count your blessings. You can only see whatever emotion is blinding you at that particular moment.
And yes, I am most definitely whining, complaining, bitching, call it what you like. A good friend of mine whose opinion I respect immensely told me that I should be more open and candid in this blog, since I am no longer under the iron fist of my employer. And it is true. It will take some getting used to, after writing with a filter for so long, but now I can finally let it all out. (And if you're still reading this, you see that I clearly need some sort of release). So fair warning: I may not always be G-rated. I might talk about my boobs and other body parts in detail. I might even swear if I'm feeling really wild and out of control (so don't let your kids read this and if you have me linked somewhere where there are well-mannered grandmas and such reading, you might want to remove this particular blog, just to avoid any awkwardness). I do have my very tame, safe for grandmas family/friends blog where I post all the pictures of Olivia with little captions and it is beyond G-rated, but this blog is officially going to be my place to cut loose from now on. I'm not saying I'm going to post anything obscene, of course, but I'm just saying this is going to be a place for me to vent (i.e. complain, whine, moan). That's sort of the purpose of blogs, at least personal ones like this one. So listen, all I'm saying is if you don't like what you see here then don't read it. If you do, then I love and appreciate that you're reading and I hope you will stick around and share the next exciting months with me. They will get better, I promise. Right now, however, I go from wanting to stick a pencil in my eyeball to wanting to lay down on the floor and cry to wanting to eat a cupcake, all in a matter of minutes. It is hormone-induced multiple personality disorder. Could make for some fun reading, if you're into that sort of thing...

Have a great weekend. I'll try my hardest to do the same.