This past week has felt like an emphasis on basic humanity: sleeping and eating. Each morning, I wake up because I’m hungry, so I eat. And then I realize I’m still tired, so I sleep. So goes the morning.
My afternoons have also been punctuated by food. I suspect this is due to the limited internal real estate that I possess. Since I still haven’t started really “showing,” (as in, family and friends can tell I’ve “thickened” but any passerby wouldn’t say I looked pregnant) baby’s growth is forcing the rest of my internal organs into smaller spaces than they’re used to, reducing their capacity. The result is that my lunches and dinners have to be split into two small meals, meaning I have lunch #1 at noon, lunch #2 at 3pm, dinner #1 at 6pm and dinner #2 at 9pm. That’s four square meals a day – plus breakfast. Those who know me well know that I had to eat pretty frequently even before I was pregnant. Well now it’s compounded!
Another effect of this internal squishing is that I get out of breath faster. Activities that I never used to give a second thought to, like walking up stairs, going up a hill, or moving laundry from a washer to a dryer, leave me panting. And it’s not that I’m not exercising! It makes me feel kind of silly and feeble.
Thankfully, the real estate crisis is not so terrible yet as to encroach upon my brain. I read a story of a pregnant woman who couldn’t find her keys and after hours of searching, found them neatly placed in her fridge. I’ve mixed up some words here and there and found myself wondering what I was thinking about a second ago, but it hasn’t gotten to the point of putting my keys in the fridge!
Anyway, being “unplugged” for the week has been thoroughly refreshing. I hadn’t realized how much time I spent in front of a computer or other electronic device until this week. It has been fantastic catching up on reading, journalling and oh, did I mention sleeping?