my afternoon

1. Get phone call from new OB/GYN (whom I love!) confirming appointment for tomorrow morning. 34 weeks!

2. Notice 2 voicemails from the weekend. One is from the plumber who is supposed to fix our sewer pipe, which has backed up twice in the last two months, apparently because it is cracked.  The other is from my mom, whom I am mad at.

3.  Feel guilty, because I am supposed to call back the plumber, and also don’t want to deal with my mom.  I red-buttoned her yesterday when she called, because I was napping (and also mad) so her sad-sounding voicemail makes me feel even worse.

4. Think about how once, I was a baby in my mom’s belly, and how much she must love me, and how horrible I am for being mad at her, because someday this baby is TOTALLY going to be mad at me, and red-button me on a Sunday afternoon, and I will be leaving sad-sounding voicemails.

5. Become overwhelmed with being responsible for other people’s feelings (remember, I am the wronged party in the dispute with my mom!).

6. Begin to feel similarly overwhelmed with the sewer pipe issue, and the nursery, and the fact that we still don’t have a car seat, and when am I going to schedule the childbirth class (I could give birth any minute, seriously), and Christmas present shopping, and work responsibilities, and the cats need their claws clipped but the clippers are missing, etc., etc., etc.

7.  Without warning or preamble, fall sound asleep sitting completely upright at my desk for an hour.  An entire hour.  Wake up when the phone rings.

8. Call sewer man, email my sister to complain about how guilty I feel about our mom, buy my wife two Christmas presents  (accidentally from our joint checking account, whoops!).  Is it time to go home yet?

the things that go wrong

My wife and I got married two years ago, next Monday.  Our wedding was beautiful, memorable, and filled with love.  It was also at our house.  On an island that is only reachable by a boat.  This seemed like a great idea at the time, but made for a logistical nightmare, and a lot (LOT) of pre-wedding stress.  

The day of our rehearsal, I finally started to relax and enjoy the event.  Then, we got to the restaurant where we had booked our rehearsal dinner.  More specifically, I had booked our rehearsal dinner.  And they informed me that I had actually booked it for the following evening.  As in, the day of the actual wedding.  Thinking back, I absolutely did do this.  I had said August 25th so many times in the wedding planning, that it did not actually occur to me that I needed to book the rehearsal dinner for August 24th.  They scrambled, and moved people, and made room for our rehearsal dinner, which went just fine.  But we sill laugh about that feeling in the pit of our stomachs when we realized I had, in fact, booked the rehearsal dinner for the day of the wedding.  A million other things went wrong, and they all make the best stories.  A week before the wedding, we still had to order alcohol, and our friend who owned a restaurant organized an impromptu wine tasting party in our kitchen.  Two days before the wedding, we realized we had forgotten about programs, and one dear friend designed them, while another with very nimble fingers tied hundreds of tiny bows so they would look just right.  My mom scrubbed the floor of our house on her hands and knees until her knees actually bled (I did not know this could happen) in the days leading up to the wedding.  These are the things we remember from our wedding — the mistakes that we made, and the hundreds of ways, big and small, that our friends, family, and complete strangers said, “Don’t worry. We got your back. Go get married and don’t worry about it.”  

In the last couple of months, I have backed my car into a parked vehicle (TWICE), bounced our mortgage check, messed up an obstetrician appointment time by an hour, and now, most recently, invited friends to our beach house on our anniversary.

When I backed the car into a parked vehicle the first time, my wife was amused.  When I did it the second time, she was a bit disappointed.  When I bounced the mortgage check, she was irritated.  When I messed up the appointment time (we were an hour early), she was a little mad that she had missed a meeting at work for it.  When I basically forgot our anniversary, she was pretty hurt and angry.  

I don’t know what to say to her. I am messing things up!  It’s hormones, pregnancy brain, whatever you want to call it.  I lack organizational skills right now (and also the ability to turn all the way around and see where I am going while driving backwards, apparently).  I’m sorry, and pregnant.  She is pretty forgiving.  She knows that our anniversary is important to me.  I love anniversaries, and Valentine’s day, and basically any other excuse for us to have a fancy date.  But still, I am annoying as hell to live with right now.  I guess I hope that a few years from now, we will laugh at all of this, and these will be our good memories.  Like, remember when you were pregnant and messed up all the things, right in a row?  Honestly, though, I kind of hope that this “memory making” part is over soon, before there are significant monetary or relationship consequences.