Fail-Fail-Fail-WIN

-Yesterday I unwisely took all three kids, as well as of course my increasingly cumbersome abdomen and general crabby disposition, to the grocery store with me. Eli ran away over and over again, got put back in the cart basket, kept standing up and whining and getting removed from the cart basket, scampered off again, got put back in, etc. Addy was wound up from just getting out of school and was dancing and singing and chirping and generally being technically well behaved but still quite annoying in a crowded store at five pm. Jameson was fine until he somehow unscrewed the cap from an entire quart of cranberry juice and dumped it down my pants and all over aisle eleven.

Upon checking out (and sending the older two, who were beyond hyper at this point, to go ride the pony before my eyes popped out of my head in exasperation) the lady at the checkout looked me up and down a few times, then said not sympathetically but more as an admonishment, "You came here with all three?! You really have your hands full!" I couldn't even feel insulted, couldn't muster any the public has no tolerance for small children! kind of indignation. She was right; it was a rookie move and I should have known better. Next time I don't care WHAT we're out of or how urgent it seems: no more than two kids are allowed at a store with me at one time.

-One of our at-home progesterone injections finally went awry. I don't know what happened, but this week the shot felt awful; it hurt going in and hurt afterwards, and it bled like crazy for about ten minutes, which has never happened and freaked poor Jim out. I wasn't too alarmed (hey, it's just blood! I have plenty more!) but it was weird, definitely. We kept having to change bandages and apply pressure. And, of course, it was the one time a kid wandered in on us and witnessed the whole thing. Eli has always been the nervous one about shots anyways. I'm sure witnessing an accidental blood vessel puncture will help the situation!

-I'm always a bit of a hypochondriac even at my best, but being pregnant really makes me fidgety. All the little things that are pretty normal during pregnancy but are sometimes, rarely, a sign of DANGER, drive me just nuts. There's the random naggy headaches on just one side of my head, despite drinking my weight in water and not consuming any headache-trigger food items. My right leg that keeps going numb out of nowhere, and just weird leg sensations in general. The sudden heart accelerations and skipped beats. I know rationally all of these are pretty common and explainable. All the extra blood volume wonkiness causes headaches, nerve and vein pain in one's legs is increasingly common the bigger your uterus gets, especially if you're at all deficient in calcium or potassium. Even the heart stuff is actually pretty normal during pregnancy.

But every time I notice the weird feelings, I startle and think, brain aneurism? Blood clots? Pulmonary hypertension? And then after a few seconds calm down and remind myself, no. Unlikely. Just gestating. But I hate the added worry that not only am I myself in greater (though still statistically small) physical danger during pregnancy, but if anything happens to me, my unborn baby is in danger too. I feel almost irresponsible NOT worrying, if that makes sense. How would I feel if I brushed off some funny feeling and then lost the baby?

Look, I know it's pointless to worry. Destructive, even. But I do feel there's usefulness in being ALERT to symptoms of problems, so I guess for me there's just difficulty in finding that middle ground between not being completely nonchalant about one's health yet also not catastrophizing every little thing. It's like once I have noticed something out of the ordinary, I can't simply take note and then file it for further observation- no, I have to first go through the worst-case scenario checklist and rule out imminent death. It gets tiring after awhile, you know?

-I am crabby right now because both older kids were at a birthday party for three whole hours today, during Jamie's nap time, so you can imagine the glorious plans I had for all that child free time. Yet instead I got one of my stupid naggy unbudging headaches and spent the entire time in bed trying to rest/hydrate it away. Unsuccessfully, I might add. And my dumb leg is numb again, AND all the leftover pizza got eaten without me, AND it is freezing outside again and all my winter maternity clothes are already put away. SULKING.

-On the plus side, though? Hunger Games was not disappointing. I still love the book way more, but I was fully prepared to be underwhelmed by the movie and I was not. I think it did about as good a job as a film can in trying to capture a novel's essence. Of course there are things you don't "get" until you read it and of course there are lots of little things left out of the movie, but it was still satisfying and I felt all of the characters were well cast, so I was pleased.