Today, after a weekend of salty treats, standing for long periods of time, and entering my 36th week of pregnancy — my ankles started to look a little, well, thick. Luckily, I still had some crazily tight compression hose stuffed in my underwear drawer from my last pregnancy. I got the hose at the hospital when I delivered Ollie because I had such issues with swelling in my legs (apparently being on an IV for 30+ hours will do that to ya!). In fact, I remember after the surgery, my doctor came in to ask me how I was feeling and my only question for him was, “WHERE ARE MY KNEES????”
Even more than the incision pain, discomfort of having my abdomen sliced open, or fact that I was starving from only consuming ice chips for hours on end — all that was nothing compared to the horror of seeing my legs look like 1000-year-old Redwoods. Literally, to look at them, you’d have though someone stole my bones and replaced them with marshmallow; there was no hint of knee or ankle whatsoever. I wasn’t pleading for morphine post-op, I was begging the doctors to order me surgical grade pantyhose from the pharmacy STAT.
Not that my legs or ankles even remotely resembled this today, but I think to some degree, I almost suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from my labor and delivery cankle experience. Now, at the first sign of swelling, I elevate my legs, ice them down, or like today, bust out the compression hose. Thankfully, my bones have returned and all signs of elephantiasis are at bay. Whew.
OK, my legs weren't quite this bad...but still, a few hours of my steel tights didn't hurt anything!
If you don’t have it already, go directly to your closest store and buy some Bragg ACV right this second. I promise, you’lll LOVE it. I mean, not the taste persay (or maybe you will), but man, this stuff is seriously like magic when it comes to your health. Basically, you drink this raw vinegar (with the mother — the cloudy, sandy sediment at the bottom of the bottle) with honey or agave nectar and it will CHANGE your life.
I’m not kidding. I once even read it made kids that were mentally retarded un-retarded. I mean, I’m not saying it will do that (kinda a stretch…), but if you’re looking for a way to lose weight, feel better, and have clearer skin — drink up! Sometimes I find it a bit hard to swallow, but I figure I’ve taken shots that are nastier than vinegar (uh, Jägerbombs, anyone?), so what the hell?! Sometimes I feel like I sound like a commercial on this blog, but in all honesty, I really do feel grateful for this product, so I figure, why not share it with you all?!
In the past few weeks, my pregnant heartburn has returned with a vengeance. Does it help that I’m eating Bisquik and lemonade 24/7? Probably not, but still, Tums do nothing for me anymore. Plus, I’ve had this horrible feeling that at any second a foot or an arm may pop out of my throat. It’s been pretty unpleasant. However, I started a daily regimen of a few teaspoons of ACV, water, and agave and I swear, the discomfort has vanished!
How adorable is this woman? Patricia Bragg is not only cute but also a health pioneer -- as was her father, Paul!
Well, the entire Pfarr fam has a cold. Ollie is a booger face. I’m getting a sore throat. And Grey has a stuffy nose and a cough. Luckily, it’s a mild one and at least the baby seems to be better after getting a few doses of children’s Triaminic for his symptoms. Grey prefers to tough it out — only taking a Vitamin C for his remedy. And as for me, well, I’m pregnant so I really can’t take much of anything.
However, I must say, I tried one of Ollie’s baby med strips and OMG – DELICIOUS! Now before you get all worked up, this medicine is geared toward people weighing like 40 pounds, so I think it’s probably safe for me to take since it’s such a small amount. But MAN, is this stuff good! As it’s cold season, I highly recommend you running out to buy a box of this medicinal candy. It’s like a tab of heaven you put on your tongue.
Is it wrong that I love the taste of baby medicine? Even when I’m not pregnant, there’s just something about it that appeals to me. Have you ever tried Children’s Tylenol? Like the infant kind? It’s like a dessert! Every time I used to give Ollie a dose, I’d have some too. And even Ollie’s baby gummi vitamins — wow — are they tasty! Whenever I give him one I take a few myself for good measure!
As a writer who attended a liberal arts school where I got to fulfill my science requirement with “Geology of the Hudson Valley” better known as “rocks for English majors,” I have grown quite fearful that the quantitative side of my brain is atrophying. That’s the right side of the sucker, the one I never ever use for anything except calculating the tip at restaurants.
They say speaking a foreign language comes from that end of our noggins, but these days I barely speak French with anyone, so even that portion may be giving up. Something must be done! I have been trying to add numbers without a calculator, the few times I ever have to do this, and it is so pathetically slow that I don’t think it’s helping a thing. But one thing I thought might help is taking up chess. I read this article about tiny little girls playing chess, which was so long regarded as a very very dorky boys “sport” and it kind of inspired me. If these Hannah Montanas could scream “check mate,” so could I!
So I bought this chess book for complete morons. Not “Chess for Idiots,” but chess for very very simpleminded idiots. It says things like, “that is your knight, do not call it the horsey.” It’s perfect for me! And along with this chess bible for fools, I also bought the coolest chess board I could find, designed my Michael Graves for Target. That’s right! Target. But that’s our little secret. Now I have the book, the cool board, and a hope that I might have two working sides of my brain in the future. And of course, my favorite chess piece is definitely the horsey.
I know I risk sounding like I belong in a Sunrise Senior Living community, but my heartburn is killin’ me! For the last week, I’ve been eating my way through Erie (upon buying seven loaves of pepperoni bread at the local bakery a clerk asked me, “So ma’am, you havin’ a party?” Um, yes, if a “party” can mean watching TV alone while ripping apart entire loaves with my bare hands…)
But honestly, heartburn is the ONE issue of pregnancy that really drives me crazy. I guess if having a ‘lil HB is my biggest gripe, I shouldn’t really be complaining, but I can’t help it, I am a whiner. I mean, for a gal like me that likes hot food such, this heartburn thing has really got me in a bind. I literally take two bites of anything spicy and I feel like someone has packed my chest with fireworks. Sriracha? In my dreams. Hot wings? Only if I’m feeling masochistic. Cholula-doused tacos? I may as well start flogging myself with a hickory stick and develop a taste for S&M. It’s baaad.
My only relief (and not much at that) is popping some Tums Smoothies. It’s funny, I haven’t taken a single one of these since I was pregnant with Ollie, but as soon as I hit 23 weeks, it was like clockwork that I needed to restock my supply and keep an economy size bottle in my purse with me at all times. And even though they don’t cure the burn 100%, at least the small chalky miracle tabs help me to be able to eat what I want to eat. (Which is pretty much EVERYTHING.)
Sometimes I can even trick myself into thinking Tums are candy and then I like them even more.
Sadly, instead of getting Grey’s olive skin tone, Ollie inherited my pale flesh that burns to a crisp after more than 30 seconds of sun exposure. Even though I have brown eyes and not red, I truly believe I may have albino blood in me, because any time I look remotely pigmented, I usually have doused myself in bronzer or self tanner. Grey, on the other hand, is regularly mistaken for a person of either Middle Eastern or Hispanic descent, because he has such a nice dark skin tone.
Consequently, for Ollie and I — sunblock in the summer (and actually all year) is a must. I learned my lesson a few years ago when a freckle appeared on my lower lip that worried everyone from my dentist to family doc. Fortunately, multiple derms have told me the large brown spot is just a freckle and I basically just need to resign myself to the fact that I will look like I have chocolate smeared on my mouth for the rest of my life. That’s fine with me; I figure wearing a little lipstick to cover up a mouth that looks like it has Three Musketeers all over it is way better than dealing with anything really serious.
But of course all this has made me totally paranoid about greasing Ollie up with SPF. And, as luck would have it, he absolutely HATES when I apply it. I mean, I’m talking full blown tantrums with tears and screaming as if I’m slathering him up with napalm, not sunblock. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even put it on him in public; I’m genuinely afraid someone will think I’m beating him and call social services. But hey, what can I do? So I just religiously douse him with my CA Babies and enjoy the sunshine!
If you look closely, you can see my rogue lip freckle. Usually, I Photoshop it away (along with bags under my eyes, neck wrinkles, brown roots, and crow's feet but I felt like taking a walk on the wild side today)
My two allergies in life are cats and dust. I honestly can’t be in the same room with a cat without my entire body starting to itch and my eyes burning in a way that makes me want to scratch them out. Maybe this is why I hate cats — or maybe it’s because they shit in a box in people’s houses and then walk on the kitchen table, I don’t know. Either way, cats blow.
The only thing worse than a cat is a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. I hate those too. And, after that, is dust, because it gives me the same awful sneezy, sniffly reaction that a cat does, but at least I can’t go to jail for hurting it.
Since we’ve been unpacking boxes (does it ever end???) my allergies have been out of control due to all the dust. I mean, I don’t even look like the same person because my eyes are swollen to little slits and my face is puffy. I actually kind of look like Sylvester Stallone when he fights the big bad Russian blonde dude in Rocky IV — or maybe even that kid who play’s Cher’s son in that movie The Mask. Either way, not pretty.
Long story short, I had resigned myself to a few weeks of out of control allergies because I figured I couldn’t take any medicine since I’m pregnant, but I just remembered prego gals can pop Zyrtec safely. I took one earlier and — finally — I’m back to normal.
This weekend definitely goes down as one of the most relaxing I have had in recent history. No booze, zero going out (except for a daytime outing to see the tweentastic movie, Eclipse), lots of sleep and a lot of housekeeping. What made the weekend even better was that I have a new mattress, courtesy of my wonderful colleague, Kelly.
Now we’re not talking any mattress here. This is one of those foam situations where the girl in the commercial jumps on it while a vat of red wine stays unmoving on the bed. Really, I’ve been sold since those commercials but wasn’t able to buy an affordable one until Kelly said adieu to hers. While I haven’t surrounded myself with large glasses of merlot and done the lambada on my bed yet, I do think I’m sleeping better.
Something that comes with this deep slumber are more vivid dreams. For instance, last night I dreamt that Apolo Ohno and I were best friends and that someone was trying to murder him. They just couldn’t kill him, until the end when they covered him in gun powder and then lit him on fire. This part was actually really traumatizing and I woke up sweating and panicked.
But not all my dreams have been that scary. Since getting my new mattress, I have had a lot more celebs in my dreams and have really remembered them in more detail. So either the tempur-pedic is made of LSD, or I’m just sleeping deeper and dreaming bigger!
Look at how darn happy this couple is on their firm foam bed! I think I will make Craig sleep in that position from now on, complete with huge grins on our faces.
Somehow summer just keeps roaring by and I just realized that Craig and I are leaving for India and Nepal in two weeks! While I spent a great deal of time buying a jaunty outdoors wardrobe from Patagonia and LL Bean, I sort of forgot to do the more important things like, oh you know, get my visas so I can enter the aforementioned nations. I also realized the other day that I’m not just jetting off to Milwaukee, but halfway around the world and I might need a few vaccinations before I go. You know, so I don’t come back with one leg and half a liver.
Luckily, my doctor’s office has this amazing travel nurse who will check all health advisors and epidemics in the country your traveling to and inoculate you appropriately. So in I skipped today to assure that my vacation can be a vacation and not just lots of exposure to disease.
The last time I got major vaccinations it was much less fun. In fact, it was extremely traumatizing. I was living in Hong Kong at the time and the reason I went to the doctor was not even to get a vaccine, but because I was convinced I had an alien trapped in my brain. I just woke up one morning and there was an enormous bump on my forehead. Like half an orange had been shimmied under my flesh and was taking residence on my face.
I lost my mind. I screamed so much that my then boyfriend threw me over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes. Then, in the elevator to my doctor’s office some British douche bag looked at me and said “oh, an alien of the third kind.” I of course started to cry hysterically and the whole doctor’s visit was one big hysterical mess. But at the end of it all, I was able to mutter that I was leaving in Mongolia in a few weeks and I was poked and prodded with vaccinations against every disease on earth.
So this time, it was a tad less dramatic and I managed to not shed a tear as Nurse Lori saved me from a future of polio! Three cheers for modern medicine.
I swear, the bump was this big. It was like a pitcher's mound on my face. Oh, and the life size monkey is just a bonus.
I have this thing about Amish people: they scare me. I think it all goes back to a newspaper article I read like 15 years ago. It was about an Amish man that butchered his entire family and hung them up in his wood shed as if they were slaughtered deer. This is no joke, but literally the stuff of nightmares. So every time I see an Amish person, I have this terrible habit of picturing them gutting me for my hide — all from this one isolated incident. I know, it’s not fair or rational, but neither is my fear of their beards, but what can I do?
However, Karin’s post about the Pennsylvania Dutch the other day reminded me of the one reason I love the Amish — the Lemonade Fast. Have you ever done it before? I’ve noticed that in talking around, about one in five people I know have done this strange, semi-torturous cleanse. In fact, it’s known to most as “The Master Cleanser” and there’s even a small, ghetto book/pamphlet you can purchase about it, but I can sum it up for you in eight words: Drink lemonade and shit your way to health. It’s that easy.
While I would never do this cleanse (or any fast) while pregnant, I am considering doing it after I pop this ‘lil turkey out. Of course, I couldn’t do it breastfeeding either, so I’ll have to close up shop on my udders (err, boobs) so it’ll probably be a few months after the baby is born before I could even consider it, but it’s a great way to ride yourself of toxins while also losing some weight.
I’ve done several versions of the Lemonade Fast. The most memorable, was the Amish kind, where all my college roommate, Kate, and I ate for like seven days (not counting the peanut butter I scarfed with my fingers out of the jar as if it was poi in a moment of weakness) was lemon juice mixed with maple syrup, water, and cayenne pepper. We also consumed some crazy herbal fiber blends and bentonite clay that we picked up from this Amish farm outside of State College in Pennsylvania. I’ll never forget tearing into the parking lot in Kate’s Saab convertible and skidding to a dusty halt not two inches away from busting through the Amish family’s barn. They cursed us “city folk” for our recklessness and couldn’t sell us our shitting tonic fast enough, but I was just happy to escape with my life!
Kate and I: Partners in Poo
Amish people scare me more than clowns. But I defied this fear in order to purchase their cleansing potions.
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