From the Archives: Looking forward to a time in the not so distant future when my thighs no longer rub together

 Hello, friends. We are traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday and then catching up from traveling, so I am posting a favorite post from the first 8 years of Harry Times in my absence.

This post was originally published on Friday, February 8, 2013

As I type this, the elastic sleeves of the summer dress I have stretched across my body and paired with maternity skinny jeans that have just about lost their will to stay up over my belly mound are cutting into my massive upper arms, reminding me that I should rummage through my closet for a sweater that looks like it might still button over me to hide my arms before I leave the house.

 If I leave the house.

(Not that I will button the sweater, but it has to look like I can if I wanted to.)

Yesterday, the chafe marks from my tights lasted for hours after I changed into yoga pants and a nursing tank (looked as dreamy as it sounds).

On the up side, my chocolate chip cookie craving has subsided, and I cannot stop eating salad-- two big tubs of Earthbound Farms organic spring mix this week by myself.

This morning, we blew up the bouncy house before school

Ben spent a refreshing 45 minutes shoveling the driveway AGAIN after shoveling it last night because it won't! stop! snowing! here.

Cooper was unsupervised long enough to go into the boys' room, get this stool, bring it back to the family room, set it up, and climb.  But the joke's on you, baby, because that dimmer switch doesn't do ANYTHING.  I seriously don't know why we have it on the wall, and I met with the electrician about switches, that I do remember.

Harry did 100 jumping jacks and then some sit ups.

There was much wrestling

They really wanted to sit on it while I unplugged it, just like they do with the air track at Little Gym.  Whatever.

The other day in my rhetoric of reproductive rights class, we were reading about the Voluntary Motherhood movement at the end of the 19th century, and a lot of the rhetoric of that time exalting motherhood (for middle class white women) sounded to me like the mommy wars rhetoric of today, so I asked my class about it.  This turned into a fascinating discussion about childcare situations/SAH parents from their own lives.  Right after a student talked about always being the last kid picked up at daycare and having all of her earliest memories set in a child care center-- which she loved and credited for her own outgoing personality-- another student made a comment about having a SAH wife because he didn't want to drop his kid off at daycare for someone else to raise where they would probably only change the baby's diaper five minutes before he got picked up to look like he was being taken care of all day.  To ease the tension, I said that my own baby would probably be changed MORE OFTEN at a daycare center than he is by me and and Ben.  He'd probably be learning stuff there, too.  

At home with us (Ben 2.5 days and me 2.5 days), he hangs out in his PJs, is rarely changed if he's not poopy, and plays by himself an impressive amount of time.  Today he read himself a pile of books-- "This?" he asked himself on each page and answered "This!"-- and sang along to his Sesame Street alphabet bus, for example.

He also drinks coffee.

And about 10:45 every morning, he passes out wherever he is.  On the couch enjoying chips and salsa with Ben, sitting up against my ginormous belly while we both lay on the floor and read, or in a pile of chaos of his own making.  We can only let him sleep for a few minutes because we'd rather eat our own arms than screw up his one and only nap (i.e. the only chance I ever have to work out and take a shower), but it's one of my favorite parts of the morning.

I also love when I tell him it's time to go get Jack right before lunch, and he drops what he's doing and runs up the stairs.  Today, I had to wear him the Ergo because the city didn't plow the crosswalks and curbs going to school (WTF, city?  Our snow removal has been so bad this year that I am going to VOTE REPUBLICAN rather than re-elect this mayor).  He liked it, but it killed my back.

Now Jack is back in the bouncy house, and Cooper is still wearing his pajamas, and I might not even change him when he gets up from his nap.