The Winter Doldrums

I'm kind of on autopilot lately.

1. I've started trying to lose weight again. It is such a tedious endeavor. I hate this cycle and I'm bitter that I wasn't just born skinny. On the first day or so of a weight-loss project, I always go through a bit of denial when my regular eating habits kick in. My stomach will think "time to dig into the candy I keep in my desk!" Then my mind will turn into the dour schoolmarm, reminding me that I can't. My stomach responds with "Wait-- you're not really doing this, are you? Come onnnn." And so it goes, back & forth, all day long. My stomach tries to convince me that I'm okay, that I really could live with this body, it's fine! (My stomach is apparently like a cool drug-pusher from an '80s TV movie of the week.)

But the truth is, I am uncomfortable. And my boobs are so big I'm almost embarrassed to leave the house. I caught my reflection last week when I was in a t-shirt and I literally did a double take. Oh, the humanity. They would be fine if I was a Hooters girl (although I doubt they'd want my big post-baby belly underneath), not so much for a high school teacher. So, I've gotta starve. And I miss running. I can't run when there's so much snow on the ground, because nobody plows their sidewalks and the streets are narrowed by snow and I'm not going to risk my life trying to run four inches from traffic. I have to figure out some kind of exercise. Bugh.

2. Nick is miserable at work. He hates his job. This puts me in an awkward position because I love my job, and we have the same job. At the same school. So I can't really talk to him about work, or else I'm sort of rubbing it in. I feel bad that I haven't been more sympathetic to him.

3. Sascha is going through another bad-sleep phase. I go to put her down and she screams bloody murder. The other night we went through almost two hours of this. Also, she wakes up crying in the middle of the night. And she never wants me, she wants Nick. But if it is me, I can't put her back down, or else she screams. Dude, I don't know. I'm just so tired.

4. My exhaustion and over-it-ness lately has had me reconsidering a second child. Part of it is that my siblings were just here visiting with their families, and there were seven kids running around (the oldest is four), and we are thisclose to having them all be old enough to be self-sufficient. Do I really want to throw myself back to square one? And as Sascha gets older, and the longer I go without being pregnant, the harder I think it's going to be. I am enjoying my life more now, even though I still fantasize about being able to go to Target without a time limit.

But I guess part of it is also the miscarriage. I guess it's left me feeling a little gun-shy. I'm nervous that it will happen again and I'm not sure I'm up for that. Actually, I'm more afraid of other women's stories happening to me: the D&Cs. The 17-week miscarriages. The still births. The woman whose baby died at 28 weeks and she had to be induced and give birth to it. I don't think I have a strong enough constitution for that level of hell. I don't even have a strong enough constitution to not eat cookies. (Lisa, now that I know you're reading this, help me out-- who is the author that wrote "cookies, I wish I could quit you"? Because I would love to steal that line but you would know better.)