At the park on Wednesday, Clara wanted me to give her underdogs. I've been doing the underdogs throughout my pregnancy: grasping the back of Clara's kiddie swing, thundering across the beauty bark, heaving her little body skyward. I move much slower and jerkier than the swing, and when I release it at the top of the arc, it is always with my last wheezing, pain-wrought harrumph, a moan sent heaven-ward, the final plea for deliverance.
But on Wednesday, at five and a half months pregnant, I decided I just couldn't do it anymore. My belly has popped in the last couple weeks. On top of which, Wilbur ran off at the dog park last Sunday and chasing him strained some of the round ligaments in my groin.
Even just looking at the swings, I could feel my face scowling in pain and annoyance.
"Mommy, pleeeeassseee do under-doggie," Clara begged after I told her I couldn't.
"I can't, my belly hurts. The baby in my belly is getting too big," I said. "But I will just push you."
Clara thought about this. "Okay, Mommy. I will take the baby out your belly. You...he... just wait patiently. Awight? He be patient. Then do underdogs! Then okay, okay! I put him back in." She cupped her palms as if she were holding a tiny baby and pretended to kiss him.
"If only it were that simple," I sighed.
Due to my exhausted state, I only planned for us to stay at the park for a half hour or so. But when I tried to put Clara back into her carseat, she burst into tears. It was a gloriously beautiful day outside.
"Okay," I said, feeling the acid solution of mother guilt wash over me. "Do you want to see a duck pond?"
We walked to the pond behind Camel's Back hill. Clara crouched on the bank, dipping her toes in the water.
"Hey, duck! Here, duckie! I have a bone for you!" she called. Understandably, no ducks appeared.
On the way back to our car, Clara took a detour up a sandbank. She came barreling down, lost her balance and fell on her face. She wasn't hurt; she stood up and smiled at me, her teeth and lips coated with sand.
"Spit," I instructed, handing her her sippy cup to rinse out her mouth.
Back on the trail, she walked a few dozen yards and then crouched in the dirt. Her legs and skirt were filthy, and little crescents of mud outlined the corners of her mouth.
"Mommy, my lips are tired," she moaned.
"I think maybe your legs are tired and your lips are dirty," I suggested.
"Mommy, I need huggie."
"Okay, I will carry you to the next shade, okay?"
I wiped her mouth and gave her a drink. She rested in my arms, limp and sweaty. Her sippie cup made strange wheezing sounds while she drank noisily from it, and she sighed with extra gusto, as if she had just crossed the Sahara.
My hips hurt. My arms were tired. To keep myself moving, I pretended I was a pregnant homesteader, out on the prairie, pushing the plow because my husband had lockjaw and Pa was feeling poorly, too. If I could just make it to the end of the row, there would be a big cool jug of water, sweetened with molasses. (Though in retrospect, that sounds kind of gross.)
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My grumpiness hit new lows yesterday, when I could not even muster the energy to speak much in the car on the way to work. My pregnant body buzzing with hormones, I hadn't been able to fall asleep until about 1:30 the night before. And then Clara woke at 3:40 am, hollering because she couldn't find her sippie cup in the tangle of blankets on her bed. I'd gone in to soothe her and find her sippie cup, but it eluded me, too. So I had to go downstairs and wash one. It wasn't the one she wanted, and she was so distressed and disoriented with sleep I finally went back down and found the one she was asking for.
"Mommy, why not talking?" Clara asked from her carseat. "Mommy, talk to Clara!"
"I'm sorry, Clara. Mommy is feeling really, really tired today. And when I feel really, really tired, it makes me grumpy. And when I'm grumpy, I don't like to talk. But it's not your fault. I just feel tired because growing a baby in my tummy is hard work."
"Oh, Mommy. Just need a Band-aid."
"A Band-aid? But where shall I put it?"
"Ummmm...on your belly!" And she smiled winsomely.
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