Trip to Kansas City: Day 2

We originally weren’t sure what else we wanted to see in Kansas City.  I had talked to a couple friends from church who have lived in Kansas City and people who have been there before and the general consensus was there is not much “must-see” sites there.  But, of course, I refused to go to Kansas City and not see it (of course, we never made it over to Kansas, actually, but we did see Kansas City, MO).  So, after scouring tour books and the internet, I think we had a great day in Kansas City.

We left the hotel and drove downtown along kind of an alternate route (fearing some heard-of construction), but it drove us right along the river and then straight into downtown and it was pretty scenic.  Kansas City seemed to have a nice downtown.  Both Detroit and St. Louis kind of have a dead downtown.  St. Louis has some nice parts, of course, but most of the city itself just seems like miles and miles of … nothing.  And Detroit really is dead.  But Kansas City seemed to have a nice vibe to it.  Surprisingly, Kansas City has tons of fountains (I think second only to somewhere in Italy) and we kept our eyes peeled – there were a lot of nice fountains.  Some of the architecture was really nice, too.  I especially liked the convention center and Union Station.  We got a lot of nice pictures of the city later.

We stopped first at the National World War I Museum.  I was a bit skeptical at first – no one I know had been there.  And why in Kansas City?  But I had recently read Fall of Giants by Ken Follett about the first world war, so it has been on my mind.  And I’m a sucker for museums.  So, we decided to try it out.  It was great.  There is a very large monument there.  Apparently, it was built shortly after WWI because KC residents raised $2.5 mil in just 10 days in 1919 to put it up – that to me is astounding.  So, that is why it is in KC.  Recently, the WW1 museum was built below the monument and the monument was restored.  So, the museum is really new and really nice. 

First, we explored the grounds until the museum opened.  They had a film and then the exhibits.  On one half of the museum, the side of the exhibits showed examples of trenches from the different countries and you could peek in.  The boys LOVED the trenches.  In fact, today they played war all day and built their own trenches (I am not so sure how I feel about that).  The whole time we were wandering around the museum Andrew kept saying “It’s so sad that all these people were killed”, so at least he gets that perspective of war, too.  They also had really high tech exhibits.  The boys loved parts that had holograms or moving pictures or the area where you could use little light clickers to move things around on the screen and learn about the war.  You should have seen the propaganda poster that  Andrew made – the busiest thing ever.

Afterwards, we took an elevator and then climbed the last 45 steps up to the top of the memorial to see the views of KC (shown before).  Me and the boys were a little scared of the wind – it felt so exposed – so Katsu stuck around a little longer by himself and took some pictures.

Afterwards, we went to Crown Centre, a nearby mall, that seemed like it had some fun stuff to see and was most importantly indoors.  We arrived just in time to see the puppet show.

Then, I had read about the coolest restaurant to eat, Fritz Railroad restaurant.  To reduce staffing needs, the owner developed a little train that actually brings the food directly to your table.  I knew it was a must.  The food is the typical burger fare – pretty small servings, but very cheap, and the line was pretty long, but it moved fast.  The boys got railroad caps, and loved watching the trains – both the ones that deliver the food, and the model trains that run around the restaurant.  You even order your food by telephone.  It was fun!

Luckily, the mall is connected in the air by walkways to Union Station, so we decided to check it out.  We wanted Seth to fall asleep in his stroller, but he wanted to run.  We finally acquiesed.  The boys loved running around.  But they also loved the train exhibit there about Union Station when it was really up and running – it kind of reminded me of St. Louis’ transportation museum, but indoors.  And they really loved the model train exhibit – best part, they were both free.

We “ran” (okay, mostly just Seth, and then Andrew & Katsu when they were running to the bathroom) back to the mall and tried some ice cream concrete (yummy!) while watching some fountains and explored a Rainforest exploration exhibit (way too crowded) and watched fudge being made and got some licks off the spoon.  Then, we went to the Hallmark Visitor’s Center (the headquarters are also at the mall).  The boys liked watching how embossed cards are made, stamping passports at each of the 6 stations, and seeing bows being made (and getting their own).  We even got a Hallmark book free to bring home.  At this point we were tired, so we headed back to the hotel, the boys took a nap on the way home, and then we relaxed, went to eat at Olive Garden (needed something less greasy), and spent time at the pool before going to bed.  Katsu mostly dealt with the boys – I think I overextended myself a little bit and was either having stomach cramps or contractions.  But after water and resting, I felt much better.   We went to bed with the boys on this trip – late for them, but early for us, so we were sleeping 10 hours a night!  What a relaxing trip.

Trip to Kansas City: Day 1

We took a quick little trip to Kansas City this last weekend.  Katsu has spent the last couple months working like a maniac on grants.  Just when I finished my PhD and stopped working at nights, Katsu has been staying up to 12 or later almost every night.  One night, he worked his full 8+ hour work day and then worked again from 8p-4a at home on his grants.  Insane.  Anyways, we needed to get out of town for a bit and we can’t afford much more than a weekend road trip. 

Plus, it has been HOT here (and the whole rest of the country I know), but seriously, we are starting our second week on a excessive heat advisory because everyday our heat index is 105-115.  And seeing that our actual temperature almost never hits 100, the humidity is BAD.  Very bad.  Very bad for pregnant lazy me who is already tired always.  We basically have been house hermits.  So, while we stayed indoors as much as possible on our trip (it’s hot in Kansas City, too), it was nice to have a change of scenery.

To the trip:

The kids woke up early, so we were on the road by about 7:40 am and drove pretty much straight through to Independence.  We stopped and ate at Gates BBQ, KC is well known for BBQ.  The food was very good – I liked it much better than the last bbq place I went to in Texas.  The meat was much less sauced, less sweet, and less fatty.  The kids weren’t too impressed with the food (the sausage especially was too spicy), but liked the fries and ate some of the sandwiches.  The main problem was the dining area did not appear to be airconditioned and it was HOT.  I was starting to go a little crazy at the end.

Then, we went to Truman’s Presidential Museum.  I did not know much about Truman before visiting the museum, and like all the presidential museums I have been to, I really liked it.  Truman really seemed like a guy who just feel into being the president (the president FDR died, so he as vice president became president; but seriously, he had only met with the president 2 times before the president died!).  And he had hard decisions to make – bombing of Hiroshima, how to end and ease out of WWII without killing the economy, the cold war, lots of stuff.  He had a ton of great ideas, which unfortunately didn’t all get implemented.  He even wanted national health care as part of the end of WWII Fair Deal.  Too bad that didn’t go through.  Anyways, we loved the museum.  The kids did really well.  There were lots of headsets where you could listen to people from the time talking about the time period or speeches or stuff like that.  The kids loved it.  The downstairs also had more kid-oriented activities like making campaign buttons.  It was a lot of fun.

Next, we went to the Community of Christ temple.  They were having an organ recital at 3:30 that we thought might be nice.  We toured the temple first (way smaller than I remember as a kid), and then were the only guests for the organ recital.  The organist talked to us for awhile and then played away.  The organ is very nice and definitely the most impressive part of the temple.  Afterwards, she let the boys come up and see how the organ works and all the different stops and pedals and registers.  The boys were pretty fascinated with it.  Then, we took a few quick pictures outside in the blazing heat.

Next, we went to see the temple lot.  Pretty small and anticlimatic, but I had read online that if you go the Church of Christ (temple lot), you can see the original corner stones, so we went in for the tour.  Kudos to this church for having toys for kids to play with while we got the whole spiel.  There was already a couple there before us, and I think the tour guide person was kind of antagonistic to them, because he kept saying “Well, if you read in the Bible and Book of Mormon, you will see that this is really true …”.  I actually thought this church was WAY more consistent than the Community of Christ.  But pretty much, they are a pretty tiny church with the main claim to fame that they own the temple lot and the cornerstones.

Then, we finally went to our church’s visitor center.  I really liked the displays at the top – the kids loved the videos you could select and watch from the Book of Mormon – and I had never seen them either.  I thought they were well done.  Downstairs, though, we had to take a guided tour, typical to most church history sites – talk a bit and watch a little video, “How did that make you feel”, awkward pause, continue to the next station.  The kids were loud and didn’t want to sit still and honestly, I only heard about half of it.  I was really surprised about the lack of history that they told about the church members in Independence (granted they were only there for like 2 years) and also how much they downplayed the physical concept of Zion (especially considering that at least as I understand it, this site is supposed to be Zion and the New Jerusalem).  But thankfully, they had a really area for the kids to play at the end – hooray!  And they had a “good” brochure to show were all the other church sites were.

 

The boys both fell asleep in the car, even though it was like 5:30 pm, sigh.  We found a Little Ceasars for pizza for our movie night (after quite a bit of being lost) and then headed to Liberty where our hotel was.  I found the best hotel and we even had a gift card we got for using our credit card during Christmas for a hotel that helped defray part of the cost.  It had an indoor water park.  A small one, but still WAY better than an outdoor pool and better than an indoor pool.  It had one slide that only Katsu could go on – boy it went fast – I was afraid he would fly out and he splashed water everywhere when he went down.  But there was a little kid slide and also things that were spraying water everywhere (the kids actually weren’t too fond of that).  That area was only 1 foot deep – hooray!  And the rest was only 3 foot deep, so it was really easy to watch the boys in.  And the décor was cute.  The water was a little cold (Seth’s lips kept turning blue), but the boys loved it and we went swimming on each of the 3 days.  The room was nice, too.  We had a king bed with a foldout couch and the boys slept on that and it worked really well.  It was really nice, classy décor.  And the shower, wow – instead of Miami which just had a swinging door, this shower had NO door.  Seriously, it just kind of turned a corner and that was it.  But, it was really nice.  Better than the cheapest-hotel-we-could-find that we usually stay in.  It was a fun, but hot day.

Whoops–Seth’s pictures

Okay, I am seriously having issues.  Some pictures of Seth.

Seth is 2 years, 1 month

 

Another busy month and it’s so hard being two!  Seth is really having a lot of meltdowns lately.  I think it is partially because he is teething his 2-yr old molars (although, knowing him they will take FOREVER to come in … we still can’t see them yet).  He is always chewing on his fingers or whatever he can find or trying to play with his gums and will ask for medicine when it really hurts.  Poor thing.  So, he is regularly having fits when things don’t go the way he wants.  It’s hard to watch, poor guy.  And he wants to do EVERYTHING himself.  “I do it” is his most common refrain.  If only he could do everything he wanted.

We are trying potty training.  Sort of.  I have been so exhausted this pregnancy and so scatter-brained, I am having a hard time getting motivated to do it.  Seth loves wearing underwear.  And he will do well for a stretch here or there, but then he will just pee through every single pair he owns in a few hours and I lose my zeal for it.  He really is motivated, but I’m not sure he’s quite there in ability.  He loves sitting on the potty (though if he doesn’t have to go, he does NOT want to linger … seriously, he’ll try for like 5 seconds).  He practically gets jealous every time we go to the bathroom and wants to go, too.  Maybe I’ll have more to report next month.

Every month Seth gets more and more into sports.  It is really unbelievable.  He is now obsessed with baseball.  He wants to wear his Red Sox hat continually.  He wants to check out all the Cardinals board books at the library.  And he wants to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” all the time.  He knows almost all the words.  Every time he sees something with a baseball, he will shout Ball Game.  Of course, he really loves all the sports.  He only wants to wear soccer or baseball or football clothes.  There are many many fits thrown over clothes.  Many.

Seth still copies Andrew in everything.  They are best buddies most of the time – the rest of the time they fight.  He repeats a good chunk of what Andrew says, but I think it is because he is making him so verbal.  He talks a lot and very well.  He always loves to say that he is two and his name is Seth.  He loves Andrew so much.  Whenever Andrew is gone somewhere, Seth asks where he is.  Before he will ask where either one of us are. 

Seth seems to just be getting a bigger appetite and appears to be growing.  He was over 26 lbs on the scale today!  Granted, that may be from our trip and eating all kinds of junk food, but still.

Seth thankfully still takes naps and I have a feeling he will for longer than Andrew did.  He falls asleep sitting up on the couch while we read books, within 10-15 minutes of starting if it is in his "nap time”, which anytime between 11:30-1:30.  He doesn’t nap for long, usually an hour, but he also doesn’t sleep a whole 12 hours at night because he takes SO long to fall asleep.  He just doesn’t want to miss anything and was very stubborn about taking naps on our trip.

Seth has SO MUCH ENERGY.  Andrew always wants to ride in the stroller, but Seth will cry and wants to get out and run.  He runs all the time.  Everywhere.  Non-stop.  People always comment on how much he runs, usually because he is always running way out in front of me.  At least he listens when I say “stop”, well, usually.

Fun Things This Month:

- A drums of Africa presentation and also Mr. Saxophone at the History museum.  Seth seem pretty non-plussed about the shows.  I think he was especially tired during Mr. Saxophone and just didn’t want to dance.  Not as good as Babaloo for Seth.

- Juggling Jeff at the library.  Seth loves it and juggling in general.  He is always trying to juggle, but sometimes with things like butter knives which makes me nervous.

- Fourth of July Veiled Prophet parade with the family.  It was hot!  But the kids got lots of candy (especially with the help of the kind people standing by).  Seth got a little bored near the end, so we went to a splash park, but he wasn’t too interested in playing, especially after he peed in his swim diaper.  He just couldn’t stand having a “wet” diaper on.

- Grill party for the 4th at a friend from Andrew preschool’s house.  Seth had a blast playing in the backyard with water and especially chasing frogs around the yard.  Little boy heaven – I can’t wait till we have a yard.

- Swimming on the 4th at a ward member’s house.  Seth is really loving swimming this summer.  He played ball, was all around the pool, and just had the time of his life.  Picked berries in their garden, had a nice FHE with the missionaries in a seriously posh house.  It was fun.

- Lots of fun park days with the playgroup at church I am running this summer.

- Visiting the Transportation museum with Dad!  They loved looking at the trains, taking a guided tour of one of them, and even riding a tram and train!  They braved the heat to do it.

- Very hot summer days, so we have spent lots of time indoors building forts.  And planning music.  And otherwise, driving each other crazy.

- A day at the Science Center.  Seth loves visiting, especially seeing the Dinosaur (which he is still scared of), running around the corridor from the Planetarium, and playing with the Arch.  The boys wanted to build the arches over and over.

- Watching his first movie in a movie theater (I think).  It was so hot, so we went to “How to Train Your Dragon” for free.  Seth was pretty quiet / transfixed, until the end, when he got a little bored and was ready to go.  The boys liked pretending to play the arcade games beforehand the best.

- Zoo with Mom and Dad!  Seth enjoyed petting the sting rays (the main reason we came) and loved playing at the Children’s Zoo.  We even saw a children’s animal show there – the first time we had seen one.  Seth thought the rats running across the stage were pretty cool.  Seth really likes to see the penguins and the butterflies at the butterfly house at the zoo.

- Two puppet shows.  One at the library.  And one at the mall in Kansas City on our trip.  Seth generally likes puppet shows, but sometimes has a hard time sitting still.

- Our trip to Kansas City!  Seth loved swimming the most at the hotel pool/waterpark and requested going so much.  He enjoyed the audio headsets at the Truman museum.  He was pretty non-interested in the church sites, though he thought the lady showing him the organ at the Community of Christ temple was pretty cool.  And he was excited to see Liberty Jail – he said that Joseph Smith and bad people didn’t like him and hit him.  He loved the train related stuff we saw at Union Station and especially eating at Fritz and waiting to see when the train would bring our food.  He really liked looking into the trenches at the World War I museum.  He liked stamping his passport anywhere at the Hallmark museum and seeing his bow being made.  And of course, he loved running anywhere he could.

Happy month Seth!

Veiled Prophet Parade

St Louis Magazine took a pic of us at the Veiled Prophet parade.  Not too bad.

We had fun!

Andrew is 4 years 2 months old!

Andrew doesn’t change as much month to month as he used to, but there are always things I forget to write.  So, some random things about Andrew.

Andrew loves to make up words.  He has been doing this as long as I can remember.  He makes up crazy names for himself and Seth, for weird stunts that he is doing.  Or sometimes he just likes to talk in some weird language.  It drives me crazy sometimes, especially when Seth starts repeating it.  Sometimes, he’ll say things like that in public, too, and I think it weirds the other kids out.

Andrew is really into music.  He loves watching America’s got talent.  But he also wants to listen to the radio all the time, now.  He sings along to some many songs.  I am getting a little worried about the lyrics and am not sure what to do about giving him cool enough music to sing and dance to without bad lyrics.  I was completely and totally shocked when in the last week we were listening to the radio and he said, “This sounds like Lady Gaga”.  I have no idea where that came from.

I have thought about starting him in dance or gymnastics because he is always spending all his time performing.  I am trying to decide if it is worth spending the money (not like we really have any extra) and it is worth the extra stress, especially with a new baby coming.  But after this year, he will be in school all day and so much busier, so I am conflicted.  But, I swear, he spends like 50% of his day making up “shows”.  There are ball shows and dancing shows and singing shows and tumbling shows. 

He was talking to a grandmotherly-type at the grocery store this week and told her that he loves to do shows – she probably thinks I am one of those show moms.  Yeah, right.  But she taught him a joke and he has been spouting it and trying to expand it all week.  It sure beats the “jokes” he has been telling for the last few months that all seem to go something like this, “Have you ever seen a dog in the refrigerator?”.  Yeah, basically ridiculous statements with no punch lines.

Andrew is eating like no other lately.  He just seems to consume everything in front of him.  He is a slow eater – he is always the last done at the table, by like 30 minutes!  But he can eat as much as me and Katsu sometimes.  He likes many things, but does not like: tofu, some chicken, tomatoes (though he likes tomato-based sauces), greens, eggplant, quite a few vegetables, bananas.  His favorite food is probably rice and chips and berries.

It’s always surprising to me how much kids seem to soak up.  I have explicitly taught Andrew very little.  Mostly my philosophy on young children is: read a lot, go fun places, play a lot, go outside often, get them to play by themselves.  But he seems to have absorbed all his ABCS – I think he knows most of the lower case ones, now, too.  And he knows some sounds.  His writing is still almost non-existent, so I should probably work on that with him, though I know they will probably at preschool this year, maybe – I mean, they are play-based (thank heavens).  But his vocabulary is always astounding me.  Like how does he know some of these things, like what a crew is or a butter churn.  I guess that is what reading does to you.

Andrew is none so fond of church.  Every Sunday he tries to convince me of how sick he is so that he can stay home.  He likes it when we come home, but he really hates sacrament meeting and sharing time/music time.  I feel bad for him because it is long and boring, very long and boring for a 4 year old.  And I’m in Primary, so I can see that all the Sunbeams are really just in la-la land.  But Andrew does seem to be learning the Primary songs and actually takes great pride in that and loves when he hears them on the CD.  And he loves to correct Seth about songs that only he knows because they don’t teach them in nursery.  He loves learning the gospel in the home and really enjoys talking about church stuff, doing his board set, and reading them Stories from the Book of Mormon set of books we have.  Just this week or so, he was talking about the resurrection and about whether he would die again after he was resurrected (I think he is still a little vague about not having multiple lives).  Then, he was concerned that he would be resurrected into the wrong body – like it might look like Seth’s.  Funny boy – really surprising what kids think up.

Fun Things This Month:

- Summer reading program at the libraries (yes, we did two again this year).  Andrew has really enjoyed the prizes (especially food from Sonic) and even won the raffle for Cardinals tickets.  Now, we just need to pick out a date to go.

- Hiking at Mastodon State Park for fossil day.  Andrew loved trying to dig out fossils with the hammer – I hinted toward a rock that I thought had some and he was so proud of himself!  They were pretty tired by the time we finished with our hike at the other park, but perked up when we went and got ice cream at the historic Kimmswick.  Then, crazy me, after getting a little lost, we went and registered at Babies R Us (for the free gift card).  I guess I should check the registry sometime because the boys wanted to register for anything with cars on them and lots of toys.

- Enjoying lots of movie nights watching America’s Got Talent.  Andrew is absolutely transfixed.  His shows are now including lots of magician acts (usually turning his doll into various stuffed animals) and lots of disclaimers like “Don’t try this at home.  It is very dangerous.  Seth could die.”

- Seeing a really fun local musician Babaloo – Andrew loved it!  Of course, he loved sitting next to a friend from the ward and soaking up the attention of the older girls.

- Swim birthday party for a new kid in the ward.  Andrew is always the life of the party.  He has been kind of skeptical of the new kids moving into our ward (Seriously, there are now like 5 or 6 boys in his sunbeam class – granted, they all live 20 minutes away at least, but still).  But I think he is starting to like them.

- Eating at the favorite Chinese Buffet.  And by special request we went to another Chinese buffet this weekend – Andrew basically associates “day with Dad” to mean “eating Chinese food”.  He is in love with the stuff.

- Silver Dollar City with Grandpa and Grandma.  Andrew had a blast, of course, though I think the heat and some illness wore him out.  He came home one evening and was throwing up some, poor kid.  He loved riding the rides (though he will tell anyone that he will not ride the roller coaster because he rode it before and it made his head hurt).  He enjoyed the shows mostly (I think the boys were both a bit unsure about the Saloon show).  He even rode the water ride (a river raft ride) with Katsu twice – he loved the first time, not so much the second time when he got really wet.  But most of all, he loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa.

- A drums of Africa presentation at the History museum.  Andrew was unhappy that he couldn’t see well because there was no stadium seating.

- Juggling Jeff at the library was LOVED by Andrew, especially when they did dangerous juggling with knives (I was a bit more worried about that).  He wants to know when he can juggle knives!

- Fourth of July Veiled Prophet parade with the family.  It was hot!  But the kids got lots of candy (especially with the help of the kind people standing by Andrew).  Andrew insisted on watching the entire thing, even though it was 2 hours long and we were again standing right next to the splash park.  He played a bit in the splash park afterwards and loved the train ride home, of course.

- Grill party for the 4th at a friend from preschool’s house.  Andrew had a blast playing in the backyard with water and especially chasing frogs around the yard.  Little boy heaven – I can’t wait till we have a yard.

- Swimming on the 4th at a ward member’s house.  The missionaries were there (they live at the member’s house) and Andrew is just in love with them.  He played ball, was all around the pool, and just had the time of his life.  Picked berries in their garden, had a nice FHE with the missionaries in a seriously posh house.  It was fun.

- Lots of fun park days with the playgroup at church I am running this summer.

- Visiting the Transportation museum with Dad!  They loved looking at the trains, taking a guided tour of one of them, and even riding a tram and train!  They braved the heat to do it.

Whew!  And I thought we had been having a lazy summer.  Maybe not so much!

Pregnancy Update

Well, I haven’t said pretty much anything about this pregnancy, so I guess it’s time for an update.

Everything is fine and the baby boy (at least according to the ultrasound; the tech seemed absolutely convinced, but I am never 100% convinced by any one tech or ultrasound) seems to be healthy, too.  I am 23 weeks along, though at my appointment this week I was measuring 25 weeks – I don’t know if I’ve ever measured big before, but I am hoping this baby isn’t large.  I like having small babies.

Note – the rest of this post is probably TMI but I do not care.  I am ready to complain!

Otherwise, I am completely tired and worn out of being pregnant and am ready to be done – and I still have almost 4 whole months left!  I always thought that my pregnancies were relatively easy affairs and I couldn’t complain too much about my maladies.  After all, I never (this pregnancy) or rarely (other pregnancies) throw up.  Of course, this doesn’t mean I don’t have morning sickness.  I had all day nausea for the entire first trimester.  I just am not a thrower-upper.  Although, it’s obviously that bad.  And eating does relieve it somewhat.  Which also leads me to gain way more weight than I want too … oh, well.

And all my kids have been healthy, I have never had any real problems, like gestational diabetes or preeclampsia or anything worriesome on an ultrasound.  Heck, my heartburn actually even seems to go away when I’m pregnant.  (Don’t feel too jealous, I have almost omnipresent heartburn when I am not pregnant, which of course, is a much larger percentage of my life).  I don’t really get cravings (except for cheese, pizza, dessert, and anything that generally packs on the pounds) or aversions or heightened sense of smell.  (In fact, I get a perpetual runny nose usually which blunts any sense of smell I may have had).  Of course, this and last pregnancy I have gotten a few headaches here and there and I seem to catch lots of colds which turn into sinus infections, but really nothing large.

But then, we get to the pain.  Yes, it deserves bold.  And somehow I think I should probably revision my definition of “easy” pregnancy to preclude everyday almost constant pain.  Thankfully, I have a pretty poor memory, so I can’t remember how much pain I had in previous pregnancies, but I know I had it with both.  But the pain this pregnancy must just blow the other two pregnancies out of the water.  You see, as soon as my body hits that “glorious” second trimester (and I swear, this time around, it was to the day), it starts to freak out.  “What – you’re pregnant!  What are you thinking!?!  This is awful!?!  What are you doing to my poor pelvis?!?”.  And the pain begins.

I didn’t used to differentiate between pain much.  With Andrew, I thought it was round ligament pain.  In fact, in reference, I just looked up “What to expect when you’re expecting” and there actually is NO reference to pelvic pain (but other really compelling ones, like hand pain???), so how was I supposed to know the difference.  When I brought the pain up this time, my practitioner said that it was just round ligament pain.  With Seth, they said it just must be my “special pregnancy pain”, unique to me, since I get it every time.  Well, I get round ligament pain, too – the sideways sharp pains around your abdomen when you over-exert yourself a bit.  Yeah, those do not hold a candle to this pain.  And sciatic pain – yes, I get that, too.  And sometimes it stinks because I literally can not walk.  But thankfully, my sciatic pain is intermittent.

But let me tell you about my pelvic pain.  First, there is a dull, almost burning almost constant pain in my lower front pelvis.  Annoying, but usually not too worrisome because it is dull.  Then, there is the rest of the pain.  Why doesn’t the English language or lay medical terminology have enough words for pain?  Seriously.  Anyways, this pain is definitely more sharp.  In fact, last night I would have classified it a 8-9 on a 10 pt scale.  Yeah, in fact, right up there with contractions (although maybe not transition contractions).  In fact, the best way to describe this pain is to imagine someone taking all your pelvic muscles and ripping them to shreds.  Imagine how you shred meat or chicken, for a burrito or something.  Then, imagine that being done to your body.  Yes, it hurts.  Thankfully, this pain is not omnipresent.  And it is not always 8-9.  In fact, it starts quite low.  But this is when I do any pelvic movement.  Think, walking, climbing stairs, lifting up my leg, separating my legs.  Wait – in fact, that comprises almost all movement.  By jove, you’ve got it.  Literally, every step I take hurts.  But only moderately.  You want more pain, try putting on pants.  Or getting into the car.  But the very worst of the worst pain – rolling over in bed and getting off of a futon (though I’ve found I can mitigate most of the pain of getting off a futon through an elaborate procedure, first kneeling, then gradually pulling myself up to standing).  Literally, I was crying out in pain and almost in tears each time I tried to roll over in my sleep last night.  Poor Katsu.

Now, I know that all women complain about rolling over in bed and the pain of putting on pants, etc, as they grow bigger.  So, I always assumed that all women had some sort of version of my pains.  But I have gradually come to realize that this is not the case.  It is uncomfortable, awkward, difficult, but not so pain provoking that you are in tears and telling yourself never ever to get pregnant again.  And all at 5 months, when I am still not so big.

In fact, I for so long found it perplexing how so many people talked about glorious second trimesters, and trying to explain to people how I am actually in a fair bit of pain (I don’t want to make it sound too bad, in fact, in the mornings, I actually usually don’t feel too bad, but by evening, I just want to collapse on the couch and do nothing – of course, trying to find a way to collapse without actually causing pain is quite difficult).  “Pelvic pain – like contractions?”.  Um, no.  Because actually that is one thing I never get.  I have yet to have feelable contractions pre-Pitocin.  My body is just fun like that.

But after googling, I have found that I am in fact, not alone.  But the numbers are smaller (like 1 in 35 women perhaps) who have this pelvic pain.  It seems the pelvis separates too much making the whole thing somewhat unstable.  Which must be why I have never met a women who has this much pelvic pain in the second trimester (although many women do suffer from sciatica, which also stinks really really bad).  But it has been so nice to know that I am not crazy, even if my doctors and the pregnancy books don’t seem to know so much about it.  And at least it goes away after birth (at least for me).  Thank heavens.

And that, is how my pregnancy is going.  CAN NOT WAIT until it is done.