And suddenly after working only a week, we got a week's vacation

Uh, Eid Mubarak folks!

It's a holiday in Islam where you eat a lot of stuff.  I think there's some religious reason behind it and I would TOTALLY wiki the crap out of it for you and maybe even give you a link, but the Archaeospawn is stretching in a weird way and at any moment I may leap from my bed into the bathroom to either pee, pass gas, or possibly have a nice sit on the toilet for no good reason whatsoever.  Or I may get half way there and decide I need juice.  Since I'm an adult, I can drink juice when I want juice.

It's nice being a grown up sometimes.

I mean, the upside to being an adult is that you get to do what you want most of the time, the downside is that sometimes you can actually do all the things that might possibly jump into your head to do and the only drawback is that you don't have enough hours in the day and some of the things you want to do are stupid, like peeing, and no one is proud of you any more for peeing in the toilet and not all over yourself, but then at the end of the day when people are like "what did you do today" and I say "I watched a couple of episodes of Supernatural, I made French Toast for something like 8 people (maybe more, they just kept coming and I was enjoying myself), I tried to catch up on the internets, but then I got bored, I peed a lot, I had some awesome gas, I poked the baby because THE BABY STARTED IT Y'ALL, and generally lolled about the house" and then people are all "dude that sounds so dull" and I'm all "It rocked!  I did what I wanted to do!" and people are like "you wanted the awesome gas?" and I'm all "fo' shizzle" because it takes about 5 years for Denmark to get American pop culture references and I was never quick on the uptake.

But like I was saying, we only just started working and then Eid happened.  And while last year we got treated to three days of gluttony and sloth, this year we got jack because we live in run-down cinder block houses that are apparently a step up from living in tents and so we don't deserve three days in a 5 star resort spa.  I'd love to be back in a tent.  I mean, I like only having to walk 10 steps to go to the toilet and I don't have any tourists oggling me or wandering into my tent, but it is really hot inside a cinder block house that absorbs the sun like a brick oven and what with the walls around the house we don't exactly get a cross breeze.  I was originally supposed to be sharing a flat with a couple and their small daughter (age 3 or maybe 5 - who can tell, really, she's small and doesn't ever stop talking, not that I can understand her accent - where have her consonants gone to? she asked me "ca' oi 'ach a dee-eee-dee on 'or co'u'er?" and I was all "whut?" but at least I get her when she says "oor iz moi mum'ee?"- but no one gets my joke when I say "are you my mummy?" because we don't have serious Dr. Who fans this year - and I've suddenly had to child-proof my office which I wasn't planning on doing for a few years yet, but I may end up duct-taping her to the wall if she tries to help me work on my Mac again).  The flat had high-speed internet and air conditioning and a separate bathroom all for me.  So of course I begged to be moved to the cinder block palaces, with no AC, volunteered my computer to be the internet router, and said I would totally share space with anyone and everyone but please let me be in the house with my office space and near to all the folks from last year who are the main reason I wanted to come back here again and please don't make me commute, even a little bit.  I got my way.  Eight people and one toilet is not that bad, really.  And I still got my own room, strangely enough.

Anyway, so suddenly I have this week of vacation because Eid falls in the middle of the week and it's a three day holiday and the workmen realized that if they took Thursday off they'd have a whole week to go home and visit their families (and by "home" I do mean Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, etc.) and had we all known this in advance, it's possible we could have gone home ourselves, or more likely, organized a mass trip to Oman or Dubai or Bahrain, since we don't get paid until the end of the month and can't really afford to fly all the way home.  I could have gone to Cairo or Damascus!  But instead I'm going to lounge around in my own sweat here.  I am not exposing the unsuspecting expat community to my huge belly at the swimming pool (I don't care what anyone says, I'm totally grossed out by pregnant bellies and so I'm not going to show off to my veiny, hairy belly) and I can't really enjoy the expat bars, so there's not much point in me paying money to go stay in a hotel in Doha.

But honestly, lying here in my sweat?  AWESOME!  I love it.  Baby loves it.  We are enjoying not having numb bits or getting teary at the prospect of getting naked (I don't know if the spawn cries, but I'm sure spawn prefers Mommy *not* to be miserable).  And if I'm awake in the middle of the night because Someone thinks midnight somersaults are The Win, I'm not trying to stuff my sausage legs into sweats and wool socks and piling on extra wool sweaters so I can huddle downstairs in a blanket, I'm turning on the lights and sprawling half nude on the bed and reading random books.  And poking baby.  Fair's fair.  If it's exceptionally hot, I take myself out to the porch and lounge out there.  So far being hot and pregnant is winning hands down over being cold and pregnant.

So you've all gathered then that the baby is moving?  I mean, it MOVES.  I went from going "is that it?" to "sweet Jesus, I'm trying to sleep here" in less than a week.  And I can see baby moving under my skin.  In a word: creepy.  I swear to god on a stack of latinate bibles that I'm not having twins.  But I may be having a gymnast or a marathon runner (Daddy is SO proud of his little powerhouse).  It's not really interfering with work, although sometimes mid-sentence I make a random weird face because THERE'S SOMETHING IN MY BELLY (read that as Shatner's infamous line "there's something on the wing" and you'll enjoy the moment that much more).

Now I've got to toddle off and find me some more food.  We've run out of gas (damn it, why do we have the funky contraption that means we need a special gas canister instead of what everyone else is using?) and so I've been taking ingredients 'round to the other houses looking for a place to cook.  It's a good way for others to get fed, too, if I make more than I can eat, which is not really all that often, because sometimes I can really put the food away.

Boobs, Belly and Butt

I certainly can appreciate the boobs.  Okay, I’m not sure what the rest of you endowed women do all day with the things, but I’m pleased-as-all-get-out to learn.  As a long time member of the itty-bitty titty committee, I sure don’t have much room to complain about finally getting what I’ve asked for: puberty.  But WHOA, ladies, do you find them as distracting as I do?

Not asking the menfolk, I already know they distract you.  Just try to keep your eyes on my face.  I know it’s hard. *Ahem* No pun intended.

So here’s a little TMI for you all.  Because if I’m going to write about constipation and poop, you KNOW boobs are totally something I’ve got to mention.  I started off this crazy breast adventure way back at the tender age of mumble-mumble and by graduation from college I was definitely a 34 B.

Men, this may sound like a perfectly reasonable size.  It is.  There are women who would kill to be 34 B.  A 34 B should make any petite girl happy.  Alas, it does not make long tall skinny ones with knobby knees happy.  (Speaking of knees - they were bigger than my boobs.)  Had I been six inches shorter, they would have been great boobs.  As it was I was built like a runway model and moved like a cat coming out of anesthetic.  I'm only slightly more graceful than my best friend.  We both share a disturbing amount of pride in our coffee-table bruises, but I tend to not break bones when I fall down.

Flash forward a few years of hard archaeological activity.  I gained back muscle, which was sorely needed, so that my backbone no longer stuck out further than anything else on my back (seriously, I had what I thought was permanent bruising on my back from sitting in chairs, it came as a total shock when I finally had enough padding to prevent my skin from being bruised just by sitting long hours in a class room chairs and the dark purple painful patch on my back up and went away) but that threw off my boob to chest ratio and I dropped from a 34 B to a 36 A.  THIRTY-SIX A???  Oh hells no, I’m not going BACKWARDS!  Especially since I’d invested so much in Victoria Secret over the years. I may have been particularly petite in the boob department, but they were some finely dressed boobs.  A good bra helps a girl's self confidence level enormously when she isn’t, you know, enormous.

So I stopped wearing bras for a time.  I mean, what was the point?  By then I was dating my current husband, he seemed fine with the boob situation, I was a poor student and had better things to spend my money on (beer rather than bras).   But I finally gave in and bought some cheap bras in the right size ("ish", because cheap bras fit like cheap bras and I’d gone and expanded my back muscles again) because at some point a girl has got to support the girls and I was getting chapped nipples from my shirts.

Yeah, laugh, it’s true.  And I hate chapped nipples.  It’s something I get to look forward to when I start nursing and I am *so* not looking forward to that.

Last year I took some of my hard earned cash and bought a few really really nice bras.  Elle McPherson may be a fool of a model, but her bras are magnificent.

Right, so then came pregnancy.  And BOOM cazungas! 

Oh and weeks of pain.

Because boobs don’t just grow like they did when you were young (or maybe they do, seeing how I never did really get any before, I’m not sure how they are supposed to grow).  It's not this gradual increasing in size that one stands before the mirror every day trying to figure out if they're really bigger or if you've washed your clothes at too hot a temperature... again.  This is one day, no boobs, next day, engorged mammary glands.  And glandular swelling is not pain-free.  The closest I can come to comparison is the boob pain some women suffer right before their periods.  Then there was the week I switched birth control pills and had the most amazingly sore boobs EVER where I couldn’t walk without them moving and hurting and so tip-toed to the bathroom for a week while carefully holding myself still with my hands.  I switched pills the very next month and the doctors were all “well, hell yes you should switch pills, that was just awful and we’ll make a note in your file that we will never try to put you on those every again 'cause DAMN girl, that sucks.” (Only not quite like that, because the doctor was Danish and they tend not to speak in American patois.)

So it was that pain for about a month.  I wore a sports bra to bed because them sliding off my chest when I rolled to one side was waking me up and causing me Great Sudden Pain Whilst Sleeping and I'm morally opposed to GSPWS.

Eventually they settled down.

And by settled down I mean, they completely and utterly outgrew my old bras.

I was warned that they’d keep growing (thank you ladies!) and so when we went out to purchase more maternity clothes, I picked up just a few cheap bras slightly larger than what I needed.  Also we picked up some nice nursing bras that will happily expand and expand and expand about two or three boob sizes bigger than I currently weigh in at - and “weigh in at” is the right term, these suckers have got to weigh a pound each.

So here I am at a 38 B, which doesn’t sound like much until you hold the things up next to a 36 A.  The smaller bra held my tightly clenched fist (hey, I have small hands - long fingers, but small little fists, okay?) and the larger one holds, like, my head.  YES I HAVE A SMALL HEAD ARE WE GOING TO KEEP DISCUSSING MY SMALL BITS??  And you know what?  I’m outgrowing these bras.

It’s like my boobs are watching my belly expand and are going “oh, no you don’t, Ms. Bellybutton - you think you can just wander off for a good time without us?  We’re coming with YOU!” 

I am the great expanding Northern Front and nothing can contain me!

This goes for my shirts.

Maternity shirts are great.  They give you all this room for your belly and your boobs, but they are cut awfully low in the chest.  What do pregnant women who were already well-endowed do?  I’m constantly losing things down the front of my shirts.  I have got to stop leaning over and talking to people (by whom I mean “men”) and I have got to stop looking down at myself and going “HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD THEY ARE HUGE!”  Because that is on the list of things one should not shout out in supermarkets.

The belly and boobs are now big enough that they meet each other half way.  Without a bra on, this is a very odd feeling, I assure you.  (This is where the large cheasted women want to whack me, because of course this is what they feel every damn day, but for the IBTC girls, it’s crazy shit.)

So I’m a little front and top heavy.  Surely I will gain some in the back to cantilever this action?  Right??

The butt has gotten a bit bigger.  After all, the 16 lbs that I’ve gained (at least, and it’s been over a week now since I’ve weighed myself, so it could be more) can’t have just gone to boobs and belly.  But the butt is still nowhere near enough padded to handle the additional weight that is now thrusting downwards.  My tailbone is Not Pleased by this turn of events.  I’m pondering getting one of those hemorrhoid rings to sit on.  My butt continually asks me Why Why Why I must constantly be on it - sitting and lying down, even lounging is always putting pressure somewhere on my toosh. So then I stand for a while and my feet start telling me to please put the backpack with the entire Oxford English Dictionary in it down, please, please, we asked nicely, what the hell are you carrying woman, this is just awful!

So here I am, lying in bed on my day off (ah, weekend, I do love you so).  My boobs are trying to hide from each other by sliding off into my armpits, my butt is crying out in horror because I’m Still Putting Pressure On It and my belly is moving in all kinds of weird ways because we’ve gone from the Quickening to the Awakening to the Alien Presence That Will Claw Its Way Out of My Gut In the Next 48 Hours (only 19 weeks to go - whaddaya mean “it’s going to get bigger”??)

If you think this means I want smaller boobs… Are you freakin’ kidding me?  They’re AWESOME!  I just need to get used to them, learn to dress them properly (they need to pick a size first and then Oh Mercy Honey, we’re going SHOPPING!!) and stop being distracted by them (heeeeeey, look at this - BOOBS!).  I could do without the pregnancy belly.  But I suppose as that is where the baby goes (intelligent design would have given us all pouches, pouches are the way we should be doing this mad reproduction thing, I guarandamntee it), I’m sort of stuck with it for a while longer.  But a bigger butt wouldn’t be amiss.  I’m sure I’d hate it once I had it, bigger butts are harder to fit into pants and stuff, especially since I have a tiny waist (under all that baby), but to be able to sit comfortably for longer than 20 minutes… oh, that just sounds heavenly!