Mood Swings

The book warns you about the mood swings.
It makes sense: you have hormones washing over you all the time. It's like constant PMS. Not to mention that you are embarking on an unknown, new experience, and emotions can run really high.

That said, Pete really has to get a hold on his.

It seems like I have been the one trying to keep an even keel here, and his mood swings are not even related to the fact that I am pregnant. They are just his normal mood swings. He gets tense and stompy at the end of almost every day, it seems, and worse yet, he does not seem to notice that it has become a trend. I think I might have to keep a log.

On Saturday, we had a birthday party for Mickey, Greta and Steve's son. Greta, Kira, and Liza are my best girlfriends, here in town, from years and years back. I don't want to tell you how long. OK, it's been over twenty years. I wanted to tell them and their lovely men because they are so close to me, and they all have kids themselves. But my thing with telling people is that I have to work it into conversation. I am not one for big announcements, and blurting out "I'm pregnant" seems to me to be a non sequitur of Darth Vadarian proportions (personal joke).

Kira, Tiki, Greta, Steve, Pete, and I had all planned on quitting drinking for the month of January. Pete and I have been doing this the past three years as sort of a beginning of the year purge. After the holidays, we are quite ready for it, and it's easy to do. When we were all talking, they were discussing how it was going. I managed to work in there that my abstinence would be continuing until fall. Tiki looked at me blankly. Kira got it. Greta got it. Tiki was not far behind. Turns out I was right about Kira: she had guessed it and talked to Greta about it. Steve had figured it out, too.

That was good for me. Less fanfare, got it all over with, so we could get on to talking about practicalities, and I could feel better knowing that they understood that I was not hiding, I was pregnant and exhausted. They were all excited, and Kira pointed out that I was a cliche, pregnant and sitting there knitting.

I brought up Pete's mood swings and wanting to tell my mother, and the girls reminded me that it's all about me now, and he just has to suck it up. That's hard for me to embrace, but I guess it is true. Really, he has been great, and I have nothing to complain about. He's pumping the gas and cleaning the catboxes; he's trying to keep up with dishes and get me things when I don't want to get off the couch. It's hard for me to cede control and ask people to do things for me, and it's good that he often offers so I don't have to work up the nerve to ask. I just can't ask him, or even feel like I can be tired or grumpy when he is a little black rain cloud.

My niece suggested that I carry a granola bar in my purse at all times, in case he starts to get cranky, and it's a good idea. It's also good practice for the future, when I will be carrying all sorts of crap along with me at all times.