11. Getting Bigger and Almost Crawling (March, 2014)
In early March, Kate started her second trimester, and almost immediately began to feel more energetic. She also felt bigger. Her shirts were tight, her pants were snug, and her belly seemed to want more and more support. Nothing felt good, and nothing looked cute. To top it all off, she was beginning to have some serious pain in her lower back, around her SI joints. On good days, she didn't notice it at all. But on bad days, she could barely stand on one foot without collapsing. Mind you, standing on one foot wasn't exactly Kate's favorite hobby, but sometimes it was essential--say, while getting dressed, or taking steps. And for those moments, it was far too easy for her to feel like a complete invalid. Honestly! she thought to herself, how pathetic is it that getting dressed seems like the hardest part of the day?!
At least she wasn't reduced to crawling quite yet. Of course, if she needed to get something close by and she was already on the floor, a little scootching across the room might take place. But that certainly didn't qualify as crawling, no sir! This was the hardest part of pregnancy: the gradual reduction in capability, the necessity of being careful, the intense aging that happens over only nine months. Kate liked to tell people, "well, when you're pregnant you gain about 65 years over nine months...so I may look 27 to you, but really, my body is acting much, much older!" She quipped about it, but it still hurt her heart every time she found herself weighing the cost of picking up her son or getting down to play with him on the floor.
And Teddy was getting to be really fun. He, like his Mama, was growing fast and almost crawling. He rolled everywhere. It was his mode of transportation, rolling across the floor over and over again until he reached his desired goal. But Kate and Mister could tell, he was desperate to crawl. He would push himself up on his arms and pump his legs, ready to zoom across the room in a more dignified, upright fashion. But he couldn't figure out the arms, at least not for going forward. Every once in a while, he'd work his way backward, but after a few moments of this, he would stop and fuss--clearly that solution to his movement problem was quite unsatisfactory.
Mister pronounced an oracle, "He'll be crawling before the month is out!" (And so in this case, at least, the prophet was proved true by his words.)
In watching Teddy, Kate was reminded of the many good things that come with pregnancy--the main one being a new baby! Teddy was so alert and aware and interactive, even at 6 months old! His giggles were a delight, and he was gradually finding his talking voice and experimenting with different noises. And next year, they would have another one about this stage, only Teddy would be a year older, and they would be playing together! But...she also knew that in a year, she would have her hands completely full of babies.
On her energetic, less painful days, she wrote out long lists of projects that she wanted to work on and try to finish before September. It was a looming deadline, and Kate had almost inumerable projects to complete, including (but not limited to) completeing afghans and baby blankets, Teddy's baby quilt, catching up with their scrapbook, finishing her half-written novel, getting an agent for a children's novel already completed, writing music, writing in her journal, and learning to cook Indian food. If she could get all that done, what a summer it would be! But if she didn't...would she ever?
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