Pregnancy should require a passport...

because it's all so foreign. I don't even recognize myself. I thought I'd be so excited to see my body change when I got pregnant, but really, it's just weird. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing, but it's also really, really weird. People didn't tell me most of this stuff ahead of time. I think I may know why...a lot of it is a little gross. I'll try to leave out the grossest stuff as a courtesy to those of you who know me in real life. I don't want to supply you with visuals next time you see me.

Here are my observations (not complaints, just interesting observations that warrant recognition):

~I'll start with my breasts. They're not mine. They're someone else's that happen to currently be attached to my body. Here's the thing: they're the wrong size now. I've had the same breasts for many years and these aren't it. They're weird and large and well, foreign. And as time has marched on, they've gotten even stranger. My breasts look just like the inside of my wrists. I can see the blue of my veins on them. Not hot.

~My belly amazes me, intrigues me and baffles me. I look forward to seeing it each time I pass by a mirror and yet it still surprises me every time. That strange bump is mine. It's the darnedest thing.

~One more thing about my belly. It now has a fine layer of hair over it (normal, thank goodness). I'm a really fair skinned girl with really dark hair. I'm sure others wouldn't even notice it, but I'm really self-conscious about body hair. It makes me feel a little wookie-ish.

~There are a lot of strange things happening down there. Just a lot more...activity. Spotting and other stuff. And I'll leave it at that.

~I'm out of breath a lot. Yet I'm only 16 weeks. I read up on this and it's because the increased hormone levels relax my systems, including my respiratory system. It's amazing to me how every little thing is connected to the pregnancy. I still can't fully wrap my head around that. I didn't think I'd be out of breath until I'm much closer to the end when the baby would be squishing the rest of me.

~This week, the baby is developing pads on his or her fingertips! Holy cow! That amazes me. The baby is still so small but is developing fingerprints.

~I pee.all.the.time. It's a phenomena. Some nights, I wake up three times to pee (those are not my best nights). So much pee.

~Out of nowhere, I will become completely famished. Like violently hungry. My pregnancy hormones have not been too bad (I think Joe would agree), but when I get overly hungry, look out. I'm an instant lunatic.

~Happy things make me cry very easily. "Do you hear what I hear?" is my most favorite Christmas carol and now I cry when it comes on the radio. Why? Because I love Christmas and I love this song. It's ridiculous. I find myself laughing aloud through my tears because I realize how silly it is that I'm crying yet again from the same song. I am yet to hear the song about the Christmas shoes (do you know which one I mean?). I'm sure I'll be a sobbing wreck for that.

~I recently learned about the mucous plug. Enough said.

There are more pregnancy oddities I could speak about, but I'll leave it at that for now. I've got 24 more weeks of strange things happening....I'll keep you posted.

::whispering because I don't want it to hear me::

but I think it's safe to say (knock wood) that my morning sickness is over. Please let me be right. It really has been a while since I've felt nauseous for no reason (besides pregnancy). Don't get me wrong, I still feel awful if I go more than three hours between snacks, but I think (and hope and pray) that the official morning sickness is done. I am now hungrier than ever. I go from a normal, pleasant human to a raving, cranky lunatic within 5 minutes if I don't eat at a reasonable time and reasonable is sometimes completely arbitrary. In my crankiness, I have no time to wait for food to be prepared (NO TIME!..THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME!!), I just want food to magically appear on its own.

P.S. If you picked up on the no time reference, you're my favorite.

WARNING: Pregnancy can impair judgement

I stole from the dollar store. It's true, I did it. And now, a week or so later, I'm still not even sorry. Oddly, I feel justified...even though I know I owe the Dollar Tree $1.07.

Preface: I'm your typical upstanding citizen. I'm friendly to customer service people, I blatantly pick up litter in front of the people who intentionally dropped it while giving them the I-hate-you face, I return items to the proper shelf when I find them on a store's floor. All around, I'm a decent person.

So, on the day before Halloween, I threw my upstanding citizenship out the Dollar Tree door and into the cool, autumn air when I stole a roll of masking tape. Here's how it all began....

I've been struggling with insomnia as a lovely side effect of my pregnancy for the past 13 weeks. It's not fun at all. I've been unable to nap during the week and randomly wake up at night for hours at a time. There's generally no real catching up on the sleep that I miss out on. On that particular Thursday morning, I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and was up for the rest of the day. By 9:00 a.m., while sitting at my desk waiting for my students to arrive to start the day, I burst into tears of exhaustion while my co-teacher looked on baffled. I just couldn't even process the idea of twenty seven students that day, let alone the next day, the beloved yet dreaded by school teachers everywhere, Halloween.

My day carried on with me mostly in an exhausted stupor. The kids eventually went home, I left as well and headed to the glass store to get new panes for two of the windows in my house. I stumbled through that process and got back in the car to go buy stickers for my Halloween costume for the next day's parade at which point a slew of obscenities flew out of my mouth. I had forgotten the masking tape and mailing labels at work that I needed for my costume. Now, I would not only have to buy stickers, but the masking tape and labels as well. Damnit.

I went to Staples first. Masking tape was only available in a 4-pack for $8!!? No. I'm not paying that much for something sitting in my desk drawer at work. While in Staples, I called Joe who quickly found mailing labels to bring home from his office. Unfortunately, his office does not use masking tape. Odd, no? Staples also did not have the stickers I needed but I wasn't really expecting them to. Right around this point is when I start realizing that I have to eat. I'm starting to feel a bit nauseous. Damn having to eat every three hours.

Next stop, Dollar Tree. As I walk in, I'm stunned by the week-before-Christmas-length line. And the Christmas items on display and the many people who are actually purchasing them. What the hell? I've fast forwarded to December 20th. Maybe the line will be down by the time I have to pay. I find my roll of masking tape but no stickers, which means I still have to drive to the craft store two towns over. Damnit.

Done shopping, I head up to the front of the store only to find that the line is still just as long as when I arrived. I cannot bear the idea of standing in that line. It is so long, I am so tired and I feel like crap. I stall, thinking that if I wander the store for a couple minutes the line will go down. Doesn't work.

And then it hits me.

I have to steal the tape.

I have no other even slightly reasonable options. I need the tape for my costume. I would like to throw up. My eyes are half closed. The line is not even a choice to me right then. I am going to steal the tape.

Right at this moment, my phone rings. I pick up and it's one of my good friends.

"Hey, Jacki! What are you doing?"

I throw the tape in my bag and head out the door.

"Stealing a roll of tape from the dollar store," I whisper into the phone. The sound of her dying laughing on the other end of the line makes me erupt into giggles. And I begin telling her the story of why, even though I have money sitting in my purse, it was completely and totally reasonable that I took the tape.