One of the first rules I recall learning during my first pregnancy was "absolutely no heavy lifting!" I took this advice very seriously, traded in my oversized handbag for a small over-the-shoulder purse and didn't so much as lift a bag of groceries until Archer was two-months old. (I was paranoid I was going to pull a muscle in my vagina and the baby was going to prematurely fall out. This might have had something to do with my "no book" policy during pregnancy. I kind of just made worst-case-scenario situations in my head and prayed I was just being imaginative.)
The day Hal and I moved in together, I, being ten-weeks pregnant, got to sit on the stoop of our apartment building all day and drink bevvies (bottled water) out of a paper (Whole Foods) bags. Every now and then I'd throw down some beatbox for the boys when my mouth wasn't otherwise occupied with snacks.
Meanwhile, Hal, my dad, Uncle Frank and our friend, Kelly, schlepped our shit like robo-studs, in and out of the Uhaul while I, the resident Tim Gunn sang, "Carry on! Make it work! Carry on to make it work!"
I remember feeling only a teeny bit guilty, but that was because I ate more than my share of the pizza we ordered for lunch.
"I'm eating for two!" I explained, hoping no one would notice my intense bouts of flatulence. I was apparently farting for two as well.
"Put the couch there and the TV there and how about you move the bed to the other side of the... Wait! I have an idea, how about you move it, here, instead... No! Hold on, let me ponder this for a good two-minutes while you balance that box spring on your head..."
I can only imagine how quietly annoyed my dudes were but IN YOUR FACE, PALS! I had the ultimate nurse-pass.
Anyway, long story short, I slept like a baby that night. I mean, what a day.
I look upon that afternoon with fond tenderness and those were the days deep sighs because now I know that those really were the days.
Being that I'm (once again) about ten-weeks pregnant and lifting a thirty-five pound child pretty much 24/7 when he isn't at school, I'm beginning to wonder if all that "absolutely no heavy lifting" was some kind of joke. Because COME THE FUCK ON, people. How can a parent possibly go through nine-months without lifting extremely heavy shit? If it isn't Archer, tantruming six blocks home in my right arm while I carry bags of carrots and baby bok choy in my left then it's me lifting hearty strollers into backseats, gigantic diaper boxes into shopping carts, spare-tires out of the trunk THE ONE AND ONLY day we were to arrive at preschool on time (damn you, old tires! Damn you!), backpacks full of sand toys and trucks and bikes and plastic snakes and yogurt to-gos and bottles of water and purses large enough to hold every Dr. Seuss book in existence....
Seriously, need I go on?
The good news is, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to pull a vaginal muscle and drop my strawberry-sized fetus somewhere south of Melrose. I'm smarter this go around. More experienced. I do however fear this second child will have some sort of lifted-heavy-things-while-pregnant-with-me complex which will only be heightened by the fact that #2 has to deal with an older brother who has an entire book devoted to how much his mother loves him and how he changed her life and blah blah blah...
Oh my God. I'm not even out of my first trimester and I already owe this kid a pony.
GGC
