Warning: Cranky, Pregnant-lady Post Ahead

I've been a little bitter lately. Okay, maybe a lot bitter. It's just that—and here I go on a rant—my husband has been training for mountain bike races this spring. Last Friday, he loaded up the car with his bike and two day's full of toys and drove to the mountains with some friends to race.

I, on the other hand, was home and in my twelfth day of having a head cold/sinus infection. My muscles and ligaments that support baby number two have been so achy and painful in the last few weeks, that I haven't been able to run, and hiking and walking have also hurt. I couldn't swim when I had the head cold, so I wasn't getting to move in that way, either. And (still complaining here), when I garden, which is usually a stress-relieving activity for me ("You're mine, weed!"), my low back clicks after squatting on my little stool for 10 minutes, and my pelvis hurts.

Plus(!), I'm getting bigger by the second, or so it feels.

I'll be 33 weeks this Thursday. I realize I'm in the homestretch in what is way-more-than-likely my last pregnancy. And I know the weight will come off after, and I'll be back to being more active (which, I realize, is going to take skills in time management). It's just that it's been hard for me, lately, to do the things that make me feel more...normal.

And Mark, though his body hasn't changed at all in the last eight months, ALSO gets a baby out of all this.

That weekend he was off racing bikes, Sam and I managed okay. We played with friends, ate pizza together, had a good time overall.

I'm back to swimming now. And my doctor, after lightly pushing on my lower abdomen an me screeching in pain, has advised me to wear a support belt. I wasn't wearing it for months, thinking it was "tricking" my body into feeling more supported than it was. But, I've been wearing it again, and it does make me feel better.

I'm back on the elliptical once in a while (which still makes me feel like a piece of taffy). I'm lifting weights, swimming again, aqua jogging occasionally, riding the recumbent bike at the gym, hiking with the support belt (the steeper, the better, for me), doing prenatal pilates once a week and prenatal yoga once a week (and trying to hike/walk or do something else light on those days). I probably take one day a week where I'm just gardening, but that, lately, involves digging deep holes, carrying stuff around the yard, raking, weeding...pretty active stuff that seems like a bit of a workout.

So, things aren't really so bad. And, you know? I feel a little less bitter after venting about it. (Thanks!)

And there's always the little face of now-3-year-old Sam, above, that makes me smile, no matter how bitter I'm feeling.