Let's Hear It for the Sugar Crash!

I have to go to the doctor today to get the routine blood draw to test for gestational diabetes. This involves drinking a gaggingly sweet beverage on a mostly empty stomach and then waiting an hour before they can draw blood. And then comes the sugar crash. Blinding headache, here I come!

Obviously, this is not an outing that I'm anticipating with any great pleasure. But what makes it worse is the amount of planning I had to do to even make this unwanted outing happen.

This is not a appointment to which I want to drag my two feral children. Not that I EVER want to bring them along for appointments, but an hour in a doctor's office? I may as well try to cage a wolverine. That's approximately the level of whirling energy I would be trying to contain.

My options for appointment times were very limited, so I had to take one on a Friday morning. This meant that neither the MiL nor A.* would be available to watch the children. Neither of my kids have ever had a babysitter other than those two adults. (I know--sheltered life.)

So I called my friend Alyssa and asked her if I could drop off my two children at her house at 8:15 a.m. for a few hours. Alyssa is currently eight months pregnant with HER third child (a girl, hooray!), but it's a measure of her generosity that she didn't even hesitate at the prospect of wrangling four boys ages 2, 3, 4, and 7 for an entire morning.

Needless to say, I owe her big time.

And just to complicate matters, I arranged to bring my minivan in to the mechanic today to finish some work begun last week, totally forgetting this appointment I already had. So now the whole family is going to load up in vehicles at 8 this morning. We'll go to the mechanic to drop off my van on the way to Alyssa's. A. and I will drop the children off for their playdate (I'm calling it this to make it more exciting for them so it won't be so much like "Mommy is abandoning you," and more like, "Fun times with friends!"), then drive to the Small City and drop A. off at work. I'll go the doctor, then go get the children, then go home, and then we'll go back to the Small City this evening to pick A. up.

I'm tired already just thinking about it.

* A. took a new job at a law firm in the Small City, so his work hours have gotten much less flexible.

The Ugly Shoes

Sometime in the very early part of this pregnancy, my left foot got all jacked up. Specifically, the bottom heel of my left foot. At first I thought I had just pulled a muscle and I figured I'd just try to keep off my feet as much as I could for awhile (HAHAHAHA) until it healed itself.

Nope.

Then it was summer and I thought maybe my sandals were making my feet hurt and if I spent a few days wearing my running shoes, my foot would heal itself.

Nope again.

Though there was no denying the fact that the days I tried to wear sandals were the days the pain went all the way from my heal up my leg and into my back, rendering me more or less crippled. And on the days when I wore my running shoes, while not pain-free for my foot, I could at least walk without limping.

This is why I now wear my running shoes every day, all day. And I HATE IT. Because running shoes are just . . . ugly.

Unless I'm actually running or exercising (which I am not now, ever), wearing these shoes just makes me feel sloppy. And although I am the last person to offer myself as a sacrifice on the alter of fashion, I also don't like looking sloppy. So every day I schlep through the day in my maternity jeans and running shoes, feeling like a caricature of a frumpy mom.

But since the alternative is not being able to schlep at all, I wear the damn shoes. And cross my fingers, toes, and eyes that whatever this foot issue is, it will disappear after this baby is born so I can once again wear some non-sporty shoe.