Snooze...

So, growing a baby while rounding third on the ole PhD adventure…

I like to make things challenging for myself. Today, after class, I walked into my house too tired to bring my heavy back-pack upstairs, acknowledged the cat on the way to my bedroom and dropped to my bed without a moment of action between. Does anyone else have GOTTA DO MORE WORK anxiety like I do? I felt momentarily guilty about hitting the sheets but assured myself that it was OK to take a small break. Then, in a wave of generosity, I set my alarm, allowing myself a FULL HOUR for a nap.

TWO and a HALF hours later, I realized I’d been pressing the snooze button and re-setting my alarm for an EXTRA hour and a half. Oops. I think I was tuckered out. I woke up finally because I knew that if I didn’t rouse myself, I’d sleep through to morning and miss my daily blog-obligation (Blogbligation?)…that and I’m fast running out of time to re-write the playwright assignment lowering above me. I’ve gotten absolutely NOTHING accomplished on that front. All four of the ideas I had will not work in this particular class because my Prof feels that a one-act ought best be a single-location action piece, unbroken by transitions. My ideas…the ones I am moved by…aren’t abstract, but they do not fit neatly into what I know he is looking for. Again, I will save those ideas for a time when I am not performing for a grade. But WHAT to do in this fast-vanishing time?! I’ve never felt such a lack of creativity. My imagination is usually sharp. Not the case with this assignment. And at this point, having slept my afternoon away, I will need to rise early and just write through the day tomorrow until I have to leave for class.

Muse, oh MUSE…please O please visit me in my sleep.

HA! My baby-girl has the hiccups again. The night before last was her first bout with them. Once I realized what it was that first time, I couldn’t stop laughing. The sensation is sort-of…adorable. And it is a good sign, I read that the hiccups are caused because she is practicing the movement of breathing. I was unaware of how much rehearsing is going on with developing babies. I guess I just thought they hung out in a sort-of sleep state while their bodies grew. Not so…they practice breathing, they “walk” against your belly, they react to loud noises, they play with their toes (I saw Izzy do this when she was getting her 21-week sonogram), they suck their thumbs and they hiccup…

I have noticed that she is a night-owl like me. I also think her she senses her dad’s touch because she gets peaceful and still when he puts his hand on my belly…except for that one time when he was listening for her and she socked him in the ear.

I sing to her a bunch. In the morning, after I finish up whatever reading I am doing for class, I try to sit down with my guitar and play/sing her a song before heading to school. I also sing to her when I am driving. I also play Claudio Abbado and Vivaldi and Bach…

It is odd to be surrounded by colleagues and students and professors while this momentous interior thing is happening and not to be surrounded by family, outside friends or my husband.

BUT…we are at MID-term and my time here is coming to a close for a while.

Now back to other work for me…