I took the day off of work on Wednesday to sleep. Daylight Savings Time wrecked me (only good reason I can think of to move to Arizona), and despite all of the literature that promises a surge of energy in the second trimester, I haven’t felt it. My belly is finally growing and I look pregnant. No more occasional glasses of wine in public for me. Too many judgmental looks from other patrons. I will still probably continue to steal a sip of Odie’s beer, despite the side-eye the Pregnancy Police throw me. I know people have VERY strong feelings about this issue, but my doctor says the occasional drink (or “odd tipple” as the Brits and Aussies would say) isn’t going to hurt anything this far along in my pregnancy.

Yesterday, I went to a technology training instead of work, and while we were walking to lunch along a busy street, breathing gasoline fumes and second-hand cigarette smoke, it occurred to me that what I was breathing in the city was probably worse for Pringles and me than a few ounces of wine or beer. I’m happy I live in a small suburb where you almost never see anyone smoking a cigarette. As a former smoker, I feel like a happy hypocrite. God, how I hated people like me.

It’s Saturday, my favorite day of the week, and all three of us are happily plugged-in to our various technologies. Odie on World of Warcraft, V glued to “The Wonder Pets,” and me on WordPress. Lately, the weather has been warm and sunny during the work week, and cold and rainy on the weekends. We’ll probably brave the zoo after naptime, since one of V’s favorite activities is alternating between holding her lady bug umbrella and holding her froggy umbrella.

In the spirit of mental health/rest days, Odie took a sub day on Friday while I was at my tech training. He woke me up at 6 a.m., fresh from the shower with the gleeful announcement “No one is learning anything from the Odies today!” He feels horrible guilt over these occasional days off, but I’m glad he took it. The job has been wearing on him lately. It gets to him more than it gets to me, because I have higher self-esteem, and I don’t take it personally when the teens are bored or truculent. It’s the nature of the beast. In fact, I recently had reason to look up the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)’s criteria for sociopathic personality disorder, and it specifies that the person who meets the criteria must be over 18. Why? Well, because ALL teenagers behave like sociopaths at least some of the time. It may be my problem, but is surely isn’t my FAULT.

Sometimes I have to wonder what kind of “intelligent design” made a creature that is at the height of its reproductive potential at the same time it is at its least socially and emotionally evolved. By the time humans have the wisdom, patience, and wealth to be excellent parents, we’re often too old. Rubbing diaper cream onto our babies’ bottoms and wrinkle cream onto our sagging necks.

(Short break to gobble Tums. Ahhhh)

I’m really having a potpourri post this morning. Where I wanted to go with this by way of a long, winding introduction is that sometimes when Odie takes a day off work, I come home to the work of a Virgo Moon. He not only cleaned and did the laundry, he transformed V’s crib (which she’s never slept in) to a toddler bed, put our mattress back on the bedframe, and HAND-SWEPT the carpet (our vacuum cleaner died). I love it when he hand-sweeps the carpet. it’s selfish, I know. Maybe it’s even a little insensitive of me to enjoy his OCD manic episodes as he scuttles around on his hands and knees, poking out his bottom lip in a trance of cleaning. But it works for me! Odie and I are so similar in some ways, that during our courtship, we wondered if we could have a successful marriage, or if we would just reinforce each other’s negative traits. We’re both drinkers, we WERE both smokers (we’ve both quit), we both tend to be lazy procrastinators who abhor housework. In fact we both sort of balk at “doing stuff.” Neither of us cooks. They say opposites attract, but in our case, it was much more of a case of “like attracts like.” I’m pleased to see that life and parenthood has matured us both. Well, life, parenthood, couples’ therapy and compromise. He hand-swept the carpet (and I mean that literally — with his HANDS), but I did the taxes.

Clean carpet and filed taxes not withstanding, to make our weekend even better, I think we may be entering the era of, “Sweetie, go watch cartoons,” while mommy and daddy snuggle in bed. It worked out this morning for a good half hour (the length of an episode of “Micky Mouse’s Clubhouse”) and it was heaven.

If only we hadn’t been out of coffee…