Stymptom Spotting: Nasal Stuffiness

Nasal Stuffiness. Now tell me why all the hype about a heightened sense of smell if you can't even smell anything? This might also be the reason I wasn't particularly blown away by the so called "super smell pregnant-power." For the first month I couldn't smell anything.

I thought I had a cold. I had no idea a stuffy nose was a sign of being pregnant. I would blow my nose and think, how in the world can I tell if I'm pregnant if I can't even check to see if I can smell?! It was a forest for the trees type of scenario for sure.

If a heightened sense of smell can be equated to a super power then the stuffy nose is definitely it's kryptonite. Come on, you knew the Superman reference was coming.

Symptom Spotting: Sense of Smell

Heightened Sense of Smell. Before I was pregnant the first time I had no idea what this meant. I equated it to Spiderman, like getting spidey-senses from a spider bite. So I waited on something that cool to happen.

Some articles describe women throwing up at the smell of their favorite hand lotion, or running for the hills at the slightest hint of the odor of eggs. And I'm not saying those aren't true examples. I'm just saying its not always like that, and for me those articles were pretty misleading.

When I walked by my co-worker's office and smelled the Dr. Pepper in the cup on her desk I didn't think wow Peter Parker would be amazed. Or when I caught a whiff of cheese-its and knew my five year old step-daughter was sneaking snacks before dinner, I didn't think that was necessarily a mind blowing experience.

I noticed a heightened sense of smell in a much less noticeable way. A more practical way. When I was pregnant I could find a dog turd in any corner of the house. (We have a puppy in potty training). And now that I'm symptom spotting for the second time, knowing what I know now, I'm much less dismissive when the cheese dip in the crock pot smells like pumpkin pie.  

On an unrelated note, I'm listening to Nicki Minaj. What the hell is "pelican fly?"

Eating With the Dead

My two previous ramblings about the Indian Funeral had a point. And that point is, the tribe of my husband believes that in the hours after the burial the dead will share with the family a last meal, a feast.

We shared a meal with my husband's grandmother, after her family took up shovels and rakes, took off jackets and hats, and buried her themselves. The men dispatched by the county to take care of such things stood in the background in their faded denim, watching the family take up their shovels.

Grapes of Wrath dirt makes a terrible lonely and hollow thud when it hits a casket 6 feet deep. Being Baptist, I'd never heard such a sound. Baptists don't usually bury their dead. We don't eat with them either...

But my husband's tribe does. And during the feast, while I sat behind my husband, spouses can't sit beside the blood-kin, I thought about our little one, gone too soon. The family probably wondered why the white girl was crying on her fry bread.

I didn't just eat with his grandmother. I ate with my baby too.

Back in the Day

Because sometimes I just feel like 90's R&B.

It brings back:
Tape cassettes and CDs on the high school bus. Skipping the third song because that's where the scratch is. Writing notes in class. Folding the note in that cool way, writing "pool" on the tab instead of "pull." The taste of lukewarm Budweiser jacked from our parents' fridge, and cheese-its. The feel of rough concrete under my thighs, and the sound of crickets and cars driving by. Usher, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey with the rainbow panties, and Will Smith. Dirt roads. Sleep overs. First kisses. First break-ups.

When getting pregnant was a terrifying thought.