I beg to differ.

Those last pictures were taken from lucky angles.

Remember how I mentioned that I look like a lumpy eggplant?

I was telling the truth.

And that was over a month ago.

Ow.

I would have thought my thick ankles would be good for something. I might even have bet that they grew to better carry this increasingly thick body of mine. Maybe I'm nuts. But I think ankles should be reliable things.

Apparently they are not.

Yesterday I was carrying Claire into Church. She rested on my hip. I was feeling slightly uneasy in my high heels, which I unwisely wore for vanity's sake since I had uncharacteristically been to the salon with my mother to have my toes painted. They had flowers on them. For the first time. It should have been a momentous occasion. It was not. My ankles did not approve.

The left one punished me. It buckled attempting to bolster the burden of two children and a fat lady, aided only by those stupid wedges.

I had just enough time to pull Claire closer to me (butting her head to mine, but saving her from the pavement), and shout, "Oh my gosh! Brad!"

Brad rushed over. Along with a friend I hadn't seen in a year whose reintroduction to me was an awkward mixture of me wincing and laughing. (I do that when I'm embarrassed.)

I had skinned my knee. I limped into the chapel. And now my rolled ankle is even more swollen. Which, I'm sure many of you doubted possible. Yes. Well. Doubt no more. I can always become more ridiculous, I assure you.

(P.S. Brad has just revealed to me that when he ran around the car to rescue me, he found me sprawled out on the pavement, spread eagle, my skirt flipped up. All the way up. Claire was laying on top of me, flailing and screaming. Always more ridiculous. Always.)

Worth it.

The other night, I woke up at about 5:00--yelling. Poor Brad. I was less than six inches from his ear. If I were him I would have woken up in a panic--disoriented, confused. But he didn't. He saw me grab my right calf in agony and immediately pulled my foot back, helping me stretch out the worst. leg. cramp. ever. It's two days later and still sore.

I'm at that stage in pregnancy where everything is uncomfortable. Breathing, eating, sleeping. Sitting at a computer for half an hour on a day I have forgotten my vitamins is enough to make me woozy and short of breath. Heartburn prevents sleep for hours. I waddle when I walk, and all chairs seem unusually hard. My tummy is tight, unmovable, unstretchy.

I am told I have two more months of this.

I don't remember this pain from past pregnancies.

All I seem to remember is the birth. The experience of holding a new munchkin. It's breathtaking. And earth-shattering. Evidently, it's powerful enough to have allowed me to forget everything else.

Thank goodness.

Almost as weird as a blueberry.

Remember this?

Anybody ever felt like that? Feeling like you need to be juiced?

I do.

I can only stand for several minutes until my ankles throb.

It makes me waddle because my skin just isn't stretching enough for my ankles to bend.

Seriously.

And juicing me might be helpful. Because there is definitely. something. in there.

The sweet thing is that now my ankles take on another job. In addition to helping me waddle, they now function as a access-anytime-stress-reliever. Like one of those squishy balls filled with cornstarch they pass out at the office.

And who couldn't use more of those?

Don't Ask.

I don't do belly pics.

Not that I don't love other people's. Because I do. I love them. I love looking at my friends' cute little tummies.

But I don't do them. I don't post them. I don't even take them.

Because no one wants to see a lumpy, overgrown eggplant.

Don't be too disappointed. It's better this way.