Operating on a Delay

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck. If it waddles like a duck, then it's probably pregnant.

Pregnancy alters your body, mind and lifestyle in more ways than I can remember. At six months, I am no longer walking. Instead, I've picked up a less elegant style of moving about that involves alternating a slingshot movement from leg to leg to maneuver them around the sizable bulge in my abdomen. While this sounds like a charming notion, it does have one downside: slowing me down.

I used to be a fast person. I drove my car fast enough to make my mom slam on the imaginary passenger-side brake when she rode with me. Even though I never learned how to type properly and instead chicken-peck at the keyboard, my tiny hands move fast enough at the computer to make anyone who's watching laugh a little. I write in cursive because I can't be bothered to pick up my pen between letters. I often start talking too fast for my brain to keep up.

As of late, however, I am much slower than I used to be. At first, I got frustrated with myself, unable to squeeze every minute out of every day the way I wanted. "Why can't I bounce up a flight of stairs without getting winded anymore?"

Slowly but surely, I've become appreciative of my decelerated lifestyle. I feel as though I'm being subconsciously trained for the challenges of taking care of a baby. She won't care if I'm running late for an appointment. She very well may decide to spit up all over her clean outfit right as we're walking out the door. She's going to make a mess in her diaper whenever she wants, and my job is to stop and change her, regardless of what I'm doing.

For months now, I've been training myself to drive differently. I've always been the type of person to curse the cars in front of me if they make me sit through more than one red light at the same stop. I got my first speeding ticket when I was 17 years old. Not long into my pregnancy, I realized that a baby won't like it when I stop too fast or yell at another driver. I've got to slow down for her.

The same principle applies to waddling. I've got to slow down to accommodate the little person growing more and more every day in my belly. That's fine with me. Thank goodness the waddling set in during one of the prettiest, (albeit rainy) times of year.