Tires and a Belly

I'd like you to take a moment to close your eyes and paint this picture.  (Don't really close your eyes, silly, you won't be able to read what's in the picture!).  It's a dreary rainy day.  A big ol' Pathfinder is pulled to the edge of the busy road.  A pregnant woman bends alongside to investigate the dilemma.  A tire is flat.

Pretty pathetic, right?  And sad?  And makes you think, gee I'm glad that isn't me.  I hope someone helps her out.

I'm glad it wasn't you either.  In fact, it was me.  Not all too pitiful, as I was able to get to a close by gas station, read Bossypants warm in my car, and wait for the slow-but-sure arrival of AAA to get things moving again.

It's just funny because only 15 minutes prior I had been happily standing in my bathroom posing for this

You see, I was celebrating 27 weeks.  According to various sources, that means I have reached the third trimester.  It's the final countdown...  Ok, so there are still somewhere between 10 and 14 weeks before this little guy kicks his way all the way out, but it still feels like a countdown can begin soon.

Even if people continue to try to tell me I don't "look" pregnant (which, I gotta say, is starting to be a little offensive.  how did I look before?  like I just hid random round objects under my shirt to practice what life as a kleptomaniac might be like?) I feel pregnant.  It's glorious and exhausting but hey, not nauseating anymore.  Except when I overeat, but that's my own fault.

So there I waited with my temporarily out of service SUV, my bladder that PDG confuses for a soccer ball, my book that makes me laugh out loud now and again, and daydreams of March.

The AAA guy was pretty useless, unable to assemble the tools to release my spare, and instead having me follow him to a tire place whose compressor was broken, from which I would later need to drive to yet another tire place.  My work morning was shot. But in the end, the best part of the day was picking out a shirt to take a picture of my little PDG and marking yet another milestone that a year ago felt like something I would never be blessed to know.

As J-Man put it recently, there used to be a sadness that, even on my happiest days, couldn't fully be squelched.  Now there's a happiness that even on my roughest days, can't be overshadowed.