my summer vacation...

Do you remember when you were younger and were just going back to school around this time? It never failed that, inevitably, during some time in the early weeks, you’d get asked to write an essay about your summer holidays! My English class was suddenly a flurry of tales regarding adventures at camp and family trips to the Cape…it always seemed like such a nice way to wrap up the summer months and move into the academic year.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve had to write one of those essays but with the city buzzing full of brand new students this week, it got me feeling a bit nostalgic for our back-to-school ritual and left me compelled to tell you a bit about how I spent my summer months!!

I found out that I was pregnant on July 2nd. It was a really hot and muggy day in Southwestern Ontario and I hadn’t been sleeping very well. The great debate occurring in my head regarding whether or not our world was going to flip upside down in the not so distant future was monopolizing most of my waking hours. Sure enough, two little pink lines were about to tell a really big story!

And then it came; the Great Sickness! It descended upon me in the middle of night while we were away visiting friends. It creeped into our bed, under our blankets and took over every square inch of my body…and then furthermore, it proceeded to stay and keep me company for almost eight entire weeks!

That pretty much became the story of my summer holidays; being curled up in a little ball on my couch…in my bed…on the bathroom floor…at my desk…you name it, as our future offspring kicked my ass for two months straight!!!!! I’ve seriously never felt so sick in my entire life!!

I recently read that the body of a woman at rest in her first trimester of pregnancy is working as hard as a woman running a marathon. And I’ve run a marathon before, hence I can vouch for the fact that it wasn’t pretty, which would likely explain why I spent a large chunk of time feeling like I was having a disease instead of having a baby!

Part way through my summer, when I felt like there was going to be no end to my state of misery, I asked my good friend Joanne if, at the very least, this entitled me to a token “you’re-grounded-for-no-other-reason-than-the-fact-that-you-made-me-barf-for-the-entire-summer-of-2009” card??

She said no…apparently guilt right out of the womb isn’t the way to go!!!!