The Glow of Pregnancy is a lie

So I am 21 weeks pregnant. More than one site and book say something along the lines of, "You're probably feeling the glow of pregnancy now that the discomforts of the first trimester are behind you and you aren't as large as you will be in the third trimester."

Ha. Ha ha ha.

With my daughter I know I had lower back pain at this point. I remember because I stole the comfiest chair at work and was always sitting down in it, and my coworkers would give me angry glares when they thought I wasn't looking and I was like, "Glare all you want in those hard plastic chairs, ha ha ha." This time it's like REVENGE OF THE LOWER BACK PAIN. We went to Ikea this past weekend and bought a ton of furniture to furnish our new apartment, and I put a couple of 20lb boxes on the cart and thought I was going to collapse and never walk again. My back was simply all, "YEAH NO. CUT THIS IKEA STUFF OUT." It's even more lame than it sounds because before I had kids I was super into weightlifting. I could deadlift 150 lbs with very little effort. But post-kids, a 21 lb bookcase? Nearly takes me out for a week.

Never mind the flabby, stretch-mark laden tummy and wider hips and blah blah blah. I want my strength back. You'd think hauling a 25 lb toddler around would help out with that but the only "pregnancy glow" I have is a beet red face embarrassingly oozing sweat as I waddle at my top speed of 0.4 mph towards my toddler who can run 100x faster than me (150x faster when we're in a shopping mall because malls give toddlers the superpowers of speed and vanishing in the blink of an eye. This is a well-known fact). In my experience, no trimester is "better" than another one. They all suck equally. Differently, but equally.

19 more weeks to go!

(Here is a picture of one of my cats, because I'm sure I will mention them at some point. They were a lot more visible before we had a baby; now they hide 99% of the day and SURELY it is not because the toddler runs towards them screaming "A DITTY!" every time she sees them which she SURELY did not learn from me. Also the Elmo DVD is undeniable proof I have a toddler.)