Annoyed, Annoyed and Irritated!

“Oh noooo!” I wailed miserably, as I watched my pan of beef, that I had spent ages cooking, fall to the floor with a crash. The sauce and chunks splattered across the floor.

“What? What?” my husband ran in anxiously. “Oh no,” he sighed, “let me get the mop. Darl, you really have to be so careful.”

I glared at him. I was being careful! I tried so hard to save that beef the second I felt the pan handle slip from my hand. Two, three, four times I tried to quickly grab the pan without burning myself, but it was no use. Oh, and I still managed to burn my hand. Husband returns with the mop, grabs the pan and casually starts to pick up the beef, before rinsing it under the tap.

“Are you still going to eat that?” I look at the beef, dubiously.

“Oh yeah,” he replies. “Can’t let good meat go to waste.”

“Even though it’s been on the floor?” I stare at it. There’s no way I would. Since getting pregnant I have become extra sceptical about anything that has been remotely connected with dirt.

“Oh yeah, it’s fine,” he drawls. He puts it back on the hob and starts to mop up the floor.
He is so calm about it all, whereas I’m leaning over the counter, frustrated with myself. I’m so clumsy at the moment and it’s happening a lot lately: Either I’m dropping something, spilling something or forgetting something. With my growing bump I’ve found it’s near impossible to lean over my dinner to eat, which means I have to, as skilfully as I can, carefully lift the fork to my mouth, which has resulted in more than a few bits of food dropped down my front. My bump is so big that when I get up from the sofa I have to somehow swing my legs forward a couple of times to give myself a good push and doing up shoelaces or putting socks on involves swinging a foot over a knee. This is what it must be like for overweight people, I figure. No offence or anything.

 In the last few weeks I’ve become very, very irritable. Suddenly, things that used  to wash right over me now annoy the heck out of me: It annoys me when it takes me twice as long to vacuum the apartment as it used to; it annoys me when there is a speck of something sitting on the carpet and I simply have to pick it up and put it in the bin; it sometimes annoys me when hubby starts to sing (not his fault – I usually love his voice); it is darn irritating when I settle down to sleep and then one movement from baby means another trip to the loo, only to find that all that comes is a trickle! I just getting annoyed for no reason at all and I know it’s wrong but I can’t help it. It all stems from being so uncomfortable, now that I’ve only got a few weeks – or possibly even less than that – until I pop. What really helps is when hubby starts to rub my back or rub my feet – just putting out one foot onto his knee accompanied with a bribery smile and he knows what he needs to do!

Finishing work has been fantastic – no more late night planning or marking, no more sitting on tiny chairs and at last the much needed rest that I’ve been waiting for. Admitting  that I need  to rest has actually taken some getting used to but sure helps when I start experiencing mild contractions – which have started happening at random, by the way. There’s certainly no way I could face teaching 30 children. I don’t know how some women can work until the very last waking hour. All that aside, I am very much enjoying my time off and, sad as it may sound, I am really enjoying playing the role of stay at home mum, taking care of all the cooking and maintaining our home. And I am trying to accept that right now I can’t do things as quickly as I could before because getting annoyed all the time is no fun. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep demanding those foot rubs.