Yes. I coined a term for my new life. If you have been here long enough, you know […]
Tag: Family
I promised to cover an entire post on the feelings and thoughts during the first trimester. I am hoping this helps a girl who inevitably finds herself here in the near future. You are not alone.
The interesting thing about the beginning of this journey is how you thought you knew what you were getting into. You prayed for this and looked forward to being a mother. But somehow, the brain gets a bit confused when your answer arrives. The brain and all its hormones.
It starts slowly. Gently. One moment, you’re not 100% sure you are pregnant even though you took a test that displayed two lines pretty instantaneously. You even go to the doctor’s just for a second opinion. He does no test. He is sure you are, based on your LMP and general cycle history. Oh yeah, you will learn a lot of acronyms during the journey. For the purposes of this story, we will focus on just bodily changes — not the mind, not the feelings — just the body. The rest of the first trimester manenos deserve their own story.
Also, how does Shiku suddenly know these things? I guess we will find out soon enough, won’t we? 😉
Here we go.
I happen to celebrate my birthday at the end of the year. I turned 27 two days ago, on 29th December. The thing about celebrating your birthday at this point is that you are actually starting a new year in your life alongside a new calendar year. It’s always a nice thing because everyone is at home and in holiday mood. The other thing about the date is that no one will doubt that you were really born on that day, unlike a friend of mine, for instance, who was born on 1st January and had to show me his ID for me to believe it. Almost. Even that was not enough because I know thousands of Kenyans have 1st of January on their IDs for some strange reason. I think that is the default date if you don’t know your DoB. The other thing about this period in our house is that it is followed by my brother’s birthday on 30th. For the longest time as kids, we would celebrate it together. And then we grew up and it became a simple separate affair where everyone says something and we blow candles.
[su_dropcap style=”simple” size=”1″]N[/su_dropcap]ow this year was very different.
One year ago, I wrote this post. I remember because of this awesome tool I use called missinglett_r. This amazing website lets me schedule blog posts for an entire year. I just sit back and relax, waiting to discover what it has posted on my Twitter after someone comments or retweets. So if you’re a blogger, you know what to do. It is mostly free. You’re welcome. 😉
Anyway, we were talking about singlehood. As usual. Maybe I should stop talking about it, right? In the meantime, as we chew on that thought, let’s see what has changed since one year ago. Am I still gaining weight? Nope. I have made a conscious decision to stop myself from doing so. It is not quite healthy, gaining weight ovyoovyo, to be honest. Regardless of all those all-up-in-your-biz mamas who keep asking why you are not eating during family get-togethers. Don’t listen to those mamas. They want you look like them, which is not healthy at all. Maybe they could avoid it themselves and it’s culturally acceptable to gain weight as a symbol of “having arrived”. If you can avoid blowing up without making a huge effort, then avoid it. Not even for the look but for the health of it all. Your future babies need you in one piece. Exercise. Eat natural things. Give natural yoghurt a shot. That thing sucks but it’s for the greater good. Tell yourself that, it will keep you going.
It’s been a minute since you thought about this topic.
Lie.
Everywhere you turn, that topic is bound to crop up. Think back to this Sunday. The first thing that happens when you walk into the church compound is a friend telling you that he dreamt of attending your wedding. Somebody say amen? He insisted on it, even after bumping into him again after the service, even though the last time you talked was ages ago. This is not the only dream that someone has told you about btw.
You sigh a lot nowadays, whether in text or physically. You rarely feel anything anymore. You have lived long enough to know some things are not worth wasting your emotions over. Even when you do feel something, you’re human after all, you move on very fast.
You have a crush in the office building. He looks like a sweet chap. But every moment you get, you ignore him, pretend not to see him, unless your eyes lock and you have no choice of pretending not to have seen him. Hi there. He probably has a girlfriend or wife, in all likelihood.
Sigh. It’s mid Jan. How did that happen? You struggle to get out of bed today, as always. You remember sleeping without answering all the texts on your phone. One was about an engagement on Facebook. Facebook will never leave you alone, will it? Despite you not logging in for two months. The other was a good night from another friend. You wanted to reply but couldn’t. Not that you had something else to do except read that book that has you glued to its pages and lying in bed in all sorts of awkward positions.
Argh. I’ll be so late for my driving lesson. This Uber driver decided to get lost so I waited over 20 minutes. That never happens. They are always right on time. Anywho, I can’t wait to tell my instructor the weekend drama. Thanks to the Pope, I haven’t been to class since Tuesday. So I got tired of waiting and decided to take matters into my own hands. I am literally that driven.
Or maybe I should just say kittens and puppies. It’s been raining cats and dogs at home, literally. For starters, she finally delivered four lovely kittens! Yeah. That weekend I was in Kisii, she decided it was time. It was decided that I was not to be told because I left her. Lol. But my baby sis, Claire, wouldn’t let that happen. So she sneaked away and texted me on dad’s kabambe. Gotta love my fam. I was super excited that Saturday night. So I called Kim, my small big bro. He told me only one kitten was out by the time he found mother cat. Apparently she delivered on Mark’s bed (my small bro). Haha! That made me laugh. I was going to wait till morning to find out how many they were in total.
By Kizzy B
I am in my late twenties. Time is moving too fast but, my life… doldrums for lack of a better word is what I feel right now. You see, people are often comfortable with the saying: “Everything happens for the right reason, at the right time and maybe with the right person.” How challenging that statement is to me.
Before you judge me for rushing my life and feeling as though I don’t belong, let me tell you something.
By Joy Anindo
People who know me know I am a sucker for cartoons and animations. I will sit there and watch, giggle and even cry at some scenes. Because I’m cool like that.
There is this one animation that really got to me, Rise of the Guardians. The plot involves these immortal Guardians like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy who protect the children of the world from fear, darkness and despair. However, an evil boogeyman named Pitch Black (I know right? Total bad guy name.) plans to overthrow the Guardians by destroying the children’s belief in them. It’s falls to Jack Frost to help thwart Pitch’s plans and save the Guardians from destruction. The work of the Guardians is to protect the children from fear. Jack Frost is recruited into the group and he doesn’t understand why.
Imagine that you are walking in town one Saturday afternoon. Either alone or with a friend in tow. Let’s assume the second option – you are strolling in town with a friend, W. You talk about the weather and how it’s been behaving. How the week was at work and at home. You talk about everything that you can possibly talk with your friend. Then, suddenly, in the middle of that you start feeling ill. At that moment you realize that there is something terribly wrong with your body and you cannot really figure it out. You assume and keep on talking. Suddenly your friend realizes there’s something terribly wrong, but they too are clueless. Things happen so fast that you start losing your sensory abilities – you cannot feel the spoon that’s in your hand and you fail to coordinate the digits on your hand but nothing. Before you know it, a sharp migraine fills your entire head causing you to slump on the table, weak and helpless.
He will text or call you just to tell you the most trivial of things, just to ensure he kept you up to date or made you laugh. He will keep calling even when you don’t pick at first because you’re stuck in a meeting. If you are stuck somewhere, say, filling NHIF forms and don’t know those weird numbers, he’ll read them out off head – both his ID number and my mum’s, and any other random number you might want.
So I ran out of bundles from sending too many Bitmoji to someone when I left the office. (Yes, B, that’s what they were. Google that. Don’t know if there’s an app for that for Windows phones. Muhahahahahahahaha! Is there any app for anything for Windows phones anyway?)
Anyhuuuuu, (I’ll be using this word now that Biko hated on it. You know how I’m always trying too hard to be a rebel? Yep.)