The Floor. Otherwise Known As Mars.

So, my camera went missing sometime in June.
Not that surprising, right? - things go missing all the time. ESPECIALLY in a house that is in the throes of baby preparedness.

The problem is there there are a couple different types of "missing" in my house.

For example, there's the "missing" that happens when Milo takes something. Like when several of my bras went "missing" last year, only to be found jammed in between the couch cushions (that's Milo's favorite hiding spot) with the straps chewed off.

And then there's the type of "missing" where things disappear for years on end only to show up in completely unexplainable places. Like Milo's kong, which went bouncing down the basement stairs two summers ago. I went down to retrieve it and sure enough, it was nowhere to be found. Two floods later, after the basement had been repeatedly cleared of all objects (and no kong in sight), we finally found it....through the basement door, past the laundry room, around the corner to the storage area, in a *closed* cat carrier that was placed on a shelf at shoulder-level.
No joke, I'm pretty sure we have a roving worm-hole in our house.

If any neighborhood kids go missing, I'll be sure to check the cat carrier in the basement first.

[Of course, the real question is what would happen if one were to climb in the cat carrier. Where would one come out? John Malkovitch's brain? A phone booth in Scranton (do they even make phone booths anymore)? The Ministry of Wizardry? Too bad we'll never know.
Go figure - the first worm-hole to be discovered, and it only fits things that are roughly
16in x 16in x 8in].

But I've digressed.

So...back to the missing camera. I was truly afraid it was either being digested by Milo or sitting in a phone booth in Scranton. And since I had only just received it as a Christmas gift last year, I was pretty bent out of shape over the whole situation. I spent a lot of time looking at Milo's poop for signs of a memory card, and gave the cat carrier the stink-eye every time I was in the basement (although it turns out that cat carriers can give the stink-eye back pretty good)


But one day it occurred to me.
There was a place that I hadn't checked:
Behind my desk and under my printer stand.
Because I often kept my camera on my desk...which is in front of a window that the cats like to slap-fight over...which usually gets pretty wild and results in things getting knocked all over the damn place.

But then again, for that camera to be under my printer stand, it might as well have been on Mars. Because every time I compress my mid-section, any space for my lungs is immediately sacrificed. I'm like a giant, walking accordion: if I'm squeezed, all the air rushes out in this horrible wheezing sound, and I have to be de-compressed before I can suck more air into my lungs. I'd essentially have to hold my breath from the minute I got down on one knee 'till I got back up again.

Which means that the floor has essentially become deep space.

So I did what any pregnant woman would do.
I waited for my husband to get home.

Turns out I was right - the camera was right under the printer stand (and from the looks of it, about to be sacrificed by a tribe of dust bunnies for their god. I think Brian pulled it out in the nick of time).

But it worries me a bit. If I can barely get down on the ground at 6 months, what kind of handicaps will I have in the next 3 months? I've heard horror stories about not being able to shave your legs or fit behind the steering wheel of your car in your final weeks of pregnancy (and to be honest, shaving my bikini area has already turned into some sort of blind, deadly, razor-wielding game of chance).
But they all seemed so...I dunno....funny.

...until now.

Now, I see a future where I'm shaped like Violet Beauregarde (post-gum chew), and my husband has to roll me around like the Oompa-Loompas.

We were sitting on the couch last night and decided to retire to the bedroom. He stood up, and I held out my hand.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
"Seriously?" he asked.
I nodded.
He went to pull me up, and almost immediately fell on top of me because he forgot that I've gained 26 lbs thus far in this pregnancy and am no longer the delicate flower that I was when he married me.

So it's come down to this:
I'm operating at about 40% of my previous mobility, and we're in desperate need of some Oompa-Loompas.

Maybe I can find some in my cat carrier in the basement.