Pregnancy and Sizzling Summers Don't Mix

It is the close of Labor Day Weekend, which always comes too fast and marks the near end of summer. Yet, I am rejoicing because fall couldn't come any quicker. It was a scorching, breezeless, West Nile mosquito-infested, humid three month season of sleeplessness, scratchiness, discomfort, sweating, and poundage.  The only thrills were the guiltless prospects of eating ice cream every day, which was the only thing, aside from relentlessly sucking on boring ice cubes, that would beat the heat. I dragged myself around, getting slower with each passing, increasingly hotter summer day. Thankfully, this Labor Day weekend the temperature sunk to a gorgeous 80 degrees and the breezes came back to bless us. Yet, by now my 26th week pregnant belly is feeling the full force of the growing babe inside and the weight gain from the ice-cream fueled summer season. My appetite is in its highest gear. Every meal I eat until I feel full, and afterward I suffer the gravitational expansion of my very full belly.  But the sizzling heat is gone for now, so the effect of the fullness, though quite uncomfortable, is not as draining as it was in the 95 degrees of suffering. The rest of this month should be somewhat relaxing. The daughter birthday parties and traveling and summer heat are all over (at least I pray the heat is over!), and I can look forward to my September ob/gyn appointment. In fact, that is all that is on my September calendar, aside from three birthday parties we've been invited to...and possibly a day trip to HersheyLand before it closes for the season. I am now breathing a sigh of relief that August is actually over. And I am now about to watch a college football game and the Roger Federer 4th round match of the US Open while snacking on pretzels. Daughter is asleep.  The building is quite as kids go back to school tomorrow. I am in heaven.