Dreaming of Cheerios

This morning sickness (SUCH a misleading title! more like morning, noon, and night sickness) can really do a number on a person's sanity. My whole life, I've been prepping my self for the intense pain and brief horror of labor. You know about it from the time you're a little girl starting to ask her mom questions, you see it on tv and in movies, you may even get the privilege of witnessing a birth. And so you prepare yourself. You think, "Ok, yeah, I can do that." After all, you get the immediate reward of holding your newborn baby in your arms. But no one warns you about the early stuff. No one tells you to get ready to be so nauseous you can hardly keep a Saltine down. I never heard that the smell of coffee (one of my favorite things in the world!) would suddenly make me want to hurl. I had no previous awareness of the fact that a plain piece of toast might make me gag because, I swear to god, that little bite of bread multiplies in your mouth and the mush factor flies off the charts!
Maybe I'm just a wimp.
But I've decided I'm going to tell it like it is here on this blog. No making it sound easier than it is. No skipping the icky parts just to get to the fun and joyous moments. Be prepared for reality - in all its gruesome glory.
And the reality is: this part really sucks! I'm starving every second of the day but literally am doing well if I've consumed half of a package of Top Ramen. Something that sounds good one day and goes down relatively well, will make me gag the next. And when the nausea revs up, I better find something to put in my stomach that instant or I will be paying homage to the Porcelain God (no merry partying included). It's actually a very panicky feeling. I told Justin we might be going straight to adoption with our next one.
The night before last I had a dream about Honey Nut Cheerios. When I woke up, it was all I wanted in the world. Naturally, we didn't have any. My husband, who has already been a champ about running to the store to get whatever random thing I think I might be able to consume at any given moment, was asleep. He works late nights at the plant and often sleeps until 11 or 12, giving him only a couple of hours before he has to head back to work. I tiptoed through the morning on Saltines and Ginger Ale and asked him to please bring some home with him when he got off work. Like the great hubby he is, he called me from the store late last night and asked if there was anything else I wanted. I ordered some strawberry yogurt and pretzels. I was in bed by the time he got here and fell asleep comforted by the thought of the Cheerios that would be awaiting me in the morning. You can imagine my surprise this morning when I found our pantry void of new cereal boxes. Justin was up so I called to the next room, "Honey, where did you put the Cheerios?"
I could hear the trepidation in his reply, "You didn't pick them up?"
                  (In his defense for a moment: I had told him that I made a brief trip into town earlier in the day. He assumed that since I wanted the Cheerios so badly that I would have picked them up myself. Of course, I made no such stop.)
Panic.
"You didn't get the Cheerios?! [Now tears] Honey! That's the whole reason you went to the store!"[Melt onto the kitchen floor, a blubbering mess. Over Cheerios.]
Justin, of course, saved the day and made a trip to the store at lightning speed and all is as well as it can be now.
But really? Crying over Cheerios?