Look, we don’t want to freak you out but your life as you know it is about to change FOREVER. So, if the second trimester energy is doing its thing, now would be a great time to plan a few things to fit in over the next couple of months… calendar at the ready.
Five Things To Get Out of Your System Before the Baby Comes
If the second trimester energy is doing its thing, it's time to get planning...
1. Go the cinema with your partner
Baby cinema – where you go and watch proper grown-up films with a screaming gurgling baby on your lap - is great, it really is, and we whole-heartedly recommend it as one of the activities you should do when your baby is tiny. But baby cinema is not relaxing or romantic.
When your currently unborn baby is older and you’re ready to reclaim your social life, you’ll probably find that going to the cinema is quite far down on the list of things you might feasibly bother to get a babysitter for. Instead, weddings and big birthday parties and date nights involving food and booze will be prioritised. Because you can always watch films at home.
But going to the cinema somehow always feels like a special treat, a treat that is ideal for a pregnant woman who can’t drink much booze but can definitely inhale a vat of popcorn or sweets (heartburn permitting. But there’s always ice cream – it’s practically medicinal). Turn it into even more of a treat by going to one of those posh cinemas with sofas that you can doze off on.
2. Get your hair done
There are mobile hairdressers, and hairdressers who don’t mind babies, but neither feel like quite the pampering experience of going to a fancy-pants salon and staring at your own bloated reflection for two hours and/or reading trashy magazines. As close to your due date as possible, book yourself in for a ‘do.
If you end up going overdue, even better – booking appointments is a surefire way of nudging your body into labour, just to mess with your day. Soon every day will be messed with, so it’s good practice.
3. Go shopping
We appreciate that you probably not much feel much like hauling your growing bump around a shopping centre.
But you know who else hates shopping centres? Babies. And toddlers. And just kids generally, actually, until they become teenagers, when they will develop a love of hanging around in shopping centres, but won’t be seen dead in them with their embarrassing old parents.
So go shopping asap, for you. Now is not the time to be trying on clothes, but why not go to a department store and get your make-up done, or buy nice things for your house because you are going to be spending a lot of time in it soon, and that clock or teapot or lamp you’ve always been indifferent to will start to really irritate you, and you’ll wish you’d idly browsed for a nicer one when you had the chance.
Sure, you can buy things for the baby too, if it makes you happy, but the main purpose of this exercise is to treat yourself.
4. Lie down and read something
Ooh, this is meta, since you are literally reading right now. But controversially we’re going to tell you to close this email (well, in a minute. Let us make our point first) and read some fiction that has nothing to do with babies. If, like many of us, you’ve made a list of wonderful books to get lost in on maternity leave, we hate to break it to you but: NEVER GONNA HAPPEN. When you become a mum, it’s impossible to think about anything other than your baby, so the only things you’ll read will be books about having a baby and Calpol packaging. “But I’ll read when the baby sleeps!” you cry. Nah. You’ll look at photos of the baby while the baby sleeps, because you’ll miss them so much.
5. Have a night out with your best friends
This one’s important. You might not feel much like going out on the razz, but having a grown-up night with your friends, even if it’s just going for dinner at someone’s house, is crucial. Sure, you’ll still see your friends when you have a baby – especially in the early weeks, when there’ll be a queue of them at your door desperate for cuddles – but it becomes really, really hard to organise anything, especially if some of them have kids too.
Plus, even when get-togethers do happen, you’ll be so distracted by the baby clinging onto you, or indeed so distracted by the fact that you’ve actually left the baby with someone else for 76 minutes, that you won’t be able to have a decent conversation.
So arrange something now – eat something delicious, drink something expensive (just the one, obvs), wear something…. tent-like, and talk like it’s going out of fashion. You might be tired, but you won’t regret it.