A funny thing happened the other night as Mr. Burt and I enjoyed a few minutes of alone time after the Burt Squirt went to bed.

We sat together on the sofa, and Mr. Burt gave me a back massage because I was hurting from hefting the 17.2 pound Burt Squirt (and, occasionally, his carseat carrier) all day.  As if that wasn’t relaxing enough, our cat, Dorian Gray, who hasn’t been extremely affectionate toward us since we surprised her by returning from four days’ absence with a loud, stinky new pet who gets all our attention, curled up next to me and began to purr.

Always keen to encourage sociable behavior in our kitty (who is, perhaps, too aptly named), Mr. Burt praised her:  “Oh, you’re coming to sit with Lisa! That’s so nice, Dorrie!”

My fingers, which had been stroking Dorrie’s silky black coat, stopped.

“You called me Lisa,” I said at the exact moment as Mr. Burt said, “I called you Lisa.”

For the past five months, when Mr. Burt has spoken about me, it’s mostly been to the Burt Squirt, so he refers to me as Mommy. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I heard him talk about me as Lisa. It was nice to hear (after I realized he was talking about me).  There’s probably something deep and psychological in there about motherhood and identity, but I haven’t had enough sleep for that and mostly I just think it’s funny that Mr. Burt and I realized at the same moment how little opportunity we have to refer to each other by our names instead of by our new roles.

For the record, Mr. Burt has never addressed me as Mommy, nor have I ever addressed him as Daddy.

But perhaps, in light of this incident, we’d better start addressing each other as Lisa and Jeff instead of Tater and Jeffer, or Baby and Honey, lest we forget our names altogether.

On the other hand, this way we’re not in any danger of wearing out our names.

The day before yesterday I went grocery shopping.

Well — shopping was my intent.

What the outing actually turned out to be was more like grocery looting.

It was an accident! I didn’t mean to steal that package of quarter-pound Angus hamburger patties! I fully intended to pay for it, even if it was at the back of my mind that it was $4.68 I didn’t have to spend if I would just use the ground beef I’d bought for a quarter of the price at Super H-Mart a few weeks before and frozen. But A) Walmart’s pre-made Angus patties make far jucier burgers than the lean beef I use for tacos or mostaccioli and B) I make hamburger patties about as well as I make pancakes. And anyway, when you think about the fact that it’s $4.68 (plus the trifling cost of buns and condiments) for two meals for two people, that works out to be cheaper than ordering off the value menu at a fast food burger joint, with a better-than-restaurant-quality burger.

Even cheaper if you don’t pay for the meat.

Which is what I discovered I’d done as I lifted the Burt Squirt’s carseat carrier out of the shopping cart and discovered that the package of hamburger patties had slipped underneath it in the course of our shopping trip, escaping being rung up with the rest of my groceries.

Yes, I suppose I am blaming my thievery on my infant. Who might have been sound asleep at the time the incident occurred. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I needed to get him home and feed him (we’ll ignore the fact that once I got him home he continued to nap in his carseat carrier for another hour before he requested second lunch) I would have gone back in Walmart and paid for my meat.

Or I might have; whether he needed to eat or not, the Burt Squirt turns into a whiny creature if the buggy isn’t moving at all times, and we’d have been at a stand still at the customer service desk while I paid for my meat. As he’d spend a good part of our shopping trip whining before he eventually decided to take a nap, I wasn’t keen for a repeat performance.

Then there was the fact that I’d already unloaded the rest of my groceries into the trunk of the car, including milk and yogurt and cheese and chicken and other items that really shouldn’t sit out in 80 degree heat while I resolved my little shoplifting issue.

And anyway, there was always the chance they might not make me pay for it anyway, as a reward for my honesty. Right? Like the time in second grade when I noticed my teacher had failed to deduct a misspelled word from my spelling test grade, pointed out her error, and she said in reward for my honesty she’d let my 100 stand.

That character award she gave me at the end of the year for honesty should be revoked.

Because I decided that $4.68 wasn’t worth anyone’s time.

The purloined sirloin now currently resides in my refrigerator, and Mr. Burt and I are looking forward to tasty Angus burgers one night next week.

Hopefully my guilt won’t turn the taste bitter in my mouth.

And hopefully no one employed by Walmart is reading this post, as they prosecute shoplifters. How many years did Jean Valjean get in the Bagne of Toulon for stealing bread? (Only he did it on purpose. Because he was, you know, starving.)

Boy, do I feel pregnant!

I guess I did for a lot of last week, too — I was nauseous after nearly every meal, getting really warm at night and having trouble sleeping. Part of me wonders if my symptoms this week aren’t a bit psychosomatic, worse because I now know I’m pregnant (oh, by the way, in case you didn’t know, I’m pregnant) and am therefore attributing everything odd with my body to that.  But I am at five weeks, so I should be feeling some of the effects now. I’m having a bit of nausea and occasionally throwing up (mostly first thing in the morning and in the evenings).

The main thing is the tiredness, which seems to be getting worse every day. The only time in my life I’ve felt this absolutely drained was when I was on a particular birth control five years ago. Thankfully the sleeping problems haven’t persisted this week (though I am having to get up to use the bathroom a lot), but even though I’m getting 8-9 hours of sleep a night, I still wake up feeling run down and need a nap (or two). This morning I’ve had absolutely no energy and when I did finally drag myself to my desk to do a bit of work, I dozed off several times in the middle of typing. I’d shake myself and read what I was typing and realize I was typing the completely wrong sentence. Lunch perked me up a bit, so I’m going to try and answer a few emails after I make this post, but then I foresee a very long nap…

It is amazing and mystifying how an embryo the size of a poppy seed can leech every ounce of your energy. (I am, in all affection, calling the baby The Parasite.) But I can’t really begrudge him/her; it’s a lot of work developing your brain and vital organs.

I knew that having children would change me, but I wasn’t quite prepared for pregnancy — especially this early — to change me. Not in any huge ways, but I am finding it quite a challenge to my routine. I’m a creature of habit by nature, but I think especially because I work from home, a schedule is hugely important to me to get anything done. Before I got pregnant, the routine that worked best for me was to get up at 6 AM to exercise, wake Mr. Burt up a little before 7, hop in the shower, be ready to get to write by 8 AM, and do that for a good four hours, take a lunch break, and have another 3-4 hours of work.

Already this week, that’s all gone out the window. When you wake up exhausted and/or nauseous, you just can’t get up at 6 AM, and you really don’t want to eat or exercise first thing. (At least, I don’t. That trick of eating Saltines before you get out of bed is not working for me.) I’m learning already to listen to my body, to sleep when it wants me to, to eat when it wants me to, and to work everything I need to do around my body. (Not that there aren’t some things I need to be disciplined about — like not necessarily eating what my body wants to eat if it’s not healthy, and making sure I do exercise at some point, even if I’m feeling a bit tired.) Somehow I’m managing to get just as much done as ever, just not in my usual spurts. I can live with that. Especially if it gets the first draft of my  novel finished by the end of the summer, which is my goal…

I suppose this will be a helpful habit once the baby’s born, when everything will revolve not around my body, but around the Baby Burt and his or her demands. Flexibility is essential to parenting, isn’t it, or else you’ll lose your mind? (I can see why they say yoga’s a great thing to do during pregnancy — on many levels!)