Things you have to learn about pregnancy yourself

I wasn't prepared for:

How exhausted I would be even when it doesn't usually seem like anything is happening.

How much I would love the baby, even though I haven't met him yet.

Needing sooooooo much sleep, in the first trimester I was a narcoleptic napper and now I am in the third I am just tired all the time, and the closer I get to the end the worse it gets.

The food aversions (earlier) and heartburn (now), I didn't think food would be so much of an issue.

The permanent PMS-like emotional roller coaster, I can go from being "fine" to "want to eat your soul" type rage in seconds, likewise the cry on cue thing.

How my body would change, although that freaked me out more in the beginning when I just felt fat, now belly is rapidly growing to make room for baby and that's pretty cool.

How I would be excited about little baby clothes and socks, I have a thing about baby socks and shoes.(although not as bad as the girl in "The Price of Milk" movie)

How other people would think I am weird for being interested in home birth, cloth diapers, diaper free, breast feeding, co-sleeping and baby wearing. All those things seem pretty practical to me.

How long pregnancy is, I feel like I will be pregnant forever and ever.

How little I get done on a daily basis and I am mostly okay with it.

Chores taking twice as long now that I am so big!

The amount of support and love I need on a daily basis.

All the small things

Joe asked me today what my plans for the day were, I replied without thinking that I had a bunch of little stuff to do. Meaning no grand or exciting projects, but that got me thinking about how most of the things we do are little things, even a big project has all the little steps pieced together.

Which made me think of horses (because everything in life can be related to horses), a good trainer in any discipline will give a lesson with the three basic elements of warm up, work time and cool down but will also break everything down into little understandable chunks that build on each other. Often when you are riding alone for a training session it is easy to fall into the trap of making a big deal out of it, like the training has to be x amount of time, work and if you aren't working hard enough then you aren't training. I guess for some things and horses (especially the dumb ones) that is true but I have accomplished more with Joy by creative training rather then drilling. It always makes me sad to see someone asking the horse in the same way over and over again, with no progress and both horse and rider getting more and more frustrated, I've been there and it sucks.

Part of the cornerstones of good training (or teaching) is being able to explain something in a different or new way. For instance I had a really hard time convincing Joy to canter when I first started her under saddle, I did the usual working on the lungeline and perfecting walk to trot while being ridden but for canter she would get excited and bunchy. So I took her on the trail and started giving the cues while trotting up a hill or over some fallen saplings, once she understood how to shift her weight back with a rider then it was easy for her when we tried again in the arena, and not a big deal.

I wish more people understood how to train smarter rather then harder and listened to their horses, that's how you get a good partnership. But it is a good reminder for anyone to pay attention to small steps since that's what really moves you along. Especially if you are super duper impatient awesome like me.