Leg Cramps and Fish Tea

I have leg cramps in my right leg. And they are painful and all-consuming and last days and days and days. I tried foot baths and elevating my feet and drinking lots of water, all without any alleviation.

So Chris the Doula suggested I try some nettle tea, as it helps leg cramps. So...yesterday I went to the health food store and bought some stinging nettles to make into tea, and today after school I steeped the nettles. While I was waiting for the tea to be ready, I busied myself putting away dishes, and as I did, I could smell a strong fishy smell near the sink. I sniffed around, thinking Dave had made a tuna fish sandwich for lunch, or something was rotting in the garbage, or... no. It was the nettle tea. It smells like fish. And anyone who knows me knows that fish is not my friend.

I added honey to the tea, and it doesn't taste that bad (although I do detect some fishiness). The smell, though, is almost over-powering.

Leg cramps or fish tea? Right now the leg cramps are so bad that I'm holding my nose and drinking the steaming, smelly liquid. But really... is there any better way to torture me than fish tea?

You Smell Like Belly Button Lint

Friday, Dave smelled weird. He kept coming over to hug me or kiss me or wash the dishes with me, and I kept moving out of the way. Finally, hours into the weird smell, I started sniffing him to figure out where the smell was coming from... not his breath, not his feet, not his armpits. But his neck. Yech.

We were lying on the living room floor together, discussing dinner (because although we do own furniture, we don't sit on it), and I told him he smelled horrible. Whenever he came too close, I felt like vomiting.

"What do I smell like?" he asked.

I thought about it for 1 second.

"Belly button lint."

And then we laughed and laughed and Dave stood up, walked straight to the bathroom, and took a shower. The smell disappeared.

We don't know what the smell actually was or where it came from, but something was on his neck that Pregnant Sarah really disliked. The more I think about it, my best guess is that it was sweat stuck to three-day old beard growth, which I never seemed to mind before. After all, Dave and I lived in a car/tent for 2 1/2 months one summer, traveling around in 98 degree weather to spectacular locations like Scottsbluff, Nebraska (that campsite was next to a zoo - have you ever woken up to the sound of an elephant? and the smell of the animals was top notch). So we're used to each other in our stinkiest form...

But now things are a little different, and my nose is fastidious. I walk through the produce section of the grocery store with my shirt fashionably pulled up over my nose, and I have to run through the seafood section. My sense of smell is not just acute, it's faulty. One morning early on in the pregnancy, Dave was eating Grapenuts cereal for breakfast, and I walked into the dining room and announced, "I smell Cheeze-Its." We haven't had a box of Cheeze-Its in this house... ever?

I apologized to Dave for thinking he smelled like Belly Button Lint. He doesn't smell like Belly Button Lint, I promise. And he showers every day.