Pajama clothes, charlie horses, and other nighttime related things

A few years back, as I was first entering the workforce and dealing with the challenges of acquiring a professional wardrobe, I became obsessed with the idea of what I called pajama clothes.  These were clothes that looked perfectly presentable but were the epitome of comfort, like pajamas.  The fewer buttons, zippers, or decorations the better.  I wouldn't wear them every day, but there were certain times when it just felt better to have incredibly comfortable clothes on.

And that, so far, is my favorite thing about maternity clothes.  They're ALL pajama clothes.  Oddly, the one piece of restrictive piece of maternity clothes I've picked up that I don't love is an actual set of pajamas.  But for the day in / day out stuff, I've never been more comfortable and don't know how I'll ever go back to regular clothing.

In other pregnancy news, I'm keeping this little mental tally of things that people don't tell you about pregnancy.  A lot of it is stuff that's sort of just not for polite company to discuss, so it's not a big deal.  But the new discovery this week is that apparently nighttime leg cramps are a thing in pregnancy?  I've had more charlie horses in the last week than I have in my entire life.  Also, I'd somewhat forgotten the term "charlie horse" until 2 a.m. the other morning when I was trying to stretch one out, which made me think of the character Charlie Horse on the old Lamb Chop PBS kids show, which made me think of the song that never ends.  And let me tell you, there are few forms of torture more exquisitely painful than being half-awake at 2:00 a.m., attempting to stretch out a painful muscle cramp, with that song running through your head.

Anyway, I've started implementing pre-bed stretching and relaxation time in an attempt to avoid middle of the night muscle cramps, and so far (for the past two nights), it's been successful.  In its place, though, the nightmares have come in.  

I've had three stages of nightmares in my pregnancy.  Or rather, two, and I'm worried I'm entering the third now.  The first stage, in early pregnancy, consisted of what I call "adult nightmares".  We couldn't pay our bills, or were losing our jobs, or something similar that would be a legitimate nightmare in real life.  The second stage consisted of super vivid regular dreams that weren't nightmarish in content but had the feel of a nightmare.  So I'd dream that I was grocery shopping or on a run or just typing away at my computer.  Nothing nefarious, but it would feel super scary.  I don't know.  As of last night, I was plagued with full-on, hardcore nightmares.  Getting chased by monsters, getting kidnapped, various creepy crawly things attacking...no good.  So while I had no leg cramps, I still woke up frequently having to talk myself down from nightmares. Dreams are weird.

Estimated steps for today:  Probably around 16,000, between walking around work, walking the dog, two breaktime walks, and a three mile lunchtime run.  God I miss my Fitbit.

Positive shutdown thought of the day:  Since I don't have to drop James at the metro / pick him up at the end of the day, I get to both sleep in later and get home earlier.  I'd rather James be working, but if he's not, I'll take a 5:30 home time for right now.