Hey, don’t think about an elephant.

…

You’re thinking about an elephant, aren’t you?

This admittedly silly exercise is what the last three weeks have been like for me, because I have something on my mind that’s been looming rather large in there, but I haven’t been able to talk about it because…I make my own rules, and I told myself not to talk about it yet.

But now, the veil of silence, the cone of secrecy, and the gag order of reticence have all been lifted so I can reveal…

My gigantic project. Remember the project I wrote about a few weeks back, the one I blamed for my quitting NaNoWriMo a measly nine days in? Well, I’m finally ready to tell you what that project is.

It has webbed fingers and toes (that won’t be webbed for long), a teeny little tail (for a few more days, anyway), two hemispheres’ worth of brains, eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a strong heartbeat. It’s about the size of a gummy bear right now, but by July 11 it’ll be big enough to fill out newborn-sized pajamas quite nicely.

My project (or second baby, I guess he/she could be called) has been taking up most of my free time with resting and naps lately. The instant I got that positive pregnancy test, I knew I wasn’t going to finish my NaNo novel by the end of the month. I’ve been around the first trimester block before, I know exactly how exhausted I get when I’m hauling around a tiny little embryo.

This little person hasn’t disappointed, either. Even though this pregnancy has been pretty easy so far (as easy as the first trimester ever is) I’m still so tired most of the time I feel like I’m walking around with a mild concussion.

Aidan is, for his part, oblivious. I tried to explain that there was a little sibling in my tummy, but then he just lifted up his own shirt so he could poke his bellybutton and afterwards moved on to play with something else.

It’s so hard for me to write interesting posts when my mind is fixated on something I can’t talk about, so I’m pretty relieved to have my big news out in the open now.

My elephant, as it were, that I’m finally allowed to think about.

I suppose that leaves me seven months or so to write what I hope are interesting posts until I have a newborn and a toddler to wrangle and I wonder why I ever thought wrangling one child was a difficult task.