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So Excited It Hurts
As I sit here in the glow of my laptop at
twothree something in the morning, I am almost overcome with excitement. That and the fact that I ate too much salt at lunch and my whole body is now paying. Who knew sodium was so evil when you are pregnant! I feel like a water balloon.But that’s not what I got up out of my cozy sleeping-bag-on-my-mom’s-couch to write about. I only bring it up because I’m not exactly sure what is keeping me awake when everybody else is sleeping. Is it the fact that I am excited about everything that is coming up in the next few days and the rest of my life…or is it that my fingers are sausages? Probably both and a bit of mommy-to-be insomnia. I’m always awake at this time of night. It hardly even bothers me.
I’m so excited because tomorrow I’m kidnapping my niece, Rapunzel, and we are going to my house for a day of fun. We haven’t had a “Just Rapunzel and Me Day” since that day I took her to Disneyland several years ago. (We had the time of our lives that day…) Of course her parents know I’m kidnapping her and they are practically pushing her out the door with me. Our theory is, when you are dealing with two rambunctious kids: Divide and conquer. My nieces are both great kids but sometimes a very very very talkative seven-year-old and a mischievous, willful two-year-old can be a combo to drive you up the wall. We figure, if I take Rapunzel with me to the beach for a day, things will go a lot more smoothly for my mom and sister-in-law as they get ready for my big baby shower.
My big baby shower! See what I mean? The fun just never stops around here. I am beside myself excited. Besides the five billion presents of pretty little pink baby things that I’ll be receiving, I’m excited because a lot of my friends and family that I have not seen in ages will all be together on Saturday under the same roof! It’s almost too much for me, I am so happy. Relatives! Friends! All together! And pink cupcakes too! If I was a puppy, I’d be peeing on myself.
And guess what happens after that? It just can’t get any better. I almost feel guilty writing about this because I want everybody who reads this to be having as much fun as I am. Can you come too? Just kidding. But seriously, I do wish everybody could have this much happiness crammed into their life like I do. I need to share it a little bit. It’s just not fair that everybody can’t feel like this. Maybe it’s the equivalent to smoking a bowl of crack. (Not that I’d wish that on anyone.) But I just wish everybody could be as excited about what I’m going to write in the next paragraph as I am.
After the baby shower…. [insert drum roll]…. I GET TO MOVE INTO THE BABY’S ROOM!!!!! I know I’ve mentioned it like five bazillion times but this is something I have been looking forward to, fretting over endlessly and pretty much nagging Toby about to the point of contention for the last eight months. All I have to do is look at him and he says, “Don’t worry, it will happen.” He’s so tired of me crying about it, he won’t even let me bring it up anymore.
He’s promised me that when I get back from the baby shower, I will have somewhere to put all my baby things. And that place will not be the cupboard that I’ve been cramming things into anymore!!!! He is going to move out of his office and into my smaller office so I can move into his office and set up my GRAND OASIS de BABY! This is what my dreams have been made of almost my entire pregnancy. I’ve been planning and plotting for so long and so hard that my friends don’t even want to hear about it any more. I’ve dreamed and schemed and mapped and sketched and shopped for my imaginary baby’s room. It’s actually been quite frustrating. I’ve been a bird in spring without any straw to make my nest!
But not anymore.
Want to make a crafty pregnant mother-to-be happy? Give her a big project that revolves around her baby. I am in bliss just thinking about how much fun it is going to be to finally line up all my little baby shoes in a row in the closet! So many little shoes! All in a row!
And then what? Well, sheesh! It’s Christmas. And after that THE BABY!!!! That pretty much explains itself. My life will never ever ever be dull again. See why I can’t sleep?
Can the sun just come up already?
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Walrus Fashion
If you are pregnant, do not let your friends talk you into having your baby shower during your very last month of pregnancy. No matter who tells you how cute you are, all big-as-a-house and glowing…. They are lying. They are just enjoying the fact that you look like blubber on wheels and they can feel all skinny next to you. It is HORRIBLE.
I know, I know. I really do not deserve to complain. Here I am perfectly healthy, and I have friends showering me with gifts!! It’s just that I really wanted to have a cute outfit to wear to my shower. Something pink and brown and not a tent. I even saved a gift certificate from my mother-in-law to Pea in the Pod for something extra special. I just want to look stylish and cute in my state.
WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE when you look like a walrus!!! Since when have maternity clothes been too small for me! It was pure torture yesterday at the mall. Nothing fits me! If I get a large, my boobs don’t fill up the top. If I get a medium my stomach is stretching the belly area to maximum capacity. I am so front heavy, I look like I’ll fall over if a breeze blows by.
Plus, I think yesterday was fashion model shopping day. Everywhere I looked were skinny bits of beautiful women. Everyone looked so pretty except me. I am chubby everywhere. My chin, my shoulders, my elbows, my knees. Every part of me is chubby! I bet even my teeth are chubby. There is nothing quite like the beating you give yourself in the reflection of a dressing room mirror. I don’t know if it’s the light or that the whole point is to be critical, but I am horrid to myself. I can see nothing good when I look at myself trying on clothes. This experience is not for the light hearted. I was practically in tears.
I ended up buying a super expensive Diane VonFurstenberg blouse and a dumpy looking brown skirt. The skirt really made me mad because I already have two brown dumpy looking skirts! But they wouldn’t go with my new super expensive blouse because one is a wrap skirt and gaps all over the place and the other has pin stripes. The gapping is just vanity because I don’t want to show my chubby legs. But the pin stripes really don’t go. The DianeVonWhatshername blouse has a pattern that is dainty and complicated and it really really really doesn’t match with pin stripes. Unless of course you weigh 89 pounds and you are a model. Then it would go. Anything goes then.
Acquiring yet another brown skirt reminded me that I do not have any brown shoes. Well, I do. But they are my old $20 Target clogs from two years ago. I really need to update. I’ve been thinking that whenever I wear them with my other dumpy brown skirts. So I walked and walked and walked the mall. And I noticed all the very skinny fashionable women. Everybody who shops at my mall is beautiful. I think if I have to go on another shopping excursion anytime soon I am going to drive out to Hemet and shop where everyone is regular sized.
I popped into fifty-some shoe stores and found plenty of cute brown wedge heels that would go perfectly with my new outfit and not send my feet into swelling purgatory. But guess what? NOBODY HAS MY SIZE!!!! Nobody even has anything close to my size! I think all holiday shoppers over the weekend have bought everything size eight and under. I wear a six. But with recent events, I’m wearing sevens. It didn’t matter. Nobody had either. And there’s no way I’m ordering anything online because I really am not sure what size my feet are. Nothing is what it appears to be any more. I am living in the twilight zone of the eighth month of pregnancy. Plus my shower is THIS Saturday. There is no time for uncertainty.
When I got home, shoeless, I was crying. Which is sort of a good thing because Toby felt bad for me and didn’t give me a lecture about spending too much on a designer blouse. He agreed that the skirt was dumpy and even told me to take it back and buy another one if I can find one. But we both know that isn’t worth it. I’ll live with the dumpy skirt. And I’ll live with the out-of-style clogs. Toby says that everyone is going to be looking at my face or my tummy and they won’t even notice my skirt or my shoes anyway.
He’s probably right. Besides attitude is everything right? Here’s to putting on a smile and grinning and wearing it!
