The Trader Joes Incident

I love big-beaded necklaces. I own about a million and a half of them. But each one is different and goes with different outfits, so they are each important to me.

On this specific occasion, a Saturday morning, I chose to wear a brand new red/orange various-size beaded necklace. Killian and I made our first errand stop of the day at Trader Joes. He was sitting in the front of the shopping cart. I was pushing said shopping cart. After exploring every aisle and successfully picking up everything on my list, we ventured back to the produce section to pick up my current favorite food - seedless watermelon. As I was staring at the mound of delicious melons, picturing how juicy they were inside, Killian took ahold of my necklace. I wasn't alarmed by this; he was in a great mood and wasn't pulling hard. I knew he had no mal intentions. A split second later, I felt the string snap, and everything went into slow-motion. I watched what seemed like hundreds of beads fall to the hard cement floor. Each bead bounced in a diferent direction. Some went under the chip aisle shelving, some under the produce bins. Many headed for people's shopping carts. I had visions of people slipping on my beads and falling all over Trader Joes. While that image now makes me laugh, at the time it was very stressful. Everyone was looking at the source of the scattered beads: me. I turned red, as I so easily do, and frantically began grabbing every bead I could find. I also tried to warn all people entering "THE BEAD ZONE" in an attempt to keep my visions from coming to pass. A couple of lovely bystanders handed me small handfuls of beads that they had recovered. I shoved each one into my tiny change purse and scanned the floor for more. I forgot to mention that some of the beads were the exact shape, size and color as cherry tomatoes - so I ended up grabbing a few squishy fugitive tomatoes that had found a hideout under the produce bins.

All of this took place in less than 1 minute. When I realized that I had gotten ahold of all the beads that I possibly could, and knew I had to leave the rest for dead, I snapped my bulging coin purse closed, took a deep breath, and looked to Killian. I gave him a flustered smile hoping that he would "get" me. I also thought that he might be feeling kind of bad for having a) broken my adored necklace, and b) causing such a stir.

Instead, he looked at me and said, with a very sincere face, "That's too bad!" ("Bad" was pronounced "bayyadd".) I have NO idea where he picked up this phrase or how he knew when to use it, but it certainly took me by surprise! Not "oops" or "sorry". An almost sarcasticcally-toned and unapologetic way of avoiding any responsibility for the incident.

10 Things You Should NEVER Say to a Pregnant Woman

(In no specific order:)

1. "Are you sure it's not twins?"

I can't tell you how many times I was asked this question during my first pregnancy. I think it's the most offensive, even though people always asked in a joking way. Listen, I don't care if you are joking - it is not funny to ask this question to any pregnant woman! Chances are that you would already be aware of the fact if I was indeed pregnant with twins. My response to these jokers: Are you sure you're not a douchebag?

2. "Are you sure they got your due date correct?"

Again, always asked in a joking manner, but extremely unfunny. I get it; I'm incredibly fat.

3. "WOW!" , "WHOAH!" Or any other similar exclamation.

Completely unnecessary. We pregos are WAY more aware of our excess weight than you are. Keep the comments/alarming looks to yourself.

4. "You're SO big!"

No sh**!

5. "You look like you're ready to go any second..."

How awkward do you have to make me feel when I explain that, no, I still have 2 whole months left? This is a VERY common one in the final months.

6."You look terrible!" or "You look miserable!" (which translate into the same statement)

Yes, people actually say these things to pregnant women. I may be thinking that I'm having a pretty good day, and then someone will tell me that I look "miserable".

7. "Was your pregnancy planned?"

Umm....awkward! In what way does that information apply to you? If your name does not have "Doctor" in front of it, you should probably not be asking this question.

8. "Are you going to have a natural birth?"

I would consider anything that finds its way out of my body to be pretty natural. Am I going to make things slightly easier for myself by accepting pain managing drugs? Absolutely! Does that make it less natural? Not in my opinion! Now I'm not knocking water births, but how is that any more natural? You're not a freaking dolphin!

9. Stories about people who have lost their babies.

People - mostly women and often strangers - will tell you the most horrifying tales of baby deaths while you're pregnant. Why do they feel so inclined? Do they not remember how scary every step of pregnancy and parenthood is? Which brings us to 10:

10. Labor horror stories.

Every woman who has given birth has a story. Most of them feel inclined to share their stories. Personally, I have never really had a problem with listening to experiences. But labor horror stories are in a different category. These are tales that scare the crap out of first-timers who have no idea what to expect. It's not very comforting being told how one woman suffered hours of agonizing labor only to be given a c-section in the end. Or hearing about how horribly some women tear. Or finding out how much blood is involved. Or learning that most women poop at some point during labor. It's probably better to keep these stories to yourself.

A-hoy-hoy!

I have the opposite problem to "writer's block" (or "blogger's block", which is more fun to say out loud). I have sooo many ideas for posts, but I know each one will take a lot of time to type out, and then I feel overwhelmed, so I just don't do it. I have started a ton of entries and just never finished them (Mark's mullet, for example). I won't promise to blog more often, because we all know where that leads: nowhere. But I will try to blog more often. That way you can all be privy to the delightful anecdotes I have to relay.

Look forward to the following topics:

• Mark's Mullet
• Ultrasound Pics/Junk-Grabbing
• The Big Move
• Killian's Swearing Problem
• 10 Things You Should NEVER Say to a Pregnant Woman
• General Pregnancy Stuff
• Great Movies in 2009
• New Adventures with Ryan
• The Trader Joe's Incident
• New House Makeover
• Killian the Ringbearer
• Baby Naming Issues
• (And many more...)

So vote on what you would like to hear about most, and I will devote my time to those topics!

How's Your Intuition?

Tomorrow is the big day: we find out the gender of baby number 2! (Also known as Nugget, Little Bit, and Itty Bitty.)
For fun, I wanted to make a poll to see what you THINK the baby will be. (Not what you prefer; although you may specify both if you wish.) There are a lot of people who seem to think that they know the gender, so put your money where your mouth is! Because I do not know how to set up an official looking poll, just include it in a "comment" at the bottom of the post!

WARNING: I will not release the results until I get at least 5 votes.

A Teaser....

The highlight of my haircutiing career occurred yesterday:

I...gave...Mark...a...MULLET!

More details (and pictures) to follow soon.

It's Just Baby Fat

Surprise, surprise - 1 month into my New Year's resolution I slacked off. Well, I suppose that's what New Year's resolutions are for, eh?


I decided that this post should be about the major thing going on in my life right now: I am 17 weeks pregnant with baby number 2! ............(a moment of silence for your jubilant reaction).......... I found out on December 8th and tried very hard to keep it on the hush until the end of the 1st trimester, as recommended in most books. I had to tell our families because of our timely trip to Disney World, where I was unable to ride all of the major (and best) rides in the park. I still had an amazing time; it is DISNEY WORLD, afterall, but I severely missed going on "The Tower of Terror", which is my favorite ride.
I feel like I'm showing a whole lot sooner with this pregnancy - which is standard for 2nd time pregnancies - but it still makes me feel self-conscious. Oh well, it's just baby fat, and I'm only going to get bigger from here!

We have tried to explain the new baby to Killian, but he has NO clue what we're talking about. We decided this week that it would be a good idea to buy him a baby doll so that he can practice his gentility on it. Off to Toys 'R Us we went - Kim (my cousin), Killian, and I. We perused the 2 double-sided aisles of baby doll glory for close to 20 minutes. My method was to look at the prices under the dolls before looking at the actual doll - the cheaper the better. Here is a sample of my thoughts during this process:

• "$9.99....good price, but that one has cloth hands. Don't really like dolls with cloth hands."
  
• "12.99....ok price, but that face is WAY too creepy. My goal is not to give Killian nightmares about the new baby."
  
• "Oooh, that one is so cute and lifelike.....but it's $24.99, and I am not willing to spend that much on a doll that a boy will not appreciate. And Jay would think I'm retarded."
  
• "CLEARANCE!! My favorite word to see in any store! Ok...$7.99...good price...and these dolls are..." (pause to look up at the dolls)..."not white.....hmm....would that be confusing to Killian? Maybe I should continue looking."

This continued for a few more minutes before I decided to take another look at the CLEARANCE babies. Kim and I searched through them trying to find a...more accurate....baby for our situation. Meanwhile, I gave Killian one to look at. He took to it immediately; cooing at it and petting it like a cat. The one I handed him had a picture of a white girl in the picture on the front of the box, while all the other ones had African American children. This baby was also slightly different looking than the African American ones, so I decided that it must be bi-racial. For some reason, that seemed like it would be less confusing for Killian. And more importantly, I decided that it would be an excellent opportunity to teach him not only how to be gentle with a baby, but also how to be racially tolerant and open-minded. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone. (And as I told Jay later - at least one of us won't be shocked when my baby comes out half-black.....Jay didn't seem to find that as humorous as I did.)

The real selling point for me, however, was the writing on the package. This particular doll is from the collection of dolls called "Lots to Love Babies" - as in they are so fat that there is more to love. That made me giggle. I have heard people say that they are attracted to heavier-set women or men because there is "more to love", but I would never think of that phrase being used with an infant. And then I saw the slogan underneath the name, which is "It's Just Baby Fat!" - which makes me laugh out loud every time I read it! (I don't know if I can explain why I find that so funny, but hopefully I'm not the only one.) I think it's the idea that a newborn baby has to justify its chubbiness by explaining that "it's just baby fat".
Since coming home with us, the nameless chubby baby has received lots of kisses from Killian, and I overheard him sweetly pointing out the baby's facial features (nose, mouth, cheeks, etc). Once in a while he also decides to "punish" the baby by smacking it. I don't know why he feels the need to do that - we NEVER smack him around. I am 100% sure that he would do this no matter what the color of the baby's skin, but I am concerned that he will beat the doll in public and it will come off as a hate crime.

I LOVE this picture because it looks like Killian is making the same exact face as the doll!!!

He's Just Not That Into You

Last night I saw my first film of 2009 in the theater- "He's Just Not That Into You". Rottentomatoes.com rated it 45%. Yahoo Movies gave it a C+. IMDB.com has not displayed its official star rating yet. I generally agree with these 3 sites on most movies. I realize that this is not a very unique film plot, and it is somewhat predictable and has its cheesy factor. BUT, I genuinely enjoyed watching it. Sure, I spent an entire day with a sick baby and simply getting away from a constant flow of snot was quite a treat- but I don't think that's the only reason I liked the movie. I liked the cast a lot; with the exception of one actress- Drew Barrymore. I feel kind of bad saying that, because I usually like her a lot. But I just felt that her acting was kind of overdone or something. Luckily she's not in the film enough to affect my overall opinion. My 2 favorite actors were Ginnifer Goodwin (from "Big Love") and Justin Long- who is extremely funny in a very natural and unforced way. Jennifer Aniston was ok. I enjoyed Ben Affleck. Kevin Connoly (from "Entourage") was very natural and delivered his character well. I find Jennifer Connoly (no relation to Kevin) to be very plain. I think she conveyed her character well, but nothing really stood out about her to me. Bradley Cooper (who is hosting SNL tonight) is very funny and charming, even if his character is kind of slimy. I really liked Scarlett Johansson- mostly because she has more curves than any other female in the cast. There is something Marilyn Monroe about her to me, which I enjoy. I also think she is a great actress. I have never really been in the dating world to be able to relate to their stories, but I still felt a connection with the characters. A lot of the situations were definitely realistic. I also like the "exception" vs. "rule" concept used throughout the movie (I can't really explain that - just go see it.)

So while this is not going to win best picture of 2009, I already know that I will buy it (previously viewed from Blockbuster, of course) and I recommend it for any chicks who are looking for a good (but not amazing) movie.

Have you seen it? Tell me what you think!