No Really, its a .....

BOY! Wow, were we fairly surprised. Because despite my stating that I wasn't leaning one way or the other, I really thought I was having a girl. I'm a girlie girl through and through. I would be fine with a house FULL of girls (though Mat might explode from estrogen overdose). Dresses and makeup and hairdos and jewelry and pink stuff!! What am I gonna do with a boy?! I don't know anything about boys, really. How will we bond? What will we have in common? How do his parts work? How does his mind work? How do I do this?

And then. A few weeks have passed and I started imagining my little towheaded munchkin running around and I let out my breath. And then he started kicking, letting me know I need to accept it, and I started talking to him. He'll be a mama's boy and will be the light of my life and what the heck am I worried about? Mat can teach him sports, or maybe he'll be a smarty pants artist. Or both. Or neither. Whatever he is, whoever he turns out to be, he'll be mine and Mat's and no one else's. (Well, until he turns 30 and we let him out of the house.)

Otherwise pregnancy seems to be going great. It is amazing how your second trimester lulls you into believing that life might actually 'go back to normal.' I have energy, not too many aches and pains, and my only cravings seem to be for extremely disgusting cereal advertised to 5 year olds. I've been on a serious investigation into the disappearance of Eggo cereal from the shelves. If you are unfamiliar, please let me introduce you to pretty much the best cereal EVER. It's little pieces of sugar-laden highly processed corn puffs in the shape of tiny little Eggo waffles and tastes like butter and maple syrup. Holy crap it's good. I can't find these anywhere, but I'm willing to pay a reward to anyone who uncovers a box and sends it to me.

I've been through Apple Jacks (please see previous post) Cocoa Pebbles, Honeycomb, Reese's Pieces cereal (yes, exactly how it sounds, and possibly tied for best cereal ever) and am currently working through boxes of Golden Grahams and Marshmallow Pebbles. I'm also starting a movement for the comeback of Smurfberry Crunch cereal, which I remember from the 80's and was so good - seeing as how they have a new Smurf movie coming out it would seem appropriate, don't you think? Anyway, I'm able to keep pretty accurate records on the various levels of my cereal stores because I do not show these boxes to Katya and I'm pretty much the only one who partakes. These babies only come out late at night or in the morning after she's gone to school. They are so bad for her I would never allow her to eat them!

Other than my cereal fetish (which, if you know me, is not really out of character) I only have a few other minor complaints. Top of the list are the digestion issues as everything starts to get squished. I never even knew what heartburn was until now. Really. I had a hard time describing what it was until a lightbulb went off and got myself some Tums. Also, I have copious amounts of gas and it seems to explode out of me at the most inopportune times. This is quite embarrassing for me as girls are really not supposed to have bodily functions at all. The last incident was as I was picking up Katya at school. I went to the coat area to collect her things and it just so happened that every parent with a child was in the coat area at the exact same time as me. No one had a greater look of awe than I as I realized I was the host of a surprise fart party and the guest of honor just showed up. It happened so fast I couldn't repress the small jump I did (Whooo! as if the fart propelled me off the ground.) I ran, leaving behind scarves and mittens and my dignity.

The other issue is my smelly feet. It's really quite unreal. I've never had much of an issue with this before I was pregnant and now, I stink! And again, ladies should not smell, so this is really a jagged pill to swallow. All of my most comfy and supportive sneakers that have never before gotten odorous are so shockingly pungent now I have to leave them outside sometimes. What is this?!? Couple that with my superhero sense of smell these days and I literally can't stand it.

Needless to say, with all the combined above stated issues I'm not feeling incredibly sexy. On top of that, Victoria's Secret has gotten wind that I'm pregnant and has decided to up the after-baby motivation quotient and start sending me doubles of all of their catalog issues so I can browse often and reminisce about what I used to look like. Or maybe one is supposed to be for Mat as well? The Apocolypse will begin, however, the day I catch Mat looking. Although I have to give him credit. I did promise that my breasts would grow some more and they (still) have not lived up to the hype. And he hasn't said a thing except that I'm beautiful despite my constant body evaluation sessions. Good boy.

Though I was close to tranquilizing him on the day that we went to Babies R Us to register. First we had to listen to the 20 minute presentation on how, actually, to use the scanner gun. Which seems like overkill but actually is quite necessary for that complicated piece of machinery. Mat, already bored with the whole exercise, left after 2 minutes. Which meant that he didn't then know how to delete. And that would have come in handy, because I realized very quickly that he is trigger happy and I am clueless. Bad combination at the baby store.

We started at the closest thing, the breast pumps. And I froze. Within 3 minutes I was completely overwhelmed and nearly in a panic attack. We moved on and as I stewed over the pros and cons of the organic, eco-friendly Boppy cover vs. the cute green fluffy (though apparently toxic?) Boppy cover, Mat took off, disgusted with my indecision, and started just scanning things so he could get some use out of the gun. He literally was bouncing off the walls and his agitation was making me nervous. I then started making a list of all the things I needed to do research on first. And it turns out, I think I need to do research on everything from diaper pails to pacifiers to whether I need headphones for my tummy so Baby Bets can start learning how to speak in the womb or the electronic cry analyzer that will tell me if his cry means 'I'm hungry' or 'change my flippin diaper you lazy bum!'

The other issue was the company we brought with us, which seriously, duh. Katya came and wanted either for herself, her future brother, her friends, or me, every single thing on the shelves. Every. Single. Thing. 'Look at this Mommy, can we buy it?!' 'Ooo, we need THAT!' She'd pick it up, play for a second, drop it on the floor, leave it, we'd tell her to put it back, she'd whine, then finally say 'I can't reach it to put it back!' and over and over again. Oh my god.

We also brought Mat's mom, who, poor thing, was about as overwhelmed as I was. 'When I was having babies we didn't need any of this stuff! We didn't even have stores like these!' And I immediately longed for that nostalgic ignorance. I'd like things to go back to that, quite frankly. I mean, there is so much STUFF. If you have it all, you'd need a 10,000 square foot house and every moment would be a life altering decision of which device to use. If you don't have it all you feel like you are missing out on some great invention that everyone else has and really will save your sanity. I nearly had a meltdown, until I started following around another preggo and her friend with a baby and they seemed to have it all so pulled together. Sigh. We left shortly thereafter with maybe 10 items scanned and I set up a frantic Babies R Us date with my friend Loryn, sans obnoxious husband and crazy child.

So, let's recap what I need so far:

1. A boy name. We had Lola all picked out for a girl, and started doing all this stuff like taking a picture of a sign in Jerome that said "Lola's Place" and Mat got me Lola perfume by Marc Jacobs. We really were cute. Now, we are stuck between 3 boy names and are in a deadlock, with the oh so helpful input of our nearest and dearest. It's so interesting how we get lots of feedback on the names that they DON'T like. Not realizing, I suppose, that we may in fact choose that name and then we'll forever know how much they can't stand saying it.

2. Colors and designs for my nursery. Brown? Blue? Sports? (Uh, no.) Animals? Planes? How about books, art, and pictures of Paris? Yes!

3. Absolutely every possible thing for the nursery. Ditto for everything to actually care for the baby once it comes out of my body.

4. Motivation to get all this done.

5. Eggo Cereal.

Til next time!!

And It's A......

Green fizzy concoction that apparently is telling me I'm having a girl. Yes, I succumbed to the Draino test. Elisabeth brought it with her to the nail salon a couple of weeks ago, and as the rest of the girls got their toenails done I was forced to urinate into some random disposable vessel in the bathroom in the back and then do a hand-off to my best friend of my cup'o pee in full public display. Elisabeth finished the deed by pouring in the Crystal Draino - in a well-ventilated area mind you, due to the fact that you could DIE if you breath in these toxic fumes - and came back into the salon announcing "It's a girl!" This of course set the whole salon, including my favorite Asian nail technicians, a'twitter.

For more accurate results, stay tuned next week, where I'll be answering the questions..."What color should I start buying?" and "Are there twins in there, because I'm fat enough!" and "It's really a baby and not a food sucking alien liquefying my brain cells, right?" Ultrasound finally will happen at 20 weeks. Yay!

For now I'm dealing with the ever-surprising depth of my hunger....and diminishing brain power. I am finally gaining weight after a pretty light first trimester, and boy is it on. I am ravenous. Mostly for sweet things. I read that women crave carb-rich sugar laden foods as a protection mechanism to keep them from eating bitter, poisonous, bad for you leaves and twigs back in the caveman days. So I'm going with that story. I made the mistake of buying Apple Jacks in addition to my supply of High Fiber Flax Seed Bran Flakes with Wheat Germ. Guess which one I pick when my howling stomach wakes me up? Three bowls deep this morning and I finally had to reign in the beast. I'm not proud. (But I'm pregnant so it's ok! See below.) Suppose I need to cultivate my choices more carefully.

I'm not eating too terribly though. I have not allowed myself to cave to a daily ice cream fix or even too many holiday cookies with the frosting, or the fudge or peanut brittle that I love so much or .... all the visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. And I actually have made peace with vegetables again, although broccoli, once my most steadfast ally, will not yet surrender. But in spite of the salads and fruit, my body is holding on the every last calorie. It's just shocking to gain 5 pounds in a week, no matter how you slice it. Blame it on my fat baby...but still it's incredible.

Good news is I feel pretty darn good. That first trimester, man oh man. That's enough to make you swear off going through these shenanigans again. Fortunately it ends - isn't it amazing how God plans that? This whole thing is quite surreal actually. I know that this whole pregnancy thing is not some grand secret biological Davinci-like code that I alone have unlocked. But when it happens to you for the first time, you stand in awe (shock? I was looking in the mirror at my naked body at the time) of all the incredible, miraculous inner workings that perfectly synchronize to make a baby. It's almost impossible to wrap your brain around it. Though if I could wrap my mouth around it, I'd probably eat it.

Speaking of my body doing incredible things, there have been several adjustments to being the physical host to another person that I've had to get used to. Top of the list is the strange way my bladder has taken on a life of its own. It's not controlled by me anymore, is my point. I was sitting here a minute ago laughing at an article on Christmas Toys That Suck and, well, I peed my pants - and more than a little bit. And on my last trip to Phoenix, after several nights of rough sleep, I finally fell into this blissful respite with the only unfortunate side effect being that I did not wake myself up (during one of those "pee dreams" where in your head you're already on the toilet) to go to the bathroom and instead, did a full-on bladder release on the new mattress.

What's even crazier is that I'm not embarrassed to tell you that! If I have to deal with this kind of nonsense on one side, what's great is on the other side I get to blame everything I do on being pregnant and it's all ok. I pee on everything! And you all (women especially) nod and say, yup, I know, but you're pregnant, honey. I put the milk away in the cabinet and found the toilet paper in the fridge! And everyone chuckles knowingly. I act like a crazy person nearly all of the time! And in unison we all accept that its just the way things go when a little person inside you is siphoning off your brain cells to use them as her own. I love it!

Although one very unpleasant brain-loss episode happened recently that still has me reeling. You might have heard that I had an accident with Coco at the Chicago airport on a layover to Philadelphia. The gist is that I let her walk on the escalator and did not have the wherewithal to pick her up. Seriously, duh. I often can't time the fricking disembarkment right and end up tripping over my own stupidity, so what makes me think my dog can do this? You can see where this is going. In the chaos of the moment of ripping her lodged paw out of the moving escalator before it was swallowed into the abyss, I nailed my head on something -who knows what - knocking myself off balance and ending us both up in a heaping, whimpering, bloody mess on the airport floor. A bandaged, toe-less foot (on Coco) and black eye (on me) later, we finally boarded our aircraft four hours after the fact. Coco had drugs to settle her down. I had to spend the rest of the flight drowning slowly in watery guilt without the aid of chemicals. This was two weeks ago and I'm not even close to getting over it. It's been exhausting trying to keep my head afloat above the waves of remorse for so long.

The whole turbulent event has left me questioning my ability to parent. Honestly - if I can't even keep my dog out of trouble, how am I supposed to do this with a kid? And the guilt, my god it's oppressive. When an accident happens, how do you forgive yourself? What am I gonna do at the first banged head or - heaven-forbid - broken bone? It's so scary out there and my job is to protect those that depend on me for their safety, and I failed the test. I almost wish I could rewind back. Ha ha, oops, thought I was ready for this but I'm not! Better luck with someone else!

But there's no going back. I'm in this, and have to go through with it. And I suppose all I can do is my best, and leave the rest up to fate. I will learn from these lessons placed in my path. I will learn slowly, eventually, how to let go too, I guess. I know that there's a plan in all this chaos, here somewhere waiting for me to discover it.

Wonder if there's a cookie in there too...?