Touch the Belly and Die

The problem with working retail while pregnant is that your belly is in the public domain. It never ceases to amaze me how every rule of social etiquette falls completely to the wayside when people are faced with a pregnant woman, particularly when part of their job description involves being pleasant and most specifically not hitting people. So, I have resigned myself to spending at least eight hours a day, every day answering the same damn questions and nimbly trying to avoid those who would touch the belly.

I was thinking - in the interest of simplifying my life - that I could make a couple of signs that I could prop up on the counter at work. I thought I could make two; one for the generally polite yet insanely curious crowd, and one for the rest of the world.

Sign #1
Yes, I am indeed pregnant, and you successfully avoided a serious social gaffe. Yes, this is is my first baby, and I am due in early July. No, I don't know if it is a boy or a girl. No, I don't plan on finding out. Yes, my husband and I are excited (and how clever you were to slip that question in while pointedly looking for the wedding rings that no longer fit on my fingers.) Thank you for your well wishes and please, please, please don't start telling me about your friend's, cousin's, neighbour's housekeeper who had a horrible, awful labour that resulted in the death of everyone involved, including innocent bystanders.

Sign #2
No, I really am not huge/small for 4/5/6 months along and yes, I am sure it is really just one baby, ha ha ha. Yes, I am stunned and impressed with your ability to tell that I am carrying a boy/girl based merely on the sight of my Old Navy Maternity clad belly. No, I really don't need to sit down right this instant and in fact, if I spent the next 5/4/3 months sitting down my ass would expand to the size of a small city. No, that isn't a cup of coffee it is herbal tea, and my lunch is my bag if you would like to inspect that for soft cheeses and other contraband. Yes, I know it's shocking but pregnancy hasn't turned me into a total invalid, and I can still perform the duties of my job (which isn't exactly rocket science to begin with) and even lift that six ounce knick knack and place it in a box without assistance. No, I will not give you - you total and complete stranger - fertility advice, and does your wife know you are running around town telling people all about her fertility woes? Yes, I am a goddess, thanks for noticing, now go away you are creeping me out. NO, YOU MAY NOT TOUCH THE BELLY!

Spring Reading List

I am making this list hoping I might actually find the time to read someday. Maybe even whole pages in one sitting! Of course, there is only a fifty percent chance I will remember anything I've read from one moment to the next, so I might just read the same paragraph for the next fifteen weeks or so. My brain has been co-opted by pregnancy hormones (did I mention I forgot my own mother's phone number the other day - she's had the same number for twelve years) so this reading list is populated totally by fluff - I've been told I should have the full use of my faculties back by 2007 or so.

Fiction:

A Superior Death - Nevada Barr

Sick Puppy - Carl Hiaasen

Grave Secrets - Kathy Reichs

Disordered Minds - Minette Walters

How To Be Good - Nick Hornby

Louisiana Hotshot - Julie Smith

Non Fiction:

The same two books I have been reading for months.

The Baby Book - Dr. William Sears

The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth - Dr. Sheila Kitzinger

It's Monday, Isn't It?

How can it be Monday already?! That seems really unfair.

Someone Give Me a Cookie - Now!

Oh the cravings. You don't understand, until you have experienced them, the depth and breadth of the pregnancy craving. I foolishly thought they were just a way to get your husband to go buy you a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos at two am without complaint. How wrong, how very wrong I was. I swear it's as though the baby has a takeout menu and a direct line to my stomach stashed away in there. And it better in come in thirty minutes or less or else.

It is Very Strange...

...to watch a little foot (or maybe it was a head, or elbow, or fist) cause your belly to bounce around. I'm not used to seeing parts of my body move independently of me. Sometimes you get so used to being big and round and unweildy, you forget there is someone in there.