This is Serious Business

I work in an office building. It's nice enough, as office buildings go. But my most frav-rite (to quote a young Chloe Hagemann) thing about the building was our vending machine. It was as if it was stocked by a 16 year old pregnant woman with a case of the munchies. It had a good selection of salty and sweet snacks, with the occasional healthy treat thrown in there (which never got consumed). There were also some canned sodas that were stashed somewhere within the bowels of the machine, but I never messed with that. I am a vending machine purist.

 

There must be a bunch of eaters in this building because you had to move fast on that there vending machine, or else the Twix you were eyeing on your way in the building might be gone come 2:00. For the early part of my pregnancy, it was not uncommon for me to have a two-visit vending machine kind of day.

 

Then one day it was GONE!

 

A gaping hole where my dear, sweet office buddy once was. And part of me died, and part of me thought this was the pregnancy Gods intervening and maybe, just maybe, I might be able to escape this pregnancy with under 100 pound weight gain.

 

Then, just as quickly as it was gone, there was a new vending machine in its place. At first glance, this one seemed fancy and with all that space, certainly could accommodate all the hungry overeaters in this building.

 

And then I looked at the contents.

 

 

THREE ROWS OF DRINKS???????

 

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but to add insult to injury, there are two rows of bottled water. The same brand of bottled water. Two rows. We HAVE water fountains in this building. What we don't have is a monkey fighting snickers fountain!!!!! I think there's even a Monster Energy Drink in there. I can't be sure because my brain blanked out from fury somewhere around the middle of the second row of drinks. Am I working in a video game development building all of a sudden? Who over the age of 17 drinks that stuff anyway?

And Orange Juice. Because everyone wants their OJ straight from the vending machine.

And the chips. The freaking chips. Eight chip options. Six of which are of the cheddar/nacho/chili cheese variety. That's 6 of 8. Or 3/4ths for those of you that have my advanced math skills (did you know 4 out of 3 people have problems with fractions?-best bumper sticker ever). And because the chips share space with the soda, you have the privilege of having your chips chilled for you. Nothing is quite as refreshing as chilled greasy chips!

ONE candy option. This is where they really get me. Peanut M&Ms. The candy with the most disappointing candy volume to bag size ratio. Two rows of them. It's as if the person that stocked this machine wants everyone in the building to be miserable. If a major law firm in St. Louis that happens to share this machine with me goes under, I think we all know who to blame.

So, in case you can't tell, I am not impressed with this new machine. So much so that I may or may not be penning a strongly worded sticky note for after-hours placement. I told you, this is serious business.

23 weeks-pregnancy dreams

Boom is around 8.5 inches long and is over a pound now. I feel him kick and move fairly regularly, but I will say that I think he is much less active than Annie was. I am holding out hope that this will be an indication of his actual personality. Don't get me wrong, I love my on-the-go toddler, but the thought of two children with that level of energy makes me want to crawl into a dark cave and sleep.

Speaking of sleep, the most fun new development with the pregnancy is very vivid and bizarre dreams. The other night I dreamt that my ipad was cracked (which it is in real life) and I ate the bottom half of the screen glass. There was this plastic liner over the whole thing that, once I ATE THE GLASS, ended up looking like I had half an iPad in a Ziploc bag. I was regretting that I ATE MY IPAD, so I took my Ziploc iPad to Rick, held it out in front of him and asked, as if there wasn't anything odd about a half eaten iPad, if he thought we could return it.

Last night I had a dream that I was going on a cruise by myself, and that Taylor Swift was my concierge. But she made me call her Jennifer so she could keep a low profile. She said she did this on the side to raise some extra cash. I remember being scared because I felt the cruise ship was dangerous, but relieved that I had my Jennifer with me. Because everyone knows that in a disaster, no one's going to let anything happen to Taylor Swift.

I think I need to stop reading my US Weekly on my iPad before bed. And maybe have a snack instead.

21 weeks

We are past the halfway mark, people! It's all downhill from here, because everyone knows the second half of pregnancy is a total cakewalk. But, I cannot complain. This summer has been downright delightful, temperature wise. I think the high this week is something like 84 degrees. Compared to the usual 120 degree highs of Augusts past, I will take it.

 

Pregnancy with a toddler really makes things zip by. There are times I even forget I am pregnant, until I struggle to catch up with Rick and the stroller at the zoo (it's not a race, fella) or find myself resting my coffee cup on my now functional table/belly in the mornings. Then there's also the pregnancy conversations that I had forgotten about until the last few weeks, when people seem to feel comfortable enough to take the risk and comment on my pregnancy, fairly certain that I am not just letting myself go:

 

There's the innocent "so how far along are you?"

 

The inquisitive "so do you know what you are having?" which can sometimes be followed up by the "we didn't want to find out" response by the asker. Which is fine, if they would stop there. But some don't stop....."there are so few great surprises in this life, we wanted to wait. It's more special that way."

 

Actual conversation. It's more special. Ok, stranger lady operating the deli counter. Good to know.

 

I guess the thing that I forgot about pregnancy is that it is an open invitation for people to comment on your size, your decisions, the baby's size, tell you horror stories of nightmare pregnancies. I just don't get it. But it happens. All.The.Time.

 

It's an entirely different situation to be discussing these things with your girlfriend, who has an open invitation to share stories and experience. I welcome that. I do not, however, welcome the judgment of strangers.

 

But I had forgotten about the other grand thing about pregnancy: The Pregnancy Pass. The phenomenon that possibly cancels out the annoyance of the Pregnancy Judgers. The fact that other women now hold doors for you, and flight attendants are extra nice, and people offer to help you with your grocery bags, and you can cry at those stupid dog adoption commercials with the Sarah McLaughlin song and sleep in a bit on the weekends because you are The Pregnant One. Blame it on the hormones. And the Pregnancy Pass can be evoked when you snap at a stranger for saying "are you sure there's just one in there?", though I am pretty sure they had that one coming. You have to be careful when using TPP, because people like husbands and coworkers do grow weary of accepting this excuse. 10 months of dealing with a crazy person is a long time.

 

So yes, I am showing, and people are noticing, which all means that Boom is growing and that is all that matters. We had our anatomy scan last week and got to meet this handsome fella:



 

We confirmed he has all his parts, including verifying the Materniti21 test that he is, in fact, a boy!

 

 

Here's a bathroom shot from yesterday. Still manageable bump, in my humble opinion. Annie will now say goodnight to the baby, which is about the sweetest thing ever. Though she gets very disappointed when she asks to see him and I say she has to wait a while. But it's safe to say that we are all getting excited to get to see and hold this guy.

 

And then I get to use the all powerful NEWBORN PASS, which makes it perfectly acceptable to leave the house in breast milk stained clothing and flip flops that don't match. Or to not leave the house at all. Which since this baby will be born in December, is probably the route we will go.