Saturday:
1. My only comfortable pair of pants is in the wash, so I am forced to wear spandex workout pants as leggings. I leave the house looking like an escapee from an Olivia Newton John video. I figure my coat and boots hide enough to prevent anyone from clutching their face and screaming “my eyes! my eyes!”
2. The sun comes out. The temperature in all enclosed spaces officially reaches “OMFG HOT” and I choose to take off my coat rather than cook the baby, leggings be damned.
3. At BJ’s, I intentionally avoid getting a cart so I’m not tempted to buy things I don’t need. While hauling my giant package of toilet paper to the checkout, I walk past the thing I was planning to get E for his birthday. I decide I’ll check at Target before I buy it, but by the time I get to the car I’ve changed my mind. I get a cart and go through the line again. The receipt checker eyes me warily.
4. At Babies R Us I have a mini-breakdown when I notice the nursery decor I registered for is almost gone. No more sheets, blankets, curtains, or pillows – just the wallpaper borders and a lamp. I grab a salesperson and try to explain that if my baby’s room doesn’t have THREE matching window valances he might as well call Child Protective Services AND the ASPCA right now since I am obviously unfit to parent anything larger than a houseplant. Then I remember all my houseplants are dead and my breakdown intensifies. The employee reminds me I can always order stuff online and runs away. You’d think baby store employees would be better trained to handle insane pregnant women.
5. I attempt to try on maternity jeans at Target. The lighting in the dressing room reveals things about my thighs no one should ever have to see. I settle on a pair of black sweatpants and several parachutes nursing bras and consign myself to a life of long pants, sarongs and thick tights.
6. I buy curtain rods at Target. Before I even get to the car I decide they’re the wrong curtain rods and return them. It takes two more tries before I settle on the original rods, minus the decorative finals. Target Security eyes me warily.
7. Because I am awesome, I manage to wrap E’s present – complete with bow – in the back of the car in the parking lot. It takes an entire roll of paper but it means he will having to #$%ing WAIT to see it. Patience is a virtue severely lacking around here.
8. I pop into Panera for lunch, along with what must be the entire population of Eastern Connecticut. I order a sandwich and a drink and wait patiently for my order. While filling my cup with Diet Pepsi, I notice a woman watching me. I silently prepare to berate her for judging my choice of beverage – “It’s none of your business, thankyouverymuch, and I am frickin thirsty! Go judge someone else!” – when she smiles and says “You are so cute pregnant!” I mutter something about being lucky she can’t see my thighs but manage to thank her and finish my soda without further incident.
9. Before going home I swing by the cute local baby store just down the street I’ve been meaning to check out for the last 8 months. They specialize in the kind of natural, organic, and European baby stuff I don’t understand and can’t afford. I’m pretty sure they charge me $20 just to breathe their 100% pure imported unscented soy-infused air. I immediately feel inferior to the kind of parent who does buy $42 Swedish onesies and free trade unpainted wood toys. I try to sneak out unnoticed but the woman behind the counter ambushes me with a schedule of cloth diapering and baby-wearing classes.
10. I am exhausted. I say silent but powerful prayers for anyone who has to work full time at 8 months pregnant, unless their job is to lie in bed all day (uh…nevermind). The idea of trying to have more than one child suddenly seems ridiculous. I look forward to the day when I having a screaming infant to hand off to someone else so I can work on weighing less than a medium sized horse.
