THE DRESS FIT.

The End.

I know that was really all anyone wanted to hear about – especially my real life friends, since I don’t think I’ve talked about anything else for weeks. Of course, my fear of the dress not fitting didn’t stop me from stuffing my face enjoying the delicious rehearsal dinner or catered lunch at the salon. Pregnancy is equal to about four glasses of wine when it comes to helping you make good choices. Maybe that’s the REAL reason you aren’t supposed to drink while pregnant – you’re already just a few seconds away from doing something really stupid, no need to add alcohol.

I look like the Hulk next to those teeny tiny maids. HULK SMASH J CREW!!

It was a super awesome fun time. Half the guests were from England (as is the Groom), so cute accents and extremely high alcohol tolerances were plentiful. It’s probably good I was knocked up and unable to enjoy more than a sip of champagne, since “open bar” is a dangerous thing to offer someone having her very first date night in 17 months and who hasn’t even finished a glass of wine in more than 2 years.

Since it’s not my wedding and most of you don’t know who any of these people are, I’ll try to keep the pictures to a minimum. I’m also EXTREMELY disappointed I didn’t pass my camera off to anyone  – I don’t have a single head-on shot with my dress and hair and makeup done, and NO pictures of me and E together or me in the borrowed comfy-yet-still-super-classy black dress I changed into for the dancing and eating part of the reception. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of the people at my table (the official Friends From High School table) had cameras, so the chances of a good picture popping up on Facebook is pretty small. I also loved the bulk lace table runners they had to decorate while we had dinner together.

Here’s your free tip of the day: IF YOU LOOK NICE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE GIVING BIRTH, GET LOTS OF PICTURES OF YOURSELF.

Every picture of myself I have – the two on the ends are cropped like 400% because they’re really of lots of people. But you don’t know them.

(As a sidenote, although I have hated almost every picture of myself for the past 6 years, I don’t mind these. Being pregnant is a pretty good excuse for a double chin and my arms look not as huge as they used to be.)

I did steal these from someone’s Facebook – just not someone I know. Despite all my complaining about the dress being TERRIBLE for pregnant people, they looked spectacular in the pictures.

I have a whole series of pictures from the “putting on the dress” portion of the afternoon. They’re hilarious.

Isn’t she gorgeous? Everything about the day was gorgeous. For anyone who’s also thinking of marrying someone in the nearest future, check out these titanium wedding bands for sale because they are just plain beautiful. Enough said. 

That is the official E Dancing Face. He was SO THRILLED to be dancing. I wish I could explain the dancing better, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say dancing is His Thing.

I also got to meet a reader (I will NOT say “fan”) who I didn’t know before – the bride was kind enough to send her a link when she was pregnant last year and for some crazy reason she’s kept reading. It was AWESOME, if only because I’d been doing my best not to talk about my kid for the past two days and suddenly here was someone who WANTED to talk about babies. Within seconds we were already discussing our struggles with breastfeeding and cloth diapers and labor preparations. I’ve never met someone I knew through blogging before (I know people who also blog but I don’t know them FROM their blogs, if that makes sense) but it really is like having an instant friend. So great to meet you Kim!

So, who wants to get married next? E and I definitely need another weekend like this one.

We came down to Northern Virginia this weekend for my friend Erin’s super awesome wedding. My parents got to watch Baby Evan during the rehearsal dinner AND the wedding and they did a fantastic job. No broken parts and they totally wore him out. He slept for 13 hours last night. I had to go in and poke him to check for signs of life. We’ve decided to come visit much more often – one baby-free date night every 17 months is NOT enough.

The wedding was absolutely gorgeous and the the reception was one of the best parties I’ve ever been to. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing E dance you wouldn’t understand why I love wedding receptions so much, but let me tell you – it is EPIC. The drinking made it even better, although he probably won’t be doing THAT again for a while – in his own words, he’s getting way to old for this s***.

Most of my photos are on the computer and I’m writing this from my phone (woot! iPhone shout out!) because we’re on our way in to DC for a few hours, but I will have TONS to share when we get home to CT. My dress totally fit and didn’t even look that bad, although I still changed into a super comfy maternity dress for the dancing and eating portion of the night. It was awesome. Congrats again to my two amazing friends!

Have a safe and wonderful Labor Day!

This video contains several things I’ve been trying to capture on camera for the last couple of weeks:

1. The palms-up “I dunno!” shrug, accompanied by the face. I think I’ve shrugged like that maybe twice in my life, but obviously one of those times was in front of Baby Evan.
2. That “Ey-ee?” noise he makes when he pulls his arm back to throw something. I was at playgroup two weeks ago and complained that Baby Evan LOVED to throw things but had a hard time distinguishing appropriate stuff from hard, pointy things. One of the moms said “Why don’t you get him to ask “Ready?” before he throws?” AND THEN HE DID. Because she mentioned it once within his earshot. It doesn’t really help though, since he just ask “Ey-ee?” before throwing the hard, pointy things. But at least you have fair warning. It is often followed by “Oh!” (throw!) but not always.
3. The “Ooooooo-ho-oo-oo-oo” that goes with the “Oh” face from the weekend’s post. He does it all the time and I always crack up.

(As usually, please ignore the mess and the dog and my husband’s gym shorts yadda yadda yadda. Whatevs, this is what my life looks like. I’m over it.)

(Also, free housekeeping tip of the day: Socks pick up a lot of dog hair and dirt and are easily washable.)

P.S. Want to make our relationship Facebook official? “Like” me – you can use the link in the left sidebar – to get even more Bebehblog! It makes me feel all warm and tingly.

I’ve been having really bad luck lately, which all seems to be car related, which also all seems to be somewhat my own fault. OK, maybe entirely my fault – this pregnancy brain thing is REAL, no matter what “science” might have to say about it. “Science” also says alcohol is bad for you and we all know THAT’S not true. But seriously, pregnancy brain plus bad luck is the worst thing ever.

On Wednesday, I did my daily morning juggle of baby-water-bottle-purse-yoga-mat-stroller out to the car minivan only to discover the doors were locked and my keys weren’t in my purse. I dragged everything back inside and spent 10 minutes tearing apart the kitchen to find my keys before I remembered I put them in my other purse. THEN I remember I had just seen my other purse. On the floor of the car minivan. The locked one. So instead of a morning workout followed by an hour or two of playground time followed by a nice afternoon nap, I spent my day trying to entertain Screamy McScreamerson, King of the Split Personality who thinks smacking you in the face just so he can kiss the boo is HI-LAR-I-OUS.

Thursday was better. Besides the screaming match E and I got into about what the definition of “on top of the stroller” is. True story – we might be the first people to ever put “irreconcilable differences re: stroller anatomy” on our divorce petition.

On Friday afternoon I needed to run to the post office and finally mail those Lbaggies to my giveaway winners (sorry it took so long guys, they’re on the way!) so I left E with a napping baby and hopped in the van. As I was backing down the driveway I thought I felt a little…lopsided. Normally, being the super-responsible very automobile knowledgeable person I am, I would have convinced myself I was imagining things and run my errand anyway. But this time I got out and looked at my front left tire. My totally – TOTALLY – flat front left tire. Flat like a pancake. Flat like a board. Flat like my chest in the eighth grade when I bought that bathing suit with the built in cups and then couldn’t go in the water for fear they might collapse.

It was really flat. It sort of looked like it might have been flat for a while.

And then I remembered how the car scraped on the bump pulling into the driveway.

And then I remembered how the car scraped on the bump pulling out of the Wendy’s drive thru.

And then I remembered how the car sort of…pulled to the left on the way TO playgroup.

And then I remembered the “low tire pressure” light that’s been on pretty much since we bought the car.

I am a genius. And pretty lucky I (probably) didn’t permanently damage my axle. Or cause an accident.

In my defense, the light was on when we actually bought the car and the guy said “Oh it’s just because of the temperature. Once the weather cools down you’ll be fine.” Which is why I yelled “The salesman said it was OK! Tell them he’s a lying liar!!” in the background while E talked the dealership into replacing our OBVIOUSLY PREVIOUSLY PATCHED tire for free. I’m going in at 8 am today to sit in the waiting room with a hyperactive toddler for probably several hours until the mechanic tells me they don’t even have that tire in stock so they’ll have to special order it and can I come back in two weeks? And bee tee double-you, that’ll be $150.

Did I mention the part where the van FELL OFF THE JACK while E was changing the flat and I had to call AAA to come with their special heavy-duty jack? Or the part where the van FELL OFF THAT ONE TOO? Apparently the jacking mechanism is all…jacked-up.

Maybe the universe is telling me to just stay home. Which is the kind of advice I think I should follow – as soon as I go to the store for chocolate ice cream jelly beans milk and bread.

It turns out I didn’t need to be worried at all about leaving Baby Evan for a weekend, since not only did he survive without me, I don’t think he even noticed I was gone. As far as he was concerned, I was just at knitting group or the grocery store or upstairs napping for a minute and would probably be right back. It helps that 16 months is too early to have much concept of time. It also helped that he didn’t fall on his head or break any bones or knock out a tooth or accidentally cut off his arm with the hedge trimmers or something else that might require mama hugs.

As I said when I was still debating the trip, I wasn’t worried at all about E’s ability to handle the baby on his own – he’s a great father. Actually, I don’t think that’s a good enough title – a “Great Father” sounds like someone from a 50’s TV sitcom who provides a paycheck and health insurance, plays catch with his kids, and then maybe beats them occasionally, but only with switches thinner than his thumb. And of course when he does, he says “This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you.”

E might do all that (besides the beating thing, obviously)(at least I hope that is obvious)(by which I mean he doesn’t beat us, not that he uses big sticks) but he’s really just a great PARENT. When he’s not at work, he parents equally as much as I do. He does bedtime and bath time on his own every single night. He changes diapers, even the cloth ones I talked him into, and voluntarily uses them when I’m not here to remind him. He can feed and dress and comfort Baby Evan as needed. He can take the kid to the grocery store or the hardware store or the electronics store and not be baffled by car seat straps and diaper bags and shopping carts and strollers. There is no bumbling or fumbling or oh-silly-man-pretending-to-be-a-mom pitying glances from strangers. And as Baby Evan turns more and more into Little Person You Can Actually Interact With Evan, E gets better and better at parenting.

(As I write this, my boys are actually missing. I think they went to Hartford to buy roller blades but the last time I saw them, E picked the baby up from the ultrasound appointment and just left. I came home to a silent, wonderfully empty house.)

That being said…you know what E is NOT good at?  Being pregnant. I mean, my being pregnant. He’d probably be terrible at being pregnant too, but unfortunately science isn’t able to provide that joyous experience to men so we’ll never know. I expect it would go something like this:

Wah, I feel nauseous! Wah, my feet hurt! Wah, I’m hungry! No I don’t want THAT to eat, I want something else. I don’t know what. But I need it NOW! Wah, I have Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction* and it hurts to do everything so I’m going to just lie here on the couch for the next 5 months! Wah wah wah!

No offense to E. I think ALL dudes would suck at pregnancy.

I just think it would be nice if E even NOTICED my delicate condition. When I flop down on the couch and say “Oh man my feet hurt” he says “Why?” When it’s 9 pm and I say “I’m going to bed” he says “Why?”  When I say “Honey, it’s too hot to cook and I don’t feel like having chicken tonight anyways” he says “Why?” When I say “Man, I’m really in the mood for a Frosty, any chance you want to go get me one?” He says “Why?” or more accurately, “No frickin’ way. Your legs aren’t broken.”  He’s never read a pregnancy book, not even the special chapter in the Girlfriend’s Guide I bookmarked for him and left totally inconspicuously on his pillow. And then in the bathroom. And then on top of his computer. And then literally hit him over the head with. As far as I know, everything he’s learned about pregnancy at all has been from reading my blog.** He doesn’t make a point to take off work for my (admittedly boring) OB visits, but he also doesn’t make a point of attending ANY of my appointments, including the one yesterday where there was a teeny tiny chance the tech would say something scary and turn the monitor away and I would end up alone in an office while the doctor said horrible things like “abnormal” and “physical defect”.***

Maybe I expect too much. Maybe I’ve internalized those commercials where some dude gets up at 3 am and drives all over town to find just the right flavor of chocolate fudgey mint chip ice cream for his pregnant wife. Maybe that – GASP! – doesn’t happen in real life. And I KNOW taking time off of work isn’t exactly easy when the U.S. Government literally owns your ass. Plus I need him to save those off days for things like getting my teeth cleaned and, oh I don’t know, GIVING BIRTH. I’m not expecting constant foot rubs or being waited on hand and foot or a surprise maid service to come in and scrub my floors.

But it would be nice, every once in a while, if someone would just go get me a Frosty.

*I have it. I had SPD last time too, but not this early, so I have no idea just how bad it’s going to get. I also didn’t know what it was called, although shockingly knowing what it’s called in NO WAY makes it hurt less.

**Which might be part of the problem – he often forgets that reading something on my site and then talking about it with guys at work is NOT THE SAME as having a conversation with me. The same way my blog-less friends often forget to call and chat because, duh, they already KNOW how I’m doing.

***The doctor actually said “I don’t know why you’re here” and “I’m sure your office saw something they questioned, but I don’t see anything worth following up.” And to be fair, before E took the baby away the tech did say “It all looks good, nothing serious, the doctor just wants to take a look.”