You mess with the bull...You get the horns

Or should I say "You mess with the pregnant lady... you get full-on bitch"? I'm so glad I have my blog to vent to right now. Let me set the stage: I have to park in a parking garage for work. The smoking area for the entire building is on the floor where I park so I have to walk past it every time I enter the building. Most of the time the smokers are on a bench a few feet away, but today it's really windy so two dub-T (white trash) middle-aged women (well, I say middle-aged, but Ann Richards looked like she was 105 when she was 60) were smoking right in front of the elevators so there was no way I could avoid them. I pushed the button to call the elevator and I'm highly agitated with the situation because I'm breathing in all of their second-hand smoke. How do address this? Do I bite my lip? Do I ask them to move? The fury was building inside me. Then I tell myself to be nice and settle down because these people obviously don't know where they're not supposed to be standing. I turned toward them and said in the nicest voice I could muster I said, "Would you ladies mind smoking on the benches? I'm pregnant and would rather not breathe in the fumes". There - that wasn't abrasive. That wasn't so bad. And for a split second I was proud of the way I voiced myself like a mature adult.

But that's where the maturity stopped. You know that scene in The Exorcist where Linda Blair's head spins around and her eyes are glowing yellow? They looked just like that. My words were like holy water hitting their nicotine-possessed bodies. So now I'm mad. I'm mad that these women are 1) looking at me like I'm the crazy one and 2) they're not moving. Just as my elevator arrived and before I could stop myself, the following came out of my mouth: "And you know what else?!!! I don't want to STINK!! I don't want to SMELL LIKE YOU!!!" What? Am I five years old? I don't want "to smell like you"? Nice. I was so articulate that I'm surprised I didn't add a "nanny nanny boo-boo, stick your head in doo-doo" to the end of it as I ran onto the elevator.

Moral of the story: I am a walking hormonal time bomb so don't make me nuts, because I will shame you. That's right - shame you.

P.S. - Merry Christmas, everyone! I'll be posting a joyous Christmas greeting once I download pictures!!

The Halfway Mark

Tomorrow, I will be officially be to the halfway mark of my pregnancy! It's gone by faster than I thought it would, but May 9 feels like it will never be here. I have been looking forward to this week for months since I knew that Week 20 would be the week that they would do "the big sonogram" where they confirm gender. Lee and I got to see out little dumpling on Monday and it was so much fun. She was moving around a lot. They measured the size of her head and chest and looked at her heart, stomach, kidneys, and brain. She's all the right size so that's good news. She's 0.77 pounds which is about 12 ounces. Here she is...

In the top picture, you can really see her spine, which is the white horizontal line. Her head is on the left side. The bottom picture is a picture of her butt. That's what they tell me at least. Because really, it could be her brain and I'd just have to trust them. They were looking for a stem on the apple, but the absence of one leads them to think with 95% confidence that it's a girl. Being an engineer, I don't like to leave the door open that there's a 5% chance I could paint the room the wrong color. We're going to have a 3D sonogram in nine weeks and at that point they'll look for the bell clanger again. If there's no hot dog in the bun, then Ellie it is. However, if a third leg is present, all bets are off. These are all sophisticated terms we will use in lieu of the word "penis" when our child gets here.

This sonogram calmed many of my fears. Most of these fears come from watching way too many Discovery Health programs. Due to my preoccupation with shows on midgets and transgendered people, I was afraid that I was going to have a transgendered midget. In 20 years, I did not want to be the subject of a special where they interview my daughter who is 2'6" has a beard and calls herself Larry. She's totally getting sold to the circus if that happens. You know what else I watch too much of? Oprah. The other day they had this story about this girl who was 9 months pregnant and this other woman was pretending to be pregnant by wearing maternity clothes and a faux belly so she could steal the pregnant girl's baby. So you're thinking I'm afraid that someone is going to steal my baby right? No. Before I was showing or felt the baby kick, I was afraid that I was the crazy one who was not really pregnant and I was going to have to steal a baby to cover my trail of lies. I've never stolen anything before so why would I start with a baby? I have no clue, but I've come to the conclusion I need to stop watching TV all together.

I felt that!

I've been working on a blog from this weekend, but I'm so slammed at work (day trip to Austin yesterday and big deadline Friday) that I just can't find time to finish it. But... I wanted to tell everyone my exciting news - I felt my little one kick for the first time today! I was sitting in a meeting and it felt like someone flicked me in the stomach. I wrote it off and then felt the exact same flicking in the same spot another three times in a row. She's 19 weeks today so I think she's letting me know she's in there! We have our big sonogram on Monday and I'm SO EXCITED to see her again. I've been counting down the days. I'll post pictures ASAP.

Pregnant, Pregnanter, Pregnantist

This weekend, I hung out with pregnant people. Well, okay - not all of them were pregnant. Anne Marie had a really beautiful baby shower at Jennifer's house in Houston on Saturday so Meg and I flew down to join in the fun. Debbie was nice enough to pick all of us up and cart us around for the day. I really like this picture on the left because it shows me at 18 weeks, Anne Marie at 28 weeks and Sarah at 38 weeks. We're all 10 weeks apart. I'm all "Sure! I'll take a picture!" now, but I'm waiting to see how I'll feel about being photographed in about 8 more weeks. It was interesting to go shopping for Anne Marie's gift because I had really never looked at baby items before. There are 10 different kinds of bottle warmers, bottles, walkers, high chairs, strollers, car seats... I don't know how I'm going to make my way through the sea of endless baby products whenever we have to register. I say "we", but I'm not sure how much input Lee will have on breast pumps.


Since we don't have many weddings left, I always cherish the time I get to spend with my college girlfriends (we missed you Kristine and Jenny!). It's strange to think that the same people I used to shotgun beer with and get random body parts pierced with are now having children. Since I was just there for the afternoon, Lee picked me that evening and took me out for dinner. He's spent all day working at the house and surprised me with some new Christmas decorations from Crate and Barrel.

On Sunday, we attended a brunch and finally took our Christmas card photo. I'm not going to give anything away, but I'm wearing the same dress in the photos above so act surprised when you rip open the card. My wardrobe is limited since Baby B has come on the scene so I have to work with what I've got. I'll be so glad when I don't have to come up with a Christmas card pose next year and Ellie can be the subject of our holiday mailings. Because really, after she's born, nobody is going to be interested in seeing us anymore. After the brunch, we headed out to purchase our 2006 Christmas tree. I love Christmas, but decorating is sort of a pain in the butt. I don't have that many decorations, but I know I'll slowly be collecting more as the years pass.

I'll leave you with a parting shot because this made me laugh this morning. Every Sunday is laundry day at the Bright house. Trudie loves to sleep in piles of our dirty clothes - I think that's weird, but whatever floats her boat. She likes laundry day because that means there are ready-made dog beds all over the floor. This morning, after I separated whites and darks, I threw all of the clothes back in the basket instead of piling them on the floor. I walked out of the bathroom to see this:


I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't actually seen it. She usually can't find her way out of a paper sack, but she managed to crawl into the laundry basket to take a nap. She was bound and determined to sleep in the clothes. I'm impressed with her skills because that dog can make a bed out of anything.