Give Me My Music and I'll Be Happy

Do men design maternity clothes? Seriously. I'm only 6 1/2 months along and most of my clothes do not fit me or are too uncomfortable to wear. Most of my pants have the under-the-belly band which may look cute on a woman who's four months pregnant, but are ridiculously uncomfortable past that point. They dig into my stomach and slide down so far that I spend most of my day hitching them back up and terrified to bend over in public lest they slip down even farther. And since my pants are hanging out somewhere below my belly, that means that most of my maternity shirts are not long enough to cover said belly. Unfortunately, the beer gut look has just never been my thing.

A lady came up to the desk at the library to check out her books while I was working (I work a few days a week at the library in addition to my babysitting job). She eyed my bourgeoning stomach and made the clever observation, "It looks like you're going to have a baby soon."

I replied that I still had almost three months to go. Her eyes widened in surprise as she said, "You must have really big babies!" Thanks. Every pregnant woman wants to hear that. And for the record, my last baby was two weeks overdue and was still under seven pounds.

Lately, a lot of people have been noticing the baby bump and making the astute observation that I'm pregnant. I wish I had a little more nerve. If I did, I would respond with an astonished look and say, "Oh my word! That's what that is?! And here I thought I was just putting on a little weight!"

Ever since we bought our minivan and found out that the cool cd player that holds 6 cds at a time skips so badly that it's useless, I've been a little depressed every time I get into my wonderful roomy van. While driving, I've had to rely on the radio, which doesn't pick up any good stations, for my music addiction. Hubby and I have talked about replacing the cd player which obviously wouldn't be cheap. As money is a little tight right now, that obviously wouldn't be happening for...a long time. We would probably be able to do that around the same time we would be able to trade in the van for a newer model. So today, I skimmed through all five (seriously, they couldn't condense it all into one book?) of the owner's manuals that came with the van and made a shocking discovery. It turns out that the dvd player plays cds. Who woulda thunk it? Of course, the little "CD-R" symbol on the dvd player never clued me in, and the fact that most dvd players also happen to play cds just didn't occur to me. Do the words "blonde moment" come to your mind when you read this? To make my day of discovery and elation even better, the woman whose kids I babysit gave me a little gadget today because she has no need for it anymore. I have no idea what it's called, but it plugs into the vehicle power outlet (not cigarette lighter because those are no longer in style along with the little ash trays that were in all the vehicles when I was a kid and were fun to stuff full of trash) and hooks up to an mp3 player. This means that my mp3 player (which Hubby got as a Christmas gift from his boss one year and gave to me because I drooled over it so much) can be used in the van! Without headphones! Okay, I know I'm pathetically backwards when it comes to technology. Right now I'm trying to find a vcr to replace ours since it no longer plays videotapes. I've gone to quite a few different stores and asked if they carried just a vcr, not a vcr/dvd combo since I have a perfectly good dvd player. The looks I've gotten have ranged from disbelief to downright mocking.

Didn't We Used to be Friends?

Okay, so it's been a while since I've updated my blog. During the time I've been absent, Princess has turned two and I've entered my third trimester of pregnancy.

For Princess's birthday party, we had a family gathering consisting of Hubby's parents, one set of grandparents, two siblings and their families and my parents, one set of grandparents, four siblings and their families. Our smallish family gathering amounted to 30 people in my big, but not huge living room. If somebody turned to talk to someone on their left, that meant that everyone turned to talk to the person on their left. The eight children under the age of 5 at the party spent most of their time in Princess's room playing which was good because there really wasn't any space for them to play in the living room. It was a lot of fun, but completely exhausting especially since I was 6 months pregnant.

After the party, I surveyed the (large) corner of the living room which has been overrun by Princess's toys, the coffee table which has four more boxes of toys in it, and the closet in Princess's room which is full of toys as well. I'm still trying to figure out how in the world her toys multiplied so fast. When she was an infant, all of her toys fit in an ice cream bucket. Then before she turned one, she took over the bottom shelf of the coffee table. Sometime before she got to 18 months, I had to give her toys a complete corner of the living room in addition to the coffee table. Now she has so many toys that I rotate them, storing some in her bedroom closet and taking them out when she gets bored with the ones she has. Don't accuse me of indulging her though. One time not that long ago, I went through and counted the toys I had actually purchased for Princess and came up with a figure less than 15.

Now that I'm in my third trimester, I find Hubby to actually be likeable again. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm carrying a boy this time or something, but when I was pregnant with Princess, I remember liking my husband the whole time. This time was different, much to Hubby's dismay. I can almost pinpoint the day I got pregnant because it's the day I started to STRONGLY dislike poor Hubby for absolutely no reason and for no fault of his. I loved him, but I just didn't like him much. I knew I was being unreasonable, but he couldn't do anything right no matter how hard he tried. In my second trimester, I began to tolerate him. Not that I liked him that much, but I was no longer so antagonistic (he may disagree with this statement somewhat). Now that I'm in my third trimester, I like the guy again.

The weird thing is that my sister, who is due 2 weeks before I am (and had a baby 6 weeks before I did last time), has felt the same way during her pregnancy. Maybe our husbands should have formed a defensive club and called it "Hormones Kill."