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.