Merry Christmas!

So I didn't get around to doing an official Christmas card this year. Is it just me or has this season just flown by? Sheesh. And I still have to get some Christmas shopping done this weekend before the big day. Although things are busy, life is still good. Jocelyn has her second birthday coming up in less than a month (her SECOND!!) and pretty soon after that is the birth of baby Ava. We've decided to do an alternative method to birthing this time around and we're WAY excited. I'll be taking a Hypnobabies class to help prepare myself (which is basically involving hypnosis to allow me to get through a less painful labor not involving any drugs), and we've switched to a midwife who will deliver our baby in the comfort of our own home. I think a lot of people gasp at the thought of a home birth, expecting it to be dangerous...but trust me. I've done my research and it is surprising how many more accidents, infections, and unnecessary surgical interventions happen because of the hospital mindview and setting.

Anyway, I'll have to post a picture here pretty soon of my growing belly. We only have 11 more weeks to go (or so) and we're getting excited!

Maternity Clothes

Thought this was pretty dang funny, but really not funny all at the same time. Some lady wrote a few kind words to designers regarding maternity clothes issues.

Found at:
http://toddleddredge.com/the-usual-blather/maternity-fashion-if-toddled-dredge-wrote-fashion-friday

Like many of you, I read Big Mama’s regular blog feature Fashion Friday. She writes about everyday fashion in a way that is entertaining and not pompous. I read even though I am not even remotely fashionable. Fashion left me behind about ten years ago when everything switched to stretchy, drapy super-snaggable polyblends and 1970s patterns. I am hoping that eighteen months from now, when my body has settled into whatever it decides is post-baby normal and I need to finally replace my wardrobe, clothing will once again be tailored, monochrome and 100% cotton.

Fingers crossed.

For now, I am still in the purgatory of maternity clothes. And I have a few words to say on the subject.

Designers, listen. I know we’re not friends. You don’t like me and I don’t like you. I don’t spend nearly enough on clothes to be your target market, and you make clothes apparently only to pain and insult me. Your maternity clothes seem designed around skinny women wearing artificial belly bumps rather than real women with real pregnancies. I am going to charitably assume that you design the clothes you do out of well-meaning ignorance rather than sadistic scorn for heterosexual procreators, so I’m going to help you out with a little advice.

1. I am pregnant. Let me wear a @#$%^& normal bra. Those square necks and peasant shirts and wide-strapped tanks and spaghetti straps and whatever other absurdity is currently fashionable for the seventeen-year-old figure? It does not work on a woman whose body is preparing to feed a small hungry human. You do not want to see the face of my rage when I finally find a shirt long enough to cover my belly, only to find that the sleeves are so precariously balanced at the outermost edges of my shoulders that normal underclothing is impossible.

2. Stop sticking elastic in my shirts. Seriously, don’t make me hurt you. And DO NOT call the elastic anything remotely related to the word “comfortable.” It is not comfortable. It is itchy and it digs. Even if it doesn’t dig when I buy the shirt, it will in a month or two. PUT DOWN THE ELASTIC.

3. A pregnant woman’s stomach extends more than two inches below her belly button. I realize that in your youthful days you may have found a little breeze down there kinda sexy. I do not find breezes sexy. I find them drafty. And I would like to be able to walk down the stairs without everyone below me staring fixedly at the two inches of exposed stretch marks that are feeling a chill because you can’t make a shirt that meets my pants. And this is not a size issue. Lane Bryant’s maternity clothes do the same stupid thing.

4. I do not actually want to share my cleavage with the world. They will get enough of an eyeful once I’m nursing. Until then, kindly give me a neckline that allows me to bend over and pick up my current children without flashing the old man sitting next to me.

5. Clingy is not sexy. I know, I know. You think sexy is all about clingy. Maybe in the artificial belly bump modeling crowd it is. But until the last month or so before delivery, my pregnant belly jiggles. Santa has nothing on me. I would prefer not to be mesmerized by my own hypnotically rippling reflection in store windows as I walk past. The decorum of a little space between me and the fabric greatly improves my quality of life.

6. Bold patterns on a pregnant woman are the visual equivalent of an air horn. It says “Back up! Coming through!” While there are times I might be grateful if the crowd would part enough for my wide load to squeeze through, I can take care of that myself. I can always shout “My water broke!” Please make me something that could not be seen on the cast of Sex and the City or the upholstery of a 1970s couch.

7. Pre-shrink your fabrics. I cannot count the number of times I have bought an empire-waisted maternity shirt that fit perfectly in the store, only to have it shrink up in the wash, even after following its laundry instructions. Trying to dress in a rush only to discover that the shirt that fit yesterday now has a seam that runs horizontally mid-nipple makes me call down curses upon your heads. Seriously - the way you know Oprah’s whole “law of attraction” nonsense really is nonsense is by the fact that no maternity designers have yet spontaneously combusted from the powerful thoughts of destruction directed towards them by pregnant women.

I am seriously considering spending the last month of this pregnancy wearing only sweatpants and my husband’s XL v-neck undershirts. Funny thing - his shirts cover my belly, do not itch, do not shrink, do not cling, let me wear normal bras and do not have plunging necklines.

Perhaps someday our gifted designers for women can master the fashion achievements of Hanesand Fruit of the Loom.

a close to fall

Here are just a few recent pictures of Jocelyn having fun on Grandma's backyard swing. Fall is about ending around here, and it's been such a nice one this year. I can't believe it's the 3rd of December and we've really had no snow to speak of yet. We had one little spiff a few days after Halloween and it melted within a day or so. Anyway---I'm done talking about the weather.

Life is good. Pregnancy is pretty good, with exception of a few aches and pains and uncomfortableness, all is well. The belly is growing to be nice and round and I've officially banned stupid maternity pants from my wardrobe. I swear. It's more comfortable to just wear fat people pants than those stupid things. We've chosen a name for the baby and here it is:

Ava Nicole. Cute huh? I think so too. :) Jocelyn talks about her baby "Aba" and likes to point to her own belly when we ask her where her sister is. Ah well...she'll get it.

Rob is working on his business, Candelight, and should be making us money here by the time the babe is born. I'm so lucky to have a hunk of a husband who supports his family and is cool and nerdy at the same time. What would I do without you, Robdor?

That's life around here!