La Chambre de Bebe

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Bringing home baby furniture should always be a joyous occasion. Watching your man putting the crib together, assembling it, moving it around to find the perfect spot in the room that you picked out for your little one, finally seeing your vision being put into play – all things that brought a huge smile to this future mom’s face when it happened.

It was the trip home with the furniture that wasn’t so joyous.

We waited until the Sunday before my baby shower, one of the few sunny days until that point, to pick it up from the store. Drove the truck over there, paid off the layaway, waited while they brought the furniture to the front, and I waited in the truck while they loaded it up. Hottie had more sense and watched them load it up. Or attempt to load it up, I should say. The overweight, older white guy lost his grip at one point and dropped the dresser while trying to lift it into the bed of the truck. The three guys were struggling to load the three pieces into the bed of the truck in an order that would keep the pieces safe while en route. Obviously, they’ve never worked in the logistics field or loaded a container. Hottie made a couple of suggestions to improve their disorganization, and finally we were loaded up and on our way home.

We pulled up to the light to exit the parking lot. Turned left when the light turned green. And heard a big thump as the dresser tumbled over the side of the truck.

“Oh, shit!” I yelled, swiveling around to look in the back of the truck and side mirror only to see our dresser, wrapped in the packaging and box, sitting in the middle of the intersection.

The truck behind us swerved around the box. Hottie pulled into the gas station at the corner and raced to get the crate out of the lane. He picked up one end, tilted it, and slammed it down on the other side in order to navigate it out of the intersection. I swung out of the truck, hurriedly waddled my way over to the box, intent on helping.

“Get back, babe.” Hottie struggled to lift the box over the lip of the road at the curb. “You’re not going to be able to help.”

I stood there, hugely pregnant, unable to do anything

The light changed and cars zoomed around him. One white car came within inches and had Hottie turning in the middle of the road to yell after the car, “What? You can’t wait five seconds, asshole?”

Obviously, the driver was urgently racing to the hospital in order to perform emergency heart surgery on someone.

And then our Good Samaritan arrived. He pulled into the gas station, hopped out of his car in a full three piece suit at two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, raced over to Hottie and they lifted the box with the dresser over the lip, across the gas station parking lot, and into the bed of the truck.

Wherever you are, Good Samaritan, God bless you!

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Beau's Yearly Checkup

Hottie: I’m never taking Beau to the vet again. From now on, you have to do it.

Me: Why? What happened?

Hottie: It’s your responsibility to take him from now on.

Me: Okay, but what happened?

Hottie: He’s obese! I have to walk him everyday for thirty minutes and cut his food down by 25%.

Me: (Laughing)

Hottie: It’s not funny! This is serious. He’s also got tartar on his teeth and one of his ears has wax in it.

Me: (Laughing)

Hottie: They made me leave that place with ear solution! An extra $25!

Me: (Laughing)

Hottie: You’re no help. I’m not ever taking him again.

Me: Okay, okay, I’ll take him from now on.

Hottie: Come here, Beau. Come here, Chunky Monkey.

Me: What are you doing?

Hottie: I’m going to put him in the truck, so we can get out of here.

Me: What do you mean, you’re going to put him in the truck? Like carry him to the truck?

Hottie: Yes. I don’t want him to get his paws wet. It’s still raining.

Special

Hottie: Carter Blood Bank called me!

Me: Really? Why?

Hottie: Haven't you ever given blood before?

Me: Well, no.

Hottie: You haven't? Why not?

Me: I just never got around to it.

Hottie: Oh. Well, they called me. They want me to donate.

Me: Cool. You must have that blood type that's really common and can be used on anyone.

Hottie: What? Why do I have to be common? Why can't my blood type be special? Maybe I'm the only person in the whole world who has my blood type and that's why they want me to donate!

Me: That must be it, babe.

Hottie Has 'Em Fooled

Everyone thinks Hottie's a strict disciplinarian. That he lacks patience. I could go on, but what would be the point?

Hottie has 'em all fooled.

Why? You ask. Let me tell you about Beau.

Beau decided to adopt us in June 2006. Okay, we may have driven about an hour to go and get him, but Hottie was the one who declared, "If I have to drive all the way over there, then I'm not leaving empty handed!" And, so we didn't. We left the small house in Mansfield in under an hour with a flea-ridden, worm invested, little black shadow that we named Beau the following day. A more friendly black and tan cocker spaniel we have yet to encounter.

For all of Hottie's complaining about the cost of this little fur ball with a personality the size of Everest, for all of his complaints about having to take him outside to potty, for all of his moaning that Beau is going to make him broke, for all of his trying to foist Beau off on another unsuspecting family, Hottie doesn't have me fooled.

Nope. No, siree, Hottie doesn't have me fooled a bit.

Not when he took two sides of a dog biscuit, slapped some peanut butter in the middle, and made Beau peanut butter biscuit sandwiches. Not when he lets Beau out in the front yard every morning to potty because "Beau likes it better than the backyard." Not when he calls me at work, puts Beau on speaker phone and they both sing to me to brighten my day. Not when he's outside mowing the yard when I arrive home from work and Beau is sitting in the car, AC on full blast, because "he was getting hot, Mom."

Nope. Hottie doesn't have me fooled. Not one bit.

Ode to Hottie

Well, here I am: 30 weeks preggo, looking down at my belly, wondering how on earth I've gotten to this point. I know the physics of it, obviously, but seriously, how is it possible for a stomach to protude so much from a body? Will it ever go back into place? I've been assured by my girlfriends who've gone through this experience that it will.

I think they're lying to me.

How did it come to this? Believe it or not, I asked for it. I know, I know, what was I thinking? But here I am, unable to move backwards and scared to death to move forward. Like I really have an option at this point.

It all started with the helicopter on September 19th. Now, I'm not going to go into details, but suffice to say, by September 20th, I could tell something was a "not quite right." I debated with myself for about a week, thinking I was wrong, before I broke down and took a test. It came up negative. My first thought "Hmmf. That's wrong." So, I decided do a little research online that week, and lo and behold, the test won't even pick up the correct hormone until the second or the third week.

Hottie started having symptoms soon after. Poor thing starting feeling a little nauseous. Even texted me on Oct 7th - "I feel sick to my stomach. I think you might have a baby in your belly." Now keep in mind, not once did I mention that I thought I was in the money, so to speak. Hottie never gets sick. Hasn't been sick the entire time that I've known him. And now he's feeling nauseous?

Hmmm...my sense of smell was suddenly that of a vampire's. Now, last I checked I wasn't living in Forks, Washington.

I bought another test. Snuck it into the house while he was browsing the 'net. Peed on the stick.

Waited. Waited. Waited.

Oh shit.

Into the Modern Age

Well, I finally did it. I started my own blog. I'm not sure if it was VA's blog that inspired me or the woman from dooce.com on Oprah who said that she's earning a cool $40K a month on advertising, or simply a creative outlet to bleed my thoughts onto the page. Either way you look at it, here I am. Proudly moving into the current century.

Way to go, me!