About A Year Ago

Lean in. I have something to tell you.

About a year ago I posted an entry to this cheeseblog stating firmly that my need to breed had not yet asserted itself. Meanwhile, my body/brain had formed a task force which was holding secret committee meetings while I was sleeping. They developed a mission statement, to which I have still not become privy; they developed Powerpoint presentations, a tactic which they knew would not woo me, yet they felt pressured to do nonetheless, (non-fiction book I plan to write someday: “Powerpoint: The Binkie of Corporate America.”) they even tried to arrange teleconferences but I was always unavailable.

One day, while I was awake and having a conversation with someone none of you knows and while that someone was practically instructing me as to when and how I should plan my as-yet unconsidered family, the body/brain task force saw an opening and flooded me with passion & longing & an incredible pull towards reproduction and parenthood such that I fairly toppled over and cracked open my skull on my own keyboard tray.

Then Saint Aardvark and I drank a lot of wine and discussed my strange reaction, like adults do. We came to some conclusions. We separated the right reasons from the wrong ones.

And then (no, not right then) I got pregnant.

I’ll wait for you to bandage the gash in your forehead. Those keyboard trays are a bitch, no?

Yes, I too remember fondly the sullen, sneering teenager (and young adult) I was, who made nasty faces at babies to make them cry and, when asked about my own plans for grown-up-hood, would say,

“Ew. I’m NEVER getting married and I’m NEVER EVER having children. EVER. You get fat and then you have PAIN and then it’s the REST OF YOUR LIFE and what’s the point anyway? They just grow up, cost you money and leave home and then you’re too old to enjoy your life anymore.”

And because I hate being wrong even more than I hate Gordon Campbell, it’s been a long journey to admit that actually, the things I said when I was a teenager (and young adult) were a little, er, over the top and maybe I didn’t, like, TOTALLY mean them. Like teasing one’s bangs with a comb and half a bottle of hairspray or writing out the lyrics to Metallica songs and adopting them as one’s own personal creed, a lot of things one does when one is of a certain age are subject to retraction once one has reached a certain other age. One of, say, reason.

The details: I’m currently 13 weeks along – due sometime at the end of June. I have been too pudgy for my regular pants for quite a few weeks now but the nice new pants with the elastic waistbands are still a little roomy. Luckily, Christmas is coming and Christmas means COOKIES. I plan to eat cookies until my pants fit. I have spent the last 3 months eating my weight in mandarin oranges and other citrus fruit to quell the queasiness. I did not throw up once, however, the catt’s special bladder-crystal-busting squishy food did make me retch numerous times. (He didn’t think anything of it.) The baby’s in-utero name is either “babby” or “cheezy pouf” (must imitate Cartman’s voice for this one). Its ex-utero name is yet to be determined. We may accept bribes.

And also? We are very, very happy.