Baby Showers and a New Game: Fat or Pregnant

Back from the Pacific Northwest, back in the lovely metropolitan setting they refer to as Dallas. People you have no idea how much you'll miss the simple things like trees, hills and water, until you are somewhere that doesn't have any of them. Well, there are trees here, but let's face it, it ain't Seattle. I got ridiculously spoiled living downtown next to Pike Place Market. The local version of Safeway (called Tom Thumb, but with all the Kirkland Signature items and Safeway branded items) can't compete.

Dear Lord, dear Lord, dear Lord. We decided to have a co-ed baby shower. Partly because of the more loot factor, mostly because it was a good excuse to see all of my friends and have a good time. That may not have been the best idea...more on that later. The cries to the Baby Jeebus above are in reference to what you women go through preparing for these events.

Vanessa made what is referred to as a Diaper Cake in shower parlance. This consists of a - pardon the pun - sh#t-ton of diapers which have been individually rolled, and then packed together on their ends in a circular shape, on top of which there are additional layers, decreasing in size to give it that cake effect. The sheer amount of time spent first putting the cake together, and then spent unrolling each of the diapers and removing the rubberbands and repacking the diapers in a bag, is mind-boggling. I have trouble finishing the dishes sometimes, and there are only two of us.

All in all it was a pretty successful night. Most everyone we wanted to see showed up, we got a ton of cool stuff (Thank you everybody, you all rock), and the food was tasty. The only mildly unsuccessful part of the night was mostly my fault. Well...entirely my fault since it inovolved people I invited. To be fair, I had been told prior to this here baby shower that there would be booze, poker, and possibly a PPV fight on the TV.

So to get those amongst my friends who might not ordinarily intereseted in kiddy stuff to come, I may have played up the poker/booze/violence thing a little bit. Since most of my friends went to Wazzu, you can imagine how it turned out. I won't get into the gory details, but suffice to say that I, along with Kevin - who along with fiancee Crystal were kind enough to host the event - recieved tongue lashings at the end of the night for turning the girls' carefully planned Baby Shower into something resembling a bachelor party (minus the strippers) by the end of the night. Go Cougs.

I now understand why these events are, for the most part, for women only. Or at least responsible people only.

As some of you may know from reading this blog, or talking to Alison, her weight has been on her mind. She is constantly afraid that she looks huge. I have been telling her that she isn't fat, she's just pregnant, it happens. Her concern is that people will just think she's big, not pregnant. To ease this concern I have been trying to explain to her the difference between fat ladies and pregnant ladies.

A preggo stomach looks quite different than a chubby one. There's a certain roundness to it you don't see with fat. Whereas with a preggo tummy, the muscles themselves are stretched and still maintain tone and presence, a chubby tummy just has the jiggle. I know this because while Alison is preggo, I have quite a nice little gut myself, so I do have a frame of reference for all of this.

Anyway, we're sitting in the Cheesecake Factory this evening and Alison asked me if the larger woman who had just made her way past our table was fat or pregnant. I said fat. Then a pregnant girl walked by and I tried to point out the difference to her. I have a feeling we'll be playing this little game quite a bit as the months go on.

On the doctor front we had our first appointment with the new doctor today. It wasn't what I would call a stunning success. Because:

a) Alison had to have a fetal diabetes test, meaning she couldn't eat or drink anything for two hours before the test. Result: slightly tired and thristy pregnant woman.

b) Almost as soon as Alison did drink the bottle of medicated fruit punch they needed her to drink for the test, her now tiny bladder decided she needed to go.

c) A water main outside the doctor's office broke, flooding the street, throwing the scheduling out of wack as doctors canceled appointments and had to reschedule, and cutting the water supply to the doctor's office: no working toilets.

d) Our new doctor - who I am sure is very good at her job, and comes with sterling recommendations from our old doctor - is waaaaay too chipper, chatty and bubbly. Dr. Bakos was no-nonsense, to the point and straightforward. She reminded me of a stern but friendly high school teacher. Dr. Martin reminds me of a real estate agent trying to sell me a house.

All in all, not spectacular.