What are designers thinking?

This weekend I have to attend a wedding. Normally, I would have gotten a dress weeks ago, but since I am pregnant I decided to wait on the purchase. When I was preggo with Alice I bloomed (or exploded, your pick) in my last trimester. It KILLED me to have to go up a pregnancy size. Thus, I waited until the last possible second to secure my attire for the wedding.

John was on vacation last week, so it was the perfect time to head to my favorite local maternity store. He could distract Alice while I tried on clothing. Surprisingly, Alice fell asleep in the car and remained so in John’s arms while I shopped. As an added bonus, John got a small taste of pregnancy. Because he sat for a quite a while with Alice sprawled on top of him, he found he couldn’t get out of the chair when it was time to leave because of Alice’s position and weight. Being the supportive spouse that I am, I cracked up when I saw his predicament and told him, “Welcome to my world.”

Although I normally hate to shop, it was such a nice retail experience. Because it was a few days before Easter, there was a large selection of dresses to explore. I grabbed a handful and headed to the changing room. With each dress I put on, the laughter within me welled. Each dress looked sillier than the next on me. Now, let me say straight out, I am in no way ashamed of my pregnant figure. Age and the perspective of a second pregnancy has put my head on straight in that way. That being said, what are designers thinking regarding the amount of Lycra they put into these dresses? I seriously looked like I had a torpedo or a watermelon under my dress. Additionally, the pulling in the stomach area caused the dress to pull around the butt area rather tautly. Even when I am not pregnant , I typically never have a “good butt day”, so you can imagine how I perceive my rear when I am pregnant. It was so ridiculous that I had to laugh.

So, all you fashion designers out there, take heed: during pregnancy a woman should not have to worry about panty lines. I know pregnancy thongs exist but so do nuclear weapons. Using either is not a good choice for society.

Where is that big black hole when you need it?

Surprisingly, years of Catholic school instruction has not made me disenchanted in terms of my faith. I am not the best Catholic, and Lord knows there are church doctrines with which I disagree. Still, I find more good things in its teachings than bad. I used to be pretty good about attending mass regularly- at least until Alice was born. I can’t say I really blame her. Sometimes I find it hard to sit still and listen to the mass. Because I did not want to be the couple with “that child”, I decided to take a brief hiatus from actually attending mass physically. Instead, John and I DVR-ed it. I have to admit that although God is everywhere sometimes it is a bit hard to focus on that fact with the pug snorting, snoring, and begging for belly rubs and Alice wrestling with me on the couch. Now that Alice has discovered the joys of coloring, we can generally get through a mass at church. That is not to say that the mass goes entirely smoothly. On Palm Sunday, Alice cheered “Hooray!” after every bit of singing and kept requesting, “More songs.” However, she saved her best bit of commentary for Easter Sunday.

Easter Sunday found Alice decked out in her finery and I well stocked with pretzels, coloring book and crayons. Things went pretty well overall, but the mass was a little too long for my toddler’s typical patience and attention span. She started acting up right around the profession of faith. Instead of the usual recitation of the Apostle’s creed, the congregation was asked to renew their baptismal vows by answering “I do” to a list of questions. Alice decided to get in on the action. The priest asked the congregation, “Do you reject Satan?” Alice’s resounding “No!” could be heard VERY CLEARLY amid the sea of “I do” responses. All around us folks were cracking up. I turned to John and chuckled, “It certainly explains an awful lot now doesn’t it?” And thus my central point about parenting is proved yet once again- - not only do you need a great capacity for love, you need a pretty keen sense of humor to survive.

The Pug

It is nice to know that the tiredness John and I feel at the end of the day is not ours exclusively. Honestly, I sometimes feel that the pug gets the brunt of Alice. I cannot imagine what she will look like at the end of the day when number two becomes mobile.

Baking

I have always listed baking as one of my hobbies/passions, but lately I have been very into it. I am not sure if it is due to the weather this winter/hoax of Spring or pregnancy cravings, but I have been puttering around the kitchen with my dear friends butter, flour, and sugar close to every two weeks or so for the last nine months. Although I would not classify myself as an “organic, back to the earth mommy” I have to admit, in these days of food recalls, that there is some peace of mind in knowing exactly what is in that cake/cookie/pie that I am eating and feeding to my family.

Anyhow, as last Wednesday was a gray rainy day, I decided to while away some time by making a chocolate-cinnamon marble cake. I found the recipe in a chocolate book that I took out from the library. I have been on a quest for the perfect coffee cake recipe as of late so I decided to give this one a go. Alice was happily watching The Backyardigans in the living room. I was happily assembling ingredients in the kitchen. We stayed in our separate spheres until I turned the mixer on; then, like Pavlov’s dog, Alice came running. She grabbed her step stool and positioned it right next to the mixer. As one of the last ingredients to be put in the mix, I added a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Alice took the empty bag to search for any missed morsels. Upon discovering it completely empty, she looked forlornly into the mixer and called out: “Chocolate come back!” (Wow, she is her mother’s daughter after all.) Her sadness was replaced by upmost joy when I finally shut the mixer off and gave her the beater. She took off like a shot to savor her treat in the living room. Peace and quiet at last. I began assembling the cake. It was one of those recipes where you pour half the batter into the pan, add the middle filling and then top off with the remaining batter. I was smoothing everything out when Alice returned with her perfectly clean beater. She brought her stool over to my new work location and proceeded to watch my painstaking smoothing and marbling of the cake. I was in the middle of making sure everything was even when out of the corner of my eye I saw a quick movement. Alice had dunked her beater back into the pan. The stinker. Despite using this as a lesson against double dipping, I don’t think my message got through. It is hard to listen when you are busy licking.