Has it seriously been a month since the last posting? Go ahead . . . I deserve your scorn. BUT, first, to catch you up . . . on things general and particular about being seven months pregnant, as well as petty little things from my life, of course.
1. So about being seven months pregnant. FYI? Now, it's not just jackasses who look appalled when you tell them you have a whole two months to go. No, now regular people, who generally know better, look at your belly and ask, in accents of horror, if you're really going to be getting any bigger?
2. Oh and also, when you're seven months pregnant, the assigning partner at your firm may think it's a swell time to staff you on a massive regulatory investigation/multiple class action matter. You may have heard rumors of this whole "auction rate securities" mess . . . Wall Street's latest debacle. In short, it means big-big problems for investment banks and fat-fat fees for law firm partners and long-long hours for their associates. In theory it wouldn't be such a big issue because on an individual level everyone is fairly understanding about the whole pregnancy thing, but I am also on like eight other cases . . . not to mention the fact that my death row client is scheduled for execution on Thursday. Anyway. Moral being, just as you actually start to feel shitty again, people decide that they may as well make things worse for you. Fun!
3. Getting set up for a baby is hard, y'all. I have the wonderful good fortune of having kind and generous friends and family who have been sending lovely things and supporting my online shopping habit with gift cards, and in fact had a really sweet baby shown thrown for me last week. Now I just have to make those last few purchases of Necessary Things. But with what guidance? Besides Google and mommy boards? I narrowly escaped buying a $300+ organic mattress, mostly because my husband has been threatening to separate me from my credit cards. Honestly . . . I'm not even close to the type of person who would buy an organic mattress. But then I started to think about it . . . and think about how much I had spent on my diaper bag . . . and my baby carrier . . . and my froufrou stroller . . . and my all-natural baby bath products . . . and it was like, "Am I really going to choose the neurotoxin-leaking, cancer-causing, LETHAL crib mattress just to save a couple of hundred bucks?"
4. Many popular baby books are really annoying. I picked up a few birth books that I couldn't even bring myself to finish, they were so completely inapplicable to anything I was actually interested in learning about. Apparently I haven't even gotten to the really evil ones yet - some girlfriends tell me that there are some out there that are incredibly harsh and obnoxious towards working mothers, basically implying that if you need two incomes to survive you're bad with money and should never have had kids in the first place. That particular gem was pinned on Dr. Sears, the grand poobah of crunchy parenting . . . can't say I've checked to make sure that was correct, though. I've also read that he's a conservative Christian and extremely homophobic. Some choices quotes from Becoming a Father: How to Nurture & Enjoy Your Family (which, caveat, I found online and not in the book itself):
"The growing child should see that important family matters require a mutual decision-making process that involves both mom and dad, but I believe that dad is primarily responsible for making decisions." (p. 194)
"'I don't want my son to grow up to be a pansy,' exclaimed John, a new father. His sentiments are shared by most men." (p. 200)
"I am personally concerned that our society tends to approve of lifestyles [sic!] such as homosexuality. Society sees this as an 'acceptable alternative.' I can accept a person as a homosexual without having to approve of the morality of homosexuality." (p. 208)
*shiver*I am off now to pretend to work . . . but just to address a couple of questions that came up in comments!
1. YES, childcare is a lot more expensive here than I've ever heard of it being in Canada. I'm looking to spend around $2500 a month for daycare, $3000-4000 a month for a nanny.
2. Ohhhh whoever brought up Loblaws . . . you don't even know how lucky you are. I miss grocery shopping in the commercial equivalent of an airport hangar! I even miss Sam's Club (that's right, I said it . . . lightening's going to strike me down now, right?).
