Lately, it seems that no matter where I go, a conversation similar to the following takes place.

Stranger: Aawww, look at you! When are you duuuueee?

Me: March

Stranger: March? Really? Oh, you’re going to be huge!

(My husband just read this last line and said, “Come on, someone DID NOT say that to you!” And unbelievable as it may seem – hand to heaven – this is the stuff people are saying to me.)

I’ve had the same exchange so many times that I’ve lost my pre-conditioned “happy” face and now I just look downright disgruntled from the get-go. I’m hoping my new demeanor will scare off these whack jobs who feel the need to comment on my burgeoning belly.

But it makes me wonder: what draws people to ask very personal questions to pregnant women they don’t know? It’s something that I thought a lot about when I was pregnant with my first son too. I got so many inappropriate questions that I was beginning to think I was on a hidden camera TV show. “Was it planned?” That’s none of your business. “Are your breasts sore?” Do you really expect me to answer that? “Can I touch your belly?” I dare you to try it.

I see pregnant women everywhere. Not so much a novelty. Yet, by the plethora of comments I get, it seems we’re some kind of unique breed of animal on display right in your neighborhood and in the stores and restaurants you frequent. Look – she talks, she walks (well, waddles), and all without falling over on her face. Amazing!

The eternal voice of reason, a.k.a. my husband, thinks that people feel compelled to comment because I look “cute”, or because they can relate, or because bringing life into the world really is something of a miracle. I guess this last explanation makes quite a bit of sense. But as miraculous as it is, people, all I want to do is get through the checkout line as speedily as possible so I can go home and put my feet up.

A month or two ago I needed a new pair of jeans. I went to the mall, spent about 5 minutes finding a pair that sort of fit, and bought them. End of story.

Well, not quite.

Today I went to the mall with my husband and son. My husband commented on the tight, hip hugger jeans that all the young women are wearing now. You know, the kind that expose way more butt crack than I ever want to see on another woman when she bends down. The kind that are so tight around the waist that plump tummies spill over belts. The kind that are so tight at the crotch they probably give you a yeast infection in 30 minutes flat. You know, that kind? My husband revealed to me that he and his friend stand at the bar during the professional lacrosse games that they attend and count off the number of women who should not be wearing these jeans. “Not her. Not her. Not her. Nope, not her.”

I was in mid-chortle when I suddenly experienced my own jeans-related epiphany: I just bought a pair of jeans and FAILED TO SEE WHAT MY BUTT LOOKS LIKE IN THEM! Yup, that’s right. I bought a pair of jeans and did not even turn around in front of the mirror to check out my butt. How could this happen? I used to spend HOURS checking out my butt. I looked at my butt EVERY DAY. When I was living with my parents, I used to sneak into their room and examine my butt in front of their full-length mirror. If they were using their room, I’d go into the bathroom and twist around on the edge of the tub so I could see my butt in the mirror. (I learned not to do this in high heels.) I agonized over my butt. Did these pants make my butt look too bulbous? Did this pair give my butt a nice rounded look? Were the back pockets sized to the right proportion? Trying on pants at the mall was a day-long affair. I’d carry a huge armful to the dressing room and dump them on the floor. Maybe the acid-washed jeans? The tan corduroys? The herringbone dress pants? Only the pants that best flattered my butt made it into my closet.

At first, I couldn’t even remember when I had stopped checking my butt. Then it came to me. I must have forgotten about this important ritual sometime after the birth of my son. I can barely remember those first few weeks of no sleep, recovery from painful Cesarean surgery, anxiety-filled attempts to breastfeed, and the overwhelming fear that my son would stop breathing if I left his side for an instant. Many days I didn’t even get out of my pajamas! Of course I forgot how to do the Butt Check. Then, when my son was older (like 3) and I started wearing makeup and brushing my hair again, my butt was just too large and flabby to look at. I was just grateful to find something to cover it. There was no way I was going to actually LOOK at it.

It never occurred to me that other people might still be checking out my butt. “There goes that chunky mom with the large, flat butt,” I can hear them saying. “Cute kid, though.” Well, let them look. I don’t really care all that much. I’ll cling to the one thing I know I’m still doing right: not revealing my 42-year-old butt crack with hip hugger jeans.

In light of the ailing economy and a general tendency to overspend on gift giving, I cut back on my Christmas spending this year. Still, my budget mounted to over a grand. Now, for some of you, spending one thousand dollars on Christmas gifts may be totally within the realm of reasonable spending. But for us, a thousand bucks is $200 more than our monthly mortgage payment. Okay, so we live in a cheap house and have a cheap mortgage payment but the point is that one thousand dollars is still a large amount of money.

Every year I vow to spend less at Christmas. What’s the point of buying all these gifts anyway? I mean, the whole holiday is kind of ridiculous when you think about it. If an alien came to our planet at Christmas and wanted to know what all the hullabaloo was all about, we would have to explain to him that we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, one of our religious icons. Except that Jesus wasn’t actually born on Christmas day. The Christians took over what they perceived to be a threatening pagan holiday that celebrated the winter solstice and wrapped their own worldview around it. Today we celebrate Christmas by bringing live conifers into our homes, decorating them with lights and ornaments, eating copious amounts of food, and getting gifts from a fat man in a red suit with a long white beard who comes down the chimney and flies through the air in a sleigh led by reindeer. Hmm, makes perfect sense!

If you aren’t religious, the holiday is distilled into one long orgy of overspending, overeating, and overstimulation. How to make meaning out of all this? The answer this year came from my husband, an elementary school teacher in an economically challenged district.

At the yearly Santa’s Gift Shop organized by the Parent Union, students in my husband’s school can buy inexpensive gift items for friends and family. One boy burst into tears because he was only able to afford two small gifts. To help redirect attention away from the pressure to buy, buy, buy, my husband decided to have his students make coupon books for their parents. Kids thought of jobs they could do to help the family, like doing dishes, giving a warm hug, vacuuming, cleaning the garage or attic, or walking the dog for a week. I think this is a great way for kids to make Christmas meaningful for themselves and their families.

Another way we were able to feel good about Christmas spending was to help one of my husband’s students with holiday gifts. During a school assignment to write a persuasive letter to Santa, it became clear to my husband that one little girl in his class was upset about the Christmas gift giving. A visit to the school counselor revealed that her father is AWOL and her mother is out of work after a recent surgery. The teachers collected money for the family so they can buy food and necessaries and then each bought individual gifts for family members. For someone who had no clue what to buy a nine-year-old girl, my husband did a great job picking out gifts. He hit the Target express and found a hooded sweatshirt lined with faux fur, a Hannah Montana cosmetics case and microphone, and a scarf and mittens. My son helped pick out these items and we made sure he knew that the family had no money and had difficulty purchasing food and clothing. (Yes, we are trying to get him to understand how lucky he is to live in a home with parents who can pay the bills and still have enough left over for gifts. I’m pretty sure he won’t appreciate this until he has kids of his own, but we try.)

The extra money we spent on gifts for this family in need took us even farther over budget, but somehow I’m okay with that. In fact, I’d really like to do it again next year. Not that I don’t love buying things for my son, but the satisfaction of purchasing an item for someone who really needs it far exceeds that of adding another toy to our already overflowing collection. I think we may have discovered a way to not only survive the holiday blitz, but to make meaning of the Christmas craziness.

I’m aging and it’s happening faster than I expected.

First it was subtle, like the increasingly obvious silence between me and my rotating batch of hairdressers whom I suddenly had nothing in common with.

Where we used to exchange stories of our similar weekend adventures, my attempt at discussing the newest offering from Disney Channel was met with silence and a blank stare. The conversation had slipped past pleasantries and right into a silent submission of the dreaded “age gap.”

Then there are the obvious signs, like the increasingly deep wrinkles around my eyes and brow.. Or the slowly diminishing space between my legs when I stand and the inability to lose 10 lbs like I used to.

I am only in my early, early thirties. Should this be happening so soon? So fast?

Today in the car I was thinking about Christmas.

I am drowning in Christmas this year. I am swimming in store bought, pre-cut cookie dough. I am suffocating under lists of this to buy and that to get. I am barely treading water keeping up with gingerbread houses, letters to Santa, Advent Calendars and decorating. I am sinking in wrapping paper.

Christmas is in three days and I have been working on Christmas since mid November. I am still nowhere near done.

I am making lists, making egg-nog, making sure the kids see nothing but holiday joy and completely, re-arranging my life to make way for Christmas.

So when I looked in the rear view mirror in the midst of these thoughts I saw the effect that the impending holiday had on my facial expressions, it hit me like snow on Christmas Day!

It’s “Stuff” like Christmas that’s making me wrinkle my brow in disgust.

It’s stuff like Christmas that is aging all of us.

I see you in Target and at the grocery store. I see that I am not the only one with a list. I see that some of you even have lists that have lists. I see moms and dads who look tired, stressed out and not full of holiday cheer.

When I look back on Christmases as a child I don’t remember my Mom being stressed out. My Mom made her cookies from scratch – tins of amazingly delicious, homemade cookies. She never looked frazzled and I have no memories of her clamoring to get things done….and my Mom even hosted the event to a decent sized family. I don’t host a soul. Christmas was never anything but holiday cheer in my house growing up.

Maybe I just don’t remember it all. Did my Mom have a better way of hiding her stress or was she just way more organized than I will ever be? Maybe there was a flask somewhere that I didn’t know about….Just kidding Mom! Whatever she did, it worked because I have no recollections of anything other than Jolly Old St. Nick.

What are we doing wrong? Ok….ok…..I won’t put any of this on you.

What am I doing wrong? Is it the recession? Am I just trying to stretch every penny and is that the culprit for all of this stress? Is it the fact that I said I was going to scale back this year and here I am meeting and exceeding last years goals? Am I taking too much on?

What is really expected of us Moms at Christmas? Somewhere along the way – and it’s the same old story – we too, lost the real meaning of Christmas.

I am too caught up in getting my almost 5 year old “Baby Alive Goes Potty.” I am trying to get everything done, without actually stopping to enjoy any of it. In the end, are my girls going to care when they look back on their Christmases if the outside lights were absolutely perfect? They are not going to remember how neatly things were wrapped and that I burned the last batch of cookies. The fact that one got a few more presents than the other at this age won’t matter either.

Like me, they are going to remember that Sunday they spent their whole day in the kitchen with Mom and Dad taste testing all sorts of Christmas treats. They will remember what it was like to snuggle up and read “The Night Before Christmas” in the same robe or pajamas that we wear every year around this time. They remember the preparations and the traditions and that is what stays with them as THEY age.

I remember all of that and next year, for the sake of me and my kids I am going to try and keep this all in better perspective. I want to embrace Christmas instead of running and hiding from it. I want to revel in the spirit of family and giving and joy. I want to remember why I gather to celebrate this holiday in the first place. Most importantly, I want my children to understand all of this as well.

Don’t get me wrong. I will still secretly revel in the fact that I got the last “Baby Alive Goes Potty” because I snuck up and raced from behind the other Moms as they headed for the same doll.  I will cherish the joy in my daughter’s face on Christmas morning when she opens it.

I guess in the end, it’s all worth a wrinkle or two.

Note to self: Do not complain about the hardships of being a parent to childless friends.

I did just that recently, telling BeautifulSuccessfulThinFriend about my son’s need to interact with me every waking minute while clinging to my side like a small pet monkey.

“Well, you wanted him,” she said unfeelingly.

Of course I wanted him. I also wanted braces, but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy everything about them.

Goodness knows I’ve sat through enough of her venting about her family. She was married for 7 years and had 3 stepchildren so she’s not really exactly childless. I guess the difference is that the kids were never really hers. I mean, she didn’t birth them or anything. She didn’t marry the man to get the stepchildren. The stepchildren came with the man and she had no choice in the matter. Maybe she thinks that people who actually birthed their own children relinquish the right to complain about them.

BeautifulSuccessfulThinFriend’s husband did not even have primary custody so my friend only had to have the kids every other weekend and one evening during the week. Later, when the kids were older, they spent one week with the ex and one with my friend and her husband. She complained about the cooking and cleaning she had to do and how the kid care was just eating up her entire life.

Now, I’m a good friend, and I try to be supportive, and I understand that my role is to listen and empathize. So I never pointed out that the kids went away a week at a time!!! What was so bad about a week on, a week off? When my son was a toddler and we were new parents, my husband and I used to joke that we needed a couple of ex spouses to take him off our hands for a weekend. We would have KILLED for an entire week to ourselves.

So for her to imply that I had made my bed and now needed to lie in it seemed completely obnoxious, considering the time and effort I had put into not telling her she didn’t know how good she had it.

But as I said, I try to be a good friend to her, and a big part of that means not stirring things up. So I just lamely agreed that, yes, I had wanted him and then redirected the conversation by suggesting that she, better than anyone, must know about the sacrifices we make for our children. She launched into a long rant about how her step kids don’t appreciate anything she did for them and I tuned out and resolved to limit my parenting complaints to my mom friends.

I guess it takes a mom to know a mom.

On my nightstand sit two books – Twilight and Waiting for Birdy. One is the star-crossed romance between a vampire and a mortal; the other is a personal memoir of a “year of frantic tedium, neurotic angst, and the wild magic of growing a family”. (Book review on the latter to come soon.)

Two vastly different topics but they so neatly summarize where my head is these days.

On the one side, I’m in preparation mode for the arrival of my second son while trying to figure out how I can make sure my 3-year old doesn’t feel lost in the shuffle. Waiting for Birdy addresses my concerns to a tee, and very funnily so. It tunes right in to the maternal side of my brain. Exactly what I need.

On the flip side, I’m looking for some otherworldly, dangerous romance that I can sink my teeth into (no pun intended). A fantasy if you will, for my very pregnant, less and less agile by the day body. Twilight fits that need perfectly as well.

What’s surprising is that both sides are in peaceful cohabitation. I don’t think it will last though.

Come March, my every thought will be consumed by BABY (at least for a little while) and reading will fall by the wayside. Which is why I’m cramming as much in now as I possibly can. I remember when my first was born and how time for myself was squirreled away for sleeping in the first few months. It seemed like my life would never be the same again – like I would never have the luxury of settling down and reading before bed like I used to.

But as time went by, time came back. I found myself again, right where I left off. And I appreciate the time even more now than I did before. So I know there will be a period when I’ll drop off on my reading list and I’ll have to bookmark my place.

But for tonight, my nightstand beckons.

I absolutely love this song! It’s everything a mom says in a day condensed into 2 1/2 minutes and set to music (William Tell Overture).

One phrase I find myself saying a lot lately is, “Because I said so.” I never thought I would resort to this conversation stopper. I always figured I’d explain lovingly and patiently why kids shouldn’t eat candy for breakfast or leap from their beds to grab the ceiling fan cord. And then my kids would listen, comprehend, and accept. Maybe they might even say, “Okay, mommy,” in a chirpy voice. Strangely, the reality of my life is much different. Witness this recent conversation between me and my son:

Me: “Put on your red coat. It’s cold outside.”

My son: “I don’t want to wear the red coat. I want to wear my power coat.” (The power coat is an orange windbreaker with contrasting piping lines that indicate power.)

Me: “It’s too cold for the power coat. Put on your red coat.”

My son, loudly: “NO! I want to wear my POWER COAT!”

Me, patiently: “Sweetie, it’s much too cold for the power coat. If you go out to recess today at school, you’ll be cold.”

My son: “We don’t have recess, we just have the playground.”

Me, holding out the red coat: “Okay.”

My son, in whiny tone: “Why can’t I wear my power coat?”

Me: “Because it’s too cold for the power coat.”

My son: “Why? Why is it too cold for the power coat?”

Me, not so patiently: “Because it is.”

My son: “WHYYYYYYY?”

Me: “Because I said so.”

My son: “But MOMMYYYYYY”

And here is where “Because I said so” fails me and I am forced to borrow the Nike slogan, best said through gritted teeth: “Just do it.”

I spent a couple hours last night staring at my belly. At first in utter amazement that it is so full and round – I think it’s much bigger now than it was at this point with my first – and I’m wondering how much bigger it could possibly get.

Then I sat back and enjoyed the show. My belly alternated between waves and quick jabs way down low and way up high near my ribs seemingly at the same time, which got me thinking. How can he do that? Is he super long? Or maybe he has a secret twin living in there with him? I’ve had two ultrasounds during the course of this pregnancy and neither detected two babies. Nevertheless, all of this activity seems a bit curious. I don’t remember my first making such efficient use of the space available to him.

So I spend my nights wondering exactly what he’s doing in there. Is he hatching his escape plan? Is he rockin’ out to the rhythm of my heartbeat? Or maybe he’s in training for a future Olympics. I guess I’m not meant to know. But his nighttime performances are more entertaining than pretty much anything else.

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand for the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard about the hullabaloo over Motrin’s latest ad. Motrin tried to tap into the mom community by showing an ad about a mom who wears her baby in a sling but has back pain and needs Motrin for pain relief. Here’s the ad:

And here’s a transcript:

Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion. I mean, in theory it’s a great idea. There’s the front baby carrier, sling, schwing, wrap, pouch. And who knows what else they’ve come up with. Wear your baby on your side, your front, go hands free. Supposedly, it’s a real bonding experience. They say that babies carried close to the bod tend to cry less than others. But what about me? Do moms that wear their babies cry more than those who don’t. I sure do! These things put a ton of strain on your back, your neck, your shoulders. Did I mention your back?! I mean, I’ll put up with the pain because it’s a good kind of pain; it’s for my kid. Plus, it totally makes me look like an official mom. And so if I look tired and crazy, people will understand why.

Moms everywhere are deeply offended by this ad. Condescending, insulting, ridiculous are some of the words used to describe the ad.

I suppose I should be offended, too, but I’m just not. And not because I’m not a slinger; I wore my baby for 3 months straight after he was born and then held him or wore him A LOT for the next 3 months. (Yes, he was the kind of baby who needed a lot of holding. In fact, he’s now 5 years old and is still a little snuggly bunny.) I had two types of slings: a Baby Bjorn and another fabric one (I forget the name) that held the baby horizontally across my body. Both had their uses. The Baby Bjorn was better when I was walking and moving about while the other worked better when I was seated. I rarely had back pain with the Baby Bjorn but my shoulders would freeze up with the fabric sling. I never bought any Motrin; in fact, I never took any kind of pain relievers at all because I was nursing and was worried about the chemicals leaching into my milk and into my baby’s tiny body. As I recall, my husband had to massage my shoulders after a day of baby-wearing—much preferable to taking meds! That, along with a hot bath every night, did the trick.

So the recent Motrin ad didn’t really resonate with me. It certainly didn’t incite rage. It just left me indifferent. I sort of shrugged it off as another dumb commercial. I think the problem is that Motrin just missed the mark. They made the ad about wearing your baby instead of focusing on pain relief. Moms don’t need to be reminded about the sacrifices they make for their children; they live it every day. The truth is that moms wear their babies because it’s convenient and it makes baby happy. And most moms don’t have a lot of pain as a result of wearing their baby, at least if they’ve read the instructions that come with every sling. It’s not that different than learning how to lift with your legs instead of your back – and how many times have we heard that from our chiropractor?

A far better way to handle this ad would have been to acknowledge that moms can often feel pain during the course of their day. This can be due to many factors, including wearing a baby, stress, lack of sleep, household duties, etc. And then the wrap up: “Motrin can help you be the best mom you can be.” Or something like that!

Which leaves me with a last puzzle. Why does the media still have so much power over us? Why did women get so incensed about this ad? By the time we are old enough to have children, we have seen thousands and thousands of commercials and advertisements; they are thrown at us every day, everywhere we go. Shouldn’t we be immune to their effect? Why did this particular one cause such a furor, touch such a nerve? Is it possible that the real issue here is that women have not settled easily into motherhood; that we still struggle with our multiple roles as parent, spouse, employee, and self? I think that the backlash against Motrin for their perceived insensitivity for mothers as baby-wearers stems from a deeper issue, a feeling that women are not supported or valued in their role as mothers in our society. I think that this is the real insult that women are feeling, and the Motrin debacle is a surface ailment.

Read more:
For the text of an alternative ad, see http://writingroads.com/blog/if-i-had-written-the-motrin-ad/520. Another great post on this topic is http://twitteromics.com/motrinmoms-how-that-motrin-web-ad-should-be-done.

The number three has started to take on a certain magic around here. My son will be three years old a week from Saturday. And lately, everything is more exciting to him – and, subsequently, to me too.

Halloween was a kick-ass holiday. He totally “got it” this year and literally ran from house to house with the neighborhood kids like they were a little gang. The idea of his birthday and a party has intrigued him since the summer, as we counted down how many more friends and family would have a birthday before his would come. He’s out of his head with excitement about cupcakes and a piñata with his friends at school and the party at the Moonbounce place with his cousins and friends. And especially about the Lightning McQueen birthday cake that I’m planning to bake him.

If all of this excitement weren’t enough for his little brain to handle, we’ve been working on getting his “big boy” room ready. The furniture will be delivered any day now, the room (my former office) has been emptied and repainted, and all of his Cars bedding and accessories have been purchased. Once the room was cleared out, he asked me if he could sleep in there on a towel until his new bed came. The request was so simple and heartfelt that I actually considered saying yes.

He also talks about his baby brother in my belly and asks me almost daily when he will come out. He seems very excited about having a little brother, and I just hope that continues once the baby actually arrives in March.

I can only imagine how much fun the month of December will be and what Christmas will be like. I’m not sure who will be more excited, him or me.