Brenda and David + 1

I moved to Brooklyn in 2002 and one of my first new-best-Brooklyn-buddies was Rachael. We bonded instantly over a crappy job and manager. This friendship grew quickly and before you knew it Brenda and I were rolling with her entire crew of Ohio transplants. I couldn’t possibly count the late nights and great memories we have all shared over the years. Flash forward 7 years and Rachael and Mark’s little girl Olivia is almost 3. She’s the one with the curls. We finally all got together in Hoboken, NJ this past weekend. Olivia is sweet and sassy just like her mom. Danielle and Nammy’s little one, Emory, is already 3 months old, and what a good little boy he is. Time is flying by…3 months from today is our due date (more or less). We are blessed that we have such amazing friends who are also amazing role models who make it all look so easy. 

Photo shoot time!!!!  come on girl, work it!  own it!!  wait a minute..who let HIM in??

Just thought I’d post a few photos from this weekend- my sister & nieces visited us and boy did we have fun! McKayla & Erika were obsessed with feeling the baby kick. As you can see from one of the photos- we even tried to “wake him up” with music one morning to get him moving. Luckily by the end of the (too short) trip, they both felt him kick. So glad I can share this with them & feel like although I’ve lived far away, I’m still able to have close relationships with them. I remember how exciting it was when they were born and how amazing it was to see bits & pieces of my family & myself in their mannerisms and looks. Can’t imagine how wonderful it will be to have one of my own. :)

Contrary to Dave’s comments about the cartoon below..I can assure you that chivalry is indeed dead. When I got on the train today, there were 6 men all sitting on a bench seat just like in the cartoon. Some looked up from their magazines, some did not…but no one offered me a seat (and my belly was/is obvious!).And they were sitting underneath a sign that says you must give up your seat for people with disabilities…not that I’m disabled but my guess is it wouldn’t matter if I were…

Yesterday I went to sit in a middle seat between a woman and a man who had his legs spread wide open partially blocking the middle seat. I said excuse me and went to squeeze my behind into the seat. Normally a person would scootch over is his/her seat to make the seat available but not this guy. So I perched my bum on the edge of the seat and proceeded to take out my book- and he started grumbling to himself like he’s annoyed with ME. And then…under his breath he says to himself  “I’m not going to say anything…” Now the old me wanted to start with this guy and imagined saying something like , “What? What do you have to say to me - a woman who is 6+ months pregnant who is attempting to sit in an available seat? Sorry you had to close your crotch! You aren’t home on your couch watching a game, you know..” But the new calm Mama Me zipped her lip and let it go because I’m not letting stress in these days- its not my job to teach this guy manners. What a jerk though…

What is going on with men out there? With 1 exception, every person who has offered me a seat on the train has been a woman. This isn’t about giving women special treatment, it is about having manners & respect for your fellow human beings whether they are elderly, ill, have an injury or are pregnant. Luckily most of the men that I know are gentlemen… and come February, they’ll be one more well-mannered boy in the world! (Or at least we’ll try!)

Brenda tells me she is not having any trouble getting a seat in the morning.  This is good news! Nobody wants the Barlow-Stink-Eye pointed at them! -D

Let’s Play Ball!

Last night the Yankees won the World Series. I watched the game with some friends in a crowded bar and had a blast! It was a great game and it got me thinking about my history with the sport.

As most of you know I was never really a “baseball guy”. No skills at all from an early age. Sure…Dad and I tossed the ball around once or twice. Maybe more, who knows? There is only one memory that stands out from my formative ball playing years. Oh wait, make that two and I think they are related but I could be making this up.

Memory number 1:::  It seemed like every time that Dave Bosch kid stepped up to the plate he got nailed by the ball!  (Sure he got on first base but that ball really hurt!!) This pattern I would assume lead to my second memory. Maybe the Bosch boy just needs a little practice. Hmmm? Okay then..that brings us to:

Memory number 2:::Dad and I are on the side of the house tossing the ball back and forth. Well, I must have thrown a wild pitch. OR maybe I didn’t know my own strength? Possibly a gust of wind? In any event that ball reflected off of Dad’s glove and headed straight for his mouth. YEP! Chipped a tooth! Nice throw Dave!  REAL NICE. I think he found the tooth in the grass. Maybe there was blood? I can’t say for sure. Maybe I learned a new curse word that day?

Needless to say my T-Ball, Softball and Baseball days were limited. I do hope our son will have natural athletic ability. I just hope he doesn’t ask me to play catch on the side of the house   :)

Being pregnant limits you when it comes to choosing a Halloween costume, but I think I rose to the challenge- thanks to Sherry’s suggestion- with my “Bun in the Oven” costume. I had a lot of fun making it and people got a kick out of it- especially when I was dancing. It may have been brief, but yes at 6 months pregnant I was dancing at a bar at 1:30 AM on Halloween! When Prince & Michael Jackson came on- I just couldn’t stop myself! And it was funny because, Dave had rigged up a light in the oven to make it look like my bun was cooking..and when we started dancing, we switched it to the strobe function. So fun! Needless to say, I was pretty tired the next day and clocked a lot of couch time in. Dave looked great too as Kid Rock…but part of me still wishes he had thought twice about being a chef/baker. Good times! Our last Halloween without our little guy with us, already can’t wait for next year. :)

My “Bun in the Oven” Costume

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25sun4.html

Editorial Notebook

Baby Faces

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Published: October 24, 2009

It is the No. 1 train, late-morning rush. We are all wearing our subway masks, everything from studied fatigue to careful blankness. A well-dressed woman enters the car at 72nd Street and sits on the bench across from where I’m standing. Her mask is particularly guarded, utilitarian. A minute passes. I look down, and she’s ecstatic, puffing her cheeks, smiling riotously, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them wide. She would be gurgling and cooing if she could. There is a baby crinkling with pleasure in a stroller across the aisle.

This is the magical thing about babies on the subway. They carry the antidote to adulthood. The careful decorum we construct for ourselves — grown-up civilian riders of the underground train — simply dissolves. Very few people are immune to the power, the openness of a baby’s unconstructed glance. It stares without rudeness, smiles without solicitation, and somehow it reaches the unconstructed human that remains inside most of us. We get to step outside all the workaday rules of human contact. We get to make faces in public.

The woman got off the train at 42nd Street. As she stood up, I watched her face close like the shutting of a pocketbook. She had been googling the baby — it seems like the only right word — but she had been doing so in a private, shared eye-space, just the two of them. Never mind that we were all watching. That’s another magic in a baby’s glance. It’s so exclusive, and yet so open. You feel thoroughly regarded, utterly looked at and enclosed. In a very short time, that baby would begin finding the constraints, the natural shuttering, that mean growing up. But that morning, it was that woman’s job to keep the lines of communication open.

I caught her glance while she was making baby faces. It was unintentional. It caught me smack in the head, as if I were the baby. I almost made a baby face back at her. And what if I had? What if it had spread down the car, all the adults making baby faces at one another? I think about that whenever I take the subway now, inwardly, behind my 1-train mask.