And B is for....Boy!

The night before the ultrasound I was cool as a cucumber. I had always wanted a girl but I have such a crush on my husband that I had been hoping that it would be a boy. As much as he gets on my nerves sometimes, when he acts right he really knows how to melt my butter, so the thought of TWO of "them" in my life made my heart smile.

The following morning, we slumbered around the house taking bets on whether the ultrasound would reveal that the baby was a girl or a boy when suddenly my intuition told me to call to confirm my doctor's appointment. After trying to reach the doctor for 20 mins, at 9:20 am we were finally connected to her assistant.

"Hi ma'am. I'm calling to confirm my appointment with Dr. Song. My name is Mrs. Smith and I believe I have a 10:00 o'clock appointment."

"Oh no, dear. Your appointment with Dr. Song is at 10:30 but your ultrasound is in ten minutes! Can you make it down here because we are booked solid."

"Oh no!!! We will be there in 15 mins! I promise. Please don't reschedule us. We are on our way!" I replied.

Pat stood nearby shaking his head when I yelled, "Get dressed we have 10 mins to make it downtown!"

As I jumped in the shower I thought of all the disapproving looks I would get from my mom, my dad, my sister, my friends, and my in-laws if I couldn't tell them if my baby had a penis or vagina.

"Surely, she's not ready to care for a child if she can't remember the most important doctor's appointment of her life," they would think.

20 minutes later I ran into the doctor's office and went to check in.

"I'm sorry. I'm SO very very forgetful. I'm so sorry for being such a bootleg patient. I know that I'm 20 minutes late but please don't send me home."

Luckily the receptionist was more forgiving than the ultrasound technician.

"Ju know...we are booked BERRY BERRY tightly. It is BERRY diffi-cult to con-duct a comprehensive exam when Ju are late. It pushes EVVVEERRYONE else back," the Hungarian technician told me over and over again for the first 15 mins of the examination.

Finally, she said..."Do ju want to know what ju are having?"

Excitedly, Pat and I both said "Yes!"

"Dere is dis penis and dere is dis testicles," she said as she quickly pointed to cloudy image on the screen.

Pat did a double fist pump in the air and I only had time to say "yay! I knew it!" before the technician continued on with the exam, measuring the size of my placenta and uterus.

So there I lay on the table contemplating what it means to bring a little boy into this world. I simply prayed, "Jesus, let him be strong and wise, smart and caring, compassionate and healthy. Most of all Jesus...Let him grow to be like my daddy, my husband, and my brother...and not like MOFO. Amen."

The Day Job Lounge and the birth of the Sister Circle)..

Two days after my birthday, I found myself at dinner with several other couples to celebrate my husband's business partner, Ozzie, birthday. Despite living in Chicago, all of my husband's closest friends are southern boys who have each have been "transplanted" in Chicago in the name of love (IE. their wives). So there we sat around the table talking about everything from taking out the trash to picking up strip clubs in Vegas - the normal "Venus vs. Mars" debates that happens when we all get together.

The men call themselves the "Four Guys" and they refer to the home of the only single guy as the "Day Job Lounge" or "DJL" for short. The "Day Job Lounge" is a bit of a neighborhood men's cave, or a "safe haven" for any of the guys when they need to get out of the house. When I once asked what goes on at the "Day Job Lounge," Pat only shook his head, got a distant look in his eye and said, "We just talk about life."

So there we were, having dinner and the "Four Guys" began to discuss the need for the DJL.

"Sometimes, we SERIOUSLY just don't understand where ya'll are coming from and we need the perspective of somebody else who's been there."

"Sometimes, we need to just vent...without anyone judging how you feel."

"Sometimes, a man just needs to go somewhere where he doesn't have to be anyone but himself."

As the wives sat around the table and listened to their husbands talk about the camaraderie that they have, we all felt a pang of jealousy -- not because we didn't want them to appreciate friendship with other people but because we recognized that it was something that we missing in our own lives.

So that night after dinner, we all coordinated our Blackberry Calendars and decided to form the "Sister Circle."

Sidenote: It's funny how sometimes you don't realize what you are missing in your life until you experience it. As women, I think it's easy for us to get into the routine of "making everything work" that we oftentimes negate that part of ourselves that needs pure, unadulterated, and uncompromising fellowship with other women. It wasn't until that night that I realized how badly I needed to "let my hair down".

When the "Sister Circle" gets together, it truly is a time where we all feel like we can say anything, ask anything, shout anything and no one will think anything of it the next day.

We've talked about everything from ways to get out of sex when you feel that poke in the middle of the night to how add spice to a sex life when it suffers due to work, a baby, and stress. We are simply friends due to shared and common experiences which is the exact reason why it works. We don't spare any words when it comes to advice but no one is invested in being "right" or someone being better than the other. We only come to together for the purpose of eating, drinking, and talking smack.

I am grateful for the introduction of these women into my life because as a soon-to- be-mother, there are so many things that I don't know and so many things that I can't begin to anticipate once a baby enters my life and marriage. I can always defer to a magazine or website on matters such as diaper rash or onesies, and I can always defer to my mom on matters such as easy dinners and life insurance, but until now, I had no one to turn to when I wanted to know whether my size E's would have ever shrink back to a manageable size or to ask whether Pat was horrible for not rubbing my feet after I made dinner.

So thank you Sister Circle for your honesty, your candor, and your unbridled coonery on all matters pertaining to marriage, motherhood, and womanhood :-)

My birthday and why I love it...(a random shout out to my one and only)

Oddly enough, one of my favorite things about myself is my birthday. Every year, my birthday stands at the entrance of the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day Weekend, and I am able to celebrate outdoors with sun, drinks, and fun. For many people, being outside is probably no big deal, but for us Chicagoans - summertime is our little piece of heaven considering our 6-9 months of rain, snow, wind, and frostbite.

Despite my love of my birth-DAY, the celebration of my birthday has always been very tricky. From the age of 0 - 18, my mother and father made sure to make birthdays special. My mother would buy balloons, my father would buy a plant (he's from Mississippi and doesn't believe in buying flowers) and they would sing "Happy Birthday" with a cake until I blew out the candles. Then they would top it off with a card full of money ("full of money" could mean anything from $20 to $300 dollars, depending on how much they liked you at the time).

Eventually I became "too cool" for balloons and preferred to set my own agenda for my birthday which came to include clubs, bars, and parties. While this phase of my life was lots of fun, I soon recognized this to be a hazard because it meant that my "special" day came to depend completely on the inclusion or willing participation of other people. After enough disappointments, I decided to always make my day special, even if it only included me, because it is the only day that I have to celebrate myself and I didn't need anyone else to do that for me.

So for many years on my birthday, I would simply disappear. No parties. No clubs. If you found me, I would be at a spa getting a massage, at a restaurant having a cocktail, or in a park reading a book. It would be just me -- enjoying myself.

But then someone came along who MADE ME let them make me feel special. And every year, despite my insistence otherwise, he reminds me that I don't have to make my happiness by myself, but that he is there to make and share happiness with me. And despite that fact that I tell him every year, I don't think he will ever know just how much I appreciate that mere effort that he puts forth to make me feel special and to show me how much he loves me.

We are far from rich, in fact our student loans probably will outweight our assets for the next 50 years...nevertheless, every year on my special day in May he makes me feel like a million bucks. And though he is not perfect, he is perfect me for and that is the best gift I could ever have asked for.

Uncle Ziggy says...

"...anybody who wants to see Teddy Graham has to go through me first!"

Big Brother Capone

Capone says, "I pity the fool that messes with my Teddy Graham!"

Dear Baby X (Letter #1)

Dear Baby X, aka Teddy Graham, aka Treasure, aka PJ aka The Alien:

I'm really sleepy right now but I wanted to make sure to write you a quick letter before I went to bed. I hope that you are enjoying your whirlpool jacuzzi - Mommy is sure trying to make sure that you stay comfortable. I wonder what you are up to in there...are you trying to work-off those sundaes and potato chips? If so, try some lunges and squats -- those always work for me! I can't wait to meet you - I bet you will be one cute little thing. I wonder if you will have your father's dark features, although I'd love it if you have my eyes and cheeks!

I pray you have your father's determination and my sense of compassion -- outside of our faith and love -- those are the two best things that we have to offer. You will probably have a combination of both of our senses of humor which means that there are surely lots of laughs to come. And despite all my previous cursing about my boss - I hope you learn early to deal with life's challenges with hope, patience, and unshatterable faith because you were given to God before you ever stepped forth on this Earth.

I also hope that you do not work a nine to five job. Although I would support any career you have -- this is the one thing that may break my heart. See the world! Learn Spanish in ways that I never could! Know that home is truly where ever your heart is. Experience the full magnitude of love, even the painful parts -- for it is truly what makes the world go 'round. But most of all, I pray that you find God, joy, and purpose in your life for these three things are the essence of what it means to truly live of life working living.

With Anticipation,

Your Mom

Oh...the changes I've been going through...

My Stomach

Suddenly I looked down and after 29 years in exile, my belly button was poking out!

"Hmmmm, I wonder if I got a hernia from lifting those boxes when we were moving??" was my first thought.

A baby being inside my stomach didn't occur to me at first, because my tummy seemed to have popped out literally overnight. To be honest, it was the size of my belly button that also threw me off. It was so big that you could see it through my clothes which seemed to be a HUGE tell-tell to people that I was expecting. With my protruding belly comes a daily need to grease myself down like a fried turkey in shea butter - because I am trying to prepare my skin for stretching that has only just begun.

My Pooch

Next, around my 16th week, my pooch began to feel like I was always riding a bike. My pelvis bones were beginning to soften and stretch and sometimes activities such as walking were uncomfortable. Out of no nowhere I would feel a sudden pain in my crouch and out of an unconscious reflex, I would grab my crouch like I was Michael Jackson to try to make it go away.

My Legs

One day, I was running late for work so I threw on a summer dress and ran out the door. Just as I was closing the door, I was horrified to see that my legs looked like they belonged to Chubaka! My leg hair was so long that you could have french braided it! I was so disturbed.

My Back and the Casaba Melons

Then came my back...actually it wasn't my back -- it was the two casaba melons that were putting stress on my back. By this time, my "girls" were pouring out of my DD (yes, those are two D's) bra cups but I was resistant to buying new bras until my 5 month because I suspected that they would only continue to grow and grow. Pat is afraid that one day I will just fall over. Most days, as soon as I come home from work, I fall out on the couch and unhook my bra to set my runaway breasts free from captivity...which brings me both great relief and happiness.

After weeks, no months, of feeling like I was carrying two twins on my chest, I finally bit the bullet and went to J.C. Penny's to get my maternity bras. When the lingerie department manager came in my dressing to measure me all she kept saying was, "Girl...I can't believe you are able to hold those things up! You are full of milk!" Just as I was about to get mad, she started to sing "JUST THROW SOME E's ON IT..." and I couldn't do anything but laugh.

I've began to put aside my previous notions of how "normal" feels because nothing about this experience could meet those old standards. Yet, I'm beginning to embrace it all because with 4 more months to go, my only choice is to give in - let go - and enjoy the ride.