A Very Merry Christmahanakwanza To All!

Yes, I know it's January...err...something. I realize that all the holidays are long over and that Easter candy is already making its way into the grocery stores (I know this because I've already eaten a fistful of Cadbury eggs.)

Seriously, is it just me or do these candies give you the feeling that the Easter bunny is having unprotected sex with a chicken?

Either way, those bastard love child eggs are delicious!

Right, back to the holidays. After listening to way too many people bemoan the ritual of buying gifts, putting up trees, and anything having to do with the holidays, I realized that I'm one of the lone lovers of Christmas. I mean, it's not like I go around dressed like an elf singing "Here comes Santa Claus" (or, at least, not on the weekdays), but I am in love with Christmas - mostly because it's the only holiday that truly celebrates gaudiness and everything shiny. And with that in mind, the tree went up and tinsel was strewn everywhere. Even the cat's turds became remarkably more sparkly.

As I was looking for gifts, I found myself wandering over to the children's section of the bookstore where two books immediately caught my attention:

Inside the Titanic: A Children's Cutaway Book


And Gizmo and the Gremlins.


Awesome. Now I have books that will teach my kid valuable lessons - stuff they can really use, not like that "treat people the way you want to be treated" crap. Ahh, yes. I can already envision us lying together and reading stories that will teach Slaggy that boats don't always float and that if your cute little fuzzy pet gets wet, it will become evil and try to eat your face.

Good times, good times.

And now, in lieu of a resolution, I offer you a New Year's observation. This being the first New Years I haven't woken up in a world of eye pain and/or slumped over a toilet, I noticed something that had never occurred to me before. People, everywhere, were constantly bidding other people a "Happy New Years!" I heard this more than any other holiday greeting I've ever heard before, which I found odd, given that I'd only ever associated New Years as a fake holiday that serves only to celebrate mass drunkeness.

And yet, here I was, being bid a "Happy News Years" every few minutes. I guess, between the people who love holidays and the people who hate them, we all love to celebrate the equivalent of the odometer hitting all zeros. So, I hope you and yours are having a happy new year, even if it is a bit late.

Car Keys are for Sissies.

I recently waddled my preggo butt through a few airports and flew a few thousand miles. Now, air travel is never fun. Undertaking the experience with a yoga ball attached to my belly was more than a bit daunting. It turns out that flying while way the hell pregnant is fraught with its fair share of upsides as well.



Pro: Chivalry is far from dead. Whether it was a seat on a bus or the next spot in the bathroom line, people routinely gave up their spots for me.

Con: I learned that pregnant women's feet do indeed swell.

Pro: Nobody looks at you funny when you're guzzling cookie crumbs from a gallon ziplock bag while sitting in the terminal on your 3 hour layover.

Con: After seeing the knocked up chick sitting in the (oh sooo roomy!) exit row of the airplane, the flight attendant asks, "Uh, just how far along are you?" He punctuates his question with a "C'mon, are you really going to be able to open that door in an emergency?" look. Nevermind the 102 year old man who smells like pee or the guy who's passed out from his zillionth airplane sized bottle of vodka in the other exit row. Nah, it's the pregnant chick who will screw the pooch should a sudden "drop in altitude" (a.k.a. plane crash) occur.

Pro: Watching his look become crestfallen as you inform him that you are NOT pregnant and punctuate that statement with your own "Are you calling me fat?!?" look.

Con: Realizing that, after 12 hours of traveling on Christmas, the car keys are in the checked bags, which got rerouted to Pensacola, a good 1500 miles from our car which is parked in the lot at the airport. Whatever, we don't need no stinking keys! We lived out of a car for two years. We're resourceful individuals. Yes, we can find a way home!

Except, it's 1AM on Christmas night and buses have all stopped running. And so have the shuttles. We also appear to be the last poor saps left at the airport. So, we used the same resources as NYC yuppies - we took a cab. As we slid sleepily into the back seat, the cabbie gives us a confused look asking, "Don't you guys have bags?" If I hadn't been so tired, I might have tried to bite his face.

Pro: Guilting the agent into a $100 credit to cover the cab fee without having to do anything but be pregnant, which also scored us a discounted rate from the cabbie.

As the hour cab ride creeped along, every mile relieving us of that awful feeling of having cash in our wallets, we fretted about whether we'd be able to even get into the house and the likelihood that the cat had decided to topple the tree in her lonely boredom. I pictured us curled up in sleeping bags in the garage, while the cat looked on mischievously and covered in tinsel.

As we found a way to enter the house, I never felt so lucky in my life. The tree was still up. The cat was still alive (albeit, a little crazy). We were finally home. Once you're curled up in your own bed, a day of misfortune immediately becomes nothing more than a giggle inducing tale of adventure.

After receiving our bags a few days later, Ryan (being a very chivalrous baby-daddy) hopped a bus back to the airport and finally retrieved our car while I took a bath.

Man, being pregnant is definitely a pro.