There is Colbert ice cream in my freezer and I am afraid to eat it

Let me explain. Last time around, that delightful caramely concoction known as Americone Dream had just hit the market and we looked everywhere for it, because I am a huge Stephen Colbert fan. Also a huge Jon Stewart fan, but he doesn't have his own ice cream.

It took forever but DH finally tracked it down and brought me some. We ate it that night, about a week before my due date, and while we were watching the Report I went into labor.

Coincidence? I think not!

Every person I tell that story to says I should write the show about it, but I was afraid to on account of Colbert probably would put it on the show. (Although that isn't stopping me from blogging about it so there you go.) Now here we are again, at week 37, and there is a pint of Americone in the freezer that has been sitting there for weeks because I am not touching it until I am ready for this kid to be born. Just imagine if it happens again? I think I would need to petition the FDA to regulate this stuff.

And unrelatedly I'm kvetching because the FakeNews Hour has been on another three-week vacation and I hate when they do that. C'mon, you work four days a week! So glad they're back tomorrow.

I guess we're doing something right

Because the kid eats salad and won't eat mozzarella sticks. How did that happen? Does that not go against every rule of kid-dom? Shouldn't he be refusing to touch anything that isn't fried, breaded or smothered in Velveeta?

We had salad with dinner tonight and I figured, what the heck, I'll give him a little and see what he does. So I put some romaine, radishes and mushrooms on his plate. He wouldn't go near the mushrooms (they're getting mushy, I don't blame him) but devoured the rest. And then asked for more. "More sa'ad." "More ra'ish." Repeatedly. I was feeding him off my salad. Just surreal.

He also eats broccoli, peas, carrots, sauteed spinach (at least when we order it from the local pizza joint he does) and the occasional tomato. And every fruit known to man except for citrus, I think because an orange looks like a ball and he gets upset when you peel it.

I'm not complaining in the slightest. I think it's terrific. I just don't get how we did it. All you ever hear about is kids refusing to go within 50 feet of anything healthy. All you ever see on kids menus is chicken fingers, grilled cheese, hot dogs and mini burgers. The bar has been set so low it's basically a limbo pole.

Do we have an abnormally healthy eater? Or do lots of kids eat this way and no one bothers correcting the stereotype (or complaining about kids menus)? Hard to tell.

Of course he may decide in a year that he hates radishes and loves mozzarella sticks. And I fully expect him to live off cold pizza and Wendy's in college, because I did. (Favorite breakfast freshman year: granola bars dipped in Fluff. So. Gross.) But for now, it's looking good.

Apart from the fact that he already loves pizza, macaroni and cheese, ice cream and cake. Hey, we're not total killjoys.

I mean, it's just one finger, right? There's nine more.

So if I'd been thinking about it, I would've clued in when my favorite peep-toe heels got tight. Or when all the other shoes got tight and I had to buy a larger pair of sandals with arch support to do something about the foot aches. Or, I dunno, when I remembered that this was the third trimester and that swelling was normal.

But nooo. Why remember to take the rings off? That would take brains and I am obviously fresh out.

Not even when my hand started to ache a couple days ago did I figure it out. Until I looked down at my hand and realized what was on it. Oh no, I thought, because the rings suddenly seemed carved into my finger and in no way coming off without the assistance of a blowtorch.

Honestly, like I hadn't been through this drill before. I was way more on the ball with the first pregnancy, what with the reading and the classes and interviewing a dozen doulas (this time? two) and constantly pestering the OB's office with questions. Also way more neurotic about every little thing (might have been all the reading and the classes and etc.). But this time I've been so laid-back about the whole thing it's like I only remember I'm pregnant when I catch a glimpse in the mirror and think, Man, when did I swallow the bowling ball?

Really, really didn't want to cut the rings off. The wedding ring especially, since it has a pretty Greek key pattern and is engraved on the inside.

"Cut the rings off," said the OB. Thanks, that was helpful. Although he did suggest soap.

The Interweb proved more interesting reading. Lots of sites say Windex. (What I want to know is, does that advice predate or postdate "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"?) Others say shampoo/conditioner or vegetable oil. Several suggested this method: Slip dental floss under the ring, then wind the other end all the way up the finger. Start unwinding it from the bottom and it should push the ring up and off, assuming your finger doesn't fall off first. I found this intriguing and also scary.

We used a combo of Seventh Generation spray cleaner -- hey, we don't have Windex -- and Vaseline, along with icing down/elevating the finger beforehand. It was a two-night process, since the finger swelled up in the process of yanking the engagement ring off and I figured we should give it some recovery time in between. But they're off and staying off, and I expect the circular indentation in my finger should go away in a couple days. Yay.

So it's back to the unwed-mother look for me. I suppose I could stick the rings on a chain and loop them around my neck, but boy, that's a little high school. If I were going to do that, I might as well haul out a class ring and stick it on for good measure. And wear DH's varsity jacket, assuming he had one.

Ah well, at least nothing had to get cut off -- the rings or my circulation.

Gasp! Is that pregnant woman entering a liquor store?

Yes, she was. She just wanted some empty boxes. Liquor stores are great for that -- they always have a ton and the boxes are pretty sturdy. On account of they have to hold heavy glass bottles of liquor.

But oh the fisheye I got from the two employees I approached to ask about the boxes. They looked a little relieved when I explained what I wanted. One of them walked me over to the bin where the empties were piled up, then asked if I needed help with them, since I was "in the family way and all." I politely declined. Cause if I can tote around my 28ish-pound kid along with the big belly, I can handle some empty boxes, Sir Galahad. And all.

Really what I should've done was walked up to them and asked where the Boone's Farm was, just to watch them have vapors.

The best was the day before, when I brought kiddo into a different liquor store for the same reason. Now you've got a preggie lady and a small child surrounded by liquor. The humanity! But the nice man behind the counter seemed completely unfazed and cheerily pointed out the corner where the empties were. He was amused when I convinced kiddo to help out by carrying a box; by "carrying," of course, I mean lifting the box, plopping it on the ground, lifting it, plopping it, in a more-or-less forward motion. Until kiddo spotted the movie playing on the mounted TV and yelled "Cool bus!" meaning school bus, because all buses right now are school buses, and plop-walked his box over to the other end of the room so he could watch the cool bus on the TV. Man at the counter found this hilarious.

I do occasionally wonder whether I'm setting off pregnancy alarm bells in anyone around me. Whenever I walk in a room with a Dunkin' Donuts cup I have the urge to announce "It's decaf!" so no one freaks. In fact when I order said coffee I always make a point of saying, "You heard I wanted decaf, right?" which is as much for the benefit of the other people on line as it is for the counter folks. And just because I've been eating lunchmeat this whole time, doesn't mean I touched any at the baby shower I went to recently.

But hey, when you're sporting a belly the size of a basketball, you ought to be able to have some fun with it.

Hallmark not spoken here

Someone who hadn't seen me in a while came up to me the other day and asked if I were pregnant. I said, completely straightfaced, "No."

On other occasions, I have been known to accuse people of mocking my beer gut.

Am I too much of a smartass to be a good mommy? Occasionally I wonder. Although smartassery seems to be the way to handle certain aspects of this whole parenting thing. Like when kiddo is careening off the walls at 8 a.m. and DH asks, "What did you feed him?" and I say "Crystal meth." Which is a lot simpler than saying, "I have no idea why a whole wheat mini-bagel and blueberries have caused him to run around in circles at 50 miles an hour for the past 10 minutes."

Sentimentality is a tiny bit foreign to me. I hate chick flicks, on account of the female lead characters always seem to be idiots (and the male leads always seem to be cardboard, and also idiots). I bawled at "Bridge to Terabithia," sure, but I dare you not to. I never read romance novels, unless you count "Pride and Prejudice," and you shouldn't, because it's a comedy of manners and transcends the genre and don't you dare insult Ms. Austen.

However it is an expectant mother is supposed to be acting, I'm probably not acting like it. I'm too busy cracking jokes in the corner.

And clearly I'm about to have competition there. Kiddo distinctly smirks when he crawls under the dining room table and announces "Hide!" And when we count down to 1 to get him to stop whatever it is we don't want him doing, he deliberately waits until 2, or 1, before he quits. Like a defused bomb in an action movie.

Ah well. Smartassery is a family trait.

Sure, I'd love to not eat for 15 hours, thanks

So I failed the one-hour glucose test for gestational diabetes, which instantly qualified me for the needle extravaganza otherwise known as the three-hour test. "I have to fast for 12 hours?" I said faintly.

Yes, said the nurse, and then we take your blood once an hour for three hours and you still can't eat until after that's done. Just what every pregnant woman wants to hear when they get hungry, oh, once an hour.

And still I might not have flipped out much were it not for the family history of Type II diabetes. GD leads to Type II later on in life for something like two out of three women. Oh great, I thought, I didn't escape after all.

Which is mean really. The family members who have it seem to manage pretty well, between medications and dietary restrictions. Properly managed, it shouldn't wreck your life or even get in the way much.

But still. Type II has the added bonus of being brought on, usually, by weight or diet issues. So I wonder if there isn't the feeling of having failed somehow, of not trying hard enough to be healthy. When people are diagnosed, do they start mentally ticking off every single doughnut or soda or piece of pie they had in the past year, trying to figure out which was the tipping point? Because I did that before I even took the three-hour test.

I grumpily dragged myself into the OB's office, drank the lemon-lime sugar-shock bottle (I hate to admit it, but I didn't think it tasted that bad) and sat in the waiting room and wrote. Yes, I was the freak with the little notebook in the corner. There's a short story I'm working on -- I do write fiction, in the delusion that it will be published someday -- and I figured, why waste three perfectly good hours of writing time when I never get three hours of writing time? Anyhow the magazine selection in the waiting room is weak at best. I read the same one two visits in a row once.

There was another woman there taking the same test and we ended up on the same needle schedule; the nurse would call us both back at once, draw her blood and then draw mine. Funny in a way. Then the nurse would ask me, "How are you doing?" and I'd say, "Well, I'm pretty hungry," because I was on the verge of pretending every object around me was a turkey leg like they do in the cartoons, and she'd say cheerily, "Well, you've got two more drawings to go," which is two more hours if you're keeping count. And I'd grump my way back out to the waiting room.

I wasn't allowed to fall asleep, she said, just so they'd know I hadn't fainted.

A couple other patients came and went -- a young Indian couple with a most adorable toddler, a couple of whitish-haired older women, a younger one in hipper-than-thou jeans -- and my glucose buddy and I stayed, she on her Crackberry, me on my notebook. One of the workers came out from the back and made a snappy comment about how we seemed to be camping out there, or something like that, and I wanted to take an outdated magazine and swat her upside the head with it.

Final insult to injury: The last drawing took forever because my veins decided they'd had it and wouldn't give up any more blood (this was on top of the one-hour test the previous week, in which the woman drawing my blood couldn't get a vein, stuck me again, remembered afterward, oops, forgot to get the hemoglobin!, stuck me again, couldn't find a vein and ended up using a tiny needle on the back of my hand to get it done. She hadn't drawn blood in a while, she said apologetically). So a few extra tries later, we were done and I looked like I had track marks inside my elbow. And I ate the fastest lunch you ever saw in your life.

And the final result was ... normal. Completely normal. Which was a relief, but also a surprise. I really figured I'd flunk this one. I felt a little guilty over all the angst. What, I'm better than my diabetic relatives? I don't deserve to live their life?

Didn't stop me from having celebratory ice cream though.

Kiddoese-to-English glossary

Ba-bus -- The sound a bus makes.

Beep -- Car.

Da-doo -- I would like something to drink.

Dandy -- Daddy.

Dinner -- Every single meal.

Elmo -- Every red Muppet on "Sesame Street."

Ni! -- Yes.

La la la -- What three singing pigs say. *

Hide! -- I realize you are trying to put me to bed, but I much prefer laughing at you from under the dining room table.

Pe pe -- Percy. (See "Tee tee.")

Pees -- Please.

Ride ride beep! -- I would like to ride in the car.

Rideriderideride beep! -- I would really like to ride in the car.

Tee tee -- Train. Specifically Thomas.

Tee tee boom -- I seem to have pushed my train off the coffee table again.

Teet! -- The sound a train makes.

Ten -- Every number over ten.

Tick tock -- Clock.


*OK, that one's our fault. It's from a Sandra Boynton book.