Stupid Work

I know, I know, I haven't posted in what feels like a very long time. Stupid full time job sucking up much of my energy and attention.  My drinking schedule fortunately hasn't suffered too much... a small town wedding complete with disintegrating shirts, the Rapture, a bachelorette party... and not even to mention that Sara is in the process of choosing between Caesarean and vaginal birthing.  Skin crawling at thought of vaginal delivery.  What a relief.  I was starting to think I was desensitized to the horror of this situation and things like mucus* plug, placenta, and the shredding of one's vaginal wall would no longer faze me.  Hooray for still being me.


*mucus or mucous?  apparently synonyms for mucus include "secretion, phlegm, coating, slime" and for mucous include "self-lubricating, slimy, slippery".  I guess kind of the same thing.  Though I kind of take issue with the suggestion that self-lubrication and phlegm are basically the same thing.

Flowers in the Attic

It's official.  We all knew that the birtle was a boy.  And the other is.... a girl.

I have to admit I'm a little disappointed.  I really wanted a second boy exclusively so I could say that there would be points throughout the next 3 months where Sara had 3 penises inside her, a feat not to be repeated unless (or… until?) she and Chris got into group sex and she learned to relax several different muscles simultaneously and on command.  I guess the two penises inside her probably won’t happen again either, unless they get into threesomes and it turns out that Sara enjoys fingercuffs and/or double penetration (though I’m trying to wrap my mind around the mechanics of DP and I can't).

Oh well.  The girl is definitely the dominant child, being slightly older and much feistier than the boy, so I am solaced by the knowledge that Chris’ life will continue to be ruled by women.

Also, Chris and Sara will be spared the indignity of having people want to have threesomes with their children.  Bi-curious threesomes, maybe, but I imagine those to be somewhat of a rarity.  Certainly not your run-of-the-mill straight guy who dreams of doing it with twin sisters.  What is it about twins that leads people to believe they’d be into incest?  Though in fairness, Sara has already started with Flowers in the Attic jokes in anticipation of the uncomfortably close relationship the twins are likely to share. 

Not to suggest that the twins may or will be into threesomes or incest or anything, but the results of the last ultrasound prove that the children are pervs in the making in any event.  Apparently the boy kept shaking his penis at the technician, and the girl was laying spread-eagle, displaying her fully formed labia for all to see.  Sara thought better than to ask for images of the ultrasound, out of fear that she might be reported to CAS for requesting what could be perceived as sexualized photos of her unborn.

She has probably saved me from criminal investigation also, because had I posted such pictures online, I may have been flagged as a purveyor of in-utero child pornography – a sub-genre I desperately hope does not actually exist.  I imagine guy in basement waiting breathless for a barely discernable image of partially descended testicles.  ....  now very uncomfortable.  Unsay it, unthink it…

Mother's Day/Mimosas

Since mimosas and Mother’s Day go together like me and a carton of Pinot Grigio, Sara suggested I drink them last weekend in celebration of moms everywhere.*  My mind automatically took me to motherhood and drinking, which took me to expectant motherhood and drinking. 

Mimosas in particular reminded me of an acquaintance of mine who I twice overheard whisper to the caterer of her baby shower brunch to bring her another mimosa, please.  I have, in fact, witnessed this acquaintance drinking on 3 different occasions over the course of 2 pregnancies.  Considering I have seen her socially perhaps 6 times – and I’m being generous – within that time frame, that means she was drinking publicly a staggering 50% of the time.  As Sara and I have discussed more than once, if this acquaintance of mine is known to drink a little in public (as secretive as she believes she is being), what might she be doing in private? 

I knew it was only a matter of time before the topic of drinking WHILE knocked up would come up in a blog about pregnancy and drinking.  We all know that drinking sometimes leads to pregnancy, so no need to comment there,  but continuing to drink after one has the positive Clear Blue Easy test in hand?  

I should make it clear that I am not advocating drinking while pregnant in spite of the thought progression of the next few paragraphs. 

I am probably of the last generation before the drinking while pregnant taboo came into effect, and I can't say that I or any of my peers are suffering for it.  Of course, I have no evidence that my mother drank when she was carrying me.  I've never asked.  I probably couldn't trust that she'd be honest anyway, given prevailing attitudes. 

There are also the myriads of women who don’t know that they’re knocked up until the 2^nd or 3^rd month in, continue boozing it up in the meantime, and then go on to have normal and healthy babies. 

I also have from a fairly good authority that there's actually very little risk of fetal alcohol syndrome, even amongst hardcore alcoholics.  The trouble is that no one has yet discovered a pattern.  It strikes without rhyme or reason.  One woman can drink a bottle of wine every day and nothing.  Another can have a couple of glasses on one occasion and FAS baby. 

However, as mentioned, none of this is to suggest that I am advocating drinking while pregnant, or even that I'm ambivalent towards it.  Let’s assume that the risk of damaging your spawn is minimal – an assumption not officially endorsed by any medical professionals that I know of – if there is a risk, however small, why take it?

This is me talking.  And even I say that if you find that you really can't keep your hands out of the liquor cabinet, you should take yourself to the nearest AA meeting.  Perhaps the department of Parks and Rec could offer combination AA meetings and Lamaze classes as a time saver for those special people.

*As a drinking challenge, I failed at mimosas completely.  I was at a wedding, not feeling especially well, and the toasting champagne made me feel worse.  I blame the Catholic ceremony in which I participated in a fit of nostalgia for my Catholic school girl days.  Goddamn communion hosts.  I redeemed myself a little later in the evening with my imbibement of beer and whiskey, but it was only slight redemption.  To save my reputation, let's pretend I poured a little orange juice into the champagne. 

On another note, while I know mimosas to be a delightfully refreshing alcoholic option, I am not big into drinking during the day, still less over breakfast.  One either has to choose between continuing to drink and becoming insensible by 2:00 p.m., or getting a headache when your buzz wears off.  You will never hear me saying "it's 5 o'clock somewhere" unless you happen to go on vacation with me to an all-inclusive resort, where different rules apply. 

Intervention

It is well known that I consider the benefits of pregnancy to be few and far between.  I was reminded of one of them last night upon spilling soiled cat litter all over the floor - the benefit of pregnancy, of course, being that women like Sara are relieved of any responsibility for changing the cat litter for nine whole months.  Of course, should I find myself in Sara's predicament, I would be an unwed mother living alone, and I would have to bribe my downstairs neighbour to come up once a week to take care of it - a favour he would probably refuse in light of the fact that I may have inadvertently referred to his girlfriend as fugly, within both their hearing, at my house warming party.  Where does my filter go?  In fairness to myself, I developed reverse beer goggles that night, and thought my downstairs neighbour, who I would ordinarily describe as kind of dishy, looked like he had Down’s syndrome.  Also, I honestly thought they'd gone. 

On another note, Sara challenged me to drink Smirnoff Ice last Friday in commemoration of the cementing of our friendship.  I was reminded - on Saturday - of why I stopped drinking girlie coolers more than five years ago.  First, there's the horrible sugar crash of a hangover - which I somehow managed to avoid but still.  Second, I don't very much enjoy girlie coolers.  Third, and most importantly, a drink with high alcohol content that goes down easy as 7-Up has the power to very rapidly transition one from functional euphoria to blathering idiocy.  Slow service at bar which compelled me to buy two drinks at a time did not help matters at all.  

In future, I will leave Smirnoff Ice and similar to the intended market of co-eds who are comfortable with the possibility of blacking out and getting date raped.  Which isn't to say I was date raped.  That would have involved having a date.

On the bright side, lesson learned.  No need to schedule an intervention just yet.