Who Sits Next to the Queen?

Me: So we're having a girl.  Are you excited?
BA: Hum, that means there will be two princesses around here.
Me: No, just one.  I'm the Queen.
BA: (sarcasm) Great.
Me: So you know what that makes you?
BA: What?  The castle servant?
Me: The King.

BA was originally scared of having a girl for fear his entire world would start to turn pink.  He has now completely embraced the idea and says "Bring on the Pink!!!"  My dad has informed him that having girls brings certain benefits - mainly that instead of sitting outside roasting in the hot sun at a little league game, you're sitting inside in an air conditioned theatre watching a ballet recital.

Baby Dance Party

I woke up at 4:30 this morning to a dance party in my belly.  Lately the little peanut has been moving around big time.  I don't know what songs she was cutting a rug to last night, but here are some of her favorite songs to do her daytime calisthenics to.

• The obvious Mamma Mia hits 
• "Ice Ice Baby" - BA memorized the entire rap when he was about 10 years old and he's never forgotten it.  So I like to have him rap to the baby belly - I actually don't know if the little peanut likes it or not, but it sure is entertaining for me!
• Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" - this has become our mantra these days.
• Phish's "Bouncing 'Round the Room" - Peanut loves this one ... although I'm pretty sure she thinks they are saying "bouncing 'round the womb" which is more applicable to her anyway.

5 Months

5 Months!  I'm getting bigger every day; it's so obvious that people are getting bold enough to outright ask if I'm pregnant.  I actually overheard some one at school the other day mumble to his friend, "I don't know, maybe she's just chubby."  (!!!)  Haha - I don't care how big I get, just as long as that means the little peanut is growing as well. 

Here's the little peanut and me at aprox 5 months - only 4 more to go!

BA, not wanting to be left out, at 5 months.

Hungry Like the Wolf

Yes, I like Duran Duran - but this is about my appetite.

Example of just how hungry I am ALL THE TIME! 

4:00 a.m. - ate a bowl of granola and milk (then went back to sleep)
7:30 a.m. - ate a bowl of strawberries and cottage cheese
8:00 a.m. - ate a low-cal bagel with cream cheese
9:30 a.m. - ate spaghetti

Only now will I leave for school and actually start my day.  All this eating is great because this baby needs to grow, but we are quickly running out of food!

Lake Tahoe

We went to Lake Tahoe last week.  It was my spring break and BA took a week off for vacation.  My mom flew out to L.A. and we all drove up to Tahoe together.  I had originally planned this trip a year ago, before we knew I would be pregnant, so the plan was for us all to go downhill skiing at Heavenly Resort.  I booked a 2-bedroom Marriott hotel villa right by the Gondola to take us to the lifts.  Unfortunately, downhill skiing is not a pregnancy-approved activity, so I had to sit out, but it was still beautiful, and relaxing and the hotel was fantastic.  And BA and my mom got to enjoy some world-class west coast skiing. 

Check out these two ready to hit the slopes!  My mom is still wearing her ski clothes from the 1970s and BA's sweatshirt is probably from middle school.  We were proudly the least-fashionable group in Tahoe.

I rode the Gondola up to the base of the lifts on our first day.  There's a large lodge with food where I could sit inside and eat some lunch while BA and mom hit the slopes for a couple of hours.  It's a winter wonderland up there but oh so cold.  The lodge is at about 9,000 feet elevation.  The ski runs go up to 10,000 feet.

My sister sent some flowers to brighten our condo since she couldn't come with us this time.

My one pregnancy-approved activity - snowshoeing! 

Mom and I snowshoeing on the shores of Lake Tahoe.  It's like you are walking on the beach, only the sand is snow! 

My mom, 64 years young, making a snow angel!

It's an Honor, Really

I am a member of a law journal.  It was something I joined last year because my professors kept encouraging us to "push ourselves one last time" and compete to be on a journal because, "it's an honor, really."  So the summer after my 1L year, I opted to compete in the journal write-on competition which required me to do an extra summer research paper of 20 pages, and an editing assignment.  I was accepted on the journal of my choice in the fall and spent the past semester completing weekly sub-checking assignments (editing) that each take about 4-6 hours to do, in addition to completing my regular law school curriculum.  It's an honor, really.

Today, I turned in my law journal article.  For those non-law people out there, this is the main object of being on a journal.  You write a research paper, and you might get published.  It's an honor, really.  My paper was on employment discrimination and I ended up writing 30 pages with 147 footnotes - that works out to 6,000 words of article text, and 8,700 words total when you include my footnotes and source citations.  It's quite an accomplishment, and I am so relieved to be done.  But after all that work, I still have one question ... What kind of crack-pot "honor" did I sign up for? 

Road Rage

I have a dream ... of one day living in a city where people don't honk at you repeatedly, flash their lights, get out of their cars in stopped traffic to bang on your window, and order you to move up 2 inches so they can squeeze by in a lane that doesn't even exist.  Yes that happened to me tonight.  Unbelievable.  I was livid.  I was at a traffic light 1 block from my condo.  The light was red, traffic stopped all around and I was in the far right lane behind several cars.  There is another right lane that develops a little past where I was stopped, and sometimes small cars can squeeze through into the far right lane before it actually exists, and go on their way.  There was a gas guzzling Cadillac Escalade behind me, who wanted to squeeze into that soon-to-exist far right lane, that started honking his horn and flashing his lights.  I knew this jackass jerk wanted to get past me, but I really couldn't move up much more, and he only had to wait maybe 45 seconds before the light would change and traffic would start to move again.  Besides, I think it's so rude when people honk or flash their lights to tell you to move out of their way.  As if where they are going is more important that where you are going!  So I stayed put.  Apparently 45 seconds was too much for this jackass jerk to wait.  He took it to the next level.  He got out of his gas guzzling Escalade, in stopped traffic remember, and knocked on my back window and yelled for me to move up.  I saw him coming in my rear view mirror so when he knocked, I swung my head around with so much rage, pointed my finger directly at him, and yelled at the top of my lungs "don't you DARE touch my car!"  I was shocked at my own level of rage at this person but I think he was even more shocked to see the pure anger in my eyes.

The dumbest thing about the whole incident: After he'd taken the time to get out of his car and harass me, the light had changed, and I drove on.  He, on the other hand, still had to walk back to his gas guzzler, get back in the car, shut the door, put the car in drive, and then pull forward - all while the cars behind him waited.  He actually lost more time by harassing me, instead of just waiting 45 seconds for the light to change. 

That is L.A. drivers for you.  L.A. drivers make NYC taxicab drivers look like puppy dogs.  And L.A. traffic, well, that's a whole other post.