Of t-shirts and other pregnancy essentials

Like most people, I've known a pregnant woman or two -- oops, sorry, a woman "with child." And I've been just as annoyed by them as any other rational, with-out child adult. And then it happens. You're a little late, you start feeling even nuttier than usual, and you have a strange aversion to coffee and beer. This, for me, was the final straw.

So I took the test (okay, I took two tests, just like everyone else apparently), and took the dive into the strange world of baby books that use the word "expect" a minimum of two times, three if it's a really really good book, and into the virtual mommy world where you're no longer really having a baby unless you're blogging about said baby.

The title for this blog comes not from any belief that our baby will be stupid -- nay, this will be the smartest, most brilliant creature ever in existence -- but from the desire to stay sane and blue and pink clothing free throughout these 10 months (yes 10! but that's the topic of another post). There are enough people having perfect babies out there, swept into perfectly coordinated rooms, perfectly coiffed and changed the second they burp tiny bubbles onto their perfect onesies. But the allure of perfect is strong, so I decided to turn to the web for support in my quest for imperfection.

I hope you'll read along and help me avoid the pitfalls of hundred dollar organic sheet sets, tiny monogrammed towels, and designer diapers.

But back to the title! Like any other slightly nerdy expectant couple still childless in their thirties, we immediately started coming up with t-shirt slogans. "Future gearhead," "It's just a parasite," and "Step away from the belly" were all fine and well, but I really brought down the house with our favorite warm fuzzy maternity t-shirt slogan, "I'm with stupid." This is beyond tasteless, yes? But somehow comforting in an overdeveloped world in which having a baby is treated as the most unique experience in the world, when in fact, it is perhaps the most common. Think about it -- any culture that doesn't participate in this rite (wasn't it the Shakers that didn't reproduce?) doesn't last long. Everyone is connected to the experience of birth.

Obvious, but in a world where CNN flashes celeb baby bump items as News feeds, it feels necessary to remind myself that having a baby is just as ordinary as it is amazing.