Shopping List

A few nights ago I casually mentioned to K. that I was going to run to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials. Winter had arrived with a vengeance in Iowa City, with sub-zero wind chill, ice and snow. K. immediately objected to me going out in the snow and ice, fearing for the ever-growing cargo I am packing around in my 7-month womb. His offer was kind, even chivalrous, but sending K. to the grocery store unattended is like opening a box of chocolates a'la Forrest Gump--you never know what you're going to get.
I gave him my four-item list, stressing that this was just what we needed for the morning:
1 gal. milk
Orange juice
Fiber One Cereal
blueberries if less than $3; otherwise, a bunch of bananas

40 minutes and three-phone calls from the cereal aisle later, he arrived home with a face as proud as a cat who has just left a dead mouse on the doorstep. Look what I did! I shopped! The contents of the bag included:
1 gal. milk
1 pt. chocolate milk
Orange juice
Fiber One cereal
1 doz. Rhodes frozen orange cream cinnamon rolls
1 bag Totino's Pizza Rolls
Generic Fruit Loops

and...1 dozen roses. Needless to say, the pizza rolls were instantly forgiven.

On the spot

Now that I am in my third trimester, I have become the subject of public curiosity. Random people make comments about my new stature, mere acquaintances have opinions on how much is too much coffee for my unborn child to withstand, and sometimes, a particularly annoying person will say something at just the wrong time. This happened today, as I was waiting to use the bathroom at Starbucks (where I was consuming my 1 serving of doctor-approved caffeine for the day):

Random person with no social boundaries (referring to my mid-section): "Wow, looks like you've been busy!"
Me (pointing to my mid-section): "This? Oh, it took like ten minutes."

Inner monologue: "Sorry dude, this isn't an iVillage moment; it's finals week, I need coffee, and I have to pee."

Big Girls, Little Girls

Heather from Dooce, one of my favorite bloggers, wrote this to her daughter about their upcoming addition to the family and it made me think of my sisters. She writes,

"Mostly, I am excited that this baby will have you as an older sister...I can only hope that you will have with this one what I have with my own, a bond so strong that it doesn't even matter that we have nothing but our parents in common. They are lifelines, people who were there, who were witnesses to everything that made me who I am, and I am the same for them in return. Is the relationship perfect? No, but we all know that we would sacrifice anything for each other, and one of the many reasons we decided to have another child was to give you the possibility of that friendship."

I immediately thought of my three sisters. The four of us are dubbed "The Big Girls" and "The Little Girls" because of our range in age. We are all so different, yet I cannot imagine any other combination. Next week they will all be together in Oregon for Christmas. They will gather in the house where we grew up, where it will be loud and comfortable, with little cousins spilling over the arms of my dad's Lazy Boy recliner. I will be here in Iowa, nesting and setting up the nursery for Baby A. Even though I know I'll have my hands full with one baby, moments like this make me hope she gets to be a sister someday.