No More Mrs. Lead Foot

Ever since I was given a set of wheels of my own at the age of 15 I've been somewhat of a speed demon. I was never one for souped up cars or anything like that; I've just always enjoyed a comfortable highway speed of at least 80mph.

Even my awesome 1970VW convertible beetle would be maxed out to 90mph on occassion. Her name was Squirt and she looked a lot like this beauty:

image borrowed from here

Despite my lead foot tendencies, I was always a very cautious; mostly defensive driver. I was never wreckless while driving in bad weather; which wasn't often growing up in sunny Los Angeles. And the one car accident I did have where I was at fault was a minor fender bender pulling out of a parking lot while mildly distracted.

Now that I am expecting my first child I've eased up on the lead and am even more cautious than ever. However, my patience with moronic drivers has decreased.

Yesterday while on my way home I encountered one of these moronic drivers. As I was exiting the freeway, lowering my speed; this jackhole comes flying down the a little street that intersects with my exit. He was coming so fast that he California rolled into the first lane (I was in the second); he paused long enough to look dead at me driving in his general direction. Instead of STOPPING like any sane person would; he slammed on his gas completely cutting me off. I had to slam on my brakes and swerve to avoid colliding with him. I laid on my horn and began to curse at him from behind the wheel.

Despite his Evel Kneivel stunt he puttered along at a relatively slow pace allowing me the chance to pull up beside him where he was greeted with a lively display of my "bird" and plenty of enunciation so that he could make out all of the expletives I was hurdling his way.

The whole incident freaked me out. My heart was racing and I had to remind myself to breathe slowly. It was then that I realized that slamming my brakes caused my seatbelt to tighten around my lower belly. Once I was home I had a hard time getting out of my car due to sore muscles. If any neighbors were watching me they probably had a little giggle watching my walk.

I did my kick count and called the doctor; everything is just fine. The whole ordeal was just a reminder that you simply cannot trust other drivers to use common sense or even basic courtesy.

I'm just going to have to get use to trading in my days of driving down the highway at 85 with the top down for a mere 5 miles over the speed limit with my hands at 10 and 2.

Shopping For Baby

I spent the last couple of weeks completing my registries for my upcoming Baby Shower. Since I typically know what I want once I take a look at something I figured this would be as easy as 1-2-3.

WRONG!

Wendell and I first headed to Babies "r" Us to sign up for a registry. We had no idea what we were in for. The clerk handed us a scanner and told us to roam around the store scanning anything we may want to add to our registry. The first aisle we stumbled into was the car safety/accessories. We stood there wide eyed, mouths agape and we both uttered "whoa". We did this every time we walked down a new aisle. We were just as excited to be looking at all of this stuff, but we weren't expecting to be so overwhelmed!

I was at a complete loss once we got to the areas with strollers, car seats, and playpen/sleeper combos. There were so many colors, patterns, and safety features. Of course they were all described wonderfully. But which one was actually "better"? I couldn't tell you how many times I reminded myself of the little green alien toys from Toy Story with all the times I said "Ooooooooooooo".

We couldn't decide on a single one of those items, so we decided to move on. After going through several more aisles of things we couldn't decide on and about 3 hours after entering the store we decided to call it a day and go get some much needed food. After all we could finish doing this online in the comfort of our own home in our undies, haha!

The Babies "R" Us site was a little frustrating due to the fact that there were a few in-store items that weren't available online. Thankfully someone suggested amazon.com. Just when I thought I couldn't be overwhelmed any more than I already was; it got worse. Where "Babies" had several products, brands, etc., amazon had thousands.....THOUSANDS!!!

It took us forever to finally finish not one, but two registries.

Now that I'm shopping for mommy items like bras I'm right back to searching through an endless selection with my eyes wide and my mouth agape, but this time I'm not saying "whoa". I'm saying "damn it"; this time I have to go through this process alone. I don't see Wendell trying on any bras anytime soon.

28 Weeks Later

Haha

The day I found out I was pregnant I thought to myself, "Oh, I'll have so much to blog about, it's going to be easy keeping up regularly with my blog".

Yeah, right.

My first trimester kicked in and all I did was sleep. I'd come home from work and tell Wendell I was just going to lay on the couch for 20 minutes and then I'd get dinner started. About two hours later he would wake me up and hand me a plate full of food. On weekends I napped often; sometimes just a couple of hours after waking up.

Once my second trimester gave me most of my energy back I read, and I read a lot. About what to expect, what was healthy and unhealthy and how to be as organic as possible. I daydreamed and I window shopped, A LOT.

Blog? What blog?

Now that I'm a mere three months away from motherhood I've been thinking constantly about the kind of example I'm going to set for my child and future children. After all, parents must be what they want their children to be. If only it could be as simple as "Do as I say, not as I do". While I still haven't figured out what I want to do when I "grow up" I realized I have to stay true to commitments I make to myself; keeping up with this blog being one of those commitments. If I can't follow through on something I enjoy what kind of message will I be sending to my child? So, here I am, making a promise to myself for all the world to see. It's the first step towards changing the things I don't like about myself; for a better me so I can be a better role model to my kids.

This should be quite a journey.