It was another weekend in the books of sorting, cleaning, constructing, arranging and rearranging, stacking, folding, reading directions and putting Tab A into Slot B and hoping that I got the darn baby carrier put together correctly.  Another Sunday filled with realizing there’s still stuff I need to get on my list, like the kimono-side-snap-shirts that won’t irritate baby’s umbilical cord stub (don’t judge! I NEED these).

I guess you could say that this mommyhood stuff got “really real” for me over the weekend, after deciding to put together the co-sleeper bassinet and rearrange the bedroom to accommodate it, realizing that babies take up a lot of damn space… and having Anthony install one of the car seat bases into the exact middle of the backseat of my truck  and realizing that, “Damn, babies take up a LOT of space!”.

BAM!  There it is… Bebe is on the way!  Nevermind the basketball I’ve been smuggling under my shirt for the past 37 weeks, still thinking that I can adequately squeeze by through a narrow opening without knocking items off the table (HA! you silly rotund girl, you!).  Nevermind the baby’s room full of soft and fuzzy cushy plush things and stacks of diapers and strollers and Boppy pillows and breast pumps and monkey murals.  Nah, it doesn’t really hit you until the little ninja starts kicking his way into your own space too, and you realize that you have to get rid of a nightstand and alarm clock to suffice.

Ah but it’s all good, I actually felt like I got quite a lot accomplished.  Albeit most of my time was spent cutting sharp and prickly tags off of what seemed like EVERYthing in the baby’s arsenal (why MUST all of those soft and plush baby washcloths each have a razor-sharp tag on them?  Baby doesn’t care that they’re made of cotton, when the tag is seemingly made of glass shards anyways!).

Not to mention that every set of instructions for baby gear that I happened across was rife with morbidity in every other line.  “Unzip the carry bag and remove the bassinet.  Unhook the Velcro strips.  WARNING: Failure to follow these warnings could result in serious injury or death!!!”  “Put sheet on mattress and put mattress in the sleeping nest.  WARNING: SUFFOCATION HAZARD.”  Alrighty, I got your point, oh great over-litigious Angel of Doom – you don’t want to be sued if I do something wrong. Gotcha.

(Seriously, how is it that we survived the 70s?  I distinctly remember my grandparents letting me ride in the trunk of the car whenever I wanted.)

When in an instant, jolted quite unceremoniously out of my autopilot cleaning frenzy and sarcastic musings on the fear-instilling directions on anything baby-related, I was suddenly exposed to a barrage of questions regarding my current state of health.  Anthony’s parents had called and were inquiring on “what was going on?” “am I in labor?” and the like.

Upon putting 2 and 17 together, I realized at that point he had posted a rather cryptic Facebook status stating that our “baby microwave was about to go ding”, a message which was a inside-joke nod to me wandering into the kitchen that same morning to find that he had left the microwave door wide open, and an homage to “my” microwave about to go ‘ding!’ – not ‘ding!’ that day per se, but ‘ding!’ in general in the next few weeks.  Oh, Anthony and his sense of humor.  That, paired with my snarkiness… we are certainly in for it with baby.

Shifting gears to damage control – firmly underway.  The nixing of rumors and nipping in the bud of the comment thread that was collecting on his Facebook.  “Are you in labor???” I saw that my mom had asked via text message (which was sent 45 minutes prior…you can imagine her nail biting suspense, all the while I was merrily folding laundry, and shaking my head at strangulation warnings?).  C’mon really?  I’m not that forgetful as to leave the parents off my emergency labor call chain list!   I’m way more organized than that.  If I were really in labor, Facebook is not the first place I would have turned (secondhand at that). LOL – I would at least put some courtesy calls out first, through gritted teeth and profanity-laced contractions.

Or on second thought… maybe I will post an ominous Facebook status “WARNING: Baby on way!  Failure to follow this warning and instructions could result in serious injury from a woman in need of an epidural!”

But, I guess I get it – everyone’s just on baby watch.  Everyone ‘cept me it seems.   I’m just still trying to figure out of Tab A does indeed go into Slot B, or if there’s a choking hazard involved with that too.  WARNING!  ding!