I Feel Like a Halloweenie

I used to love Halloween.  I loved dressing up and going out. 

But over the last couple of years – I have found myself feeling incredibly cheap, lazy and uncreative.  Not that I was ever super creative or spending lots of cash on costumes previously.

Some friends are having a Halloween party and they made constumes mandatory.  Last year, we totally bailed on Halloween and just went to a friend’s house and sat around.  The year before I busted out one of my mom’s old 70s dresses and was basically just… her.  A 70s disco loving Korean.

This photo doesn’t do the dress justice.  It was a full length dress.  And yes, that is Jeremy’s real chest hair.

The year before I was Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt but I think only 2 people actually “got it”.  Plus I didn’t really go above and beyond in that costume making department.

Yes, I totally half-assed it.  I know.  And Jeremy was the 2nd amendment.

The year before that, Jeremy and I wore matching cow costumes just because I thought it would be funny to be a cow.  It actually ended up being a little creepy.  Apparently the udders invited a lot of people to have their hands near my crotch.

I couldn’t find a full length cow shot… but you all know what these costumes look like.

The year before that, I was an Indian girl.  It was my ode to Cher and her half breed song but that was just too difficult to explain to anyone.  So I just said I was Pocahontas.

Jeremy was Officer Dangle from Reno 911.  As you can see – his costumes tend to be funnier than mine.

The year before that, I was Velma from Scooby Doo.  But without the rest of the Scooby gang, I spent the whole night saying, “I’m not a librarian.”  (I couldn’t find a picture).

Aaaanywho – this year.  While I enjoy a good, funny costume – I just have nothing in me.  I went to the Halloween store last night in my old neck of the woods and oy – what a traumatizing experience.  My old neck of the woods is known for its abundance of white trash.  I don’t mean trailor trash – I mean “Teen Mom”, “Jersey Shore”, and other terrible teen show trash.  Oh and there are a lot of car dealerships in the area.

I was hoping for some inspiration but instead I was presented with overpriced, cheaply made and super slutty costumes.

I refuse to paint my belly.  The idea of walking around in a crop top all night just doesn’t appeal to me.  Some ideas I’ve tossed around are…

• Having a baby appear to be crawling out of my belly (like Alien but with a baby).  This would require doll parts, glue, blood and craftiness.  I’m tired just thinking about it.
• Christine O’Donnell.  I laughed myself silly thinking about wearing a dress suit (like I have for work) with a witch hat and a campaign button.  But upon telling people of this idea, I got a lot of, “who is Christine O’Donnell?”
• Lady Gaga in her meat dress.  I thought I could get away with pinning a bunch of pictures of meat all over me (so I’d be sort of half assing it).  I especially thought this was funny because I’m a vegetarian (but apparently I only find myself funny).
• Mr. Potatohead.  This was the only inspiration I gathered from the Halloween store… a children’s Mr. Potatohead costume.  I figured it worked with my current figure but again requires me to go buy supplies and muster some craftiness.

Ugh – so help me out guys!  Inspire me.  What are YOU dressing up as for Halloween?

And do you sit in a dark house on Halloween to avoid the hoards of trick-or-treaters too… or is that just me?

Fashion Bump Watch

One of the downfalls of registering for stuff is that you obsess over it.  I probably log into our Babies R Us registry every other day to make adjustments.  Do I need this?  On second thought – we probably don’t care about that.  And god bless other parents!  One of my co-workers has generously GIVEN us a bathtub, a high chair, a Graco SnugRide stroller, a Baby Bjorn, a baby cart seat cover and a playmat!  My sister-in-law said she looked at my registry and is giving us one of her Bumbo seats.  This just means I need to pay it forward when our little one outgrows this stuff.  But I’m thankful for this stuff!

And thank you for all the registry tips again!  I will definitely be checking with my health insurance to see if they’ll cover the cost of a breast pump and I read somewhere that some plans cover car seats. 

Now onto the fashion…

Thursday, October  21, 2010

Top:  Old Navy Maternity.  I bought this shirt for like $10 on sale… so I got it in 2 other colors.  Why pass up a good deal? 

Pants:  Express (held up by the Belly Band).

Shoes:  Target – Merona.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Top:  Banana Republic (not maternity!  And a repeat shirt since it is one of the few non-maternity shirts that still fit).

Jacket:  Juicy Couture.  If you recall – I tried, unsuccessfull, to pair this with a black dress.  I wasn’t feeling the outfit but I liked it with this one.

Pants:  Gap

Shoes:  Target – Merona

Monday, October 25, 2010

Dress:  J. Crew.  Surprisingly this is not a maternity dress.  I bought this dress 2 years ago on a super sale but found it to fit like a shapeless sack.  I normally have to pair it with a skinny belt just to give it some shape but it worked out well as a maternity dress.

Shirt:  NY & Company.  I can’t button the bottom half of this shirt anymore…

Shoes:  Target – Merona

Fun / Weird Pregnancy Stuff:  Since my uterus keeps growing, it is pushing around some of my organs.  The biggest “shift” I’m feeling is my stomach.  It now sits higher and this is one of the reasons so many pregnant women suffer from heartburn and indigestion (Tums haven’t become a close friend).  But another weird thing I’m experiencing is that if I eat anything particularly hot or cold, I can feel the warmth and coldness in my belly.  I thought something was leaking inside of me (and perhaps I should really check this out) but my SIL (in nursing school who is about to start her OB clinicals) theorized that the food isn’t getting a chance to cool down/warm up before it hits my stomach like it normally does when it sits lower.  Very interesting…

Blank canvas (How I Feel Completely Overwhelmed When it Comes to Decorating the Nursery)

As I mentioned the other day, we had some professional painters come to our house to paint our bedroom, the bathroom and the future nursery.  We’ve hired these guys before and they did a phenomenal job with our hallway so it was a no-brainer to hire them again for the rooms.  As I have gotten older, I’ve learned that there are a few things that I’ll willing to pay money for and painting is one of them.  I loathe painting.

I spent the first half of the day hiding in my basement like a weenie because I didn’t want to seem like I was bothering the painters… the painters that I was paying.  The really awful part was the fact that I spent a good chunk of the day completely dehydrated because I didn’t want to have to pee.  We only have 1 bathroom and I didn’t want to go upstairs.  It wasn’t a good day.

I’ll post before and after pictures of the paint but just know that these guys did a kick-ass job.  Not only did they caulk, spackle and sand the walls (on top of what Jeremy had already done), they banged out the job in 8 hours and it would have easily taken me & Jeremy a month to complete. 

We’re having our carpets cleaned this weekend and then we’re officially in reorganizing/redecorating our room and decorating the nursery mode.

The nursery is blue with white trim.  I love white trim.  I don’t understand off-white trim.  White trim just looks so clean and crisp.  Because I love how light and airy the room now feels, we also wanted to go with white furniture.  We have SO MUCH dark wood furniture in our house that we really need to lighten things up in the rooms.

I think we’re going with this crib:

It has a matching dresser/changing table but we’re not going to get it… mostly because it has more dark wood features and it costs more than the damn crib.  Seriously – just slap the word “baby” in front of furniture and it automatically increases the price by a few hundred dollars.  I don’t understand it.  Babies are small and don’t need furniture!

I’ve recently become obsessed with Owls.  I know that it is becoming a trendy nursery theme but I don’t care.  They are so cute and it all stemmed from this bedding:

Anyways – I’ve been scouring Etsy for some great nursery art and am completely overwhelmed by the fantastic selections.  I wish you could set up a registry on Etsy!

I stumbled across this Etsy shop and pretty much want to buy every print.

Like this one

And this one

But then I’m also in love with this print:

It manages to tie my love of French with a cute baby theme.  I realize these aren’t owls and that’s probably a good thing.

I also love this:

And being the dachshund lover that I am, I couldn’t resist this:

I am seriously overwhelmed.  I want to cover every square inch of the walls with cute prints!  We still haven’t even 100% determined the furniture or the layout. 

Anyways – I figured blogging out my new obsession might help to get it out of my system.  Are there any fantastic prints you want to share?

Fashion Bump Watch – Mid Week Update!

We’re having some rooms painted in our house today so I’m at home with strangers (albeit very nice strangers).  Words cannot describe how uncomfortable I am.  We’re getting our bedroom, the future nursery and our bathroom painted.  What really stinks is that we have only ONE bathroom in the house… and I’m pregnant and pee like 100 times a day.  My neighbors just might catch me popping a squat in my backyard today.  Just sayin…

So since I’m at home trying to keep myself occupied and not think about peeing, I’m posting about my daily fashion.  Yippee!  Btw – thanks to all the ladies that commented on my registry post!  I have been writing down everyone’s tips.  What is funny is that I’ve been getting a lot of conflicting information from moms and I know this is due to everyone’s child reacting differently to different things.  So my registry has definitely grown since we registered in the store.  Please keep your registry suggestions coming!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Please excuse my awkward hand pose.  I don’t know what I was doing.

Dress:  J. Crew.  This is the infamous “are you pregnant” when I wasn’t actually pregnant dress from last year.  I’ve already showcased it during my Fashion Bump Watch posts but here it is again.  I was stoked that the zipper still zipped but I noticed the top is not laying correctly laying.  This is due to the fact that the waist band now has to sit on top of my belly.  It was an awkward fitting dress this day and I had to pin it to the camisole I had on underneath.

Blazer:  H&M.  I love this blazer.  I bought it in a bright blue color as well but it is definitely starting to look worn down from numerous washes.

Shoes:  Target – Merona.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

So I’ve determined that I need to start wearing maternity clothes.  I’ve really popped out within this past week to the point where I can’t really wear my non-maternity shirts unless I want to stretch the shit out of them.  I still need to stock up on some maternity pants (most notably maternity jeans!).

Top:  Gap Maternity.

Pants:  Gap (not maternity but holding on for dear life with my Belly Band).

Shoes:  Target (not sure if you can tell but they’re leapord print).

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I would be lying to you, blogosphere, if I pretended that I tried to dress up the majority of the time.  To be honest, I only make an effort when going to work or if I’m going out on the weekends.  At home, you’ll usually find me in a t-shirt and sweats.  Since I’m at home today while the painters are here, I thought I’d expose the truth of my at-home fashion.

Shirt:  Gap Maternity. 

Pants:  Old Navy (these are fitness capris).

Shoes:  None!  We don’t wear shoes in this house… I”m asian!  And I’m also a germ freak.

I”m posing with a brand spanking new Bob Revolution stroller that obviously has some good reflective surfaces on it.

Fun / Weird Pregnancy Stuff:  The baby is moving like crazy!!  I feel her everyday now and sometimes she moves enough that Jeremy can feel her too.  I thought I would absolutely hate this feeling.  I’ll admit it is a bit weird but it is nice to know that she’s alive and kicking in there.  It is funny to me how 2 weeks ago I was flipping out because I could barely feel a thing and now there is no mistaking that she’s moving.

My Not Fun Registering Experience

I remember registering for my wedding a few years ago and it was fun.  A lot of fun.  At one place, we even got to enjoy champagne while registering.

Registering for your first baby at a baby superstore (Babies R Us) is the opposite of fun.  It sucks.  It sucks balls.

Unfortunately for us, Babies R Us is the only big baby retailer near us.  I loathe this store.  The tons of baby showers I’ve attended and my experience in picking up a shower present have made me hate Babies R Us.  There is JUST SO MUCH STUFF and I feel like it is everywhere. 

However, while we had a small window of free time between Jeremy’s studies, our house work and whatever else we’ll be doing over the next couple of weekends to get our house in shape – I wanted to register.  I figured the process would take under an hour.

We arrived at BRU around 7pm on a Saturday night.  Yes, this is how we spent our Saturday evening.  Don’t be jealous.  We had just purchased a BOB Revolution stroller from REI (they were having a 15% BOB strollers sale and I had given up on trying to find a used one on Craigslist.  Seriously – those things are like GOLD on there.  I contacted a women like 25 minutes after she posted her Bob stroller and someone had already reached out to her!  Crazy.  But I digress…).

I was surprised to see 2 couples ahead of us chatting with the employee manning the registration desk.  Seriously?  It is a Saturday night.  We waited for about 10 minutes and then it was our turn.  The employee was super nice but I think BRU is running a scheme on parents-to-be.  They hand you a “checklist” of must-have baby items and it is INSANE.

There are items on there that you will not be needing for a few months, maybe even a year.  I live in a shoebox!  My space is limited and precious.

Jeremy and I approached registering with the “less is more” approach.  We just wanted the basics.  We weren’t going to be dazzled by the crap.  But holy fuck – when you walk up and down the aisles, it is hard to keep your thoughts straight.

How many receiving blankets do you need?  How many crib sheets?  What about bottles?  Everyone registers for those Sleep Sacks so clearly we need one.  Or two?  I don’t know!  And swaddle stuff.  What swing is worth it?  What playpen?  AAAAHHHHHH!  I almost had a breakdown a few times.

Still – I thought we did a decent job.  We turned in our registry gun at the same time as another girl (whose family seriously smelled like they had been chain smoking for the last 20 years in a broken down car or something… I could smell them a few aisles over and always had to walk away). 

The registry employee looked as us and said, “you have 84 items” and then looked at the other girl and said, “wow – you guys have 165 items!”  Who needs 165 things?!

I’ve since gone back through our registry to add some things and change some things based on reviews in Baby Bargains, online and through friends.

We don’t have a “theme” to the nursery.  And while we know we’re having a baby girl – we both tend to be drawn to the neutral stuff… or the blue stuff.  Can I just say that I hate that blue = boy.  I like blue.  Last I checked, I had a vagina. 

If I had to do this all over again, I don’t know how I’d do it differently.  I think, as a store, I’d offer treats to the pregnant ladies to make their experience more enjoyable.  Instead I was offered printed cards that I could hand out to friends & family indicating where I registered.  Really, BRU?  While I guffawed at that, the couple ahead of us asked for 15 sheets (there were 16 cards per sheet).  WTF?  I need friends like that.  But seriously – that seems a bit douchey, no?  Handing out a bunch of cards to your friends & family and saying, “here – buy me stuff… but this time I won’t be paying for a large catered party with an open bar”.

I also registered on Amazon.com as well because they carried some stuff that I love but that was not available at BRU.  Online registering is awesome but I know the chances of getting a gift via Amazon are pretty slim.  However, I use Amazon wish lists to keep track of things I read about that I want to check out later.  My wish list is full of books and music.  Anywho…

For any parents out there – any “must have” items that you suggest I should add?  Any nonsense items that most rookies as for (and receive) but never use?

Baltimore Half Marathon – A Pregnant Bystander’s Quick Recap

The Baltimore Marathon – A Bystander’s Recap

Have I mentioned how much I miss running… like training for a race running?  I miss it.  A lot.  And I worry all the time that I’ll never be able to run long-ish distances again.

This year, Jeremy ran the Baltimore 1/2 marathon.  This is his second time doing it and it is the first time he actually trained for it.  Yes, my husband is that obnoxiously fit person that can just pick up and run a half marathon without any training (like he did last year).  He’ll argue that he sort of trained for it but was sidelined due to injury (ITBS).  Still – I think he had maybe 2 training runs last year before the half and still managed to run it under 2 hours… a time that I know I will never achieve because I am a SLOW POKE.  And I’m okay with that.

Anywho – this year, Jeremy trained for the half marathon with a few friends.  He had a goal of finishing under 1 hr 45 minutes.  He cut his running down to 3 times a week and I think it really helped to keep him injury free. 

For anyone that lives in Baltimore, they know that when the marathon comes to town – traffic gets seriously fucked up around the city.  It is such a cluster fuck that I don’t bother driving anywhere until that evening.

While Jeremy left the house around 8:45am (a time that I knew was WAY too late for him to try to drive and park near the race but he SWORE the streets weren’t closed yet), I putzed around until about 9:30am.  I called my friend who was also planning to support her significant other as he ran his first half marathon (Jeremy trained with him).

So – despite Jeremy saying that he didn’t want me walking to my friend’s house (she lives about a mile away) because he thinks I wouldn’t be able to ward off an attacker… I still walked because it was ridiculous to drive a mile. 

From my friend’s house, we walked to the stadium where the race finished.  She mapped it out and said it was about a 3 mile walk (if we took a somewhat direct route).  However, I wanted to stop and get some fresh juice from this amazing Vegan place in Fells Point so I made her walk the long way.

What I failed to remember was that the marathon course ran through the street where the juice place was so it was closed.  But it was entertaining to watch the marathoners.

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched a marathon but there are people of all shapes, sizes, ages and kookiness that run.  We saw people decked out in costumes (I can’t even imagine the chafing), in severe pain, having the time of their lives and some old enough to be our grannies running.  It made me want to run a marathon.

We also encountered a few “cheering zones”.  One zone was a group of small kids that had some cute chant and pom-poms.  Adorable!  We also saw some funny signs (all of which have completely escaped me… I can’t remember shit these days).

We eventually made it down to the stadium in time to watch Jeremy cross the finish line (with a new PR of 1 hr 41 minutes!).  I warned my friend that last year I had witnessed a slew of people crossing the finish line and then promptly vomiting.  We didn’t see any of that this year.  Sadly – I was a little disappointed.  My friend caught Mario and Luigi finishing the race together though.

And here is my complaint about the Baltimore marathon.  I think it sucks that they have the marathon and the half marathon finish at the same place.  While a half marathon isn’t a small feat, a fucking marathon deserves its own finish.  I can imagine that after running a hilly (seriously, Baltimore is crazy hilly) 26.2 miles and wanting to die… the last thing I want to see is someone who has more pep in their step crossing the finish line because they covered half the distance.  Although let’s be honest – my marathon time means that most of the half marathoners would probably be finished unless they were walking. 

When I got a close-up view of Jeremy, I asked what the fuck was all over his face.  I’m not sure if you can see it in this very unflattering picture, but he has white lines all over his face.  It is salt.  And I saw this on a TON of runners.  I didn’t see this at all last year and found it bizarre.  I’m not sure what combination forced so much salt to appear on everyone’s faces and shirts.

So after walking 4.5 miles-ish and standing forever, I was quite dismayed to learn that Jeremy wasn’t able to drive to a point near the race.  I realize I didn’t have much room to complain (my husband had just run 13.1 miles afterall) but fuck, I’m pregnant, my feet are swollen and I wasn’t mentally prepared to walk the 3 miles back to his car. 

I had told my friend about Jeremy’s time and she suggesting checking to see if he qualified for the NY marathon.  I checked and he didn’t qualify (he needed a time under 1 hr 25 minutes).  And while he has NO desire to ever run a full marathon, this new time goal is apparently quite enticing.  I think he might be shooting for that next year.  And annoyingly, he’ll probably hit it!  Man, I wish I was fast.

Btw – after Jeremy made it through the runner’s finish to pick up water and some other post-run snacks, he was sweet enough to grab me a granola bar because he knew I’d be hungry.  Aw!  Did you just vomit a little?

Fashion Bump Watch – Week of October 11th

I”m not making any apologies this time for not posting these daily… so there!

This week was filled with lots of repeats (my dresses).  I was feeling a little big and hadn’t ironed in quite some time so not only was I out of wearable pants, I just didn’t want to be hassled with anything too snug.  I love dresses.

Monday, October 11, 2010:

You can’t miss my belly now. 

Dress: Target – Merona.

Shoes: Target – Merona.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010:

Dress: Target – Liz Lange Maternity.

Sweater: H&M

Shoes: Target – Merona

Wednesday, October 13, 2010:

Dress:  Target – Xhileration.  This dress is HUGE.  I’m not sure why I bought it.

Jacket:  Juicy Couture (purchased at a sample sale at Urban Chic).  I love this jacket.  It looks fantastic with a pair of dark denim jeans.  But since I’m not wearing denim right now (I really need a pair of maternity jeans…ugh), I wanted to break this out.  This picture looked better in my mind but I was disappointed with the combination of the dress and this jacket.

Shoes:  Target – Merona

Thursday, October 14, 2010:

Dress:  BCBG (scored at a sale at Saks)

Sweater:  Gap

Belt: Target

Shoes: Target – Merona

Friday, October 15, 2010:

Dress:  Old Navy.  If you recall – this was one of the first dresses I wore to kick off my fashion bump watch.  My belly was much smaller and I recall not feeling like a stuffed sausage when I wore it.  This dress was SUPER tight and I was a bit uncomfortable in it all day.

Leggings:  Forever 21.  These leggings were $5.  Wahoo! 

Shoes:  Puma

Fun / Weird Pregnancy Stuff:  This is the week that I received more comments about my belly than I have in a long time.  I had more people asking me about it.  One woman even said, “okay – I normally NEVER ask this question but…”  and I knew she was asking if I was pregnant.  Another woman declared, “You really exploded this week!”  And another woman commented on how I really “popped out”.  I get it – my belly grew.

My belly button is also starting to look like an anus.  Hot stuff.

The Great Name Debate (what the hell should we name our baby?)

Kt’s post today about how they came to name their daughter inspired me to write this post (plus I’m too lazy to upload pictures).

Baby names are frickin’ difficult. It is so permanent. I really feel overwhelmed by this whole idea of bestowing a name upon our child that they will have FOREVER. What if they hate it? I used to hate my name. Kim. It was so blah. It has taken me years to appreciate it mostly because I don’t know many other Kims.

As I had mentioned before, we were sure we were having a boy. For years, one of my favorite boy names was “Oliver”. I still love it. I don’t care that it is growing in popularity. The name kicks ass. I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember. I actually really wanted to use the name “Charles” since it runs in my family but Jeremy said there were TOO many of them but it would have made a good middle name.

Oliver Charles.

But then we had the bomb dropped on us and were told we were having a girl. And oh my god – there are SO many fantastic girl names. My head has been spinning over the possibilities.

We don’t want anything super trendy. I have ruled out any name that is in the top 50 U.S. baby girl names and I frown upon those in the top 100. Seriously – do we need another Madison, Olivia, Isabel or Emma? (Sorry if these are your children’s names – they are lovely, I promise but I’m not kidding when I say that I know MANY people who have named their daughters these names.)

We don’t want anything after very popular pop culture. This rules out Bella (Twilight), Addison (Grey’s Anatomy / Private Practice), Charlotte (Sex & the City), Lorelei (Gilmore Girls) and many others (especially those of Celebrity children).

I don’t want anything that sounds too… fluffy? Weird? This kind of falls in line with trendy because I feel like off the wall names are growing in popularity. So maybe this falls into super trendy?

I want my mom to be able to pronounce the name. I know this sounds silly but she cannot pronounce her Z’s. This surprisingly rules out a few names that I love like Mackenzie, Eliza, Maisie… they would all be Mackenjie, Elija and Maijie.

I really like old-fashioned names but they also seem to be on the rise: Evelyn, Amelia, Audrey, etc. Actually, the ones I really like all got poo-pooed by Jeremy.  I still don’t understand what is wrong with Eloise.

We decided to take a look into our family history. Okay – we looked at MY family history and even then we only looked at my dad’s side. I was sure I’d find a cool old fashioned name in my bloodline. Not only was I wrong – I was presented with the name “Pansy” (my great-grandmother). Let’s just forget the fact that my mom wouldn’t even be able to pronounce it. She would call her Panjy.

But there was a name that always stuck in the back of my mind. And you know what? I don’t want to share it. I thought I’d shout it from the rooftops. Everyone advised me not to share the baby’s name because I’d be bombarded with opinions. I always told people that if someone reacted poorly to my chosen baby name, I’d tell them to go fuck themselves and while they’re at it – to learn some fucking manners.

But now I don’t want to tell. And not because I care about opinions. I just don’t want anyone stealing the name. I think this name is that beautiful.

And I realize that I’m probably the only person that is so enamoured by the name I think we might go with and it has to do with the fact that it reminds me of a special time in my childhood.

It reminds me of when I was taking piano lessons (which I realize seems like torture to some people). I adored my piano teacher (and no – it is not her name. She was lovely and amazing and talented but her name is VERY Korean). I had so much fun taking lessons with her and as a treat, she would play me songs from her catalog of piano music. There was one particular song that I loved very dearly. I could never play it like her (and haven’t tried to in a number of years but now I’m thinking its time to dust off my parents’ piano) and I would beg her to play it.

So the name that I love so dearly? It is the name in the song I love. It is the name that reminds me of that special time in my childhood. And it is awesome.

However, Jeremy thinks we should have a back-up name just in case the baby is born and does not appear to “fit” the name. I don’t really have a back-up. We’ve both compiled lists and agreed on a few names but I just can’t let go of this name.

What are some of your favorite girl names?

My First Experience with Pregnancy Yoga (or how I protected my baby’s home)

I’m trying to stay as active as possible throughout my pregnancy. A lot of it has to do with staying healthy and I’ve read (in quite a few places) that being an active, healthy person can make your labor & delivery much easier. We’ll see. But I’d be lying if I said I also wasn’t slightly vain and am desperately hoping to get back into shape somewhat quickly after baby girl is here.

So I jog on the treadmill twice a week for 3.75 miles with an additional 1/2 mile walk (and I may start adding shorter jogs on Saturday mornings since I love Fall weather so much!), 35 minutes on the eliptical 3 x week and strength training 3 x week.

This past Sunday I just tried “pregnancy yoga”. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I am a fan of yoga (whenever I actually commit myself to taking it regularly) and it is helpful in loosening up my hips. And since I’ll be sitting with my legs wide open and squeezing out a child, I figured flexible hips are something I should try to stay on top of right now.

I recruited one of my pregnant pals (she’s 12 weeks) and we checked it out. The studio was in Federal Hill and for any Baltimore residents, you know that Fed Hill is the absolute worst place to try to go to on Sundays during football. I was amazed that we found a parking spot.

The studio was pretty empty (not surprising since it is damn near impossible to find parking) but I was happy that I was taking the class with my friend and not alone.

We walked into the studio and saw… a dude. Yes, a man was teaching pregnancy yoga. He made a quick joke about how we were in the right place despite his gender and that he was just the substitute teacher.

The yoga man was nice. He was short, very round (so it was sort of like he was pregnant?) and apparently has 3 kids.

Pregnancy yoga was mostly a gentle type of yoga that seemed to focus on opening your hips. A lot of the typical moves (warrior 2 and 3) were modified so as to not be too difficult. We also avoided laying flat on our backs.

During a few of the moves, Yoga man would read excerpts from some book that was all about motherhood. It was tough to hold in the laughter. I appreciated what he was doing but at the same time, it was just so ridiculously hokey.

He also kept referring to our bellies as our baby’s homes. We had to be mindful of our baby’s home during some of our postures (and I understood what he was saying but it just sounds silly coming from a dude).

Another thing that had me in near hysterics was his proposal to sit with our partner facing each other with our legs open in a V but with one person’s legs on top of the others. He suggested that we should then hold arms and then with our heads looking down, chant “ooooooohhhhhmmmmm” to our baby. Apparently the baby should be able to hear our chants and this is the opportunity for our partner to communicate to our baby. I’m sure this is probably more realistic than having Jeremy poke my belly in hopes that the baby will respond. But still. Can you imagine?

Aside from all the hokiness, the best part of the class was sitting in such close proximity to him (the room was small) while he spread his legs apart (to open his hips). No pregnant woman should be subjected to that. And yes, I couldn’t help BUT to look at his package. Look, if someone is putting it out there like that… I’m going to look. My friend spent the majority of the time looking at me or the ceiling.
So would I go back? Yes – but probably not to that studio… and that is mostly because of the parking situation. Hokiness aside, it was a great stretch for my legs and hips and I’m sure I’ll be thankful I did it.

Plus – I think it is tough to encounter anything pregnancy related that doesn’t involve some level of cheesiness (this is coming from someone who is not very in touch with her feelings).

Do you stare at the crotches of men in clingy yoga pants?

B’More Aware of HIV… the failed Living Red Ribbon experiment

Applications like Facebook and Twitter have made it so that I don’t actually talk to any of my friends anymore.  As a person who is a bit averse to long phone chatters, this is awesome.  And while I feel more connected to my friends, I also feel more disconnected.  But I digress – what I’m trying to say is that my good friend, Geoff, tweeted about the B’More Aware of HIV event at the Inner Harbor this past Saturday where Baltimore was going to attempt to set a Guinness Book of World Records for the largest living red ribbon.

Baltimore has successfully set this type of record before when they got enough people to create the largest Human Smiley face.  Sadly – it appears only 250 people showed up so I doubt that it would be a difficult record to break.

However, Geoff and I are total famewhores and wanted to be apart of record-setting history!  We planned to our excursion to the Inner Harbor. 

We got there at what felt like the ass-crack of dawn (okay – so it was only like 9am but still… it was SATURDAY).  On the way to Rash Field, we passed this gentleman playing the ukulele.  We thought he was just a street performer but he claimed to the bachelor of a bachelor party.  He said his friends made him wear the large child’s Mario costume and play for lunch money.  Geoff thinks he’s full of bs because what kind of lame-ass bachelor party is that?

We registered for the event and noticed that the crowds were rather… dismal.  But it was early.  We checked out the schedule of events and were quite dismayed that the picture would not be taken until 11:30am.  We had over 2 hours to kill! 

We did a lot of people watching, lots of chatting, some random shopping and posing with things like tourists.

We went back to Rash Field around 10:45am and decided just to check out what they had to offer.  I was stoked to see that Starbucks was there so I scooped up some free coffee cake, lemon cake and banana nut bread (I didn’t eat it all… just the banana nut bread and it was awesome).  When I said that I was starving and pregnant, the nice ladies were quick to hand me tons of bread.  One lady turned to Geoff and said, “Here – take some too.  I’m sure you have sympathy pregnancy symptoms.” 

I didn’t hear her say it but it definitely took Geoff a minute to understand that the lady thought he was my baby’s daddy. 

We sat through some grandstanding by some politicians.  I learned that Maryland is ranked 4th in the US for reported HIV cases and Baltimore City is ranked 5th in “major cities” with HIV.  Cah-razy.

As a part of registering, we all received these lovely placards (that had the stats I mentioned above printed on the back).  We were supposed to hold them up for the picture (because they sure as shit did not provide people with red shirts like we assumed they would).  We were told they needed over 3000 people to break the record.

As we all lined up to form the ribbon, I looked around at the very thin crowd. 

While I’m not always great at estimating the number of people in a location, this sure as shit was not 3000 people.  After the picture was taken, they announced that they needed 3000 people but that only 565 people participated.  We weren’t even CLOSE!  Ouch!

I blame Baltimore’s pitiful marketing campaign for this event.  I didn’t even know about it until Friday because Geoff tweeted it.  For a Mayor that is on Twitter, you’d think Baltimore would have a handle on promoting these events on social networks. 

I guess we won’t be autographing anyone’s Guiness Book of World Records anytime soon.