Things to Say to a Lady In The Family Way

When my boss was expecting her first child a couple of years ago, I really had no idea how to act around her. I had zero friends with kids, I had just gotten married, didn't even know if I wanted kids, and the whole thing was like an alien ritual. I would let her bring the subject up, and try to ask very boring questions. When are you due? Can you still have coffee? And then I would drop the subject like it was hot. I didn't want to ask invasive, annoying questions and display my vast ignorance. At the same time, I wish I had had a stockpile of polite things to ask or say to her just so I wouldn't look like a childhater.

Now that I too am in that delicate condition, and remember how very, very intimidated I was (and still am a lot of the time) by pregnancy conversation, I am very attuned to how people react to my ever-expanding body. There is a funny axis I measure this on:

              Blissfully ignorant
                       |
                       |
Uninterested------------+------------Very very interested
                       |
                       |
                  Know-it-all

Needless to say - but I'll say it anyway - the vast majority of people fall into the middle or left of this axis. They'll ask about the sex, say something about how fun babies are, and let it go. They'll hold the door, but won't give up a seat on the train. They'll have something charming to say about the experience (e.g. "I was three weeks early, but I think I knew she was coming because I was nesting like crazy"), but don't proselytize.

And, needless to say - but again, I'll say it anyway - there are a few, a very very few, people who do not fall into the middle. There are a few people who fall towards the right of this axis - they are either blissfully ignorant or know-it-all, but one way or the other, they are extremely interested in talking about your pregnancy. The know-it-alls usually have a bunch of kids, or have just had their first and just want to pass along their suddenly infinite wisdom. The blissfully ignorant are usually childfree, but unlike bewildered two-years-ago me, they are chockful of questions or remarks, many of which are wildly inappropriate.

And before anyone reading is like, "OMG IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME?" - the answer is probably not, because usually you get these remarks from strangers or super-casual acquaintances, like someone on the bus or in your yoga class.

Some examples (and my real or imagined responses):

Know-it-alls: "You're not giving birth in a hospital, are you?" [Unless the baby comes out on the way over there, yes, yes I am.]
Blissfully Ignorant: "So was this pregnancy planned?"
[::Sob:: no and I regret it every day. Will you please take my baby?]
Know-it-alls: "You shouldn't be lifting weights this late in pregnancy." [Whoa, did my doctor get plastic surgery? Because my doctor is cool with my workout regime and you do not look like one bit like my doctor.]
Blissfully Ignorant: "Wow, you're getting huge, you must be due soon. Any minute now, huh? Har har." [I am four months pregnant, actually, but thanks.]
Know-it-alls: "Trust me, you do not want one of these, they are a pain in the ass. Do you want mine? Ha ha ha." [Wait, what? You mean something that my husband and I have worked through two miscarriages, four rounds of Clomid and untold doctor's visits to get to is a pain in the ass? Thank you, good Samaritan! I have reconsidered.]
Blissfully Ignorant: "So are you worried about losing the baby weight?" [I am more worried about keeping a small human alive, not only through the bone-crushing, flesh-tearing adventure that is childbirth, but also for the rest of that human's life. Ask me why I haven't lost the pre-baby weight.]

To be fair, I truly think that most of these comments come from a place of caring and interest. And I am really open to talking about any aspect of my pregnancy with anyone who asks - I will gladly discuss breastfeeding, miscarriage, fertility, weight gain, circumcision - I'm an open, if mostly ignorant, book. But there are some things you should just not say to a pregnant lady, and I think the six remarks/questions above are good examples of the "just-nos" or "find another way to say/ask thises."

On the other hand, I've heard some lovely comments and questions from various people, parents and childfree alike. I'm sure some would disagree with my assessment of all of the below as appropriate, but I say, you can always say "I can't," or "we're not really ready to talk about that," or whatever. For example:

Comments:

• "Wow, that's so exciting. Congratulations."


• "You look great." [Never fails.]


• "I would try to take a long leave if you can. I took 10 weeks and it goes by so fast."


• "I know a great maternity store/book/pre-natal masseuse you should check out."


• "My sister was also born in August and my mother really found swimming relaxing."


• "Oh, my brother's wife is due in February, she just passed through her morning sickness phase." [or some kind of story about someone you know - no birth horror stories plz]

Questions:

• "Are you excited?"


• "How are you feeling?" [So simple!]


• "What's your plan for the birth?" [Please don't be judgmental if you don't like the answer.]


• "Do you know the sex? Will you find out?"


• "Are you picking out a name ahead of time? Are you keeping it a secret?"


• "So what doctor are you seeing? Do you like him/her?" [If a local]

My perspective is slightly compounded by the fact that I try not to speak about my pregnancy unless spoken to or asked about it* - I would hate to end up on stfuparents. Doing a facebook pregnancy announcement was scary for me because I was sure I would jinx something and it felt so indulgent, I almost decided I didn't want to do it at all. Other than that, I'm trying to stay as classy as a 40lb-heavier+ragingly-hormonal+overheated person can possibly stay for the next few months.

And then, hoping all goes well, I'll get to listen to strangers talk to me about parenting instead of pregnancy. Except instead of nine months of unsolicited advice and judgment, I'll get a lifetime of it.

Can't wait!

*I know, no one solicited this damn post. But I consider it to be a PSA on behalf of expecting mothers everywhere. Hope it helps!

Despicable

Despite having good fun at the expense of crazy Republicans, the latest news about incompetent Republicans is horrifying. Below is a clip from The Daily Show explaining how the majority of Republicans voted against an amendment offered by Al Franken that prohibits “the Defense Department from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve sexual assault allegations and other claims through arbitration” (h/t ThePopTort Blog):

The amendment, sadly brought to national attention because of the bravery of Jamie Leigh Jones who came forward to describe her horrific ordeal being raped in Iraq while employed by former Halliburton subsidiary KBR. KBR tried to mandate that, before her co-workers gang-raped her and then locked her in a shipping container, Jones had signed away her right to sue KBR and could only seek redress through arbitration with KBR.

Now, you would expect that many Republicans would support business interests over others. But, I never thought that anyone would support business interests over the interests of rape victims! Unfortunately, that is what happened because 30 Republican senators voted against this amendment. Although the readership of this blog is small, I feel that it is necessary to call these Senators out publicly:

Alexander (R-TN)	Barrasso (R-WY)	Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)	Bunning (R-KY)	Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)	Coburn (R-OK)	Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)	Cornyn (R-TX)	Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)	Ensign (R-NV)	Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)	Gregg (R-NH)	Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)	Johanns (R-NE)	Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)	McConnell (R-KY)	Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)	Sessions (R-AL)	Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)	Vitter (R-LA)	Wicker (R-MS)

I cannot believe how incredibly despicable some of these legislators are.

I believe that it is also important to note the Republicans that broke with the majority of their party to vote for this amendment:

Bennett (R-UT)	Collins (R-ME)	Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)	Hutchison (R-TX)	LeMieux (R-FL)
Lugar (R-IN)	Murkowski (R-AK)	Snowe (R-ME)
Voinovich (R-OH)

NOTE: A slight edit made to the original version because, on a quick glance, it appeared as those who supported the amendment were despicable — not their 30 detestable colleagues.

Unhinged

Today, four members of Congress asked the sergeant-at-arms to investigate whether interns were internal spies. How did they come upon evidence that these interns might somehow be spies? Based on a book published by World Net Daily. One of the coathor's sons posed as a Muslim to intern at the Council on American Islamic Relations and stole documents — including documents that (gasp!) laid out a lobbying and PR strategy!

This is obviously not funny but, really, I just cannot help myself from laughing. I mean this is so absurd, I cannot do anything except laugh. Let's enumerate the problems with this plan:

1. They had one of their sons intern at an organization to get the inside scoop. I mean, how many organizations give their interns access to vital details and why would any terrorist organization do that, especially?


2. Following a similar line of logic, would the U.S. Congress tell its interns anything important. I mean, the U.S. government doesn't even tell the members of Congress important details.


3. What is the sergeant-at-arms going to do? Call them out of order — I mean really, that is the highest authority they could go to?


4. These people got elected to CONGRESS!!! (alright, that one is not funny at all)

I thought that we had gotten rid of the clowns. Apparently, we only got rid of the ones that were marginally sane.

We Were Never at War with Eurasia

Seriously, I thought that this had to be some masterful hacking hoax. The kind that would get you arrested and sent to jail, but for your name to be forever remembered as the mastermind that pulled off one of the greatest stunts of all time.

Last night, Amazon pulled the digital copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle devices. That's right, freakin' George Orwell is the book that our new digital Big Brother decided to delete from its Kindle devices. So forgive me if I really did think that this was a masterful hoax by some ingenious hacker to embarrass Amazon's corporate behemoth.

Unfortunately, I would be wrong. Amazon really did pull the digital copies of George Orwell's books from users' Kindles:

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. (h/t Josh Marshall)

It turns out, the copies that were distributed on Amazon were illegally distributed by a company that didn't own the rights to the book that it put online. And, from the discussion board linked to in the story quoted above, Big BrotherAmazon decided that it was not important to inform customers of what happened. I don't know who is running the ship over there, but given that this is their second major publicity blunder in four months doing things that showed complete arrogance, I'm not sure that they are competent enough to be Big Brother.

Lesser-Known Subway Rules

As someone who rides the NYC subway nearly every day along with millions of other riders, I fancy myself a sort of connoisseur of the subway. I have identified the factors that should determine where and how I stand on a crowded train. I have perfected the art of pulling my card out of my wallet well in advance of bellying up to the turnstile. I am a master of slipping out of a rush-hour packed car without physically harming other human beings.

And most of the commuters I (literally) rub shoulders with on the subway have done the same. After 2.5 years of riding, I have identified four levels of subway ridership: 1) folks with years of riding experience that have etiquette and strategy down pat, 2) people in the intermediate phase who know the unspoken rules and mostly don't piss people off but who still slip up in more challenging situations (me), 3) people who don't know the rules but make a valiant effort to be considerate, and 4) jackasses.

As I strive to climb the ranks into that first category, I'm developing a mental list of subway rules you won't find on the MTA website. Here are three of them.

1. Do not use your offspring as a battering ram to get past another rider to a seat. Most people will let a kid sit down, and you do a disservice to your alleged mission, the comfort of your wee babe, by deploying him/her as a weapon. It can only be assumed that you are doing this to get not only your child, but yourself, a seat, which is very unsavory behavior.

2. When you are standing, reading the Jack Welch self-help book, using the top of another rider's seat as an elbow rest is ill-advised, as your elbow inevitably slips when the train jerks and rocks that rider in the shoulder - so, so hard.

3. Please, for the love of God turn your tunes down when you get into the train. It's not as loud in here as it is outside, and some of us don't enjoy Vampire Weekend/salsa/Natasha Bedingfield at all, let alone at full blast at 8 AM for 45 minutes straight.

Port Authority Salaries

I usually avoid ribbing civil servants about their salaries, because a) they are usually low, and b) if they're high, many (perhaps most?) of our public servants are talented, unsung heroes who could have made bank with their skills but chose to serve the public instead, so bravo if they can make a decent living.
Today, however, I freely mock the reported salaries of employees at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, generally speaking. Here's a public agency that just raised its tolls (so the fat salaries look bad), has failed to rebuild the WTC site projects in a respectable time frame (so the fat salaries look bad), and seemingly towards giving at least one airport tenant a free pass on a recently passed labor harmony/employee retention policy (which just makes me angry) and turns out fully one sixth of Port Authority employees make upwards of $100 K a year.
The one caveat is that I think the outrage over police officers making over $100 K a year is distasteful. Why shouldn't someone who risks his or her life to save your ass make just as much as the bureaucrat who processes his paperwork?

More Weird Shit Blogging

Alright - I don't know what is up with the world today that my daily reads include such weird and crazy things. Most mornings, my reads include things like the latest shady thing that Bruce Ratner has done and debates about higher ed policies, yet it seems like today is full of really crazy shit. First, there is the hipster video and now there is this (via).

First, I find it hard to believe this:

Why do we love books so much? Perhaps it's the smell.In a survey of 600 college students 43% identified smell –- either new book smell or old -- as the thing they most love about books as physical objects.

I can think of one of two things. First, the survey was designed in such a flawed manner (it was conducted by Zogby after all, no need to flay that dead horse) that they asked dumb questions. I mean, I might "miss" the smell of traditional books, but you know what I would miss more -- being able to fit it in my backpack so that I could reference it during class. Or, I might miss the fact that my backpack doesn't weigh six to eight extra pounds because I have to lug my laptop everywhere. Or, maybe I miss being able to take notes in the book while I read. But, I guess I just "don't understand kids these days." The second thought that I have is that smell is just one of the many things that people rank highly and Cafe Scribe just wants to make headlines (it worked) by instituting this, which is—by far—the weirdest part of this:

In an attempt to win over skeptical college students, CaféScribe.com today announced plans to launch the world's first smelly e-book. CaféScribe.com CEO Bryce Johnson says that beginning in the back-to-school month of September the company will send every e-textbook purchaser a scratch & sniff sticker with a certifiably musty “old book” smell.

“Students who use CaféScribe download our software to read and annotate e-textbooks and other documents on their laptops,” explains Johnson. “By placing these stickers on their computers they can give their e-books the same musty book smell they know and love from used textbooks – without any of the residual DNA you sometimes find stuck to the pages of used textbooks.”

3 in 10 of the surveyed students associated “mustiness” with the books they most loved, although 16% -- possibly those most likely to hit the books early in the day – associated best-loved books with the smell of “freshly-ground coffee.” Other smells mostly failed to bring books to mind, although respondents were more likely to associate pleasant smells (cut grass, freshly baked bread, cookies baking) with books than unpleasant ones (sweat, mildew, grease).

Am I missing something? Am I the only one that finds the smell the last thing that I miss about books?

Dumb, dumb, dumb...

On his own MSNBC show, TUCKER, Tucker Carlson just said, "Do you really think that gay rights is one of the top issues today?" Seriously, he asked that. His guest, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, pointed out that anti-gay-rights ammendments passed in eleven states in 2004.

Oh yeah, and in case all you coasters didn't know -- Democrats hate people from middle-America and are therefore going to be sad because they don't have their figurehead to express all of their hatred of people from the Midwest and the South. Somehow, I don't think that Howard Dean is going to be crying.

Baseball not Found

via scribbling.net.

Really?

I would just like to let all of you know that "illegal immigrants" are messengers of Satan. That's right - the largely Catholic workers coming from Central America, are

...in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.

At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. "by self invasion."

Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as "Joe," said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because "they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. ... If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do."

No joke - this is what happened at the Utah County Republicans convention [1], as reported in the Daily Herald of Central Utah (via hilzoy). Rather than bursting out laughing throughout the article, the reporter actually reports the goings-on of the convention in more attention and detail than our national media does of the Democratic debate. That means that there are people in Utah County, Utah actually take this seriously enough that the reporter would be concerned for not reporting it with sincerety.

The good news for undocumented workers is that, if they do end up going to the county jail, the people of Utah County, Utah are fine enough people to make sure that criminals are prepared for their visit in the county jail.[2]

I couldn't make this shit up.

UPDATE: Via Pandagon, MSNBC has picke up on the story. View YouTube clip here.

[1] For those who have not spent twenty minutes online becoming an expert of Utah County, Utah (I guess they got bored coming up with county names after a while), it is the home of the main campus of the Mormon Brigham Young University [BYU-Idaho is the other campus] found in Provo - the land of no caffine OR alcohol and where students are upset that Vice President Cheney will be giving the commencement address.
[2] Check out the banner on the jail's website -- it's a dartboard with a BULLSEYE!!!

Oops!

NYT: Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein

I wonder how badly those soldiers got chewed out. At least they're neutral.