Beauty Pageant

Breastfeeding is beautiful!

Aww...look at the baby!

My Rowie is starting to get that chubby, well-fed look.

C and I went to our first grown-up party with baby on the fourth. Baby did really, really well. Everyone took turns holding him during the first half of the evening, and once the novelty of the youngest party guest wore off I put him in the sling and he spent the rest of the time alternately looking around taking in proper party behavior and sleeping.

Ro and the Ladies

"So big, so beautiful- She will be mine!"

We had our first play date last week with my other previously-preggers friends Kristen and Amanda, and their daughters Hannah and Mallory. Hannah is two months old and Mallory is five months old. Ro took quite a liking Hannah- who is only a month older, but at least triple his size. Apparently my son has a thing for the big gals!

T.V. Americana

"You ain't my baby daddy, Bi-otch!"

I don't usually watch T.V., although I admit my viewing hours have gone up substantially since having a baby. I find it is a comforting noise at 4 in the morning when it's just me and Ro doing our nursing thing.

But given that my prime time is when most everyone else is in bed, my choices are limited. I am lucky on the nights I can find an old John Wayne western amid the infomercials and home shopping networks.

So, understand, I do not usually stop on trashy talk shows- but it was a desperate situation when I paused to watch the trashiest, talkiest, showiest of them all, Jerry Springer.

It wasn't the obese women in tube tops, the angry audience members shouting obscenities, nor the bemused grin on our host's smug face that caused me to stop and watch in awe. It was the title of that evening's program:

Pregnant Gals and a Mime!

I was intrigued. We do not often have the pleasure of seeing mimes in Southern Illinois. I wonder if it is some strange reverse correlation between the number of hunters and the number of mimes that can cohabitate the same locale (Southern Illinois: Lots of hunting, no mimes. New York: No hunting, lots of mimes. Hmmm...)

Anyway, the show went something like this:

Pregnant Gal: Mama, you just don't understand. I only married my deadbeat husband because you told me I couldn't be a lesbian. This is all your fault.

Mama: I love you, I love you, but if you keep sleeping with women then you're gonna make your baby gay.

Jerry: Let's bring out her husband, who has no idea why he got on a plane and flew from bum-fuck Idaho to be on our show , and see what he has to say about her sleeping with women while she's pregnant with his son.

Deadbeat Husband: You f*#king bitch! Why do you do this to me?

Pregnant Gal: You don't have a job and we're still living with my Mama!

Jerry: Let's bring out her trashy girlfriend and introduce her to Hubby!

Trashy Girlfriend: You don't know me! You don't know me! We're in love! This will be our love baby!

Deadbeat Husband: You bitch, you need to go to church and find Jesus.

Trashy Girlfriend: I went to church, and I found your wife!

Not unusual dialogue for the Springer show, but here is what made the show a little different. The entire time that this messed up family is screaming at each other, there is a mime standing behind them, acting everything out.

I couldn't help but enjoy it.

Next Generation Mama

Rowan Gabriel- future Trekkie extraordinaire

Because of the "get 'im out quick" delivery, my baby ended up with a double hematoma (one from going down the birth canal; one from the vacuum), on either side of his head. It is quite bizarre looking, like a double cone head. That combined with the heavy brow he has inherited from C makes him look like an inhabitant of the planet Ferenginar. If you don't know what that means, then you obviously have not watched as much Star Trek as I have- not necessarily a bad thing :)

Although the doc has reassured us that it will indeed go down over the next several weeks, I am preparing myself for the inevitable Star Trek conventions Rowan will attend. He will have the best costume of them all. This poor child has no chance of being normal (at least not with parents like us!)