I Should Have Faked a Pregnancy Long Ago

Dear Cletus,

Happy Thanksgiving - by this time next year you will be five months old, which means that you won't be old enough to understand how awesome it is that we have a national holiday devoted to gluttony, since the only thing you will be eating is milk and formula. Still, you'll learn. Oh, you'll learn.

You should know that I routinely out-eat your dad. This is a pre-pregnancy tradition - how a 5'2" chick can always manage to out-eat a 6'2" man who easily outweighs her by a hundred pounds is beyond me. Sometimes I envy your dad's self-control, since I always end meals feeling stuffed and a little sick. But mostly, it's a point of pride.

I feel like I used to get weird looks weird when I would start on my third helping at dinner, but now that everyone knows about you, they think it's cute how much I'm eating. I'm telling you, I should have faked a pregnancy long ago if I'd known this would happen.

Speaking of eating, here are some of the things that you apparently like, based on my eating habits over the past 4 days:

turkey & stuffing
sweet potato casserole with marshmallows
pecan pie
apple pie
chocolate pie
cookies
cake pops
ice cream
chocolate chips
cranberry sauce with marshmallow whip
eggnog lattes from Starbucks
hot cocoa with whipped cream

Here are some of the things that you apparently don't like, based on what I did not eat:

salad
tofu
anything low-fat
fruit
vegetables

If we're going to take my eating habits as any indication, the obesity epidemic that is apparently sweeping the nation starts in utero.

Of course, since family and friends just recently found out about you, much of the conversation during Thanksgiving centered around you. There was a lot of speculation over whether you will be a boy or a girl, and many questions about which one your dad and I want (as if we can order from a catalog). Now, I don't know about your dad; but for me, it comes down to this: while everyone is supposed to say that they just want ten fingers and ten toes and a healthy kid, I'm a bit more ambitious in my hopes for my offspring. Not about the sex; in fact, I don't really care if you're a boy or girl, as long as you manage to be a perfect combination of your dad's and my interests. More specifically, if you could be a die-hard A's fans who also enjoys a well-sung motet, that would be great.*

But seriously, your dad and I don't care if you're a boy or girl. You'll find that we're not overly concerned about traditional gender stuff - I don't wear a lot of pink, I can't cook to save my life, and your dad likes musicals. So we won't care if you're a rough-and-tumble tomboy who likes climbing trees more than playing with dolls, and we'll show our support through dozens of youtube videos if you announce to us that rather than play football, you've discovered the joy of dance (especially if you learn to dance like this guy).

Once Thanksgiving was over, your dad and I devoted the rest of the weekend to decorating for Christmas. This involved the standard holiday tradition of stringing lights onto the house, getting out the decorations, and bickering over who had to clean up the pine needles once the tree was set up. I'm not usually very excited about holiday decorations; while I enjoy the end product, the process of dragging out boxes and clearing year-round stuff out of the way to make room for porcelain Santa figurines makes me tired. But this time, I got a little more excited about the prospect. I don't know if I was just feeling maternal, or if Elvis' "Blue Christmas" on the ipod got to me, but dammit if the Christmas tree lights just seemed like they were worth the trouble of untangling this year.

So now it's the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, your dad and I have a fully-decorated house, and you are giving me an excuse to eat whatever I want, despite what all the baby blogs say. Oh, and thanks to Amazon.com, we were able to do most of our Christmas shopping without ever leaving the house on Black Friday. Dare I say, it's going to be a great holiday season?

Love,

Your soon-to-be-mom

* preferably simultaneously