Watcha doin'?

I know this might be obvious to anyone who has met her, but I think that Gigi is kind of smart. Maybe wicked smart.

She's kind of been in observation mode for the first 11 months, and it seems, in just the last week or so, that she's saying, "OK, I get the picture. Now step aside, I'm in charge."

To take an analogy from my newest obsession, Battlestar Galactica, she's kind of Cylon-smart. "You made me. I've been observing your kind for some time. Now hand over the raisins."

At Music Together on Monday, she scurried over to the jackets and shoes, ten minutes before the end of class, and lifted up my jacket and her jacket (who knew that she could identify OUR jackets, versus the other dozen choices?), and said, "MA!" "MAAA!" The class thought it was hilarious. "I guess she's ready to go."

She's 11 months old. She's not even walking, for pete's sake. And she knows that if she encourages the wearing of jackets, she can hasten our departure?

She's also tremendously organized. There is a place for everything, and everything must be in its place -- that's Gigi's motto. And she'll rearrange the kitchen, the playroom, her bedroom, and the contents of the stroller and diaper bag until it's JUST at her liking.

Chebbles would usually just dismantle these receptacles, in hot pursuit of potential snacks or forbidden toys that might be lurking beneath things. Not The Jeege. She will reassemble everything in a different order, and she'll work for a good, long time to make sure that, for example, every leftover baby wipe in the bottom of the stroller is repatriated to the top pocket of the stroller.

I suppose it's useless to fight it. Gigi, we are at your command.

New Health.com post-- hot tubs and licorice

I think you guys will get a kick out of this week's Health.com post. It's my summary of ridiculous pregnancy advice, and they made a neat slide show out of it.

It happened. IT HAPPENED!

Isn't it amazing how much CUTER your kids are when they let you sleep through the night?

Both Chebbles and Gigi, for the first time in eleven months, slept through the night. Chebbles went to bed at 6:30pm, lights-out at 7pm. Gigi went down at 6:30pm, lights-out right away because she can't even pretend to read.

And I didn't hear BOO from anyone until after SEVEN AM. I woke up at 6:30am though, with a strange feeling. I looked around, trying to ascertain what time it was, disoriented by having had so many hours of sleep in a row. I got up and walked around the house, just to make sure they all hadn't abandoned me in the middle of the night. Then, realizing the great bounty that had been provided to me, I hopped straight back into bed.

My first gorgeous child came rambling into my bedroom at 7:10am, telling me tales she learned from the spider that hangs over her bed.

My second gorgeous child woke up a half-hour later, hungry and a little confused herself ("Didn't we have a date at 4am? Did I stand you up, Mama?").

And they are just both the most intelligent, attractive children. Really.

Snoozing, or lack thereof

Things are going well in the Mama household lately. If I really search around, I could find some reasons to complain, but any day that I'm not "coughing in the potty" with my daughters crowded around me is a FANTASTIC one.

Chebbles has officially outgrown the regular afternoon nap. I miss having that time to myself, but it's awesome to put her to bed at 6:30pm. See ya! In twelve hours, sucka!

Only it doesn't work out that way. She's been waking up in the middle of the night, hollering inconsolably. ("No, I want MAMA!" "No, I want DADDY!" "NO, I WANT MAMA! NO DADDY! WAUUUUGH!") We're theorizing that these are night terrors.

Hub-D also theorizes that it's because I keep our house cold at night -- due to my anti-raccoon measures, which involve an open bathroom window (which the raccoons have not discovered) for feline entrance. Our house becomes rather cold at night. Kind of, well, Laura Ingalls Wilder cold, except Chebbles doesn't have Pa giving her warmed stones to put at her feet.

She has a space heater in her room, but if she has to pee in the middle of the night, it's something of a Jack London-type adventure. So she freezes, has trouble getting back to sleep, then wakes up the rest of the household to commiserate.

I've pulled my best bribe out of my bag of maternal tricks, which is SHOES. I told her that if she stays quiet ALL NIGHT LONG for ten nights, then the Shoe Fairy will come. The Shoe Fairy (courtesy of eBay) will decorate the hallway with size 9.5W shoes while she sleeps, but only if she keeps her TRAP SHUT for ten whole nights.

Tonight she assured me that she was up for the task. We'll see. Will the promise of sparkly new (new-to-her, anyway) shoes be enough to fight the nighttime demons? Let's all say a collective prayer that it will be so.

In other news, Hub-D and I have started to puzzle, in a Tangram kind of way, where we're going to put Leaf. I had THOUGHT I would put Gigi in Chebbles' room, and they could keep each other company, and Leaf could sleep in Gigi's current room until she's old enough to shack up with her sisters (see again: Laura Ingalls Wilder-type fantasies). Then I realized that Gigi's and Chebbles' sleep patterns are so drastically different, I would be an idiot to place my perfect little 6pm-8am sleeper in the same room with a person who thinks nothing of belting out The Little Mermaid's "Part of Your Wooooooorrrld" when she can't sleep. (To say nothing of Chebbles' usual 5:30am wake-up time, which involves multiple changes of clothing and accessorizing.)

So, Leaf. Yeah. OK. Well, I like to keep up an irritating level of skepticism that we will actually have a third child this summer. But say we do. Maybe, uh, a Pack-n-Play in the guest room? That seems kind of rude, when most babies seem to come home to elaborately decorated nurseries with their names artfully represented on the walls above their Pottery Barn sleigh crib.

We'll see. It will all work out. Maybe Hub-D and I can sleep in the car.

Smart Little Leaf

There is something about this pregnancy that is making me smarter than my pregnancies with Chebbles and Gigi.

With Chebbles, I compared the effect to the intellectual downfall in "Flowers for Algernon," best exemplified by my increasing inability to do the crossword puzzles throughout the week.

You probably know how it works in the New York Times crossword, whereas the Monday puzzle is "hella" easy (as they say here in California) and then it gets gradually more difficult throughout the week.

About five months into my pregnancy with Chebbles, I was truly stumped on Monday puzzles, driven insane by Tuesday puzzles, and then I finally set them aside, not to try them again until I was several months postpartum.

The same went for my pregnancy with Gigi, in which my inability to remember words reached an all-time high. I just sat gaping like a goldfish in conversations with people, let alone trying to think of *just the right* four-letter word for blue.

Today is Saturday, and I completed about 1/3 of the crossword puzzle! I have NEVER been able to tackle a Saturday NYT crossword puzzle. I have gotten one or two clues, tentatively, only to look at the answers below Monday's puzzle and realize that the few clues I HAD written in were wrong.

Don't break my heart and tell me that today's puzzle was one of the "easy Saturday" flukes. Don't tell me I'm not a genius for remembering that a four-letter athlete with an accent in his name is "PELE" and the four-letter sound of a moccasin is "HISS." I'm flying HIGH here folks.

And I wonder what the ramifications are for the intellect of my unborn child? Am I channeling her fetal genius? Or am I leeching intelligence from her growing brain cells, so that when she is born she will be unable to think of the six-letter word for community club (ROTARY)?

Oh, did you think I COMPLETED the Saturday puzzle? Hahaha, no. But completing 1/3 of it is an unheard-of proposition in this house. So if anyone has any questions that require extreme brain power (Like, who the HELL built that wheel under the Orchid Station in "Lost?"), I'm your gal. Me, and Leaf of course.

We're GIRL PEOPLE

Hey people, my new Health.com post is up, this time about the BIZARRE and, as it turns out, inexplicable effect by which we conceived four girls in a row.

Remember the whole cereal theory -- you eat bananas and cereal, and you get a baby with marked external genitalia? I learned more about that. And basically, the British can't get much right these days.

I'm PSYCHED about next week's entry too. Wait until you read it. Right now I've got a crazy East Coast/West Coast rivalry fired up between OB's debating about hot tubs and pregnancy.

Grudgy McGrudgerpants

Does anyone else start harboring massive grudges while they are pregnant?

I have started to despise our Toyota dealership service advisor. I don't know what she did that was SO WRONG, but I am just filled with bile every time I cross paths with her.

Someone who might have merely rubbed me the wrong way before now fills me with RAGE.

I took in our car for squeaky brakes this morning, only to discover upon arrival that they had stopped squeaking. Whose fault is this? Mine? Fate? Oh, no wait, it was HER, our Toyota service advisor. Always up to no good.

Gigi loves her some Polamalu

Now THIS is the reason to marry a guy from Pittsburgh. So your 10-month-old daughter can watch the Steelers beat the Ravens while tucked up against Daddy with real Pennsylvania beer.
OK, don't panic Gigi fans, she didn't drink the beer. Well not the whole beer....

I've started swooning over the Hudson River pilot as much as the next person, but... am I the only one who kind of wants to wait for the Black Box evidence before beatifying the man? What if he had kind of always wanted to do that? What if it was a complicated bid to get a ticket to the inauguration?

I mean, you know how I feel about "Lost," so like to know the story behind these plane crashes, see. Before I go around drawing conclusions...

I'm already drawing PLENTY, as I am vexed by this pregnancy once again. I haven't felt a good kick in more than 24 hours. Come ON, sister. No amount of cold juice, lying down, or pushing around on my belly has merited a response. I know I shouldn't freak out, and yet, well, you know. I do.

Your input needed: I'm looking for odd or ignored pregnancy advice!

Can you tell me, what is the weirdest or most questionable pregnancy advice you've ever heard? Or did you decide to fly in the face of some of the more common pieces of pregnancy advice?

I was told not to eat licorice because it would cause premature labor???

But also, did you eat sushi? Go in a hot tub? Get a (gasp) foot rub that might have pressed the wrong pressure point and expelled your baby?

I'm harvesting these nuggets for an upcoming column. Let me know the weird and the disobeyed...

As if

Hey guys, my latest Health.com post is up, and it covers the various methods that RE's are employing to help people choose the sex of their baby... just in case we would want to try for a boy.

Because getting pregnant again and going through another 40 weeks of this sounds just spectacular right now!

Keep your diseases to yourself

I feel like I need a medic alert bracelet to alert physicians and laypeople alike to my extremely nervous pregnant state.

Yes, folks, you are dealing with a woman who, at 5:32am this morning, interpreted some lower abdominal cramps she was experiencing as "premature labor," and envisioned the rest of her life mourning her unborn child, only to finally go to the bathroom, go #2, and end the "deadly" cramping experience.

I can pretty much read doom into any situation.

Which is why I'm now annoyed with our otherwise terrific pediatrician. This morning, I asked him in only the most casual way about Fifth Disease. I hadn't even HEARD of Fifth Disease until reading Jana's blog, The Meanest Mom. Her fourth baby was affected in utero after her preschooler came home with the telltale webbed Fifth Disease rash on his body. And although her youngest son is on the mend, her story sent me into apoplectic fits of fear.

I said to the pediatrician, "I'm pregnant, so I would like to know from you how rare this disease is."

"It's not rare. And it causes 20% fetal death to women exposed in their second trimester."

THANKS PAL!

Then, ignoring any medical questions I might have asked about Gigi, whose appointment it was, (Like, for example, asking the doctor if Gigi is perhaps the CUTEST baby he's ever seen, or if all the soymilk formula I'm giving her is going to make her grow breasts at age five) I forced the doctor to show me PHOTOS of Fifth Disease.

What do I do if Chebbles comes home with the dreaded webbed rash and sporting the "slapped cheeks" look?

"You'd talk to your OB. He'd perform weekly titer tests to see if you've got it. Then he'd advise you from there."

NOTE TO FUTURE PHYSICIANS WHO INTERACT WITH ME WHILE I'M PREGNANT: Say comforting things at this juncture. Like, "But this will NEVER happen to you and your perfect unborn daughter."

In the meantime, I'm going to take me and my children out to an isolated prairie with no disease-catching possibilities within a twenty mile radius. We'll homeschool in an isolated sod hut.

At least until I'm in the third trimester.

Oh, except I'll make sure to have one of THESE attached to my wrist, in case I have any questions for my OB at any given time of the day or night:

The Toes Have It

Grandma gave Chebbles a bunch of toe rings for Christmas. So she will walk around the house with her toes up in the air, hobbling and clacking against the wooden floors, so that the rings remain where she's put them. Ah, the Cheb.

Her favorite toys now are her stuffed animals. Tonight before bedtime she took her stuffed puppy's imaginary dinner plates -- two tiny dishes set "just so" atop a little sparkly cloth, and placed them on the lowest shelf of the refrigerator, so that when she wakes up tomorrow she can continue feeding "Ruf-Ruf," the fresh food he likes.

With the advent of Gigi came a whole bunch of new stuffed animals, which Chebbles immediately co-opted. The more babyish and tiny, the better. They are her children, these stuffed animals, and she chooses a different assortment to accompany her on various outings about town.

She's also decided this week to carry around a map of our town. She likes to refer to it and offer directions, "Go five trips, Mama," she calls from the backseat, "It's a long way from here." She can point out various things on the map, such as Disneyland or the Columbia River. Neither is visible to the grown-up eye, but she'll tell you that it's THERE.

Chebbles is also consumed with frustrated Wanderlust. The first two years of her life, we took her somewhere at least once a month, but since Gigi was born, she's only been on three trips. I'm sorry to tell her that once Leaf is in the picture, we're going to park ourselves for a good long time, I think. But as for now, Chebbles asks ALL THE TIME when we're going to to go Germany again, or Santa Barbara, or Boston, or Washington State. She sees airplanes in the sky and wonders if they're going her way.

Wait until she learns about hitchhiking. With that pretty smile and those toe rings, she's going to be unstoppable.

I must force myself to go to bed soon. Last night was a travesty of children waking us up, highlighted by the rare "Mama! I went pee-pee in my bed!" incident.

Did I change the sheets? Nope, I threw a towel over it and made Chebbles sleep in pee. Thanks.

And Hub-D and I only have ourselves to blame for our sleeplessness, because we got so VEXED by yesterday's NYT crossword puzzle that we stayed up late farting around with it, getting nasty when we discovered mistakes that the other one had inflicted on the puzzle. I had misspelled "Caesarean," which led to no end of embarrassment.

My god, I've HAD ONE. You'd think I could spell it.

But the crossword puzzles are one way that I'm working out my brain. So I try to stick with them -- they get progressively harder throughout the week in the NYT, so by Saturday, the hardest day of the week, I just pretend it's not there. Otherwise, I keep at them as much as possible. The only help I allow myself are paper reference materials and the knowledge of friends. NO INTERNET. That is completely cheating.

I also do not understand how people do the crossword in pen. As far as I'm concerned, there is something mentally awry with pen-users in this context.

Anyway, Gigi has started waking up at 5:30-6:00am and just chatting with herself until she falls back asleep. She might let out a holler or two, but by the time I pull my big ole body out of bed, she pipes down. I'm hoping she'll start sleeping through this little phase, because I can't sleep when I hear that she's awake.

I've learned that if I go in to her room with a bottle during these times, she starts talking to ME and doesn't really drink much of the bottle. She's just psyched for another early morning conversation partner, and I'm NOT PSYCHED. So when I place her back in her crib because -- COME ON -- she screams bloody murder for a few minutes, then falls back asleep.

So it's better to let her assume that we've all abandoned the house, so she recognizes the futility of social activity in the pre-dawn hours.

And good old Leafy has been stretching her lovely body lately, pressing her hands and feet into either side of my abdomen from inside. It's the coolest feeling, sensing her dimensions like that. Babycenter.com says she's 10 inches long, approximately the size of a banana.

When Chebbles learned this, she skittered over to the fruit bowl and brought a banana to me. "Let's feed her this through the umbilical cord, Mama."

How do I confess to my three-year-old that I've eaten too many "Newman-O's" to even consider eating something healthy?

I don't. That's between me and Leaf. Enjoy 'em kid, that's organic sugar you're ingesting.

Oceanic Air downed by The Jeege

To tide me over until "Lost" resumes on the 21st, I found this footage that very much illuminates the appearance and demeanor of the monster that killed the pilot in the first season...

Gigi now

The Jeege has been developing more and more personality, as impossible as that seems. Now that she's cut tooth number SIX and her legs have wrenched her skyward, now that she's not feverish, sleepless or pissy, we're seeing the real Gigi in a marvelous way.

She's a rascal. She's fearless. She likes to eat, and eat, and eat -- her hands look like the hippos in the "Hungry Hungry Hippos" game when we set a tray of food in front of her. So far, she's just like her sister in terms of lack-of-pickiness. As long as it's not too spicy, she'll eat anything with gusto. And there is nothing that can't be cured by a fig bar.

She's gotten very centered on her parents, which is developmentally normal but kind of annoying. I hired a sitter to help out until my wrist surgery, but she just won't be humored by the poor woman, who tries everything to get her engaged and happy. If Gigi even SNIFFS a parent in the other room, she'll writhe and scream out of the sitter's arms, screaming "MAMA!" or "DADA!" or generic hysterical screaming.

So I've cut down the sitter's hours and I'm just sucking it up with my wrist. Even if I damage it further, I've got the surgery coming along, and Dr. B. feels certain that I'll get my wrists back at the end of this adventure.

Anyway, I had a hard time figuring out how to cut Gigi's nails. With Chebbles, I just plunked her on my lap in front of the final dance scene from "Grease" and I could do anything I wanted with her wee fingers. But nothing would work with Gigi. We tried "Grease" and we tried every Disney movie we have at our disposal, but she had no interest in it.

Then, at random, Chebbles put in a yoga DVD. The instructor is sitting close to the camera, talking earnestly to children about stretching their bodies. Gigi was fascinated. I cut all 20 nails while she sat waiting further instructions from the pretty yoga lady. Awesome. All she wanted was a real face talking to HER -- a sadly rare event in this household of Chebbles' dancing, my puking, Hub-D working, and occasional squeezes for the Jeege on our ways to and from these activities.

Dude, she's 10 months old now. The last two nights, she's slept from 6pm until 8am, waking up only once around 10:30pm for a bottle. It's a freaking miracle, compared to the heeeelll of her early infancy.

She is also the most determined individual Hub-D and I have ever met. If she wants a colored pencil that she has spied on top of Chebbles' drawing table she WILL get it. I don't know how she does it -- perhaps she uses The Force. But she really can do whatever the heck she wants. She's strong, determined, and relatively unsupervised. She reminds me of the little brother in "Better Off Dead" who was successful in every pursuit, including building a space shuttle in his room. This trait will serve her well.

Oh cripes, Hub-D is home and I'm wearing a princess crown, a bathrobe and I look like a middle-aged Sissy Spacek. I have some emergency primping to do before he comes through the door. Perhaps Gigi can help me with my mascara.

What's the freakin' fuss?

Can someone please enlighten me as to what the fuss is about the analog television switch? Even the most *dire* predictions give the statistic that seven million homes might suddenly have no television signal if the digital TV switch isn't delayed.

Now that we're a sanctimonious no-TV home, I've got to wonder why seven million homes having no television is SO BAD.

Our family manages to subsist on occasional rentals of scratched-up "Law & Order" DVD's coupled with owning a few Disney movies. Otherwise, we just sit around torturing each other with circular hormone-laden conversations, one-sided chess games, and crossword puzzles that were written by wicked elves.

We also eat a lot of licorice, salt and vinegar potato chips, and think of inventive ways to torture the mean old cat lady next door.

Our TV went dark many months ago and we're OK, right? We're reading old issues of Vanity Fair and stacking things on the cat. You know, like the pioneers. Hub-D has to go to the gym in order to watch football and I'm reduced to Hulu-ing "30 Rock."

Instead of chuckling at Leno or Conan or whomever, we bestow scathing looks on each other while reviewing baby name suggestions. (I don't think I'm allowed to bring up "Laurel" again. Nor is Hub-D to mention "Valerie.")

So wait a minute, maybe TV serves some kind of purpose, keeping us away from the snack drawer and the baby name books. OK, then, FINE, delay the switch. But don't ask me again if I've seen "Mad Men."

C'mon feel the drama

Hey everyone!

My latest Health.com post is up.

This contains all ofthe details regarding our big scary trip to the hospital -- I guess I should have called it "Our date to the pPROM" only it never showed up, THANK GOD.

I should also add that the baby has been getting more emphatic in her kicks. It's awesome. It's out-of-control AWESOME to feel that constant reassurance that she's makin' it happen in there.

Last night, Hub-D and I stayed up late (again) puzzling over names. I want to give her a name that is NOT popular. Chebbles' and Gigi's names have started shooting up the charts, much to my dismay. I want something that only SHE will have, but that people can spell. Something you can shout at a loud party and people will understand.

OK, not that I ever want my daughters going to loud parties, but it's just annoying to have a name that you have to say repeatedly.

Any suggestions? Anything that is NOT currently in the Top 100 names?

I freaking did it

If you're thinking to yourself, "Mama! Why are all photos of you taken on this one beige couch from Pottery Barn?"

I will tell you. Because we received a bunch of wedding gifts purchased from Pottery Barn, and exchanged them all for this couch, before we had kids and realized how asinine it is not to purchase a poop-colored couch from the outset.

I'm proud of this photo for several reasons. You can see that my belly is starting to look really pregnant. You can see that my face is riddled with hormone-laden ennui. You can see that I found a bunch of used stuff on eBay and I'm passing it off as Santa's work. You can see that I pulled Christmas off, complete with apples for the reindeer and hot cocoa for Santa, on a special plate by the fireplace.

And Chebbles was so darn serious about the Santa preparations that I started to believe in him too. Good girl. (Note: I had her bangs fixed yesterday at the kids' haircutting place. It drove me berzerk over the holidays, how they were uneven and shaggy like that.)

But anyway, my kid was great.

Rise and shine!

It's the day you go back to school, Chebbles!

Here is some cereal and sausage and toast and OJ, and some leggings and socks and, hold on, let me brush your hair.

OK, where's your jacket, OK, just take this one. Not your favorite, oh well, there you go, out the door, have fun learning about the letter "J" today and DON'T COME BACK UNTIL NOON FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY.

(I swear, that child turned into Howard Hughes over the Christmas break. She got agoraphobic and started wearing Kleenex boxes on her feet. She even had scary-long fingernails and toenails. It was TIME to go mingle with her own kind in an institutional setting... away from here.)

Shout out from Leafy

Well thank heavens. Leaf gave me a few middling kicks last night before bed, and today, during a nap (thanks to Hub-D for making the much-needed rest possible), she really went bananas, kicking about ten times in a very sweet and determined way.

It really doesn't take much to send me down Doomsday Road in my head.

So now that we know the baby is well, we can go ahead with our scheme to name her Lily Pad Green Frog, which is Chebbles' current pick.

In other news, Chebbles was playing with her Cinderella Barbie tonight and suddenly looked up and said. "What are white people?"

"We're white people, Chebs."

"No we're not."

"It doesn't really mean anything, but yeah we are, Chebs."

"But we're not white."

Note to self: Stop reading aloud from "Stuff White People Like" while Chebbles is awake. She's getting the wrong idea.

Getting my kicks

Why in the world the baby hasn't kicked today, I don't know. She's pissing me off. I really don't ask for much: Total obedience in all things, and support in my old age. At least I could get a kick or two each time I start feeling paranoid that I've had some kind of horrific second trimester missed miscarriage.

I know, I have to remember that she's just nineteen weeks along, the size of an heirloom tomato, and is busy growing hair (gotta catch up with The Jeege). Plus she has enough wiggle room to do the lambada without my feeling a thing. But seriously, girl. A kick. Bring it on.

I've also had to acknowledge how much I miss the city. Hub-D pointed out that I just come more alive when we go into the city, how much more animated I am with our citified friends. Do I tamp down my usual sparkiness when I'm out in the 'burbs? Have I adapted to mediocrity, hid my light under a bushel, and decided to wait out our children's school years in quiet dullness? Just so Chebbles can have a big backyard in which to perform her impromptu musicals? And how do I make up for it intellectually, so I don't die inside?

I have a very sarcastic sense of humor. I tend to reach for the very funniest thing to say rather than the very most appropriate. And this isn't a problem when you're hanging out with a bunch of similarly bitchy women and gay men in the city -- but when you're at a neighborhood barbeque, whipping out your scathing (but hilarious!) critique of the Contra Costa Times is bound to offend people. Someone's brother probably works there and then you've got to spend an hour backpedaling and kowtowing to some person you didn't even like very much in the first place.

So I think I've toned it down. I'm fascinated with suburban life. I've made some lifelong friends out here. It is a terrific place to raise kids, in a neighborhood of parents who drive 5 mph down our road (unless they are on drugs) and wave merrily to me while I try to maneuver my kids and their spastic conveyances to the side of the road so that my friendly neighbor might pass. But still, I can't be myself here.

And I'm such an asshole for even complaining about suburbia. My neighbor just spontaneously dropped off a big pan of enchiladas -- the same neighbor whose husband changed Gigi's POOPY DIAPER last Saturday when Hub-D and I rushed to Labor & Delivery. I have really incredible neighbors who continue to LOVE ME despite the fact that I think it is funny to pretend that they smell bad or make jokes that they are unfaithful to their Christian husbands.

But what's missing is those regular get-togethers with large groups of really interesting professional people -- poets and entrepreneurs and crazy queens who make fun of my shoes and hairstyle. So I'm doing NYT crossword puzzles, and participating in online discussions about them. That doesn't truly count as socializing with the literati, but it does make me learn that Husband in Hidalgo is "Esposo." Which I didn't know.

And I've been invited to join a book club IN THE CITY. It's all women (could be trouble. A whole lot of Candace Bushnell trouble...) but it could be stimulating. They apparently serve wine, which I'll enjoy after Leaf is born. And their book choices seem pretty cool. At a party last month, the women of this book club gamely let me blather on about "An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes In New England" and even after I let on that I'm knocked up with my third child (I'm pretty sure that's gauche in more sophistocated circles), they still asked me to join them.

And I've gotten all worked up about the "weRead" application on Facebook. I've found several friends who have great reading lists, and it's inspiring me to find some gems I've missed, and get them read before Leafy makes the scene.

So there are some ways I've tried to light a fire under my Algernonish brain. But ultimately I'll have to continue socializing in the evenings with Lenny Briscoe, with my feet up on the couch and a steaming mug of Reduced Sugar Swiss Miss in my hands. Until the party comes to my house.

25 or 6 to 4

Every baby has that one song that makes everything better. This is Gigi's (aka Bobojeeger).

I'm not screwing around here, this is really THE song for her. Last night we were driving home from a friend's house and she was very tired and started crying, so Hub-D and I whipped this one out, with altered lyrics to mimic the baseline:

"Bobobobobo (deep and grumbly)
Bobobobobo
Bobobobobo
Bobobobobobobobo...

Waiting for the break of DAY!..." (in as falsetto a voice as you can manage)

And she was instantly happy again.

Almost any Gigi frown can be turned upside down by this tune, and THIS ONE ONLY. And you must sing the words.

I don't know why, but thank you, Chicago. You guys rock. Or at least the Jeege seems to think so.