Goodbye (but not really)

It's been a great run while it lasted, and I have truly enjoyed my time writing here and talking with you fabulous people. Thank you so much for all the comments and emails you've sent my way over the months, you've helped me through a thousand dark parenting moments and you've made the bright moments even brighter.

This will be my last ClubMom update, but I hope you will come read my parenting-related entries at ParentDish, where I'll be posting several times a week from here on out. See you there!

Bad Santa

I've been posting here less frequently lately, not because I don't enjoy sharing my every fleeting thought with you (because I do, embarrassingly enough), but because December is just kicking. My. Ass. I'm ready for some serious downtime, which is great timing because have I mentioned I'm having a baby in less than two months?

Anyway, I have a new all-things-parenting blogging gig in the works, and I hope you'll come visit me at my new location. I don't think I have the green light to announce it quite yet, but I should be able to post the new info soon. I'm looking forward to keeping my thrilling narrative going, because hey, we're just getting to the GOOD part of the story! Where the author has a newborn and a toddler at the SAME TIME and totally loses her mind ALTOGETHER!

Er, I mean, "faces adversity and rises to the occasion". Yeah.

In the meantime, I've posted this photo elsewhere and it just keeps cracking me up: behold, it's yours truly with what surely has to be the World's Creepiest Santa.

Ha! Oh, it's just so disturbing. The eyes! THE EYES.

I haven't had any desire to try and do the Santa-lap photo with Riley, even though I assume most Santas these days are far more photogenic—mostly because Riley hasn't shown a lot of interest in Santa as a General Concept yet. What about you, did you take your kids to see Santa this year? And if so, did he look anything like the guy in my photo? Because holy CRAP.

No, the ultrasound said there was JUST ONE

I was in my doctor's office this morning for a regular OB appointment when a man who works behind the front desk—a lispy, aging-pretty-boy whom I've always found to be slightly bitchy—exclaimed over my appearance: "Look at you! You're getting so big!"

What does a person say to that, when they're 31 weeks pregnant? Other than "No shit, Sherlock", I mean. I nodded vaguely and smiled. "When are you due?" he asked.

"Early February," I said, and that's when he said. It.

"Just one in there then?"

As opposed to six or seven wriggling fetuses, which could clearly be the only explanation for my MONSTROUS GIRTH? I've heard of people saying this sort of thing but come ON. It's not like this guy works at Men's Wearhouse, he presumably sees pregnant women all the time. And while I may have rounded out a little bit somewhat a whole lot recently, come ON. COME ON.

The thing that thankfully made this little Hallmark Moment officially funny as hell, instead of embarrassing and, you know, a little hurtful, was the woman sitting nearby who heard the whole exchange, shot her eyebrows somewhere up in the stratosphere at his comment, and leaned in to me to say, "Girl, he craaaaaaaazy."

Stay-Puft

In the last few weeks I've noticed that my wedding rings have been getting harder and harder to get on and off, and after a particularly vigorous removal process several days ago that had me briefly wondering if I was just going to have to yank my finger out of its socket, or what, I haven't put them back on.

I had hoped to avoid the too-puffy-for-rings pregnancy syndrome this time around because unlike when I was nearing the final stretch with Riley it's not the dead of summer. Therefore, my ankles should remain normal-sized and my rings should go the distance, right? Well, WRONG, apparently. I also noticed the other day when I took off my socks that I had a repulsive elastic-ribbed indentation circling the flesh on my ankle, so . . . oh well, Michelin Man resemblance, here I come.

Anyway, I thought I'd ask what you did when your rings got too tight, assuming this happened to you. Did you wear them on a chain as a necklace? Forgo them altogether and flirt shamelessly with grocery clerks? Or what?

PS: I have a post up at Work It, Mom with some holiday gift ideas for kids (that hopefully do not suck). Stop by and tell me what you're getting your own kids this year, I'm nosy as hell interested.