This past weekend, I got some much-needed girlfriend time out at a local shopping center. After the obligatory oohing and aahing at the window displays, I convinced my possie into a way overpriced maternity boutique with me.

Here, I learned a few things:

1. One should never pay $50 for a maternity tank top, even if it says something cute and baby related on it.

2. Hooter Hiders is still one of the awesomest named companies/ products ever.

3. I seriously need to find out if this fetus is with or without a penis so I can start shopping post haste. Newborn clothes = fucking adorable.

4. Nothing makes you more ready for your impending crotch parasite then perusing overpriced baby clothes and toys. I almost felt my ovaries shooting out additional eggs when I was playing with crinkly terrycloth covered baby toys. I mean, seriously, people. Cletus was probably dodging extra ova bombs like she/he was on Normandy Beach.

5. The last thing I learned was that Mr. Bee has no appreciation for overpriced/reasonably overpriced shampoo and shower gel. I mean, how is a pregnant woman supposed to feel like facing the day without smelling like Verbena, whatever the fuck that is?

Song title: I’m Ready by Tevin Campbell

I have a silly, ridiculous, almost impossible theory to confess.

For some reason, after I have a vividly realistic dream, I’m totally convinced that the people I dreamed/dreamt/had dreams about also dreamed/dreamt/had the same dream about me.

Which leads to some really awkward conversations after some of the fucked up pregnancy dreams I’ve had recently.

For example, one of my first memorable pregnancy dreams of this pregnancy featured Arla-Shay and Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory on CBS.

As if that wasn’t weird enough, in my dream I was in love with Sheldon (which, puke) and Arla-Shay was like 9 months pregnant. With Sheldon’s baby. Because THEY were in love.

Yes, you read that correctly. I was dreaming of a love triangle featuring me, a prego Arla-Shay and nerdy, annoying Sheldon.

To say I was confused when I woke up is a huge understatement.

Since then, I’ve had a number of quite unusual dreams, but I think the thing that’s freaking me out the most is how many times I wake singing some goddamn Backyardigans song or realizing that my dream featured Bee’s favorite toys that are referred to as the “squishy dinosaurs”.

What the fuck, pregnancy hormones?! What. The. Fuck.

The other dream confession I have is almost more bizarre…

I am so controlling that I can’t even release myself in to the world of fantasy in my dreams.

That’s right, y’all. I’m married to Mr. Bee so, therefore, in my dreams I’m always married.

And now that I’m pregnant? You guessed it. Prego Dream Mama Bee.

Needless to say, this leads to horrifically boring dreams because I’m always making decisions that are based in reality. I can’t have a “sexy” dream because I’d be cheating on Mr. Bee. No espionage or skydiving for me; I might hurt the baby.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to accept that dreamland isn’t reality and actually have a bit of fun (don’t worry, Mr. Bee, I won’t have too much fun). Until then maybe I should just be happy with the dreams I’m having.

At least last night’s had dinosaurs.

Song title: The Impossible Dream by Jim Nabors

As you would probably presume, watching approximately 712 primetime shows per week creates a need for a pretty structured television routine.

Take last night, for example.

Since it was Biggest Loser Night, special preparations had to be made.

Sure, some of you would make a special healthy snack of tofu or celery or whatever the hell you healthy people eat. Or maybe you squeeze yourself in to some spandex and workout while watching all the fatties inspirational contestants sweat to the oldies.

Mr. Bee and I, on the other hand, had to make a special run to the grocery store to prepare…

But don’t get me wrong. Each of these items had a very specific purpose:

1. Peanut Butter Cups.
Okay, these are just for the yummy factor.

2. Lifesavers.
If I’m gonna watch a bunch of 300+ pounders working out until they vomit, Lord knows I need something to suck on so that *I* don’t puke my guts out.

3. Sunny Delight.
What the hell I am supposed to wash down those peanut butter cups with?!

4. Pantyliners.
Have YOU tried sneezing without peeing yourself lately? That’s what I thought.

5. Huggies.
In case the pantyliners aren’t enough…

6. Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream with Cool Whip.
This is all Mr. Bee’s fault. He will chomp through these two boxes of ice cream in like two days. Seriously, if he was actually able to gain weight, he’d probably be a contender for Biggest Loser’s next season.

7. Ice cream sandwiches.
Well, I can hardly let Mr. Bee eat all that ice cream alone, right? What kind of wife would I be?! And let it be known that you can’t see the “only 100 calories” badge on the box. So what if I ate 12 of them. I’m eating for two now!

Song title: Bad Loser by The Sutherland Brothers

As any mom can tell you, pregnancy comes along with a bunch of good and bad things:

Good: a beautiful (one would hope) baby
Bad: a blown-out vagina

Good: awesome boobs
Bad: a belly that rivals Homer Simpson’s

Good: the ability to eat anything you want without judgment
Bad: the ability to smell everything in a twelve mile radius

But, you see, Interwebs, I have an additional little pro/con for my list…

The Crazed Over-Protective Husband

Sure, sure, you say, all soon-to-be-fathers freak out a little before the bouncy bundle of poop and spit-up joy arrives!

Oh no.

I’m not talking about your average husband who maybe gives you a break from the heavy lifting around the house for a few months.

I’m talking ker-azy, people.

Here’s an example:

The other night, I headed out for a typical girl’s night watching The Bachelor. The next morning, we were scheduled to have our garage door, which had recently begun to split in two upon opening and closing (kind of inconvenient), replaced. It struck me before I left for the evening that I should park across the street from our house so I (more accurately, Mr. Bee) wouldn’t have to shuffle my car around in the morning before the garage dudes showed up.

When I suggested my brilliant plan to Mr. Bee, he adamantly said, “Oh no no no. Just park in the garage or the driveway. I’ll move it in the morning.”

I, being the logical (and stubborn) one, responded with, “But that doesn’t make any sense. I’ll just park it on the street. Duh.”

And this is when Mr. Bee said:

…wait for it…

“I don’t want you walking across the street.”

I’ll let that sink in for a minute…

…

And let me specify, we don’t live on a freeway, drag racing course or in a monster truck rally. In fact, we live in a very quiet, gated community. So the chances of even seeing a car (driving probably below the speed limit) at 10 o’clock at night is pretty low to begin with.

But to satisfy my crazy husband, I parked in the driveway.

Because I know a good thing when I see it.

See, Mr. Bee might constantly remind me to use the handrail up and down the stairs and get irritated when I don’t give him the opportunity to fetch a blanket for me (heavens! I’ll actually fetch it myself!! What was I THINKING?!?), but the awesomeness of this situation is…I haven’t had to do jack shit for 3+ months.

And this will continue until I pop this little vagina parasite out my babyhole!

We’re talking no cleaning (TOXIC FUMES!!), no grocery shopping (THE BAGS ARE TOO HEAVY!!), and, obviously, nothing as strenuous as walking across the street.

So while I do contend that Mr. Bee could probably use one (or five) of my Lexapro, I’ll keep my complaining in check.

Except for maybe when he yells at me to use the handrail. I’m not fucking retarded, after all.

Song title: Husband and Father by Bryan MacLean

Lately it seems like television has been full of characters that remind me of my family, maybe not exactly but enough for me (and Mr. Bee) to say “Dude. You totally have to save this on the TiVo to blog about it.”

Here are some of those moments as recorded crappily on my digital camera and posted on YouTube.

We’ve all had one (or more) of these days, right?

This Dude is Mr. Bee (but you know, fatter and not as cute)

Mama Bee meets Camping

“They probably started him off on Xanax. That’s what they did with me. Oh, that reminds me! I have to take my pills!”

Could that little boy be more me?! Or Monk, for that matter…

Song title: Songs About Me by Trace Adkins

The other night, Bee started coming down with a little bit of a cold. When Mr. Bee and I checked on her in her room, she was just the most pitiful little thing, whimpering and half-awake.

We knew immediately that she would need to sleep in our bed with us.

And by “immediately” I mean that I had to plead with Mr. Bee that our poor iddy biddy widdle bebe needed our help and she had to sleep in our bed with us.

Reluctantly (because he’s way smarter than I am), Mr. Bee conceded the argument and our bed.

As always, it started off innocently enough…

We laid Bee down in between us in our king-sized bed and told her to rest her eyes and go to sleep.

Then the fun began.

She started off snuggled up to me, but quickly realized that Dad was too far away and scooted her little body across the bed to snuggle up with him.

And then back to me.

And then back to him.

And then back to me again.

There were feet in my back, my stomach, my face, my head…

There were arms in my hair, smacking my face, stuck under my neck…

But somewhere in that mess of toddler sleep-seizures, she began to fall hopelessly in love with me. She would hold my face and give me kisses upon kisses and whisper to me, “Mommy! I love you!!”. Then she’d bury her head next to mine until she decided to start the kiss-love-snuggle cycle all over again.

Eventually, when we realized that she wasn’t ever going to go sleep with us to play with, Mr. Bee had to bring her back to her room, where she promptly passed out.

I’m still making up from the sleep we all lost that night and I might still have bruises from the feet and fists in my ribs, but, man…I loved every single minute of it.

Song title: Smile in Your Sleep by Silverstein

In case you didn’t realize, last weekend was a really important date to children all around the nation.

Daylight Savings. Duh.

Oh, and Halloween, too.

Along with the obligatory ten pounds that I will gain from the twenty metric fuck-tons of Halloween candy we have left over (you’d think with this economy there would’ve been more kids out begging for free shit, right?) comes the obligatory Halloween photos.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that I would lose my virginity blogging license or something if I didn’t post photos of everybody all dressed up and ready to party.

And by “party” I mean “I can’t believe I made the entire family dress up in full costume to go around the neighborhood with Bee and only find like five houses that had their lights on. What the fuck, neighbors?! I did not hunt these stupid pirate costumes on eBay just to have Halloween humbugs keep your lights off and hide in your living rooms when we all know you are home, you goddamn cheapskates.”

Whew.

Now that I got that off my voluptuous I mean, average unless I’m being honest then under-developed chest, here are said photos of my deliciously adorable family:

While all dressed up and, if I’m going to be honest, feeling a bit like a retard being so dressed up and passing out candy to the neighborhood kids, I had a little epiphany.

We all know that Halloween is when your true self comes out. For most women, it’s when your inner (and outer) slut comes out. (FYI ladies: a holiday doesn’t made you any less of a whore.)

For example, I had a couldn’t-have-been-older-than-twelve-year-old come to my house wearing a version of this costume:

I shit you not, I found this costume online under “Tweens”.

Parents: your daughter should never, ever, EVER be allowed out of the house in this costume. Ever.

But that wasn’t my epiphany.

I realized that Halloween is when your true manners come out.

We had a lot of tweenage kids (mostly boys) visit our house last night and I couldn’t believe how ridiculously rude some of them were.

Yes, I expect that a few stupid kids won’t even put on a costume and still expect me to put candy in their garbage bags. Classy. But I last year I had a tons of kids that wouldn’t even say “Trick or Treat”!!

So this year, when a group of douchey tweenage boys came to the door and just stood there, I stood there too.

It was like the great Halloween Stand-off of ‘09.

I’m getting pretty good at these stand-off things.

Eventually, after standing there staring at each other for a few moments, I had to say, “Uh, aren’t you supposed to say something to me?” FINALLY, one of the douchebags children are our future said “trick or treat”.

Can I tell you, one boy (in a different tweeny group) looked at the candy I had given him and then looked me square in the eye with a look of disappointment and entitlement and said, “Next time I’ll trick you.”

Really, kid? REALLY?!

I know a fuck more about the legal system and I’ll make sure your little ass is in community service until I’m handing out Halloween candy to your CHILDREN’S CHILDREN!!

Okay, I didn’t say that.

I actually just nervously giggled and said, “heh. heh. Happy Halloween?”

Later, I calmed myself down by watching a few scary movies on the good ol’ TiVo. There were quite a few options on television Halloween night…

I’m still having nightmares.

“The music is played for love, Cruisin’ is made for love. I love it when we’re cruisin’ together…”

Song title: More Manners Please by Markus Schultz

In my short term as a parent, I have learned many lessons.

1. No matter how hard you try or how punctual you were before giving birth, children = tardiness. You just have to get used to it and realize that all the other parents will be late, too.

2. You will end up saying “Because I said so” roughly 8 trillion times even though you swore you’d never say that to your kids.

3. When your (or someone else’s) child gets hurt while doing something retarded, it’s better to laugh on the inside and not out loud. Unless you have cool mommy friends, in which case you’ll all be laughing too hard to judge each other for laughing so hard.

4. Television might not be recommended by your pediatrician, but I assure you that your therapist will recommend it after you go insane from putting that Backyardigans puzzle together for the 850th time. Today.

5. There will never again be “a quick run to the store.”

6. When you repeatedly hear “Maa. Maa. Maa. Maa. Maa. Maa. Maa.” remember not to immediately snap and say, “WHAT?!?!?!” Your daughter could simply be making goat sounds. (Oops)

7. No matter how hard you try, you are never going to be able to force your toddler to eat one. more. bite. unless they want to.

8. More recently, I discovered that, although well-intentioned, it might not always be efficient to accept help from your toddler.

Take a few weeks ago for example. Mr. Bee was assisting me in folding some of Bee’s laundry in the family room. Bee immediately wanted to help and started by fetching clothes from Mr. Bee and mimicking us by shaking out each article of clothing.

Figuring that they had everything covered on their own, I snuck away to do something equally as important. Most likely I was watching my “stories” upstairs while eating bon bons.

When I came back in to the room a while later, this is what I found:

Apparently, Bee has her own style of folding laundry which consists of taking a piece of clothing, placing gently on the floor, and stomping the shit out of it until it’s completely flat. Find a new piece of clothing and repeat until the entire floor is covered.

Maybe #9 should be: Always remember to vacuum your floor before letting your daughter “help” with the laundry.

Song title: Laundry Day by Roger Roloff

Last week’s therapy session, like the week before that and the week before that, was ridiculously insightful.

Fer reals, people. I totally recommend therapy. Not only do you get to fulfill your narcissistic tendencies and practice your stand-up to a captive audience, you also learn a ton about yourself. Because, duh.

So this last week, we delved in to my anxiety and planning tendencies.

What planning tendencies, you may ask? Well, obviously you don’t remember this:

I think maybe some of you made reference to my insane Excel spreadsheets I create in preparation of last Spring’s trip to Las Vegas. Because obviously you didn’t realize that I’m sick. Are you happy with yourselves now?

Well, it turns out that my ridiculous planning techniques are really just a coping mechanisms to deal with my anxiety. Apparently not everyone creates Excel lists and detailed daily itineraries for vacations. Who knew?

Oh, but I don’t stop there. Not even close.

I will even look up the menu for a restaurant that I’m going to in say, like thirty minutes. Because God forbid something catches me off-guard.

That’s when Dr. Crazytown my therapist asked me how I handle surprises.

And then I realized something.

I don’t let myself be surprised. Ever.

If there is even a hint of a surprise in my future, I will research that shit out of that mo-fo until I know every single detail of said “surprise”. Seriously, I will hack in to the tubes of the Internet if I have to. Me and my laptop are not to be trusted.

And it’s totally been happening my entire life…

When I was little I would search my entire house CSI-style from the glitter-embedded popcorn ceiling (oh yeah, baby! 1970’s houses ROCK!) to the cold garage to find my Christmas presents. (Don’t worry, Mom & Dad. I only found the presents once. Or twice…). I was SO excited the year I found the Girl Talk board game!

But I digress.

Some years I would even attempt to unwrap and then rewrap the presents that were already under the tree! Fortunately for my parents (and Santa), I would usually give up because it was far too time-intensive for my busy tween schedule of watching Jem and reading Teen Bop Magazine.

But that’s not even half as sneaky as I can be.

Not only did I find out what my engagement ring looked like prior to the question being popped (which really isn’t that crazy), but I also found out how he was going to propose before he did it. See, Mr. Bee took me to San Francisco for the weekend to propose and to be fair, I didn’t know about that plan before it happened. But I did know about the plan before the San Fran Plan (say that five times fast!).

I was sneaky enough to find out that Mr. Bee had actually planned on taking me on a week-long trip to HAWAII to propose! I was beyond excited!! Of course, knowing that I wasn’t supposed to know was tricky. I couldn’t share my excitement because, well, I wasn’t supposed to know!

Then something horrible happened. Mr. Bee’s work ended up scheduling a mandatory you-don’t-attend-you-don’t-have-a-job kind of meeting during the week that he had planned (and booked) the trip to Hawaii. So he had to cancel everything. And, of course, using my totally inappropriate sneaking and snooping power of deduction, I found out that the trip had been canceled.

I was crushed! But, of course, shouldn’t have been disappointed as I shouldn’t have originally even known enough to be excited! I ended up confessing to my discoveries to a friend in school because I had to tell someone, right?! I needed at least one friend to share my excitement (and disappointment) with!

I finally confessed what I had done to Mr. Bee in preparation for this post. So what if I waited roughly 6 or 7 years to do it?! I never said I wasn’t totally chicken shit. I’m just a snoopy chicken shit.

But something that did surprise me was that Mr. Bee wasn’t at all surprised! I guess he knows me better than I thought…

So, honey, if you ever want to (try to) surprise me again in the future, you pretty much have to be prepared to never, ever leak word of it to me and probably use an email that I have never even heard of before. And you might want to move and change your name, too.

And, dear God, never bring the presents IN to the house.

Because I WILL find them.

Song title: The Element of Surprise by E-40

The great thing about being housebound with illness for an entire week is that you get to spend a lot of time snuggling and playing with your little one.

And by “little one” I mean my daughter. Don’t be gross.

You start noticing all the adorable little quirks she has and hearing all the new words and phrases that on a normal day you’d be too busy cleaning, homeschooling, surfing the internet to notice.

For example, Bee’s favorite new thing to do: storytime.

She has a very specific book that she requires and then she sits down with Mr. Bee and I to tell us a story.

The book she choose? The Final Lecture.

For those of you who haven’t read the book (or watched Oprah. Ever.) The Final Lecture is described as:

On September 18, 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a last lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” With slides of his CT scans beaming out to the audience, Randy told his audience about the cancer that is devouring his pancreas and that will claim his life in a matter of months. On the stage that day, Randy was youthful, energetic, handsome, often cheerfully, darkly funny. He seemed invincible. But this was a brief moment, as he himself acknowledged.

Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, as has the book he wrote based on the same principles, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. Sadly, Randy lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008, but his legacy will continue to inspire us all, for generations to come.

It’s funny, it’s sad, but most of all, it’s a book about a dying dad.

Awesome choice, Bee.

For your viewing pleasure, please enjoy Bee reading you a story (transcript below)…

“One upon a time, long ago, that flying rock. That stone step hill. Hmmm, let’s see…Let’s check this page.” (repeat times infinity).

I’m not joking people. She repeats that “story” (which she is totally plagiarizing from a Backyardigans episode. I’m just saying…) over and over and over again.

The other day, she got to page 46 in the book and had no intention of stopping. Then the book got “lost”.

In her spare time, Bee has also discovered a new way of sitting in her favorite chair.

I won’t lie. I had no intention of helping Mr. Bee out of the situation. It was just too damned funny.

Song title: My Little Girl by Tim McGraw