Ballooning Blue

At last! I have something exciting to blog about!

Ok, ok, not that bloody exciting but interesting at least.

I read several good pregnancy/ mommy blogs and they always seem to have something of passing interest to talk about: one of the children, a doctor’s visit, a particualrly good deal on baby stuff (always warms my little Ferengi heart) but mine is so boring pregnancy-wise. I mean, nothing happens. Literally.

But then there was Wednesday.

Let me backtrack a bit. About a week and a half ago I began to swell – badly. Remember how Harry inflated his aunt in the second Harry Potter book/film? Well, that was me. Not just my feet – I’m used to that in the last month of pregnancy – but my hands and arms as well. I had to remove my wedding ring on the 3rd day (with a vaseline assist) and by last week my extremities were painful and gross by 9 in the morning.

This information galvanized Dr Young Dark and Handsome who is worried that I’m in for pre-eclamsia (pregnancy hypertension). Fortunately my blood pressure is still good but he’s nervous that it will shoot up with all this edema showing up so suddenly.

So now I’m reading every label, sussing out sodium content, I’ve doubled my water intake (which has the added result of increasing my exercise since I’m jumping up to wee every 15 minutes) and I’m wearing these horrid old-lady compression hose. And I’m really grumpy.

I guess I feel resentful about the whole thing: my blood pressure has always been perfect – though admittedly with no help from me – but still. I guess a slender and athletic woman gets the same stab of unfairness when diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes.

On my visit Wednesday I had that very experience, actually. I was showing the lab tech my blood sugar levels on Darling Hubby’s machine (I don’t let them do it – they use the exact same machine and charge me $40). Right across from me a skinny young mom-to-be got her results from the tech: mine was 119, hers 210. She shot several glaring looks at my vast bulk as she angrily questioned the tech on the details of GD.

I guess lifes not fair, huh? And it could certainly be worse. I do admit to feeling better – a bit more mobile and chipper – even though I’m not able to comply with the last admonition: “Take it easy! Sit down whenever you can and elevate your feet.”

Yeah … right.

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And now for the White Trash Report …

(No, not her, thank goodness, this was a spotting at the Bi-Lo yesterday):

I was standing at the dairy case contemplating the cheese. It was Bitty Girl’s turn to go out with me and she was happily mauling a bag of dates (and threatening to toss them on the floor – just to keep me on my toes, you understand). Well, I was right at the end of the case and so the cart was actually out in front of the next case, which contained the beer.

I was just weighing the relative merits of Colby –vs- mild Cheddar when I realized that my cart (and my baby daughter) was surrounded by people. And not just any people but some high quality top-of-the-line white trash. There were six of them. A woman aproximately my age with the classic greasy Fem-Mullet (long and straight in the back and elabourately layered bangs teased up real big in the front). A (I’m guessing) 13-14 year old girl who called her ‘mom’. Another middle aged lady and teen girl, and the coup de grace: a teen couple. The boy, scrawny and stunted in a dirty camo tee, hair buzzed, pawing all over the girl who was in filthy capris and flip flops (It was a chilly rainy day) and had grotesque purple sucker marks all over her neck.

No one had a basket or cart, none of the women had handbags, and they all crowded excitedly around the beer case. It takes six people to buy some beer?

It was at this point that it dawned on me that ‘mom’ was buying this alcohol and that – aside from the other adult in the crowd, who seemed a bit dim – none of the others was older than 18. Tops.

I pulled my cart back out of their way and tried not to gawp rudely as they had a tense, low convo about which brand to get. Everyone participated including the daughter who said that she "wann-ed summa them wine coolers".

What the heck? What was this? The legal drinking age in SC is 21. Would a person - a mother - actually purchase alcohol for a crowd of teenagers, including her own child?? All my mind could come up with was a graduation party (no doubt greatly enhanced by that 12 pack of Milwaukee's Cheapest and 4 margatrita flavoured wine coolers). But still ... certainly not.

I mean, I'm no tight-ass and I want to celebrate my kids when I can, but I don't care if little Timmy's just been rescued from a well, I'm not gonna buy him a beer.