I am pregnant and I realize this makes me moody, but that does not discount my emotions. The moodiness makes all my pet peeves glaringly obvious, which in turn makes me notice how ridiculous I can be. Which cam be depressing or funny at times.

One of my friends offered me a rather amusing solution for the annoying people who come up and invade my personal space try to rub my baby belly. Usually this action is met by a rather explosive variety anger on my part (haven’t been arrested yet though.) She sugguested I should just rub their bellies back, with a statement asking about what trimester they are in. It seems to get the point across quite well while keeping me in decently good humor.

Oddly enough, no one ever tries to touch my belly when I am out with Michael, maybe he looks intimidating… I don’t know if he is more protecting me or protecting everyone else from me.

Moving on in the land of pregnancy pet peeves, people who try to guess how I am feeling: you look ready to pop!/getting anxious yet?/feeling uncomfortable? Which feels the same to me as when someone says “Are you sick? Cuz you look like shit!”

I am pregnant, this is natural, yes it has its uncomfortable moments since it feels like I have a beachball full of kittens strapped to my abdomen. If I start feeling not fine, I will say so. I do understand that people worry but the only thing that is really stressing me about pregnancy lately is being assumed to not be anything but okay. Is this unfair of me to not want to answer the questions? Maybe, but I think everyone wants to be treated like their usual self most of the time, not as a curiosity. (This whole paragraph is mostly directed at people who are not family or close friends. Both family and close friends are allowed to touch my tummy as much as they want too.)

Oh and I can’t forget the flood of parenting advice from everyone, particularly those who seem hell bent on it only being their way or the highway. Do they really think I am going to retain anything they are telling me when I can’t even remember what I ate for breakfast? Sometimes they seem to think mocking me is a prefect way of getting their point across. Do they really think saying things like

• “Oh, a natural birth? Haha! You will be screaming for an epidural hun.”
• or “Cloth diapers, you won’t last a day!”

help me in any way shape or form? Mocking is not an effective tactic and I do not have the type of personality that cowers in the face of opposition. Just a warning, eventually Michael will not be around to protect you from me!

So that is pretty much it as far as the pet peeves go. On a whole, there is actually way more positives flying around then this post suggests. The good far far far outweigh the bad, which is a huge blessing, if it wasn’t for those kind words and actions I don’t I could keep the couple scraps of rational thought around when people annoy me.

So huge thank yous should go out to all those people, Michael, Dad, Aunt Vickie, Shannon, Eve, that lady at the garden center, both Aunt Ruths, Aunt Lois, Nana (yes I do get your comments!), AZ, Alex, Kim, Ginanne and a ton of people I am forgetting.

You are all keeping me from being arrested for assault!