This is going to be one heck of a weekend (for a pregnant lady)

Friday 11am: I may not be able to drink, eat sushi, or play soccer but by God I am allowed to get my hair highlighted. Thank goodness because I'm almost a brunette at this point. Someone might start taking me seriously if I let it go on any longer.

Friday 9pm: The Jordans first gig since our return to Austin and what will likely be our last gig pre-baby. I pretty much have to hold my bass like a shotgun while I play. According to Brian it makes me look like Johnny Cash. Compliment? From Brian, absolutely.

Saturday 11am: My baby shower! So excited to see all of my wonderful friends and family. Plus it's going to be fun to see what kind of fun things Peanut will have the opportunity to poop/throw up on.

Saturday night/Sunday: My BFF and her fiance are in town as well as my sister-in-law and her super cute family so who knows what the rest of the weekend will hold? Maybe I'll go nuts and drink more than one non-alcoholic beer? Or eat an entire cupcake without cutting it in half first and pretending like that's all I want? Perhaps we'll go to dinner and I'll order a steak "medium" instead of "well done" like the doctor instructed me? What if we all go dancing and stay out past 9pm!?! Wow, I'm already tired from these hypothetical shenanigans.

Quotes from Childbirth Class

"Oh Roger, Oh Roger, Oh Roger...[sees baby's head crowning]...that doesn't look like a baby."

--Lady in birthing video

"[Scream] Brian, her teeth are falling out! Are my teeth going to fall out?!?"

--Squawked by me during birthing video (They were not teeth but ice chips, thank the Lord.)

Man: I've never seen that before.

Wife: Never?

Man: Never.

-- A couple sitting next to us after seeing a baby's head crown in a birthing video. The guy kept his head down for the rest of the video while his wife rubbed his back.

"I should bring a flask to the next class."

--Brian, to another guy as a joke

"I'm going to bring a flask to the next class."

--Other guy to Brian, for serious

"I can't believe there's one of those in my stomach."

--Me, looking into the room of brand new babies on our hospital tour

"Do I have to pick just one?"

--A mom-to-be during our lesson about medication options

"Now lean against your partner, or if you're alone, the wall."

--Narrator in childbirth video

"There's the creepy shower."

--Me on the hospital room tour referring to all of the women in the birthing videos who sit naked in the shower hosing themselves down.

My Patented Philosophy on Motherhood

Being 31 weeks pregnant, I have already been asked a slew of questions about where I stand on various matters of motherhood. And I hugely admire the ability of many moms to form strong convictions and definitively answer "yes or no" on every issue.

However, when it comes to child birthing/rearing/feeding/etc I have settled on my own personal philosophy and I stand behind it 100%:

We'll see.

It is the perfect answer to every question they throw at us pregnant ladies:

Will you get an epidural?

We'll see. If I show up to the hospital and my body is raring to go, probably not. But if my lady parts decide that instead of a sprint, they want to run a marathon, then absolutely!

Cloth diapers or disposable?

We'll see. I ordered 6 cloth diapers and they seem to work more or less like disposable diapers. If it's not too much trouble and they're not super leaky, then cloth it is. If I clog up my brand new washing machine with baby poo in the first week and no one wants to hold my kid for fear of getting gooed on, then the environment can kiss it.

Are you going to nurse?

We'll see. I sure hope so. I really want to. But if me or the baby is hard of nursing I won't hold it against either of us.

How long will the baby sleep in your room?

We'll see. It seems so scary to be responsible for keeping a tiny human safe from harm. I'm not sure how long that anxiety will take to wear off.

Will you go back to work?

We'll see. I'm mentally preparing to stay home and tackle this motherhood thing one on one. And I'm looking forward to it....as of now. But if I start going nuts and we can't afford diapers (here's hoping the cloth thing works out) then back to work it is.

How many kids are you going to have?

We'll see. My pregnancy so far has been awesome and if things stay this way, maybe I'll keep at it until they give us our own reality show. But if having a newborn goes the way I know it can and probably will, I might just cover my gender bases and call it a day.

Ultimately, what I like about my philosophy is that no one can hold me to anything. If I say "oh yeah, I'm only going to use cloth diapers and epidurals are for weenies" then I have to follow through or suffer the indignities of mom failure. But with my patented "We'll see" method, I can be like a mid-90s rapper and just free flow through motherhood. But unlike a rapper, my plan is bullet-proof!

Crazy pregnancy stuff the movies did not prepare me for:

Up until last August when I found out I was pregnant, all of my information about pregnancy came from the movies. Well, I have a HUGE bone to pick with Hollywood.

1. Pregnant ladies look cute clothed but CRAZY naked.

I'm not sure how Demi Moore and Vanity Fair were able to pull it off. One time I was walking in London and passed by a dude with huge goiter. I get the same feeling of "what the ---" when I glimpse myself in the full length mirror.

2. A baby doesn't kick one cute time.

At least not this baby. He kicks and kicks and kicks. And not when I'm running around doing stuff and not likely to notice. But when I lay down to go to sleep or watch fine cinema (such as Working Girl starring Melanie Griffith) he becomes a karate instructor in the dojo of my uterus. (I sound whiney, but I actually love when he kicks- at least 95% of the time. Although, a heads up would've been nice.)

3. Maternity clothes are only available in one style: cute.

Even places that have awesome regular clothes (i.e. Topshop) think the second the egg is fertilized that all we want to wear are ruffles and bows and "cute" patterns. If someone met me right now they would think I shop at Pottery Barn and watch RomComs all the livelong day. (Full disclosure: I did buy some curtains at Pottery Barn and I do watch RomComs but only on Sunday afternoons on TBS.) Case in point: I'm going to Vegas for a bachelorette party this weekend and they do NOT sell sequin mini dresses at Pea in the Pod.

4. Goat cheese wants to hurt my baby.

Upon getting knocked up, I totally understood that I couldn't accidentally drink a bottle of wine by myself anymore. And I knew that if I were a smoker/IV drug user, that I'd have to lay off that for awhile, too. But goat cheese? Deli meat? Decently cooked steak? And they make it sound even scarier than wine/cigarettes/drugs. Apparently, just one bad contaminated Greek salad could be the end.

5. Not one single person I've talked to has said giving birth is easy.

It's weird. By now, I've asked dozens and dozens of people and no one has mixed things up by saying "Birth? That was easy peasy." I'd really like to chat with the women on the show "I didn't know I was pregnant." They really make pregnancy look like a piece of cake.

That's all I've got for now. I'll follow up with more as they come. (Minus the yucky stuff that you really should only learn from baby books.)