Stopping traffic

I am quite the vision these days. I mean, I guess I am. People feel the need to acknowledge The Belly. They get a smirk on the sidewalk and say, "that baby looks ready to come out!", or "Any day now!", or "How much longer?". Women offer anecdotes, sympathy, and advice. Men offer the obvious and rhetorical questions (mostly useless). Today a man literally stopped his truck in the middle of the street to say, "Is he ready?" and I was like, "huh?" and the guy said, "that baby, he looks ready! It's a boy? How much longer you got?" I'm thinking, Jesus, I know I'm heavy with child and all, but I must be REALLY noticeable for people to be stopping their cars in traffic to offer commentary! This guy wasn't the first to assume the baby is a boy since, as another drunken, yet astute, observer from the park noted, my belly looks like a TORPEDO. Excellent.

In other musings, I am think the baby might be dropping down. Suddenly, I have this feeling like my bladder is in a compressor. Maybe even the feeling you get after you pee with a UTI, except constant for the past several hours (and not related to peeing at all). It feels all full down there. With this new unpleasantness (which I am hoping is just an unfortunate and fleeting desire for the baby to explore a new nook and get bored of), it might be a grand idea to see if I can work from home a couple days a week for the next three weeks. I am focused mostly on a dataset that is time critical and my priority, which is very easy work from home. I plan to ask the question tomorrow, even though given how small our office is it's not our usual to be allowed to work from home.

Gillian had a day of gems, as usual, and I am going to try to remember a few...

(re: nasty new skinned knee from a faceplant at Buckingham Fountain today)
"Boo boo is my friend. He's my red friend, my favorite kind of friend. Red like my pretty toes. I love him. He looks like a red balloon. See? Here's his tail."

(singing, out of nowhere in the backseat of the car): "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose...." (Sean and I looked at eachother and tried really hard to contain ourselves, but that sweet little voice and the lyrics were killing us)

(She is really in to things being or not being...of doing something, or not doing something, etc.)
Me: "We're going to stop and get some dinner and maybe we'll have a picnic. Do you want to do that?"
Her: "Yes, Mama. Papa, maybe we will go on a picnic!"
Him: "Or maybe we won't." (insert devilish intent)
Her: "maybe we will."
Him: "Or maybe we won't"
Her (getting agitated, Sean laughing, agitating her more): "MAYBE WE WILL!"
Him: "OK, maybe we will"
Her (exasperated): "THANK YOU, Papa". (it was almost adult like how she got that type of joking and was annoyed by it...when she is ten, she will roll her eyes)

She asked me 500 times today if I love her. In the car she asked about 15 times on the way to Hyde Park for the fiddler convention. So, she said "Mama, do you love me?" and I said "Are you going to ask me that 8,000 times a day? YES, of course I love you!"...then she laughed michievously and said, "Mama, do you love me??" (she was so obviously messing with Me)

(about a rock, with a happy face drawn on it)
"Mama, don't touch this ok? It is very, very, very special to me. So, don't touch it! (wagging finger; we did not teach her that phrase, but the "special to me" part was very cute)

(Re: chocolate on a stick)
Me: "Can I have a bite of your special lollipop?"
Her: "Sure Mama" (holds it over to me)
(few minutes later) Me: "Can I have one more little bite?"
Her: "Yes, but this is the LAST bite, OK? No more for you today, OK Mama?"

And before everyone thinks I am delusional for saying I can see this baby practice breathing, BEHOLD: