Shower-to-Shower

This weekend was a bit crazy. I met my dear friends Splooey and Brianna (not their real names) for dinner Friday night to discuss the baby shower. Since we haven't seen each other in For.Ev.Er, we sat at dinner for about 3 hours. About 15-20 minutes of that time was spent actually discussing the shower, which was fine with me. Let's face it, all we really need to do is just get everyone together and eat, look at my belly, arrange to have everyone in the room commit to a regular babysitting schedule, and be done with it. It was just so nice to hang out with my friends, who are so fun and funny and real. Don't get me wrong, they are crazy, but it is the good kind of crazy, the high-pitched laughing "you so CRA-zy!" crazy, not the "call me 5 times in an hour and a half" crazy. I knew there was a reason I liked them.

So the next day I had my first baby shower at my work friend's house, which was all well and good. My work friends are so very sweet, and pitched in and gave me all kinds of cute outfits and tons of diapers and (thank God) a car seat. Viva came with me and despite her generally outgoing personality, became the Child Who Had No Words and Could Sit Only By Me and Whisper in My Ear for the first half of the party. Of course, by the end, she didn't want to leave, and after everyone helped me pack the car, Viva insisted we go back into the house, where she ate the leftover cheese and crackers and hammed it up for the two people who hadn't gone home yet. Once we got home, I roused Sweet Dub from the couch, where he had collapsed after cleaning the house while we were gone. "Can you help me get the stuff out of the car?"

"What stuff?" he said.

"What stuff? What do you mean, what stuff? The STUFF," I said.

"Did you bring food?" he said, and then: "Oh my God, I am totally in denial. I knew you were going to a baby shower but I didn't realize you'd be bringing back a car full of stuff."

And it was a car full indeed. The stuff took up a whole corner of the living room. "Oh my God," Dub said. "We have to move!"

I'm not sure what that would accomplish. Does he think if we move the baby won't find us?

Actually, I think that despite his trying to put a positive spin on things, when he thinks about it for very long, the idea of this second baby really freaks Dub out. I've told you she was not planned. I didn't tell you that his first (and sustained) reaction to the pregnancy was extremely negative, and that there were arguments, and tears. I'm saying this now because that is the reality of the situation, and so you know that this is not coming out of nowhere. But he's been in a really crappy mood since the baby shower. He is already exhausted from having to pick up the slack of all the things I can't do, and when the baby comes he will have to do even more until I recuperate. And our tiny little house will be even tinier and we'll be tripping over all the Stuff. And we will all be on each other's nerves. And because I only get short-term disability (which pays about 45% of current salary) while on maternity leave, we'll also be broke.

I know he loves our little one already, but he is just stressed. If we could just find a slightly bigger, still affordable house, he would be in a much better place psychologically. Yes, I know, it would suck to move when I'm this pregnant, but it would help with peace of mind. Put good vibes out there for us, won't you?