BAM! Belly! And my favorite maternity jeans, if you haven't noticed yet.

Friends, this is a terribly sad day in the life of the girl you see above.  That smile?  It was forced and completely insincere.  The apocalypse is upon us… I have my first stretch mark.

It’s actually really light and small, on my lower belly… BUT IT’S STILL THERE!  And oh, how it taunts me.

The little devil reared it’s ugly, squiggly head last night.  As soon as I noticed it, I let out a very loud and panicked “NOOOOOOOOO!” and ran straight to the bathroom cabinet where I kept the unused tube of stretch mark lotion.  I was determined never to need it, but let me tell you something… I don’t care if it works or not, this stuff is my only hope.  I slathered it on like nobody’s business, saying a silent prayer and shedding one, glistening tear while doing so, no less than 3 times today already.

I am so not the “embrace your beautiful new pregnant body because you’re creating a miracle” type. I loved my cute, flat stomach and will be mourning it’s death until the magic of breastfeeding and Pilates bring it back to me.  Amen and amen.

• Washed up with Philosophy’s Vanilla Birthday Cake in the shower

• Rubbed on a few big globs of Victoria’s Secret Vanilla Lace lotion

• Grabbed a vanilla flavored Dannon Activia yogurt from the fridge for a mid-morning snack

• Picked up my daily soy vanilla latte from Starbucks (and 3 Petite Vanilla Scones, just for kicks)

Are we noticing a trend here?  And now that I think about it, whenever I have a choice between chocolate or vanilla frosting, I pick vanilla.  I won’t even start with the flavored lip glosses or the amount of scented candles I have around the apartment!

I really hope it’s a good thing to smell like a cookie.

Am I the only one that finds the new Hanes No Ride Up panties hilarious and a bit ridiculous?  Is “Be Wedgie Free!” the classiest slogan they could come up with?

When I saw the commercial for these a few minutes ago, I about died laughing.  All the different women wiggling around, trying to de-wedge themselves… I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just me.

I don’t know much about you, lady, but that outfit is freaking adorable.

• Dash Striped Pants - Rampage: $24.99 (sale)
• Pleated A-Line Top - Charlotte Russe: $19.99
• Patent Peep Toe Pumps - Target: $24.99
• Covered Croc Frame Clutch - Nine West: $19.99 (sale)
• Gold Hoops - American Eagle: $9.95 (clearance)
• Large Round Stone Ring - ASOS: $14.87
• Mosaic Agate Bangle - Francesca’s Collections: $16.00

Since we don’t have a printer at home, we ran over to my parent’s house to print out Jamba Juice’s Buy One, Get One Free coupon that I had linked to a few weeks ago. Being the genius that I am, I didn’t realize it had expired in July. Flop #1.

We sped over to Jamba Juice anyway, being that two smoothies aren’t really all that expensive, and picked ourselves up a Citrus Squeeze (Justin’s favorite) and my first true love, a Strawberry Surf Rider with a calcium boost for my baby’s bones. I made sure sure sure to tell the girl at the counter to put the boost only in mine because Justin’s would go ape-crap crazy if he ended up with the ‘chalk’ in his. What did they do? Put the calcium boost in his Citrus Squeeze. Flop #2.

He was not amused.

We did manage to get into a very inexpensive movie, Iron Man, that was showing at one of the old theaters in town. I seriously love this place! They renovated a bit and now show month old movies for $3.00 a ticket. I shoved our smoothies in my purse and smuggled them on in. Success!

Cheeeeeeeese

Once in the theater, we couldn’t help but notice a trend. We happened to be among the four people that weren’t over 50, carrying a lifetime supply of candy in loud, plastic grocery bags, making out (remember the age group we’re dealing with here), and fall into the category of… Ohh, what’s the opposite of black-treasure again? Yeah. At one point, Justin turned around and said, “PLEASE, SHUT UP!” to the grocery bag lady, which was really nice and not embarrassing at all. We take our $3.00 movies very seriously, people.

The movie was pretty awesome, once I was able to block out the older couple to my right who could not keep their hands off each other. Cooties… gross.

I would say our attempt at a cheap date failed (considering I was starving and ended up spending $5.00 on popcorn and even more at Taco Bell later), but Justin and I were able to get a good laugh about how absolutely ridiculous it was afterward.

A movie at an old theater, chalky smoothies and a whole lot of white trash isn’t necessarily the recipe for a perfect date, but it sure was interesting!

There is not much to report, other than the fact that this girl is an absolute wiggle worm.  I never get tired of watching my belly jump though… and it’s sort of becoming an issue.  The other day she kicked me hard while I was sitting at the front desk at work, so I lifted up my shirt to see if I could catch her in the act (I know, super classy), and the mailman walked in.  AWKWARD.

- My boss’s wife

Look at you, mama, you’re growing! How much have you gained?

and

Your belly has gotten big all of a sudden. It looks like the baby has dropped. How far along are you again?

- The obnoxious male janitor who considers himself the pregnancy expert because he helped deliver 6 babies while in Vietnam. Seriously. And to answer your question, dude, I have over 3 months to go. She has not dropped.

When are you due? Like, any day now?

- Cashier at restaurant. And hi, I know I’m 6 and a half months along, but I’m not even that big!

I don’t consider myself overly sensitive to most of the things people say and realize there are some things that just come with the territory. Pregnancy is like having a spotlight shining on your life, inviting everyone to come and see the show. Unless hiding out for 9+ months and giving birth in a cave appeals to you, you’re not getting out of it, Sister.

Belly rubs, stares, and comments of all sorts are just a part of the experience. And normally, I pretty much love the attention! I realize this will probably be the last time anything is all about me, which honestly upsets me a bit, haha.

The only real issue I have are the flat-out rude and unnecessary things some people let loose without any concern for my body image issues (and no, those don’t magically disappear when you become pregnant). If you were to comment about a woman’s weight or size under normal circumstances it wouldn’t be acceptable, but that sweet little baby bump seems to welcome it all.

Call me “cute”, “glowing” and rub my Buddha belly all you want, but try to keep the ‘chunky’s to a minimum. Thanks, lady!

Have any of you experienced anything similar? I’m sure even those of you who have never been pregnant have had someone say something about your body that was just plain rude. Let’s relive all those cruel and awkward moments in a very public way, come on! :)

I can remember at five weeks, I couldn’t wait to be twelve weeks along so I could share the news (that ended up not making a difference because I couldn’t wait 7 minutes, let alone seven weeks to tell EVERYONE IN MY LIFE, including my mailman… and you think I’m joking).

When I hit twelve weeks, I absolutely couldn’t handle not knowing whether it was a boy or a girl. Finding out about Miss Madelyn at seventeen weeks was the greatest thing, but still, I was aching to be really showing and feeling those little kicks. Well, now all these little milestones have come (and more — I’ll spare you the scary and hairy details) and are just a normal part of life. I’ve been sitting at my desk for the past hour and have felt her moving and wiggling almost the entire time. My regular visits to Target’s shoe displays have been overridden by the trips to the Baby and Maternity sections. Okay, that’s sort of a lie, but I do spend significantly less time shopping for shoes!

Throughout this whole experience, 25 weeks stuck out in my mind as the ultimate milestone. Why I chose that number, I have no idea… but it always seemed so far away and I felt I’d never get there.

Ta-da! I’m here! Only fifteen weeks and a little over 100 days to go until I meet my darling little daughter. Gosh, that still sounds so crazy.

Madelyn is nearly 2lbs, and I'm convinced my boobs each weigh about the same.

With that in mind, you can imagine the excitement going on when I found all these goodies from Wishcake waiting for me in the mailbox last night. Happy fists!

These lovely notebooks and magnets were my prize for winning the Summer Contest at Those Corwins. Yay, thank you Steph! Do you see how adorably packaged they were? I had the hardest time opening them because they were just too stinkin’ cute. And my favorite, favorite, favorite thing in the world was also tucked inside — a handwritten note!

Thank you, Kerri — you are such a doll!