Beach ball

Today I was walking across the cafeteria, minding my own business, when someone called out that I looked like I had a beach ball under my shirt. I'm sure they wouldn't dare if I were a partner.

One advantage of the beach ball look is that both ways on my commute, people immediately gave up their seats for me on the bus. In fact, on the way home, two people gave up their seats -- the first time, a perfectly healthy-looking guy dove for the empty seat before I could take the two steps to get there, and the person who had gotten up looked annoyed. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be a mensch.

It gives me the warm fuzzies when people give up their seats unprompted, whether for me or for someone else who obviously needs it. I always feel like "thank you" is inadequate. What I want to convey is more like, "Thank you, not just for your seat, but for affirming my faith in humanity by being a good and kind person." Maybe I should carry cookies with me for this purpose. "Hey, thanks. Look, I made this for you!"

I am at the second awkward clothing stage of pregnancy. The first happens in your first trimester when you get too big for your regular clothes, but you're still too small for maternity clothes. I don't think the second happens to everyone, but thanks to my ball-like proportions, I have outgrown almost all of my maternity tops. I wore a T-shirt to work today, and tried to make up for it with nice jewelry. It pains me to buy more maternity clothes with my due date less than two months away, but I think I'll need at least a few more tops to avoid exposing myself inappropriately at work.