I realize my posts of late have devolved into all this baby and mothering talk. My mind is basically occupied by two grand subjects: Work, meaning politics, news, and education, and Family, meaning Ransom and that Man Who Made Me Do It. Pretty much after these, in these later hours of the evening, my brain has ooked into actual oatmeal and has nothing left to offer (if it ever did in the first place). This site was and is my attempt to scrape that barrel. Today, there is one small morsel, perhaps.

But first, some news: I just did an actual calculation on Baby Two, and looks like it will arrive around Christmas, rather than my earlier guesstimation of sometime in January. [expand title="Click the arrow to continue reading."]Someday, I will get a baby doctor in Fort Wayne, and she will help me get an ultrasound to be even more accurate. Still, a bit of a surprise. Makes me feel better about the my belly’s current “fullness.” :cough: Those bridesmaids’ dresses were friggin’ uncomfortable.

Speaking of traveling: Our last of the six trips around the Midwest in four weeks was to Chicago for work. Since I didn’t book my own hotel, then, we stayed in probably the ritziest place I ever have. As we were leaving, for a fleeting moment I considered what it would be like to actually be so chic as to wander down the Magnificent Mile dressed fashionably and with a nice little belly, and no nursing. I could sip a latte and not worry if both babies would get it and flip. I could spend $350 on a little silk handkerchief.

And then I smiled at how empty I knew that life would be. But it’s the ideal I know best. I don’t really have a replacement that fits who I might realistically become, or might in my wiser moments want to become. The only image I have of who I am as a mother I mostly despise. It’s of a sloppy woman in jeans and tangled hair, with yard-long circles beneath her eyes and coffee slopped on the counter somewhere by the sodden Cheerios. Either that or the trophy wife, suburban types, which are equally disgusting. My kids aren’t taking yoga and I’m not getting my nails done every other week, thanks.

I admire several women who are also mothers, but have never gotten close enough to them to figure how they do it. Maybe that’s why Sarah Palin mesmerizes people: she has a crapload of oddly-named kids, but she’s gotten herself in the very shine of the public eye and she still looks good.

I don’t want to be any of these people, but I don’t know how to mentally envision a female type that is at once attractive and realistic.

Image by Alicia Rusher. [/expand]