Adventures in Mother-land.

Such a morning has been had! Not only have I spent money, but also been to two different Starbucks I'd never been to before. Marvelous.
This morning found me with Kari, Sarah, and lots of women with children. If I hadn't been pushing a stroller, I would've felt quite out of place. As it was, though, I was able to overcome this to get to one of the main businesses of the day-- Buying things for Abigail and Gabriel! Offhand, I have no idea what the name of the place we went to was-- all I know was that it was a mass consignment sale of some sort, with hundreds of baby toys and clothes. An auntie or new mother's paradise! Thankfully, we were fortified with coffee, ready to take on anything... including any mothers who would dare to get in our way. Some of the conversations I overheard were exceedingly awkward, and not ones I would care to repeat... welcome to the world of pregnant women. Or women with babies. Or women with children.
One thing I learned-- if I'm going to be shopping at a baby place, or be around lots of pregnant women, wearing a babydoll style shirt is a bad idea. The advantage is that I blended in, I suppose. :/
Quite an interesting place, overall. I found it entertaining (and occasionally disturbing) to observe the "public" parenting of many people there. There's the mother that yells at her kid to be quiet, as well as the mother who doesn't care what her kid is up to. Or there are the mothers who smile and give their screaming kid whatever they want.
 It doesn't take long to get acclimated to random baby-ish shrieks coming from various directions. However, there was one thing that I couldn't quite feel comfortable with-- A woman asked me if I'd be interested in buying some body-re-shaping clothing. "We have some for post-partum, as well!" (she adds helpfully) I informed her that I was quite happy with my current body shape, so no, thank you. "Well, then, would you care to enter the drawing to possibly get some free?" Once again, I offered my polite (if slightly acidic) "No, thank you." (After that comes the false smile, of course. As well as me frantically wondering if I look pregnant.)
Another fun thing about being around that many people is all the conversations you overhear while standing in line, or while unobtrusively going through racks of 6-9 months baby clothes. I almost felt as if I was listening in on people's lives. One woman was giving quite the narrative to her friend... "So I was like, Fine, I've had it. If he doesn't want me, he's just not good enough for me! So, I'm like, totally gone."
I resisted the urge to turn around and ask if she was talking about her boss, her dog, or her boyfriend.
The other fascinating, if odd, one I heard was an indian man with an accent talking into his bluetooth. He'd been standing in line for quite some time, looking bored. Here and there I caught a snippet... "And, man, you would love it. Dude, I was going down this waterfall and..... Pretty awesome stuff man, ya know! Just wild." After listening to a few more tales of heroics and adventures, I decided that he was (at the very least) embellishing his story. He was one of three guys that I noticed there. Despite his butchering of the english language, I had to admire his tenacity for braving a sale like that.
One of the positive ends of all this: Abigail will soon be the proud (if unaware) owner of a pink poodle stuffed animal. Her name is Collette. Gabriel will have a sweet, if slightly funny-looking horse (or donkey-- it's hard to tell which he is) as a new cuddle bud. What can I say, I have a fetish for buying obscure stuffed animals. But they were so cute!
Anyway, I have lots of things that I should be doing, and blogging is not one of the necessities... therefore, adieu.