This photo was taken last Tuesday to commemorate the 16 week mark (tomorrow marks 17 weeks for me), and since this photo was taken I've actually lost a couple of pounds, probably because I'm no longer retaining water like a bathtub. The debilitating nausea that made those first three months so miserable lasted right up until Christmas night when I spent a few hours in my mother's bathroom throwing up roasted ham and pecan pie, a combination that tasted just as bad coming up as it did going down. Although, here's the thing about stuff that comes back up: yes, you get a hint of what it tasted like originally, but the overwhelming flavor of it is vomit, a pretty standard combination of chunks, stomach acid, and awfulness that need only be brought up in a sentence on a blog to conjure the scent of what your elementary school bus smelled like FOR MONTHS after that seven-year-old kid leaned into the aisle and dumped a stomach full of meatballs.

I don't know exactly when, but a few days after Christmas all that sickness just stopped. All the nausea, all the bloating, all the heartburn, I haven't experienced any of it for over a week. And this is something to be celebrated, yes, except that the pregnancy now seems rather abstract. Like, oh wait a minute, I'm pregnant. It just doesn't seem real. In fact, it feels like I'm cheating. There are moments when I feel so good that I find myself involuntarily thinking, ppshaw! THIS IS SO EASY. I could do this a hundred times! And that delusional line of reasoning lasts right up until I sit down on the toilet to go pee and nothing comes out. I go from a high of a hundred to OH MY GOD I'LL NEVER PEE AGAIN.

For anyone who has never been pregnant that line of thinking is not far from OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE ON THIS TOILET.

Already the baby is positioned on top of or near my bladder in such a way that the majority of my day is now spent eking. There is actual eking going on. Jon likes to call it Grandma Peeing. A drip here, a drip there, and then if you're lucky you'll get one more drip maybe three minutes later. Five drips tops. I'm in the bathroom for so long in such deafening silence that at first Jon was like, what the hell are you doing in there? Which is not the right thing to say to a pregnant woman because it makes it sound like I'm trying to be sneaky. Yes, I'm in the bathroom devising a plan TO KILL HIM IN HIS SLEEP. Or maybe he thinks I've got a secret stash of Twinkies in there under the sink. OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I CANNOT PEE. I'll certainly get to the devious scheming if you'll kindly leave me alone with my bladder who is now demanding ransom.

I thought I'd peek my head out of the hole I've crawled into over the past week to check in and let everyone know that our holidays were some of the best we've ever had. Maybe because it was so low key, so absent of assignments and projects and security checks at the airport. I've taken some much needed time to rest and reflect on the last year of my life both personally and professionally, and when I go look back at the photos and stories from the past twelve months I'm reminded of how lucky and blessed I am to have a supportive husband, a healthy and beautiful child, two insane canines who fill each day with memories, the ability to pay my mortgage, a job that I love, and the luxury of not having to fear for my life. I also know that I am very lucky to be pregnant and that although the process can be frustrating and frequently miserable, it is a gift to have the opportunity to live through it.

2008 was also the year of traveling, and I cannot count the number of miles I've added to my frequent flyer account nor the number of TSA agents who have groped my boobs in the name of national security. Here's a list of the cities I visited in 2008:

January... San Diego, CA
February... San Francisco, CA
March... Austin, TX
April... Palm Springs, CA
May... New York, NY and Vancouver, BC, Canada
June... Destin, FL
July... Los Angeles, CA and San Francisco, CA
August... San Francisco, CA
October... Kansas City, MO and New York, NY
November... Los Angeles, CA
December... San Francisco, CA and New York, NY

I've purposefully said no to a litany of upcoming engagements because I need a break from the layovers and delays and $25 per checked bag, although I resume a pretty packed schedule at the end of March (details to come). 2009 should look nothing like 2008 in terms of traveling, but there is that nuclear bomb that is set to go off in our living room in mid June and the consequent several-month acid trip caused by sleep deprivation. Oh, and the nursing bras. Two gigantic cups full of life lessons.

I'm going to continue with the holiday break for the next few days, but in the meantime I've put together a list of my favorite posts from the last year and a collection of my favorite daily photos set to one of my favorite songs released in 2008, "Blindsided" by Bon Iver who appears at about the 03:55 mark. Thank you all for joining me in what has been an amazing, humbling, expletive-laden year, certainly one of the best of my life.

A family of Five
"I won't go into too much detail about how I persuaded my husband to get one of these puppies, just that I might have fallen to the ground, clutched the bottom of his pants, and dried my tears with his shoelaces."

Smelling of puppy breath
"But that was just a trick. A lie! An EVIL UNTRUTH. Because the second night she was here she woke up every single hour and cried until we took her out. And I had a hard time not calling her names and making crass jokes about her mother behind her back."

Daydreaming of palm trees
"And I'm standing there with my parts peeking out the front of this giant coat, a snow-covered puppy wriggling violently in my arms, her poop-scented tongue licking my forehead. Sometimes life is such that it's too much to ask for them all to sit still so that I can take ten seconds and put on a pair of panties."

First leg
"I will admit that I lost my cool there for a few minutes, long enough that Jon looked at me sternly and said that he could very much imagine punching me in the face but that he wouldn't because he hears that's illegal."

Thou shalt not misrepresent thy husband
"Except she wasn't Miss America, my mistake, how was I supposed to know when only two seconds ago my husband had whispered her correct title in my ear? Was I supposed to be paying attention? Because I wasn't, I was busy plotting out how I could fling my body in the air and wrap it around her head. That's how I show my patriotism."

Girls, girls, girls
"Blame it on laziness or, I don't know, laziness, it's just that sometimes it's so exhausting to watch the card reader transfer all those photos from the memory card to my hard drive. I burn at least a hundred calories just thinking about it."

Life with two dogs. Much different than life on a beach with a margarita.
"Okay. I smelled their paws. I admit it. There is no excuse, I just had to know, you know? And when I smelled one of Chuck's back paws, the one that had stepped in his own poop outside, I died. And fell over dead. My obituary read: KILLED BY MALODOROUS PAW. They sang Mormon hymns at my funeral."

Grand total of 78,215 words
"Since then every single minute of my life has been heavy with the thought of those deadlines. I felt guilty if I took five minutes to read a magazine because I should have been using those five minutes to write my book. I felt like I was walking around with a 500-pound llama sitting on my face, and it hadn't bathed in several weeks."

Chuck's heightened sense of AWESOME!
"So I said to the chimney sweep, look, I am not about to let you go around killing wildlife, can we just let him continue living in our chimney? All he wants is a few warm cuddles, why not leave him alone! We could adopt him and let him sleep in our bed! I'd name him Percy Twinkles Armstrong and take photos of him wearing Keds."

A woman like that
"So Rick Springfield was standing not two feet from me, and I started to sing 'Jessie's Girl' involuntarily under my breath, and oh shut up, you just go ahead and stand two feet away from Rick Springfield and see you if your mouth doesn't automatically start humming that chorus, there is no way you could resist, it's like a law of physics or something."

Her tombstone will read WAS SOLD TO BUTCHER
"A little tequila can make you reconsider your entire wardrobe. Why didn't I wear more hats? Hats are awesome! And it's kind of hot in here, why are we still wearing shirts? ALSO! WHO WANTS TO DANCE? Here, if I jump off this counter will you catch me?"

We're back in the will!
"I know that some of you will be totally surprised that I participate in this, that I willingly bow my head for a Mormon prayer instead of marching around the table with a picket sign, but I respect my family's beliefs and they respect mine. I bow my head before meals at their houses, and they know that when they come to my house they aren't allowed to come inside until after they have removed their pants."

Regional differences
"It means that if I leave you in charge of teaching her how to speak we'll have to hire a translator to follow her around so that she can communicate with the world."

As high as a preschooler can count
"The Tumble Bus teacher, someone who has had no interaction with Leta, seemed concerned by this reaction, but I was all, dude, this is nothing. You should see what happens when I accidentally fast forward through the previews on the Finding Nemo DVD."

On being more friendly to the environment
"And I'm all, CALLING ME BABY IS NOT GOING TO SAVE YOU."

A conversation with my daughter that finally explains my relationship with my older sister
"No, the only good reason to have a little sister is to have someone else to blame when you accidentally set your dad's car on fire."

Why our next dog will be a sea monkey
"I immediately text message Jon: 'Our dogs are awful. Also, Coco is a bigot.'"

Four years
"And one day you're going to be having a complex conversation with that baby who is screaming her head off right now, and you're going to go, holy shit, I made it."

Short stack
"Want a bite of a yummy pancake? No. How about now? No. Now? No. Mmmmmm, this yummy pancake is really yummy, would you like a bite? No. How about I grab it off the plate and aim it at your head like a frisbee? No. Are you even paying attention to me? No."

Rounding out her resume
"And it occurred to me that meeting Coco's mother was probably a lot like what Jon experienced the first time he met my mother and was all, oh. Now I get it. The Crazy is hereditary."

The multi-room installation
"In fact, when we employ this technique you can almost hear the lone cricket inside her head crawling up to her ear to yell out: THERE'S NOTHING IN HERE. LET ME SLEEP."

In honor of her grandfather
"Dude, you do not want a ghost coming into your room looking for her shit. It's not worth the heart attack."

Our in-house recycling plant
"She, too, would grow up to be a mean mother like me and be surprised by how satisfying it is to watch the word 'no' fly through the air and paralyze a room of four-year-olds. It's a parenting skill I like to call Magic."

Salt Lake City like many other parts of the country is getting pummeled by a severe snow storm, and since Leta is home from school for the next couple of weeks our inclination is to remain clothed in our wrinkled pajamas while snuggled between cushions of the couch. This would be much easier if all of my internal organs weren't jockeying for space, my stomach constantly rejecting everything I eat because there's no more room in the inn. I've already reached that uncomfortable point in the pregnancy when the womb starts to push everything around like a lumbering schoolyard bully, and where normally the appropriate systems would digest a meal without me being aware of it, I can now feel every mechanism taking place because the top of my small intestine was evicted and had to relocate to the bottom of my throat.

Glorious, beautiful pregnancy! The time of my life!

Since almost all of our immediate family lives in Utah we've got a staggering number of obligations in the next week including two family gatherings that will include singing. Hymns. With straight faces. While pretending that Grandpa Rob isn't tone deaf. Nothing says Merry Christmas like a version of "Away in a Manger" that sounds like it's being beaten out of a goat.

Posting here will be light for the next week as I take some time to be with the family, but I wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday with much food and rest. May everyone remember to take their medication and be able to get through dinner without arguing about the gays.

Until next time, Leta has a special message. Please disregard the low rumbling noise at 0:28, that's just Coco growling at the mail carrier, AWFUL DOG HAS NO RESPECT FOR BABY JESUS.

I am as large at 14 weeks this pregnancy as I was at five months with Leta. It probably doesn't help that we took this shot not twenty minutes after I had eaten an entire plate of classic nachos at Chili's. I've been craving beans and cheese, and conveniently Leta has wanted to have nachos for dinner every single night for the last fifteen days. We have a quick recipe for making them at home, and more than once Jon has given me a desperate look, like he might keel over and die if he has to eat nachos one more time. Internet, isn't he brave? To suggest to his pregnant wife that he is allowed to have an opinion about food whatsoever?

I was hopeful that the nausea would subside at the beginning of last week like it did when I was pregnant with Leta, but no such luck. It doesn't last all day long like it did for the first three months, but every night at about 7:30 PM that queasy feeling starts to settle in and I want to die. I remember succumbing to this hopeless feeling last time, thinking that I would never again feel normal or healthy. And there have been so many nights in the last couple of weeks when I have believed that I would feel sick like this forever. Jon has tried to comfort me, but the thought of anyone touching me or getting close enough to breathe on me is enough to turn me into a homicidal maniac, and I assure him that he shouldn't take it personally. If Brad Pitt were to reach over and caress my face I'd whip around and bite off his arm at the elbow.

Note to partners who are feeling neglected: PREGNANCY IS BLIND TO CUTE AND SEXY.

I've recently received several frantic emails from guys who are either married or are dating readers of this website asking if I might put together a holiday gift guide. One guy even suggested that if I didn't do so his wife would certainly get socks for Christmas, and then it would be my fault that he didn't get lucky that afternoon. Look, you can get your wife socks for Christmas, they just need to be the right socks, and if you don't know what that means then follow this simple rule: no piece of clothing should ever play Christmas music.

I certainly don't want you to spend Christmas afternoon alone in your shower, so I pulled together some things that I would love to open that morning. Many of the stores that are selling these items are full of interesting, unique gifts that would make me just as happy, so consider this a jumping off point. I know budgets are tight, so I've only listed a few splurges. And even though it isn't listed here, my top suggestion is a foot rub. One that requires nothing in return, if you know what I'm saying.

1. Witherspoon Watch by Michael Graves $165

2. Turning Leaves Wallet by Orla Kiely $59.95

3. Fieldnotes Bird, Striped Grebe $16.00

4. 4 3/4in Slate Cylinder sealed inside for use in fresh flower arrangements $8.00

5. Hera Necklace by We Dream In Color $32

6. Los Angeles City Neighborhood Poster $22

7. MOP Pear Shampoo $12.00

8. Stroke Socks $14.00

9. Nature Exploration Agate Notebook $13.50

10. Sally Finds a Stray T-Shirt at Threadless $10

1. Pomaireware Serving Dish $21.95

2. Aqua Bird Feeder $135

3. Borrowed Spoons Teatowel $12

4. Simply Radio by Richard | Solo $69.95

5. Blue Cone Dog Pillow $32

6. Large Charlie Bird Print by Matte Stephens $60

7. Large Aqua Teapot by Heath Ceramics $165

8. Hand-crafted Cheyenne Style Scarf in Dark Damson $130

9. Lip Treatment Kit by Laura Mercier $28.00

10. Baby Deer Photograph $25

I also had Jon put together his own list of things to offer suggestions to the women out there in relationships with geeky men who are impossibly hard to buy for. I had to send this list back to him four or five times with the instructions PLEASE INCLUDE SOMETHING OTHER THAN COMPUTER HARDWARE. Note, his list includes many more expensive items, and his explanation is that "geek living is hard." This is something I plan to use against him forever.

1. Kindle, Amazon's Wireless Reading Device $359

2. Tweezerman Men's Shaving Brush $13.50

3. Smoked Pearl 1.0 Liter Aluminum Water Bottle by SIGG $24.99

4. Canon Powershot G10 14.7MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom $419.88

5. Apple Airport Express $95

6. Ben Sherman Pieced Flag Wallet $48

7. Apple TV with 160GB Hard Drive $319.99

8. Merino Wool/Silk V-neck Sweater $79

9. Nylon Canvas Field Bag by Jack Spade $150

10. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher $12.60

1. The North Face Denali Fleece Jacket $114.99

2. Call of Duty: World at War for the Nintendo Wii $49.99

3. Proraso Classic Shaving Cream With Eucalyptus Oil & Menthol $10, to be used with Proraso Pre and Post Shave $12

4. Large Moleskine Sketchbook $12.21

5. Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Standard Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras $1,049.95

6. Eames House of Cards $35

7. Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series [Blu-ray] $59.99

8. Incipio iPhone 3G Feather Case $17.99

9. End-Grain Counter Butcher Block $90

10. Data Robotics Drobo 4-Bays USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array $454.96

Last night Leta read me The Nose Book, lingering as long as she could on each individual word in an effort to delay bedtime. I was trying to get her tucked in early because she had stayed up hours past her normal bedtime for the previous two nights, and the sleep deprivation was causing all sorts of side effects, mainly irritability, but a new, mysterious one popped up that caused temporary paralysis in her legs. If I wanted her to put her pants on, HER! LEGS! WOULDN'T! WORK! If it was time to put away her toys, HER! LEGS! HER LEEEGGGGGGGS! And where normally she would just throw her body face first onto the floor she instead collapsed like a house of cards, limb over limb into a pile of useless body parts, screaming the entire way that IT'S! NOT! FUNNY! Followed by STOP! LAUGHING! MOM!

After she finished the story I stood up to turn off her lamp, but she grabbed my wrist and pulled me back onto the bed.

"Mom," she said delicately, as if she was about to reveal some bad news, a tone that is code for STALLING. STALLING. STALLING. "I really don't want to go to school tomorrow."

I reached over and rubbed her cheek with my thumb. "I know how you feel, " I said. "I've got five projects that I've got to work on tomorrow, and I don't want to do that either."

"Then how about I stay home and we can play with my cash register?" she suggested.

"Leta," I said, "life is sometimes filled with things we don't want to do, and sometimes it's filled with things we love to do."

Sensing that I wasn't going to budge, she fell back sharply onto her pillow and blurted, "THE EARTH IS COLD AND DARK!"

"The what—"

"COLD. AND. DARK."

"Because I'm making you go to—"

"DAAAARRRRRRK."

"But—"

"BLUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHH."

Several seconds passed in silence, and then finally I leaned down to kiss her forehead. She reluctantly remained still, letting out an exasperated HUMMMMPH! that blew the hair away from my face. After turning off the light I lingered in her doorway. "Leta..." I said, seeing if she would interrupt me with yet another guttural protest reminiscent of a wounded farm animal. She didn't make a sound, so I continued, "I think it's time. Tomorrow morning we're introducing you to The Smiths."

Dear Leta,

Last week you turned fifty-eight months old, and this may just be the latest I have ever been in getting around to writing your newsletter. But! I have excuses! Each one of them wrapped neatly in stomach acid and topped with a bow of mucus! What, you don't like those? Then how about a box filled with a terminal case of heartburn, lovingly lined with burps that smell like ginger ale? No? This has been working on your father, he leans in for a kiss only to be greeted with a cloud of barf breath, and every time he recoils in horror I'm quick to remind him that it was his penis that did this to me. What is a penis, you ask? Don't worry, we'll have that conversation. When you're thirty.

Earlier this month we spent several days with your father's side of the family at a cabin in Northern Utah for Thanksgiving, and it marked the first time we've ever taken a vacation where you were not totally freaked out about the change. In fact, the change energized you, and for three straight days you played with your nine-year-old cousin, occasionally coming downstairs to announce that you loved it there and were never leaving. You loved it so much, in fact, that you barely noticed the large number of strange people coming and going. You even interacted with people you had never met before, STRANGERS, something I didn't expect to happen for several decades, perhaps not until your own kids forced you into a convalescent home and a new nurse showed up to clean out your colostomy bag.

The night before we left when I tried to prepare you for the fact that we were leaving the next morning, you started bawling into your bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, something you had eaten at every single meal. So I tried to cheer you up by mentioning the fact that we were driving to Granmommy's house the next day, and your countenance changed immediately. You asked if we were staying there "for a lot of nights," and jokingly I threatened to leave you there forever. "FOREVER?" you asked, and just as I was about to assure you that I was only kidding you dropped your spoon, wiggled your fingers in the air and shouted, "I WOULD LOVE TO STAY THERE FOREVER!"

The past month has been dominated with the idea of the new baby, and in trying to describe the timeline of events your father momentarily lost his brain and told you that the baby would be here when the snow melted. Such an explanation would hold up if this winter were exactly like the last one when we didn't see actual patches of grass until May, but already we've had snow come and go, and that baby isn't here yet. So when your father picked you up from school today your first question was, "Is Mom's baby out?" And when he answered no you were quick to point out that the snow had melted. So here, since your father isn't the one throwing up twice a day and will never know what it's like to feel his thighs unhinge and move in opposite directions, let me clear it up for you: ETERNITY. THAT'S HOW LONG THE BABY WILL BE IN MY TUMMY.

Several times in the last few weeks you have pointed toward your own full stomach and announced that you're having a girl, an excruciatingly adorable habit that turned sour once you started pointing to overweight people in public and wondering out loud about the sex of their babies. You know, I'm sure it's a lot of fun to have a one or two or three-year-old running around when you're pregnant, if you're the type of person who enjoys pain and routinely drops fifteen-pound dumbbells on her toes for the adrenaline rush, but I have to say that going through this experience with you as a four-year-old could not possibly be more enjoyable. I love your curiosity and concern, your anticipation, how you repeatedly assure me that when the baby gets here you will totally share your nachos with her. And I refer to the baby as "her" because you will not even consider the alternative, and there are times when I bring up the possibility and you will hold up your hand to silence me, as if I'm talking about something as appalling as genocide or anal fissures.

Mostly, I am excited that this baby will have you as an older sister, and not just because you will both need someone to call to complain about the fact that your parents are nuts. Sure, there will be times when you'll both try to kill each other either through physical brutality or embarrassment, but I know that at some point this baby is going to look up to you and think you are the coolest thing that ever walked on the planet. And while there is no way to predict the lasting dynamic of a relationship between siblings, I can only hope that you will have with this one what I have with my own, a bond so strong that it doesn't even matter that we have nothing but our parents in common. They are lifelines, people who were there, who were witnesses to everything that made me who I am, and I am the same for them in return. Is the relationship perfect? No, but we all know that we would sacrifice anything for each other, and one of the many reasons we decided to have another child was to give you the possibility of that friendship.

Love,
Mama

Last night we had to make a quick trip to the grocery store, and because it had been snowing all day Leta wore her rain boots. As we walked through the parking lot toward the front door of the building she stopped just shy of a giant puddle, paused long enough for us to notice, and then leapt several inches into the air and landed right in the middle of the water creating a fountain as high as her knees. It was a stunning gymnastic feat, especially for someone who only learned to jump relatively recently in her life, and it signified a sudden and welcome change in her personality. Normally she would spasm dramatically into a coma at the thought of touching a drop of freezing water, and her disposition is a lot less mischievous imp than it is a grumpy, elderly invalid who is angry that breaking news has interrupted her daily episode of Dr. Phil.

But here she was standing right in the middle of this puddle, and as the water settled back around her ankles she screamed, "SPLAAAASSSSHHHH!" And the abandon with which she stood there covered in dirty snow water was contagious, so we bought ice cream cones. I don't know why, it just seemed like the only way to reward her for acting her age.

This weekend we finally carved out several hours to set up Christmas decorations, and I am not at all exaggerating when I refer to that time in hours. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to buy 25 boxes of round ornaments, or why I thought the tree would have enough branches to hold that many, but we hadn't been hanging ornaments for thirty minutes before Leta announced she was bored. There were still 17 or 18 boxes of ornaments waiting patiently for a place on the tree, 17 or 18 boxes that I did not have the heart to send back up into that freezing attic space, and I suddenly remembered having this exact conversation with my own mother. I always got tired of helping her hang ornaments and would wander off to play with a box of Barbies, leaving her to do the bulk of the work. And since my mother was too generous to say what she was thinking, I went ahead told Leta what my mother should have said to me all those years: SUCK IT, KID.

You're welcome, Mom.

We'd been watching episode after episode of Spongebob all morning, and as Jon twisted a section of the artificial tree into place (he's allergic to real ones) he suggested I turn on some festive holiday music. And as I walked back to my computer to sift through our music collection I realized we don't have much to choose from. In fact, in the years that Jon and I have been together we've purchased only one album of Christmas music, A Charlie Brown Christmas, which has to be the most depressing Christmas music of all time. If you weren't on Prozac before you listened to that album, you'll be begging your therapist for a prescription by song two. That little bald kid cannot catch a break, and the whole album sounds like someone just beat him up and stole his lunch money. If the album were a Christmas card it would say, "I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas despite my raging insecurities and social awkwardness." Basically, a sentence out of my diary in college.

After doing a quick search on iTunes, I realized I had no idea what I was looking for. Because whatever we play during this season is going to form lasting memories for Leta. I can appreciate the classics by Nat King Cole and Dean Martin, but my most fond memories of Christmas are always to the soundtrack of a kooky Osmond Family holiday album, or Alvin and the Chipmunks. I want to find something as equally nutty because, come on. THIS HOLIDAY IS NUTTY. Think about it. We're telling our four and five-year-olds that a fat man breaks into the house by sliding down the chimney. AND WE DON'T SHOOT HIM. We're asking them to believe that deer can fly. Seriously. This is not much different than telling them that once a year millions of people across the world strip naked and hop into a bathtub full of mustard. Why? Because Christ was born!

Noel!

The one album I did find that looked interesting is called Merry Mixmas, basically all the holiday classics remixed by DJ's in a thoroughly modern way. It's fantastic, very catchy, and I downloaded the entire album from iTunes within minutes. But nutty it is not.

So I'm looking for suggestions, even though the answer may be to stick with The Chipmunks. Do you know of a Christmas album we should not live without?

One of the many projects I've been working on recently is a set of discussions called Momversations with a group of other lovely mothers including Maggie and Alice and Rebecca. Once or twice a week we all sit down by ourselves in our own homes across the country and talk into a camera about a different topic, and in the last month we've covered pregnancy weight gain, balancing work and motherhood, celebrity gossip, and sex after baby. Sometimes this can be weird because I'm always in the room by myself talking to this little piece of electronic equipment, and if you were standing on the other side of the door you would totally think I was talking to myself. Not that creepy when I'm discussing the grocery budget (maybe a little bit), but it did seem inappropriate to talk to a tiny machine about my vagina. Let's be honest, there's a time and a place for that kind of disclosure, and that place is on a blog in front of hundreds of thousands of strangers.

I didn't know what to expect when I signed up for this, and fortunately everything about the experience has been really pleasant. Everything except for having to put on make-up several times a week. I know, that's a total First World complaint, how about I amputate a couple of my limbs or have a giant tree fall through my living room and then see how much work it is to whip on some lip gloss. It's just that the first trimester of pregnancy has stripped me of all sense of vanity and decency, and I've had to reshoot more than one video because of an accidental fart. When I'm applying mascara all I can think about is how I could be better spending that time eating pie.

Here's a sampling of the videos, you can see all of them over at the Momversation website:

Mommy, where do babies come from?

Losing the Baby Weight

Why Do We Care About Suri Cruise?

Sex After Baby