I have two new girl crushes.

One of them isn’t that new. If you haven’t been here yet, go immediately. I had a blind brunch date with Elaine from I Could Kill Her this past weekend and, if you can believe it, she’s even cooler in person than she is on the blog. I expected someone hilarious, fun, and intimidating. I’m happy to report she definitely has tons of the first two traits and none of the third. I love love love her.

The other is here. My friend Laura K sent me in Grammar Girl’s direction and she is just too much like the Girl I wish I was. GTB and I were talking the other day about what we’d do if we won a $250 million Powerball game. I told him I’d finally get to live out my wish of traveling the world, correcting bad grammar and spelling on menus. (Actually, that was my first editor’s dream, but it’s so good, I stole it.) Grammar Girl’s photo gallery demonstrates my second lottery-life choice.

So, enoy these smart women until I think of something clever to write about that isn’t related to my ever-increasing gut, insatiable hunger, or lapsed gym membership. It could be a while.

I’ve reached the point in this pregnancy where my breasts have taken over my life. They are, in a word, enormous. I look at myself in the mirror in the morning and laugh at how out of proportion I suddenly look. When I ask GTB about it, he wipes the drool from his chin and then responds with something like, “Yep, you’re a pretty booby girl right now!”

I catch co-workers stealing glimpses of them. I find strangers staring at them. I keep knocking stuff over with them. When I was playing “Where’s your nose?” with my friend K’s 18-month-old a couple of weeks ago, he turned around and grabbed my left boob. K said, “I guess we’re playing ‘Where’s Girl’s boob?” I shrugged. Who could blame the poor kid? They’re that big.

Yesterday morning, I realized I’ve outgrown all of my bras. I now have that really ugly and uncomfortable problem of split boob, where half my tit sits in the bra and the other half hangs over the top. So tonight, GTB and I are going bra shopping. He is, of course, stoked. Despite my best efforts to convince him that I’m looking for large, cotton, comfortable maternity bras, he has images of Victoria’s Secret in his head. He’s going to be so disappointed when I steer him away from Frederick’s of Hollywood and toward Motherhood Maternity.

The other unfortunate thing about rapidly growing jugs is that they itch. Uncontrollably. For hours at a time. If you can enlighten me about a way to subtly scratch your breasts at work, please do. Because the whole “Oh, I need this pen, across my desk, that forces my forearm to brush against my own chest, three or four times in rapid succession” is gettting a little old. Plus, it’s not that effective.

In a desperate attempt to find a way to alleviate the itching, and to make sure itchy tits isn’t a symptom of something more serious, I checked Babycenter.com’s community answers page. I searched for “breast” and “itch” and one of the community questions that came up was this:

“When u itch in ur virgina and wash it and it don’t itch any more should u still tell doctor?”

I’m not sure why that’s showing up on my search, but I have been silently cracking up ever since I read it. I told GTB about it and he thinks it’s a joke. I think it was written by someone in Kentucky (no offense, Kentucky). Either way, it’s fucking hysterical.

Anyway, it’s just another discovery on this adventure that is being knocked up. I can’t wait to see what’s next. Rashy butt, maybe?

Here, for better or worse, is my 2008 NCAA Tournament bracket. Please note, I have emotional connections to Oregon (for GTB), Washington State (because my parents met there and it’s the reason I exist), and Texas A & M (because I’m pretty sure I’m related to the head coach). So I predicted those teams will go farther than they probably will. What can I say? I’m a chick.

When all is said and done though, I think North Carolina is a pretty safe bet to win it all. Go Heels!

GTB and I are both home sick, which means we’re currently absorbing the wise and entertaining Today show. We just saw a segment about what NOT to name your baby. Of course, we watched with great interest. They covered the usual offenders: Ima Hooker, Mary A. Belcher. But then they got to a category I’d never thought of before, shockingly: punctuation and grammar.

As they recounted actual census records of kids named Colon, Vowell, and Verse, GTB must have sensed my excitement. “No!” he exclaimed.

“Honey, come on. Don’t you think Apostrophe B. would be cute?” I asked.

He didn’t.

I’m gonna run the idea by him again in a few weeks. I think it’ll grow on him. Otherwise, I’ll start trying for Subject-Verb Agreement B.

Last week, GTB and I went to the doctor for our second prenatal check up. Three really good things happened:

1. We got to hear the Blueberry’s heartbeat. 140 bpm. Just perfect. We got to see the heart flutter on the ultrasound at week 8, but for some reason, actually hearing it was more moving.

2. I weighed in and found that I only gained 4 pounds total during my first trimester. Given my alternating states of panic about gestational diabetes and hunger that can only be satisfied by large cinnamon rolls, I was a bit worried this number would be quite a bit higher. I can live with 4 pounds. 4 pounds is nothing.

3. We scheduled our big ultrasound. The one where we not only get to see a fully formed human and find out if all is well in there, but we are 95% sure we’ll learn whether it’s a boy or a girl. April 8 is the big day. Just over a month from now. The countdown is on.

I’m sorry. I know I should be more supportive. After all, he’s a Seattle boy and he plays sax. And I lived in Seattle for many of my formative years and I played sax when I was a kid. But a Latin-infused Kenny G album must sound a lot like the music you’d hear on the long, slow elevator ride to Hell.

Last night, at the end of a work event that we had to BEG people to attend (it was a charity event), a colleague who did nothing to help boost attendance though it was her responsibility to do so came up to me and said, “Next year, we really need to drum up some excitement about this. It’s a great event!” She then went on to tell one of my supervisors and me about what a shitty PR person I am.

I went home after the event and vented to GTB for a good 30 minutes. I’m pretty sure that toward the end of my rant, I was foaming at the mouth.

This afternoon, I attended a meeting offsite where someone I worked with on a project last summer told a roomful of people, yours truly included, that my company “totally dicked up” the project.

I IMed GTB when I got back to work and said that by the time I left the meeting, I was ready to hit someone with my car.

GTB’s response: “You have a lot of anger right now.”

As I hastened to defend myself, explaining that it isn’t anger it’s just that I’m too pregnant to be expected to be tolerant of other people’s bullshit, I realized that he might have a point.

I know this has been all over the internet, but I just found it this morning and I not only can’t stop reading them (when I should be working) but I can’t stop laughing. I’ve already cried all the mascara off I’m giggling so hard. And the guy whose office shares a wall with mine thinks I’m insane.

garfield minus garfield

Oh, puke!

Last night, I had a dream that GTB and I were at my 20-week ultrasound and we found out that the Blueberry is a girl. “Are you sure?” I asked the doctor. “Yes, definitely female, ” he said.

When I told GTB about the dream this morning, he said he was having strong intuitions that the Blueberry is indeed female.

“That’s funny,” I said, “because every fiber of me knows it’s a boy. And given that it’s growing in my body, I would think I’ve got the better intuition.”

“Well, we’ll see whose intuition is better in a few weeks, I guess.”

So I’m documenting our guesses here so that in 9 weeks, one of us can say “Ha ha, told you so!”