Amassing More Fairly-Useless Knowledge

I'm not going to say that pronunciation is not important. In my line of work, we spend a lot of time making sure that our students can avoid making embarrassing pronunciation mistakes (such as using the wrong vowel sound in words like "sheet" or "beach"). And while I think the pronunciation of names is extremely important when it comes to names of actual people that I'd actually talk to, I honestly get a little bit annoyed at the idea that--among everything else I'm supposed to suddenly know-- I am supposed to learn to correctly pronounce the names of all of the baby brands that are out there.

Basically, it seems that a vast majority of baby products either have Incredibly Stupid Names (such as Boppy) or names with pronunciation traps (like Chicco, which apparently does not use the "ch" sound in church). I was reminded of this when I read this blog post today. I'd read a similar article in one of those waiting room baby magazines around a year ago, and I think I recall seeing something similar on Babycenter as well.

I'm sure there are people who find these types of articles genuinely helpful, but really, not only do I not spend that much time talking about brand-name baby merchandise...I don't really want to BE someone who spends that much time conversing about baby products by brand name. I feel like I already am a lame enough conversationalist as it is without getting that particular about things. I actually found myself correcting Adam's pronunciation of a baby product name the other day and realize that I'd reached a whole new level of Mommy Information Overload.

I sometimes really miss my old brain. I used to be able to remember song lyrics really well. I used to retain information better. While I know that in theory there's plenty of brain space for all of the miscellaneous baby information I keep encountering, I really want to be someone who uses her brain space for things less trivial than the syllable stress of my stroller brand.

Around This Time Last Year

On the Friday before Martin Luther King day in 2010, I saw Emmett for the first time. That was the day that Adam and I went in for our first ultrasound and genetic counseling. I didn't blog about it at the time since my pregnancy was still classified information at that point. I remember being all vague at work about how I had to go to some appointment and wouldn't be back that afternoon.

When we first saw Emmett on the screen, I remember being just so surprised to see him moving around in there. This was long before I felt any movement at all, and I hadn't been feeling particularly pregnant up to that point (other than that whole "needing to pee constantly" thing). In these early ultrasounds, they need to take very specific pictures so that they can do measurements, and it can take some time to get pictures at the right angle, so we ended up getting to watch him for a long time, probably about 20 minutes. (I feel weird saying "him" since we didn't know yet that Emmett was male--that piece of information was revealed at the next ultrasound.) I definitely could have watched it all day.

The biggest thing about the experience was just how it finally felt real. I hadn't heard a heartbeat yet at that point, due to timing of appointments. We decided that we still wouldn't tell the masses about the pregnancy until after we got back the results from a blood draw, but I was practically bursting with excitement. We were at a really boozy party later that evening and it was really hard not to tell people right there and then.