The Whiny Chronicles of Other Pregnant Women

I somehow find it necessary to ocassionally torture myself by reading a huge website designed for parents and expectant moms. Ostensibly it's to provide support, but all it does is raise my blood pressure and make me understand why it is pregnant women get a bad rap.

A sampling of headlines/posts from recently (all from a group of people expecting in August 2009):

• I can't stand my mother-in-law because *sob* she's buying my baby's clothes from WalMart. My baby is going to be dressed wonderful, not cheap.
• I can't believe no one has offered to give me a baby shower! I mean, I still need stuff like bottles and things. - This said by a woman who is expecting her second child, which will be 18 months younger than her first child.
• *sniff* My [insert friend/in-law/sibling here] is throwing me a baby shower, and she refuses to listen to what I want.
• Multiple threads along the lines of, My husband/boyfriend won't do every single thing I ask and refuses to make me the absolute center of attention for 9 full months - he's being so selfish!.
• I am so tired of hearing opinions on the name we chose. (Hint? If you don't want to ear others opinions, don't share the name until it is inked on the birth certificate).
• I am only getting one baby shower - I guess no one cares about me..
• Offended by [fill in blank]

And on and on and on ... endlessly. Women whining about the brand of clothing someone bought their baby, or the fact that people aren't buying off the registry, or the fact that it's their fourth child and no one has brought up having a baby shower, or the fact that their mother-in-law (or mother) is out to get them, or the fact that so-and-so had the nerve to show her up by getting pregnant at the same time, or so forth.

For the record, I consider pregnancy one of God's greatest miracles. I am thrilled to be able to bear another child - when for years I thought I wouldn't be able to have one. I realize I'm among some very fortunate women and there are others who have to endure much more. That said, I don't particularly love being pregnant. This time, it has been much harder physically - there have been some complications, and I'm in pain almost every single day. I'm still losing my breakfast at almost 30 weeks. Yes, it's worth it, but yes, it's hard. Some days I'm a hormonal mess. Some days I can't get anything done. Most days I want to crawl into a hole and take a nap.

But I am profoundly grateful for a) a so far healthy baby b) a so far healthy pregnancy, all things considered c) a husband d) a family e) jobs f) the fact that I have everything I need for this baby - sure I need new bottles, diapers, wipes, etc. - but I've been picking those things up here and there, g) that my drug co-pay is only $150/month and not the full retail price of $4k and h) that there will be an end point to the twice-a-day painful self-injections and ugly granny socks. :)

I guess I'm just fed up with complete and utter self-centeredness - complaining about everything, "I must be treated as a diva and am going to act like a selfish spoiled brat otherwise," attitude. We're in the mist of a global economic crisis and it seems all that some can think about is how stingy people were at their baby shower or how few baby showers they are getting or so forth.

I just want to say, "Can we all just not be happy, blessed and grateful and focus on those who have far less than we do?" I'd also like to add, "It is your husband/boyfriend/partner's baby too, his mom is no less important than your mom, you are not the center of the universe, your baby will be fine whether you dress it in Goodwill or Dolce and Gabana, there is no perfect way to raise a child and chances are you'll throw out 95% of it and wing it anyway and for crying out loud it is RUDE to ask someone to throw you a party/give you gifts."

I'm no saint, and I do whine - sometimes more than I should - but heaven help me if I become so shallow and knock me upside the head and remind me of this post.

But wait ... there is more!

UTA Fail.

Remember this post? A mere two days ago? Well, it gets better.

I'm working from home this week - which means a perfect time, given my flex schedule, to take Woodstock to see the new Madagascar exhibit at the zoo.

Since I'm also trying to reduce my car trips this month and Woodstock LOVES buses and trucks, I thought we'd make a field trip out of it and we could go via bus. After all, the bus stop is across the street from my house and there is one across the street from the zoo a mere 4.18 miles away.

So I log on to UTA's website to find out which bus(es) I need to take. Boy am I in for a shock. Anyone want to guess how long it would take me to get the 4.2 miles to the zoo from my house? Anyone?

2 HOURS 49 MINUTES. FOUR Transfers. One including a bus ride 13 miles in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION (one way)to catch the bus that runs to the zoo. I could WALK there, pushing Woodstock in the stroller at an almost leisurely pace in under 1.5 hours for crying out loud!

Not sure how a 5.5-hour round-trip bus ride to/from the zoo leaves any time to actually SEE the zoo. My mind is so boggled I can barely fathom it.

I e-mailed UTA and begged them to PLEASE tell me the information was incorrect, because I'm having an awfully hard time seeing the logic in this one.

When There's Love at Home

As a child, whenever tensions rose at our house my mother would start singing (or worse yet, make us sing with her), "When There's Love at Home."

To this day, the hymn still grates on my nerves (enter big bolt of lightening right now to strike me down - I'm sure that is not terribly appropriate to admit). There is nothing wrong with it, it just brings up memories of being annoyed at having to set aside teenage indignation to join in singing a hymn in order to forget being upset.

Today, however, I thought about it as I went about my day. Particularly the stanza that says, "Peace and plenty here abide, Smiling sweet on ev'ry side, Time doth softly, sweetly glide, When there's love at home." I was particularly reflective today, because I had a good day. I got up early, studied my Sunday School lesson over my own quiet breakfast, prayed, got the house in order, got myself ready, got dinner mostly prepped and felt good. Really good. Full and productive and ... full of peace.

The first sight that greeted me upon arriving home was Woodstock, her blonde little head in the dining room window, nose pressed to the glass (I have a new straight back chair that she has claimed as her own and has now become her perch for bird and truck watching out the front window). The second sight that greeted me was a pot of boiling potatoes on the stove. The house was mostly unchaotic (clean is a word I've wiped from my vocabulary - unchaotic is what I aim for these days). Himself was in a good mood.

I was less harried than usual thinking of dinner and bedtime routine and this and that. I failed to even have a near meltdown when the broiler element went out, leaving mostly raw chicken to be dealt with. My anxiety levels were surprisingly low, given the complicated day I had had (and the fact that even with all my careful prep, dinner was still mostly raw an hour after arriving home).

It was if God himself were saying, "You gave me some time this morning, I am going to let it fill your day," and gave me Love at Home - exactly what I needed. Peace and plenty did abide here tonight, and I'm writing it down so I remember it the next time my "natural woman" takes over, tries to be master of the universe, forgets to kneel and study in humility and wonders why the world is falling apart at the seams.

In the cottage there is joy,
When there's love at home;
Hate and envy ne'er annoy
When there's love at home.
Roses blossom 'neath our feet,
All the earth's a garden sweet,
Making life a bliss complete,
When there's love at home.

Love at home, indeed. And if having that means upping my resolve to do better at my daily study, I can certainly stand to put in the effort.

Dear UTA - Or Why I Don't Use Mass Transit

Dear UTA,

The other day, the news highlighted a story indicating that - surprise! - UTA ridership is down over last year - particularly among its express train "FrontRunner" service from north of The Frontier down.

Interestingly, the fuel surcharge - implemented when gas was $4.50/gallon last summer, was never dropped and fares hiked beyond that as well this spring.

I read the articles with interest. You should know, I'm a huge public transit fan - huge. I spent my first years in the DC metro area commuting via public transit and, in later years, used it for many non-commuting trips into the city - less hassle, less traffic, no parking issues - and it was convenient. I've seen more of underground New York and Boston due to the Subway and the T than I have seen above ground in those cities. I've even ridden the bus in Las Vegas (not really something I want to replcate, but still - I've been there, done that).

When I first moved to The Frontier, I took the bus (UTA, of course) several times to work. It was wildly inconvenient, the mapping system was wrong and told me my office was in a place that is smack in the middle of a golf course and an interstate, but ... I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

However, I no longer use mass transit here. Why?
*Time
*Money
*Convenience

In my not-terribly-scientific (or important) opinion, public transit must meet at least one of the above criterion in order to be useful - and widely embraced. In a small urban area like The Frontier, it's not likely to be convenience. Parking is generally abundant and inexpensive. Traffic congestion isn't terrible in most places (chronic construction on I-80 and north of The Frontier excepted). And, to be honest, the number of times one has to make transfers to go even a few miles makes the transit here horribly INconvenient.

Never mind that though - what about saving time and/or money? Unfortunately, UTA saves neither. I am participating in this year's Utah Clear The Air Challenge - trying to eliminate 4 car trips or more a week (success last week! I eliminated 4 trips. Thanks to my sitter's vacation this week, I'm telecommuting, thereby reducing a whole lot more trips), because I believe we spend entirely too much time driving solo in our cars. We could walk more. We could run across the valley less. I aim to do both.

But back to public transit ... I've looked into taking the bus to work (at least on the days I don't have to drop Woodstock at the sitter's). Let's compare:
Driving myself

• 19 miles round-trip, door-to-door - 60% of which are interstate, none of which have traffic of any sort.
• 32 mpg commuting, on average - which means a gas cost of $1.56/day (at $2.50/gallon)
• Total time: 15 minutes there, 20 back - total of 35 minutes/day commuting

Taking the Bus

• Same 20 miles round-trip
• Total fare: $4/day
• Total time: 55 minutes to work, if I want to show up to work 1/2 hour early or 1/2 hour late. 80 minutes if I want to show up to work right on time. Return trip would take 48 minutes, meaning a total time of 103 minutes commuting.
• Side note: The bus would take me a total of 48 BLOCKS (roughly 6.5 miles) out of my way v. a direct drive.

Summary: To be fair, I didn't include the cost of owning my car or the per-mile wear-and-tear cost of driving my car - but it roughly equals out in the end to about $4-$5/day - in other words, about the cost of taking the bus. If, however, I were to figure time cost into that commute - I would be spending THREE TIMES as long on the road - and going 6.5 miles out of my way every day to take the bus - and spending the same amount, saving neither time nor money.

We did look into it for Himself's newly-minted 80-mile round-trip daily commute - certainly the new FrontRunner train or express bus would get him there faster or cheaper, correct? Sadly, no. It would take 4 times as long and cost 3 times as much as driving himself - alone - to work every day. I'm big into saving the environment and reducing air pollution (especially on inversion days), but at what cost?

Seems to me there has to be a better solution - I love public transit because it is usually either convenient, cheaper or faster - any one of the three and I'm happy - unfortunately, UTA is neither. It's cheaper, faster and cleaner for me to drive or walk - even on the weekends.

I'll keep hoping.
Signed,
Someone who would really like to use the bus system someday.