I can't begin to express how unhappy I am to see you all here for this week, in that it means that I am STILL PREGNANT.
Everywhere I go this week, the cries ring out:
"You haven't had that baby yet?"
Neighbors open their doors to gawk as I waddle by, the check out clerks at Albertsons gasp in surprise. Sometimes, there is pointing. Occasionally, there is laughter. I have decided that the time has come to stop leaving my home.
BUT! As promised, I shall continue, at least on the blog, to keep my positivity involved and maintain my promise not to spend our precious time here together wallowing in my epically overdue misery. Instead, I shall return to the blog's newest and much-beloved feature, "READER MAIL"!
TODAY'S QUESTION IS:
Where did the name "Snood" come from?
THE ANSWER IS:
Well, I'll tell you.
I have always been, like former President George Bush before me, an unrepentant nicknamer. The majority of folks in my like sport a special sobriquet of my own invention. My husband is "The Murph", my sister is "Schmanner Bananer".....the list goes on and on.
I feel it is important to acknowledge right up front that I FULLY realize that, as a "nicknamer," I walk a decidedly fine line between:
"I choose to express my enduring affection for all that you are by creating for you your own special moniker!"
and
"I am the sort of annoying creep who shoots finger guns at people to express excitement and/or gives unsolicited back rubs."
but it's a line I CHOOSE to walk.
So it was that when I first sat snuggling my newborn baby boy, who was all swaddled up and resembled nothing so much as a pile of laundry with a face, that I couldn't help but start referring to him as:
"BUNDLES"
We took Bundles home from the hospital and quickly decided that this name no longer seemed sufficient to capture all that our little snuggly being had to offer. The name NEEDED to evolve, and so it was that he became:
"BUNDLES VON TRUNDLES"
and, not too much later:
"BUNDLES VON TRUNDLES COUNT OF SNUGGLEVILLE"
This multi-part moniker really got the job done for the next several months.
But sometime around Christmas, our petite nobleman insisted on casting off his swaddling clothes, only to replace them with a seemingly endless collection of hiply ironic onesies. As he entered his third month on Earth, he took on a surprising sense of mission in all his actions, whether it was drooling, battling with his octopus toy, or experimenting with his first meals of rice cereal, and so it was that I felt overwhelmingly compelled to call him:
"THE DUDE"
or alternately:
"THE DOODLE BUTT"
"OLD DOODIE BEAR"
"SEÑOR DOODIE BEAN"
"SNOODIE BUM"
and
"SNOODO BEAN"
My husband, an engineer and practical man at heart, decided it was time to coalesce all this nomenclature into one single, perfect, and epically fit nickname - and it was though this that we ended up with a boy named:
"SNOOD"
(In other words, we made it up.)
Another question answered!
Alright folks, that's it for this week. Keep your fingers crossed that I will eventually go into labor. Check back here next week for a birth announcement, or alternatively, a special offer for tickets to my freak show debut as "The World's Most Pregnant Woman".
See you then!
