The baby made me eat it

I saw this on a maternity tee shirt and I laughed, but I did not buy it. My father has requested one though. He wonders if people would let him get away with it. It's cute, it's funny, but I'm not sure I'm ready to have my shirts announce in print that there is in fact a baby on board. Yes in other ways, my shirts are announcing that we're carrying a little extra weight down there, but is it tacky to say it?

Besides, does a woman standing in line at Dairy Queen alone at 10 pm on Friday night really need to wear her justification across her chest? And at that point is it still cute or just over-the-top? Andrew feels that sitting around chomping on pickles is too cliche. "Really, Dana?" he says. Is it necessary to feed the stereotype? Little does he know I'm suppressing an urge to accompany that pickle with ice cream. Ridiculous, yes, but as Flannery O'Conner said, "stereotypes begin in truth."

So, yes, I did go to Dairy Queen last night. For ice cream. Why? Because I had wanted to go there all week, several times a day and I began to fear that it would be impossible. This is not an entirely irrational fear. Dairy Queens close for the winter in Ontario. Why? I don't know, something about making them cost effective and torturing pregnant women who need hot fudge sundaes.

Do you know what makes me a worse person? I brought that ice cream and ate it in front of children and did not care that they had no ice cream. I unabashedly ate my ice cream as a five year-old and seven year-old looked on longingly. I did not share - they may carry germs. When asked why I was eating ice cream, I said, "It's nice to be a grown up."

"Can you eat whatever you want all the time?" asked Niko. "Yes," I said, but then feeling slightly guilty, I added, "You have to make good choices though. I ate a very nutritious dinner before this and I finished all of it." He wasn't impressed with this blatant attempt at parent propaganda. But he wasn't on doctor's orders to eat more. My friend pointed out, kindly, "Well that'll take care of the extra 500 calories you needed."

But really did I need the ice cream? No, I wanted a full glass a of red wine - something dry and delicious. I wanted a nice end-of-the-day scotch, smokey with a single ice cube. I could have used a morning cup of coffee, steaming hot with cream and sugar. A rich and foamy latte would have done the trick. Even a nice cold, super sweet Dr. Pepper would have sufficed.

But no one has told me that I can't eat ice cream. So I stand in line and I'm a touch defensive - so it's probably for the best that no one can comment on the irony of a t-shirt slogan.