Parenthood (ongoing) part 3

My god, this last week has been insane.

First, there was the third birth class we went to. I'll give a brief synopsis:

We arrived. The instructor had us watch a video of more babies coming out of more screaming women. She discussed massage. She had us massage each other, but this time it was real massage, not 'sprinkling rain' like in the last entry. Then she rolled out these giant blue balls and had us sit on them and scoot our butts around and she kept asking us "Now, doesn't that feel good? Yes! It's wonderful!" I have to say, my butt felt all right through the whole thing. Then she went on about how we can all do the same thing if we purchase these kinds of helpful balls. She asked if anyone had any already. Then she turned to Maisy and I (because we were closest) and said: "Have you thought about purchasing something like these? Or do you already have big balls at home?", to which I had to turn my head and hold in a sudden outburst of laughing. Maisy chuckled and said: "Yes, but not like these.", to which I almost lost it. I wasn't the only one. Most of the people in the room exchanged looks and held in a laugh or two.

Then, the instructor had us drive over to the hospital, all of us, for a tour. This was incredibly long and we mostly stood in place for an hour, jostling from our left leg to the right, back and forth as the cramping set in, while she outlined all the uses of the birth-bed. There was an RN there who was quite a bit more informative, but was kind of silenced by the instructor, who it seemed wanted to be the informative one. It was around 413 degrees in the hospital and my mouth and lips became so dry I felt like I'd only eaten hot sand for days.

Later in the week, we had the monster baby shower. This was huge, co-ed, and packed. About 40 people showed up, which is quite a bit for our little duplex home. We made it through just fine, but I did so much milling and socializing that my voice hurt for two days. I realize now that when I try to sound like I'm totally impressed (as in with something someone is saying or when responding to a gift), I raise my voice about two octaves and begin every sentence with: "Oh, that's so...". This octave maneuvering ruins my voice for hours after, and no amount of rejuvenating tea or whatnot can help.

That's all for now. There will be more.