My Baby the Drunk Ox

Today marks the first official day of the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Ox, which means I'm having a baby Ox. I looked it up to see what that meant, and apparently, Baby E is going to be bright, patient and inspiring to others. She can be happy by herself and will make an outstanding parent.

This is all excellent news, but somehow I have to guess there is an "Ox" dark side that they aren't quite sharing. Similar to my conversation with a co-worker last week where I learned my baby is also destined to be a drunk.

Every Friday, we have breakfast brought in so everyone in the office, from intern to senior vice president, can hang out for a few minutes and relax. Well, last Friday, conversation turned to my pregnancy (likely b/c I was moaning around a mouthful of apple butter and who can ignore that kind of behavior?) and the head DUDE of one of our practices starts chatting me up about my due date. When I mention that our little bundle of joy is due on March 22, he very matter-of-factly says, "Oh, a Pisces -- did you know that, like, 80% of the world's alcoholics are Pisces?"

Well, no ass-face, I didn't know that. But thanks for the good tidings of joy and booziness.

I laughed it off with him, made a few jokes about how apparently Ben and I timed our baby perfectly so she could share the family genes and moved on.

But later I started to dwell. Because while I put practically ZERO weight on astrological hocus-pocus, there is something slightly... irksome... to be told you might as well start saving for a good recovery program instead of a good college. And besides that, SERIOUSLY?!? Just a note for all of you out there. The last thing a pregnant woman wants to hear is the serious illnesses or personality flaws that she has to worry about with her unborn child. Know some random stat about when the most psychopaths are born and want to share? BITE YOUR TONGUE. Write it down. Share it with a stranger. Hire a plane to sky-write the fact for the world to see, but under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you tell the mother-to-be.

Anyways, I'm over it (or as over it as a pregnant woman can be until pregnancy brain makes me forget this ever happened and then I'll REALLY be over it). Besides, I looked it up and the guy was wrong... if Baby E IS in fact born on her due date of March 22 she will be an Aries and the worst thing I could find there was that she would be selfish, and I'm all like "duh".

But, if she is born early, and happens to be a Pisces, I will love my little drunk Ox. I just might buy a padlock for our liqueur cabinet. Mommy isn't ready to share just yet.

*Cute Ox onesie by Fauborg St Denis, and a brilliant find by Cool Mom Picks. The onesies feature a funky red Ox and one of them says "We are the kings of 2009!" in French.