On Big Bellies and Beautiful Beaches

As in, in the case of this Prego Pregger, they don't match. The combo in the title did not work well for me or me self-esteem this past weekend-especially when the beautiful beach in question is also full of non-prego beautiful spring breakers.

First, Florida was great, protruding uterus aside. Well worth the effort and overpayment for plane tickets.

But if you want to feel great about yourself during your 7th, almost 8th month of pregnancy, don't head to the beach smack-dab in the middle of spring break. Siiiiigh.

A little over a decade ago, on my first *woohoo* college spring break, a few friends and I headed to Florida. We ended up in St. Pete's beach on the Gulf coast, which, if you have ever been there, you know that this is NOT the hub for parties, good times, and *woohoo* spring break fun. We ended up venturing to Siesta Key, (also rated the #1 beach in the USA by none other than "Dr.Beach") where one of the girls had been before and it promised to be a bit more lively. While a step up from St. Pete, it wasn't wild, and it suited us just perfectly. Good times.

So just this past weekend, we headed back to the scene of freshmen fun, and found the scene to be a bit....different. Still beautiful, but packed with people. Mostly spring breakers in teeny-tiny-eeny-meeny-itsby-bitsy pieces of what appeared to be  colorful Kleenex that apparently doubled as swimsuits. Holding their beverage of choice as they strutted their bronzed Kleenex-clad bodies down the beach.

Now mind you, there is no way in heaven or on earth that I was going to endure the trauma of finding a maternity bathing suit. In my humble, not so experienced opinion, nobody wants to see that. (I don't even really want to see it). But this decision was made as much for my sanity as it was for my wallet. I am due in May, I won't be frequenting any swimming pools, hotel swim-up bars, or water theme parks  until then, so therefore, no need to shell out the cash for something I would wear once. Throw in the fact that I am pale and pasty from a West Virginia winter, and you have a recipe for No Way Jose. But I won't let that stop me from actually going to the beach. Because I love the beach, and there is already plenty of stuff I'm not doing right now, and I wasn't going to let this be one of them. So I strolled down the beach with the rest of them, looking decidedly more clothed, more pale, less festive, and slightly less confident in my waddle strut. (Side story: two unfortunate individuals have dared to suggest that I waddle. One was a male student who knew as soon as he said it that he should just go ahead and end his life right then and there. He turned 17 shades of red and tried to hide behind a garbage can. The other was a female co-worker, who I in turn asked, "Do you WANT me to punch you in the face?" I do not condone violence, and especially not at work. But she was very close to getting handled in the hallway).

I am not an insecure person by most standards, but I can't lie, my self-esteem took a bit of a hit that day.

But I survived the strut. I had a good time. We accomplished what we wanted-friends, Orioles spring training game, good food, beach time, and just laying around doing nothing.

One big belly, one giant Oriole, and one Very Happy Husband