My Mom...and The Baby "Bean"

From the moment CJ and I found out we were pregnant we were excited. In all honestly, he was a little more excited than me. But I kind of think that's normal. I had A LOT to take in- not just that my life would be changing FOREVER, but so would my body over the next better part of a year. Of course we told my parents first. We e-mailed our family overseas and then kept the secret to ourselves as best we could for the first few months. We diligently began reading everything we could about our baby-to-come and it's development. Excuse me, I mean his or her development. My mother HATES when we call the baby "it". But again, honest moment here- that's what it (he/she) was to me the first several weeks. I mean you don't really look any different and aside from being tired and nauseous you don't feel that different. Nice or not, I compare the first few months of pregnancy to having a really bad cold or the flu- just sans the sniffles. But I digress, so back to my mother. 
My Mom is one of the coolest women you could ever hope to meet, but she does carry herself in a certain manner. I like to liken her to Claire Huxtuble  which is very fitting as growing up my life was JUST like the Cosby Show. (Sometimes I wondered if they had hidden cameras in our home and then they just took what they saw to make episodes.) Like Claire, my mother is the consummate lady, extremely intelligent, always professional, but still knows how to laugh and have fun. However, she does have her "snob moments". Meaning if something or someone isn't too her liking she'll find a way to convey that so that everyone regardless of their IQ gets the message.
Sometimes it's a verbal condemnation other times it can just be a look. She was ALWAYS good with looks- that's why I didn't get spanked in public as a child because she didn't have to. Her look said/did it all. And I knew if I kept up whatever I was doing that was inappropriate or embarrassing to her I'd be in more trouble than I bargained for when I got home. 
As, my husband and I were following the growth of our little one on all these mommy-to-be sites from What to Expect When You're Expecting to The Bump to Babble.com we found that they give you weekly fetal updates about your baby's development. When it starts to grow ears, or fingernails or when the liver and spleen start to develop- it's really fascinating even if you're not having a kid. But they also do something really cute on these sites to better help you comprehend how big, or rather little, your baby is- they compare your baby to food. 

So in your first couple of weeks it's the size of a pea, then a blueberry, then a bean, then a plum, then a peach...then a lemon...an orange- you're following me. Well, the name that stuck for us was Bean. Don't ask me why, but it did. So my husband to this day will rub my belly which really isn't even showing yet ('cause it's my first pregnancy) and he calls the baby "The Bean". He's even created terminology around it. For example when I'm on stage and I mixed a joke up or forget the punch line- he's like, "I saw you get "beaned" up there." Or when I had my awful bouts of nausea, he'd rub my back and say sympathetically, "I'm sorry you're getting 'beaned' so badly." It's become terminology around our house and kind of a cute nickname for a child we clearly can't decide on name for yet (see The Infamous Name Game Part I or The Infamous Name Game Part Deux). 

Well, during a phone conversation while I was relaying to my mom how excited CJ was about becoming a father I happened to mention that our pet name for the baby was "The Bean". You would have thought I called the kid Alouicious! She didn't even find it even mildly amusing. In fact, she was rather indignant when she replied back, "That IS NOT a bean you're carrying- that is MY ANGEL!!!" I realize I could argue and have a never-ending mother/daughter fight about this. But I will concede. I suppose for someone who's in her mid-sixties who's friends are ALL grandmas by now, some several times over, this is HER ANGEL. So CJ and I will just call it "The Bean" in the privacy of our own home.