Water Babies & Monster Coats

In keeping with the pregnancy theme that this here blog's got going on, I've got another story for ya, ags (and other non-ags--this is, after all, an equal opportunity blog).

When I was in eighth grade, I took this class called Life Management Skills. The sole reason I took it was because I heard that you got to take home one of those electronic babies that cries every once in a while to give you the experience of what it would be like to have a real baby. If you don't pick up the baby when it cries, the computer chip logs it as neglect. I think it had water in it too to make it feel more life-like. Well, my baby ended up being broken and cried every fifteen minutes without fail. Around 10 PM when the whole family was trying to go to sleep and the baby kept crying and crying. Despite my protests & fears of failing the project, my mom locked the baby in the garage and let it cry all night. So keep that story in the back of your head as a little prelude...

Our fall semester is about to come to a close at our English school, so we've been gearing up for next semester by recruiting new students. I know it may seem strange that it's nearly February and we're still technically in the "fall" semester, but that's the way things are around here. Their main holiday revolves around the lunar new year, so we'll take off the month of February and start up classes again in March.

So the point is that we've been recruiting new students, which involves going out and passing out flyers at primary schools and pre-schools to all the parents. Have I mentioned that it's been cold recently? Oh yes...perhaps I have. My dear husband even bought me this contraption that's become my winter best friend. It's more or less a hot water bag that plugs into the wall to heat the water inside. You never have to change the water and the sucker can get pretty warm. Throw it in bed at night or keep it in your lap for a while and I'm one toasty lady!

Since it's been so cold, on the first day of flyer pass out, I wore every single layer that I own. Our househelper owns this amazingly warm coat that she let me borrow. I call it a "Guai Wu Wai Tao" (which translates to "Monster Coat") because it has fur on it and it reminds me of a Yeti. To top it off, I heated up my water bag and shoved it down my coat. Sure, it looked a little silly but all is fair in love & warm.



So off I go to be the best flyer passer-outer of all time. But instead having beneficial conversations with parents about how great & wonderful our school is, this is what I happened with one of the fathers:

Father: Oh you're pregnant! How many months are you?
Me: (Long pause...not wanting to admit I've shoved a water bag down my coat) Uhhh...not yet.
Father: Is it a boy or a girl?
Me: Uhhh...I don't know. (Which, in reality, is the truth. I have no idea what gender my hot water bag is)

So there you have it, folks. Another pregnancy run-in. Don't ask my why I didn't just play the stupid foreigner card and say "I don't understand." Why didn't I just say "Oh I'm not pregnant" and be done with it? Who even knows?

I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe my "water baby" helped recruit some students because all the parents felt sorry for the poor pregnant girl passing out flyers in the cold. But then again, if those parents actually do register for classes with us, they might wonder why I never gave birth. Oh well... Even though this "water baby" created a bit of an awkward situation, at least my mom won't lock it in the garage...



(In this picture, I'm standingon the pond outside our house. It's been frozen solid! If you look closely, you can almost get a glimpse of my "baby bump.")