[ROUND-UP] The Knocked-Up Edition

Guiliana Rancic summed it up perfectly (YES, I WATCH GUILIANA & BILL, SHUT UP) when she said, "We spend our whole lives trying not to get pregnant, and then when we want to, it's a big ordeal."

Well, not for those ladies that get knocked up accidentally! HA! They were just trying to eat a basket of curly fries and drink a million beers, and guess what happened?  PREGNANT. 

But whether you were wishing and hoping and praying for your own bouncy bundle or joy or whether Saturday night's mixed signals turned out in the worst way possible, most people are clueless when it comes to babies.

But guess who's even more clueless: The friends of pregnant ladies who are still free and single and show up to baby showers two hours late and smelling of mango vodka. 

They're the ones who need the help.  What the hell should they buy as a gift for this shower?  Where do babies come from?  Jesus, did I take my pill today?

And so, I present you with some gentle gift suggestions for what you should buy for someone who is either begrudgingly or estatically pregnant.

Be forewarned: 90% of what I know about pregnancy and babies is what I learned from watching Three Men & a Baby.  That Steve Guttenberg—what an actor!

1. Nothing says "you're fucked" quite like the words "you're having twins."  Imagine how Kate Gosselin felt when she got the news BEFORE she realized she could parlay half-assed parenting into full-assed faux celebrity.  The terror!  The dread!  The inability to figure out what race her husband actually is!  It must have kept her up nights.  So, if you want to be a special kind of douchebag and freak your already ambivalent friend out by subtly suggesting she might have not one, but TWO buns in the oven, pick up this TW & IN Onesie Set (Spoon Sisters, $38).  "Hell, you could have a whole dozen in there," you'll say, as you pat her belly and maintain creepily consistent eye contact.  "Wouldn't that be great?" you'll continue.  "Then we can call your house 'The Bakery!' Hilarious, right?  You should be writing this shit down!"

2. I read somewhere once where someone said that having a child is willingly making the decision to let your heart walk around outside of your body for the rest of your life.  If my own heart weren't made of stone, I would probably think that that's a very touching sentiment.  Regardless of my own emotional inadequacies, I think we can all agree that having a baby ain't all rainbows and sunshine and that it involves MASSIVE amounts of patience, responsibility, and anti-depressants (optional?).  But if you're the type of asshole parent I see on the subway and in restaurants EVERY DAY who virtually ignores their child and is clearly not into taking their parental responsibilities seriously, you might want to pick up this Wheel of Responsibility (Spoon Sisters, $12.50) Who's turn is it to get up when this damn kid is crying again?  Spin the wheel!  Who's turn is it to make sure this kid doesn't get stolen in the grocery store when we're shopping for douchey foods like organic edamame and kale?  SPIN IT.   

3. Face the facts: your friend's hippie (read: misguided) attitude towards "free love" is probably what got her into this situation in the first place (or, as they say in Detriot when someone's pregnant, "She's gone!"  Seriously, SHE'S GONE).  Why don't you encourage her to pass on the irresponsibility with these Peace, Love, and Drool Teethers (Land of Nod, $38)? 

4. Speaking of irresponsibility, here's a Bob Marley onesie (The Retro Baby, $18.95) which is just a way for parents to pretend they're still cool.  They're saying, "Yeah, I might be pushing a giant, double-wide Bugaboo right now, but look at my goddamned kid.  He's wearing a onesie that's an international symbol for smoking weed." Full disclosure: my father owns a sailboat and the name of it is "One Love," which is probably the gayest name a straight man can name his boat.  One time I went home to visit and one of the sailor people (I don't know the correct nautical terms here, I just like wearing boat shoes) pointed to me and said, "Oh, this must be his one love!" I almost jumped overboard and drowned myself because that was such a STUPID thing to say.  Anyway, my dad LOVES Bob Marley.  See the connection?  Tangents!  Whatever—man oh man, you should buy this onesie.  Your friend will feel just like she's in Jamaica whenever she looks at her kid wearing it.  See the beach?  Hear the waves?  GREAT, because you're not going to be able to afford a trip there anytime soon.  Sorry kids cost so much money LOL!     

1. Remember that time that your friend did some awful shit to you and you held onto your anger about it because you're a white woman and that's what you do best?  Well guess what time it is?  It's about a quarter to PAYBACK TIME (my favorite time!).  Tell your friend that you want to "nurture the baby's creative side."  "Kids who have a strong foundation in the arts are less likely to use drugs and more likely to pursue higher education or something," you'll say.  Either way, this is the perfect opportunity for you to torture your friend by buying their kid lots of noisy toys like trumpets and drum sets (Land of Nod, $16.95). You'll call her on the phone and hear the kid banging on the drum set in the background.  "It's his favorite toy," your exhausted friend will say to you, with a special kind of hatred in her voice reserved only for people that you want to kill with your bare hands.  All of this will be exceedingly hilarious for you, but gift at your own risk—if you ever have kids, your friend is definitely going to commission a personal marching band as a gift to your kid. 

2. You know the drill.  This bitch held headphones playing classical music up to her belly and read the fetus Nietzsche because she wanted her baby to come right out of the womb and be able to have a frank discussion about existentialism.  That's why this Teach My Baby kit (Toys R Us, $49.99) is so perfect for this obsessive lady.  It teaches "senses and touch" "numbers," and my favorite: "self-awareness."  Maybe I should pick up this kit for EVERY FUCKING ADULT I'VE EVER MET IN NEW YORK CITY because no one up in this cradle of delusions has ANY sense of self-awareness.  But really, back to mom.  Listen, lady: no matter what those creepy "Your Baby Can Read" commercials try to tell you, a 16-month-old shouldn't be able to read.  Put away the fucking flashcards and try to focus on supporting that kid's head correctly.  Yeah, your baby can read, but your nine-year-old has scoliosis.     

3. So you're the type of mother who has given your child a Snickers bar for dinner on more than one occasion.  It's FINE.  You probably have a job and a Twitter account and a Google Reader and a million other things you need to keep track of and sometimes dinner falls low on the priority list.  But this mom—THIS mom—is not having it.  Her kid is on an organic, gluten-free diet where the only "chips" he's aware of are made of kale.  She doesn't believe in giving her kid pre-packaged products because she doesn't have a job and she has the time to grow her own food and raise her own chickens.  WHATEVER.  I'm all for the working moms because my mother was a waitress and more than one meal as a child consisted of those Andes Thin Mints she'd give to customers with their check.  And I turned out FINE.  But if your friend is the type of mother who would prefer not to feed her children whatever she finds in her work apron at 9PM on a school night, pick up the Beaba Babycook Baby Food Maker (Williams-Sonoma, $149.95).     

4. When one of my friends gets pregnant, I really, really hope that one of them will ask me to be their child's godmother.  Not because I'm religious or anything stupid like that, but because then I will be able to have the child call me "God" for short.  "Where are you going today, little Jimmy?" they'll ask.  "Going to the zoo with God!" he'd say.  I'm "God" in this scenario, if you're following.  To encourage the kid's parents' self-righteousness and your own, pick up this onesie (My Sweet Muffin, $26.99) that has the words, "I will make a difference" emblazoned on it.  Talk about pressure.  This kid isn't even housebroken yet (is that a term used only for animals, or does it apply to babies as well?), and you're hanging the hopes and dreams of the world on his shoulders.  A fun experiment would be to keep track of the people who buy this onesie and see where the kids end up in 20 years.  I bet you a million dollars that each one of them is working at a job where they have a name on their shirt.  Yes, they're making quite the difference at Radio Shack.        

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