When you were growing up, mom always told you to eat your vegetables. Brightly colored, sometimes funny-shaped, but chock full of vitamins and minerals, veggies give you great energy and fuel your body. (Although they may never taste as good as a milkshake.)

Today is World Vegetarian Day, October is Vegetarian Awareness month, and chefs, celebrities, moms and families are bringing this healthy option back into restaurants and homes across the globe.

Paul McCartney, along with daughters Stella and Mary, run the non-profit Meat-Free Mondays campaign, which focuses on raising awareness of the affects meat production has on the environment, and asks supporters to eat a vegetarian meal once a week to keep greenhouse gas emissions down and heart healthy habits up.

Mom bloggers post about this weekly event, including photos and easy recipes to make an entire family happy. In 2009, the City Public Schools in Baltimore, Maryland have taken meat off their Monday menus supporting the cause system-wide. Even celebrity-chef Mario Batali has joined the movement, offering meatless options on the Monday menus of all of his 14 restaurants.

So whether you’re getting ready to go to the grocery store with your reusable canvas bag to stock up in the produce section, or going out for a meal this weekend, honor thy peas and carrots and veg out on some veggies.

Good old maternity leave.  I’ve had tons of co-workers around me do it.  I’ve heard all the stories, had many misconceptions.  But now it’s actually ME taking it!  I gotta admit I’m looking forward to turning off my “work mind” and going into veg mode.

There are so many GLEE episodes to get caught up on (yes!) and now I’ll get to fully take advantage of my Netflix account, maybe even see a few Academy Award winning movies.  George-Clooney-Up-In-The-Air, anyone?

I’m also going to have time to reflect on what this whole pregnancy thing has meant to me.  Yeah it’s had it’s ups and downs, aches and pains, laughs AND cries, but overall it’s not nearly as bad as I imagined it to be.  Because along with the challenges comes this feeling that you have done something so great, that it overpowers all the other thoughts.  Plus when the hormones are working “for” you you have a pretty good pregnancy buzz going.  (Thank God because you can’t have cocktails anymore or caffeine for that matter!)

I’ve really worried about being too selfish to be a Mom, but luckily nature has a way of slowly getting rid of your selfish tendencies during the 9 months you spend waiting.  I mean if I were my old selfish self, I would be throwing a lot more temper tantrums about the first trimester nausea, excess heartburn, painful kicking episodes and trouble walking all because of this little one inside.  But no, I’ve had my eye on the prize and it keeps me sane!

So will I miss work?  Definitely.  But I don’t think I could fully focus on a new baby and a job all at once – at least not successfully.  So here’s to my new focus for the next little bit – and a new chapter!  Cheers, and see you all in a few months, same bat-time, same bat-place (just this time with a little girl OR little boy sharing half my genes!)

My lovely co-workers at CafePress threw me a work baby shower and it was great.  I know everyone that attended loved the chips, dip, fruit and sweets – I mean who doesn’t – but no one could have loved those cupcakes more this pregnant lady!  Don’t tell anyone but I snuck the leftover cupcakes home, thank you so much for not overindulging people!

This was my second baby shower, and I like to say this one was personal.  It was all about receiving personalized gifts because I got a boat load of CafePress baby clothes and accessories!  I love that they reflected both my personality and my husband’s, I mean after all this kid will be a joint reflection of us!  On a side note let’s hope the baby get’s my nose.

My husband is going on marathon number 7 soon, so this Future Marathoner tee was adorable.  We both do triathlons and I think the bike may be our favorite portion, so this “This is How I Roll” tee was also spot on.  I had my eye on this Mommy + Daddy = Me onesie because cute things make me go ga-ga now – so glad they read my mind and picked it!

I also received a few CafePress bibs which I can now confirm are super soft  and of course packed with personality, like the “Team Awesome” and “I’m a Hoot” versions.  I also have to give them props for having to choose gender-neutral items; I know it’s not easy.  You guys rock, thank you!  I’m all out of cupcakes now though, so I’m off to the grocery store now…

[Other items received...]

So in about 5 weeks I’m going to need a name for our little one as the due date is impending.  Well that could turn into 6 weeks if I’m overdue, or even 7 weeks if I do what Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady did: take a week after the birth to decide!  What makes our situation a little more challenging is needing a few options for both a boy and a girl, since we don’t know the gender!

I’ve enlisted the help of friends, but honestly it’s such a personal thing that I’ve gotten no good leads.  The one exception came from a friend of a friend, as everyone at the dinner table was saying this guy is “good at coming up with baby names! “  He apparently helped name more than one family’s offspring!  Anyway, he had a good boy name for us, and it’s now very high up on our list.

What name did he give us you ask, well I can’t tell you because that would be opening ourselves up to opinion.  This is another dilemma you face when trying to name babies – do you tell your friends what you picked for fear they may shoot it down?  Nothing sucks like falling in love with the name Lars or Georgiana or Constantine and having your friends and family burst out laughing.  I mean they feel free to do that since the baby isn’t actually “here” and they have time to save you from that awful, silly choice!  (Not that any of those names are awful, my dear readers.)

By the way, if you’ve never considered typing your name in our search box – do it now.  I guarantee you will find a product with your name on it.  If you don’t, I’ll be pleasantly surprised…and tell us in the comments below!  (But know this, I have free reign to add it to my baby name list.

I have to admit, I have some cool girlfriends.  We were planning on having a baby shower at my house set in two weeks – and then BAM I come home from shopping this weekend and they’ve all snuck into my house to start the party a bit early… surprise! (Yeah, near heart attack.)

We played a few cheesy shower games, of course; I consider it part of the Mommy Track initiation.  More importantly, the chocolate cupcakes were pure gold, who doesn’t like cute baby gifts, and it was good to spend time with friends.  I’m sending you these thank you notes girls.

If you weren’t aware CafePress is a terrific place to get baby shower gifts for other Mama’s To Be.  The best part is they’ll be completely unique and a hit at the party.  I can explain – here are ideas from our Gift Center: 

1. Find the perfect baby bodysuit from our catalog (choose wisely as it reflects your personality too!)  Check out topics like: Humor, Lil’ Sis or Lil’ Brother for example.
2. Purchase a baby bottle, roll up the bodysuit and slide it inside, tie with ribbons and voila!
3. Prefer a baby bib instead? Folded, you can fit two of them inside a bottle.
4. Wrap the gift, add ribbon, and slide a cute ornament on (for boy or girl) to really personalize the package!

There ya go, you can now be a rock star baby shower attendee.

I’m sort of surprised that we’ve been able to hold out for so long, but 7 weeks ago when asked if we wanted to know the gender, during our ultrasound appointment, we did the very abnormal thing and said “NO.”

Unfortunately it’s THE most-asked question I get being pregnant: boy or girl?  I just always thought it would be nice and traditional, fun to buck the trend, buck technology and laugh in its face … “Hahaha, I don’t need to know! I don’t need your fancy high tech imaging!”  You know, like holding out and not feeling you had to get that iPhone the second it came out.  Granted I did get one about a year later, but it was worth the wait and I paid way less (okay, off topic.)

But I get many, many more shocked reactions than I expected: Ohmygosh how can you not want to know!  I HAD to know!  Apparently everyone is now a control freak or such a planner that they can’t keep themselves from painting the nursery in EITHER blue or pink.  Or having a name picked out, and referring to the baby as such in everyday conversations.  Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to know the gender of your baby.  I just didn’t think my choice would be such an anomaly!

It does mean that I will most likely have to paint the nursery yellow, I can’t buy many baby clothes yet (my wallet thanks me) and I have to come up with TWICE as many baby names to chew on.  But hey, that’s all part of the fun!

I sort of suspect there’s another bit of truth to be told: I’m kind of nervous about how much my life is going to change after this baby.  So not knowing the gender could be my way of chickening out from facing that reality.  My doctor has the envelope though…I could always give him a call…

Mayday is defined as an emergency code word used internationally as a distress signal in radio communications.  This is immediately the irony I thought of after learning I was pregnant and that my due date would be early May, jokingly of course.  This will be my first child.  And I am certain one of the reasons humans have such long pregnancies is to get the mother mentally prepared for how MUCH their life is going to change!

Hi, I’m mamaLife, new to the CafePress blog, but not new to this company.  I’ve been roaming the halls here for about a year and a half now!  My roaming has become a little more like a waddle lately, please just pass me if I’m going too slow people.  Everyday I find products on CafePress that express how I’m feeling about my journey through this pregnancy – so much so that I really wanted to share with you.

One of the newest wonders of being pregnant is all the kicking that the baby is doing.  I was actually surprised how early it starts (my naïve self figured babies don’t kick until 8 months or so?!)  So when I was on vacation in Hawaii last month, it totally took me by surprise to feel kicks after dinner one night.  Like a lot of new moms the first time you think it’s gas.  But with each passing week the kicks get stronger, which is amazing because the baby is relatively small (about the size of a papaya according to Google!)  Sometimes it’s really distracting, sometimes it’s annoying, but most of the time it’s really touching – I’m lucky to have an active, healthy papaya in there!