About a month ago J and I were on a plane home after attending a friend’s wedding. We were sitting next to a guy, probably about our age, and we struck up a conversation with him and talked throughout the flight.

He was getting married in just a couple weeks, and so we talked about our wedding, and his plans, and then the conversation turned to kids so we told him that we had a two-year-old daughter and another one on the way. He asked if we were going to find out what the baby was, and we said yes, definitely.

Then he said something that a lot of people say. He said that when it came time for he and his wife to have children, he figured he wouldn’t want to find out the sex of the baby before it was born. He said, “There are just so few surprises left in life.”

I totally get why people want to wait to find out. First of all, that’s got to be an amazing moment, when your baby is born and the doctor exclaims “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” That’s a ton of excitement all at once - an amazing moment you’ll never forget. I can think of a ton of reasons for waiting and I admire people who do.

But saying that there are “so few surprises left” isn’t really accurate, in my opinion.

First of all, there are totally surprises!

If you’re talking strictly about medical-type surprises - as in, we aren’t as often surprised with advanced fatal conditions in this day and age because of improved technology - well, those weren’t cool surprises to begin with.

But if you’re talking about the good kind of surprises, I think you’re wrong. I’m surprised almost every day. Sometimes the surprises are little, like when J brings me a cup of coffee just as I’m waking up, before I’ve even gotten out of bed. Or when someone sends you flowers. Little yet so great. Some of the surprises are big. Like when you a fantastic job offer. Or you get engaged. Or, regarding this specific topic, when you find out you’re pregnant.

The other thing is that even if you find out what you’re having halfway through the pregnancy, it’s still a surprise. You’re just getting the surprise a little earlier. I will totally admit that the reason I’ve opted to find out with both pregnancies is that I just can’t wait. I CAN’T wait. You people who can wait? You are incredible! But also crazy. In a good way, though, I mean it.

When people bring up the “so few surprises” thing, I feel like it implies that I don’t like surprises. Surprises are the best. And so far 2010 has been such an awesome, surprising year. And it just keeps getting better.

Guys, I love surprises.

And this morning, during my 19-week ultrasound, I was surprised.

We’re having a…boy!

A while back I decided it might be prudent to get a new car, replacing my 2003 Hyundai Elantra that has a tape deck.

I went through all the reasoning associated with making such a purchase, like that it would be great to have a car with better safety features, and that I might like to get a bigger car like a wagon, especially because then I could take the dogs places, instead of having my 75-pound pit bull mix basically sit half-on my daughter while we drive, and that I’d like to get something reliable that I could drive for years and years.

But people, let’s be honest, I really just want a car that offers something better than a tape deck.

Thus began the car searching that has, I’m going to admit to you right now, reached a state of obsession on my part. I’ve driven a lot of cars over the years. There was my dad’s Toyota Tercel that I totaled when I was 16. Then there was the beloved used Honda Accord I drove after that and throughout college until it died in a grocery store parking lot in North Carolina. I traded it in for my Honda Civic, which was fantastic, until I crashed it into a car trying to make a left right in front of me on a two-lane highway (not my fault, for the record, lest you all fear getting in the car with me ever again). No one was hurt, thank God, but the car - just on the brink of being scrapped - was never the same again. Then we traded that in and J and I shared the Prius, until we came up here to New Haven and I decided it wasn’t practical to have one car, and because it was very cheap and right in front of me, I bought the Hyundai.

I haven’t had the greatest luck. The two Hondas were also both broken into. My mom backed into the Hyundai one day when we were sitting in the driveway. Just right on into it. I never got the body work done to fix it because I kinda didn’t care. Because when your car has a tape deck and tinted windows, you’re kinda like, “Weeeeeeellll whatever.”

So all these things are playing into this decision and it’s all making me a little crazy. Like, I have to love this new car, whatever it is. LOVE IT. There are also a few musts:

1. The car must be stick shift.
2. The car must not be silver.
3. The car must have something better than a tape deck.
4. The car must have power locks.
5. Cecilia must be able to comfortably lounge in the back.

So far I’ve test-driven a Subaru Outback, liked it a lot, then proceeded to fret about whether or not buying one would feed into the American Adoration Of All Things That Are Big. I’ve always had smaller cars. I got all nervous. I looked at a VW Jetta wagon, too. They’re nice looking but I don’t know about reliability. I’ve checked out all the stats on the Toyota Matrix. Then J said that if I was looking at Toyotas I might as well look at another Prius and I was like, I don’t want a Prius, I want something different, and he was like, what DO you want, which brings me to the current state of indecision.

So for now, I’m soldiering on with the Hyundai. If you listen hard, you can hear me. Because when I drive, the front half of the car rattles like the wheels are gonna fall off. Which is just another thing I’ll remember about it, adding more stories to the history of vehicles in the life of one Cara McDonough. Hopefully the story takes a new turn very soon.

I remember thinking a while back that when we had another child, it would be crazy and fun, most likely tiring and challenging, but that it wouldn’t be as big of a deal. I don’t mean that we’d love that second child any less than our first (who do you think I am?) but that everything surrounding the pregnancy, birth and those first few months would be somewhat familiar.

But you know me. I’m wrong, like, all the time.

We’re doing it again.

And a few weeks ago, when I was lying on the examination table in my doctor’s office, and the midwife had the heart rate monitor on my belly while we listened to the rapid, “woosh woosh woosh” sound of this new little life, I am telling you, it was all the excitement I could ever feel times a million. Familiar? No way.

Nora’s brother or sister is due in April. I think I’ll go ahead and start putting Prozac in Mina’s food now.

Yeah, I know, people use their cell phones too much blah blah blah, I’m not uncovering anything novel here.

But I’m going to write about it anyway.

A few weeks ago J and I were out to dinner and a few tables down from us was this guy and girl who - I am telling you - were each looking at their phones for, I’d say, 95 percent of the meal. Like, they were talking to each other, but they were talking in this stilted, not fully-engaged sort of way, and also I’m pretty sure they were talking a lot about whatever they were looking at on their phones. Tweets. Texts. Stuff like that. We were pretty sure they were the worst people on Earth. Or, in that restaurant, anyway.

I like tweets. I like texts. And I will tell you right now that when I first got my BlackBerry a couple years ago, I was like, “Holy Hell look at all my emails!” And I was like that a lot and I was probably like that at inappropriate times, for instance when I was having a serious discussion with my husband or when I was stopped at a stop light (I promise I don’t do that one anymore, ever). However, I’m over it and now find a certain solace in putting my phone away for most of the day, someplace I can’t see it. Or even better, turning it off.

But I get it that phones nowadays are cool, like especially the iPhone my husband has. The new kind. And it has all those apps and everything and it helps us locate shops and restaurants and helps us look up breaking news or the definition of a political movement that we don’t understand.

When you’re talking to someone though - as in, speaking to them with your face and voice and mouth because you’re a human, and that is how humans speak to one another - and they are looking at their phone instead of listening to you (even though they say they are listening to you and it’s fine), well, my question is, do you have a right to lose it on them? Specifically, do you have the right to dip their phone, ever so gently, right in your fucking cup of hot coffee?

You guys, I am not singling my darling husband out. I mean, ahem, we have had some discussions about his love affair with his iPhone and I think he gets where I’m coming from, although, “I was at work all day and I didn’t get to play with my phone” is not really a valid excuse because in my book.

My father has a bit of a problem with his phone, too, relentlessly pounding out emails on his BlackBerry during many of his waking hours, and I’ve explained to him on several occasions that if he doesn’t put it away I am going to put it away for him. On the road, under my car, because I will be running it over. He explains that “these people” (those on the receiving end of his various emails) need him and he’s got to respond right away, and then I explain that if everybody played by no rules we could just say goodbye to normal conversation and go completely electronic. Because that, again, is not a valid excuse. I told him once that he was going to get cancer in all the tips of his fingers - that I’d heard a report that that could happen on the news (I totally didn’t, obviously) and that solved the problem for about five minutes. Then he overcame the fear, or realized that I was lying, one of the two.

With J and my dad, I joke, and sometimes venture towards real anger, but truthfully they’re both very receptive to my complaints and are wonderful people, too. Do you see how I threw that in? That’s so nobody gets mad at me.

I also realize that my anger regarding overuse of phones could be aggravated by the fact that I’m home with a two-year-old a lot of the time, and when I’m talking to someone who isn’t two, damnit, I want them to pay attention to me. I need attention, you guys!

No kidding around, though, the problem I have is that I think it’s rude. Where’d our manners go? I understand leaving your phone out on the table at dinner when you’re waiting for a super important call, or for another member of the party to show up or call for directions. And it’s totally valid to see who is calling when your phone rings, to answer, and to look at texts or whatever else from time to time. But sometimes, especially when you’re with people, put it away, come on! If you’re doing something nice with a real person, put the phone down. Just do it. I have put cell phones in the toilet before - two of them - and sure, those were accidents, but I’d have no problem doing it again if I saw just cause. On purpose this time. And I might regret it for a second or two, when you threaten to kill me, but you wanna know what? I wouldn’t regret it for long.