Pet Peeves

Please take no offense to this post... these are just things that drive me crazy and I thought that I might post about something other than my daughter.

1. Spelling errors

I just passed by a banner outside a building on Trimmier Road in Killeen. It advertises weight loss with "no excercise"... seriously? Someone had to place the order for that banner AND someone else had to print it and neither of them caught it... really? My mom says that I've always been like this. I remember how names are spelled after seeing them just once, even if they have an unusual spelling. I never had to study for spelling tests and I don't think I've ever used spell check. Now, don't worry... I don't scrutinize emails, blogs, etc for errors... I just tend to notice them. I don't remember if you are supposed to underline or italicize book titles, so I may even be committing a grammatical error with the next sentence. I stopped reading the book Babywise II because it had so many spelling/grammatical errors in it. I really want to write a letter to the editor of that book and offer to edit it for them for some $$$ :)

2. Weeks/months calculation errors

This is a weird one and I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does. Maybe it is the math teacher in me? Pregnancy and early babyhood are both counted in weeks, so this has been a big pet peeve in the last year and a half. It drives me crazy when people only count 4 weeks in a month. Not all months are created equal. February isn't quite as cool as January because J has 3 extra days and also happens to be mine and Elise's birth month :) What about the 2-3 little days on the end that get left out? Not a big deal at one month, but they add up when you talk about multiple months. For example...there are 12 months in a year. Let us do a little math:

12 months = 52 weeks, so
6 months = 26 weeks and
3 months = 13 weeks

If you are 24 weeks pregnant, you are about 5.5 months pregnant, not 6 months pregnant.

Pregnancy is 40 weeks long. This is not equal to nine months or ten months (I have heard this a lot!), but if you deliver on your due date, you have been pregnant for 9 months and 1 week because...

9 months = 6 months + 3 months
9 months = 26 weeks + 13 weeks
9 months = 39 weeks

So, you are not nine months pregnant until you are one week shy of your due date. It seems like a lot of people complain about being 9 months pregnant for a month or so before the baby is born (I assume because 9x4=36). Yes, it is true that you are in your 9th month of pregnancy starting at almost 35 weeks, but you are not 9 months pregnant until you've reached the end of the 9th month. Similarly, I am in my 28th year of life, but you better believe that I'm not 28 years old until I've reached the end of it. Elise is in her 9th month of life, but she won't be 9 months old for several more weeks.

Again, please don't take offense to this post... but do make a comment and share your pet peeves :)