Forgive me. I know not what I say...

I am now officially an idiot. After the lamb chop debacle propelled me to the forefront of utter foolishness, then this latest incident sees me picking up the top award. Anyone out there got one of those? Do please pass it over here...

So, I was chatting with a friend the other day - you know, about babies, bumps, pregnancies...(by the way, in case you were wondering, I can talk about other things - this was only part of the conversation). The other part was about schools and homework and...well, just other things.

Anyway, in the part where we talked about bumps, we both found ourselves re-living the moment when we asked a seemingly pregnant woman when she was due - only to be met with the most dreaded of responses - "Er...I'm not actually pregnant". You know those conversations - the ones that make you want to be swallowed up in a huge, black whole there and then never to have to show your poor, shamed face ever again.

Strangely enough, because you'd think I would have learnt my lesson - it has actually happened to me twice. The first, years ago when I was but a wee 'girl' and asked a rather large Brown Owl if she had a baby in her tummy. She didn't, obviously, and thankfully I was too young to realise her mortification.

The second time happened as an adult. It was a Mother of one of Renée's friends at nursery. She was talking about moving house and needing more space when I just happened to glance at her tummy. She was wearing some sort of smock top and I realised that underneath it her belly was protruding from an otherwise slim frame.

"Oh, gosh", I spluttered. "I didn't realise. Congratulations. Silly me. Now I see why you need more space. How many weeks are you?"

She looked at me and laughed. "Ha ha. No I'm not pregnant. This?" She said, pointing to her bump. "This is just my little beer belly."

"Ha ha", I replied, blundering in like a giraffe in a doll's house. "Good one. Yeah - I suppose at the early stages it does look like a beer belly. No, but really - when are you due?"

This was her moment to look serious. "No really, it is just a beer belly."

"Hahahahahahahahahahaha." I think I may have run off at this point, giggling nervously and flushed in the face, of course, promising myself never to make the same mistake again.

However, this is not the whole post. Oh no - that happened a couple of years ago, so why would I be telling you about it now? I'll tell you why - because my friend and I ended our conversation about bumps and mistaken pregnancies swearing that we'd never be so foolish again - and even if we saw a baby's head sticking out from between a woman's legs (unlikely I know) - we would never be so stuipd as to assume she's even had sex.

Well, my friend might not be so stupid. I, on the other hand...

Later that very day...possibly only three hours after the conversation, I was picking up Edie from nursery when I spotted another Mother. I'd last spoken to her a week before when she was struggling to remain sane whilst waiting for the imminent birth of her second child. We'd discussed the frustrations of going overdue and I'd offered her not only sympathy, but empathy too (Renée and Edie were 9 days and 12 days overdue). So when I saw her face miserable and belly still obviously hugely swollen...I said the first thing that came into my mind...

"Hey, how are you feeling? Looking at the size of you, I can see the baby still hasn't come".

And that's when she moved out of the way to reveal a tiny newborn in a pram.

Whoops. Just point me in the right direction for my idiot award.