Jan
31
Spoon-feeding and Corgies
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January 31, 2007
This morning I watched the Today Show segment featuring Melissa of Suburban Bliss, and I think my overall takeaway from it was: Boy, was that stupid. I mean, the ridiculous montage of playdate footage featuring approximately 4938 looming wine glasses, close-ups of wine bottles, and befuddled-looking babies as seen through the yellowy, translucent wine-filled glasses themselves (my god, won’t somebody think of the children?); the pointless “expert” who just repeated the same one-liner over and over; the utter lack of any actual substance behind the opposition to mothers who dare to drink alcohol in their children’s presence.
I thought Melissa handled herself well, and I like her even more for having the nads to participate, and I hope her next TV appearance involves a member of the media who has, I don’t know, a shred of journalistic integrity and isn’t focused on producing an easily digestible, overly simplified news product. I think the thing that’s most disturbing to me about the segment is that people watch lame crap like that every day. I’m no elitist over here, I watch American Idol for god’s sake, but I like to think I can recognize when I’m being spoon-fed a steaming chunk of bullshit.
I will say that while I have no objection whatsoever to mothers enjoying a drink at a playdate (almost as if they were adults engaging in a perfectly legal activity, or something), I strenuously object to the playdates as depicted by the segment. I hereby declare that anything called a “playdate” should involve women sitting around in t-shirts and jeans, and anything that requires three hours of prep with a flatiron and a color-coordinated Banana Republic outfit that had to be IRONED beforehand should be something else entirely. I’m just saying.
In other news, Riley has had the sort of demon-child afternoon that really can make a person rethink the whole second kid thing. Don’t bother telling me how much harder it will be with two, okay? I have an active imagination and I can get depressed ALL BY MYSELF, thanks.
I wish I didn’t have so many doubts and fears about adding a second suctopus to our household, but I do, I have about a million of them. Where will this child sleep? How will we afford the additional costs? Will we ever leave the house again? Will I have any time whatsoever to do the things I like to do? What if this baby refuses to sleep at night? Or has colic? Or requires special care? And what about my ass, exactly how fat will it get?
All I can take solace from is that I have faith we will love a second baby just as much as we love Riley, that along with challenges he or she will bring great joy into our lives. And hopefully, as siblings their childhood will be made richer for having each other.
Then again, maybe I should just get another dog. A Welsh Corgi, say.
Jan
30
January 30, 2007
Tell me, how can something that’s so spectacularly cute cause so much pain?
High school boyfriends, rabies-infested Angora bunnies, and Steve Madden heels: CRIMES AGAINST NATURE.
They look so benign, too. Low heels, gently rounded toe, there’s nothing there that should make my feet feel like I’ve drunk the Sea Witch’s potion, and yet my every step in these devil-shoes is one of limping agony. I foolishly wore these this morning and even though I traded them in for flats before I left the house, I’m still gimpy.
I am Barbaro. Call the glue farm.
I wore those fucking shoes for one night in San Francisco three weeks ago, and I still have scabs on my toes. My apologies for using the word “scab” in a non-union-focused blog entry because, well, ew, but that’s what the hell they are: SCABS. From an ill-advised three-block journey which left my feet so destroyed I actually walked through the hotel barefoot, despite a vivid mental image of the unseen hotel carpet detritus I was moseying over (Eluviation Layer: Various Bits of Street Filth; Regolith Layer: Dogshit Particles and Human Skin Flakes; Bedrock Foundation: Sputum, Sputum, Sputum). I put them on today because I am apparently so mouth-breathingly stupid I believe that a pair of severely uncomfortable shoes, if given enough time, will magically morph into something tolerable, possibly by rearranging all the bones in my feet.
Other than hurting myself with fashion, it’s been a low-key week so far. JB’s parents left this morning, which means we can turn the heat in our house back down to non-tropical levels, but sadly it also means the built in babysitters are gone and we’ll have to pay attention to our own son. God, what a pain in the ass.
I’m just kidding (sort of), but Riley will surely miss having his grandfather around, because much like he plays favorites with JB, he is completely enamored with JB’s dad – while showing only a cursory interest in JB’s mom. It’s marginally comforting to know I’m not the only female in my son’s life who plays second fiddle to the much-preferred MAN, but really, I’m starting to wonder if it would really be so wrong to sport a strap-on dildo in Riley’s presence. Sure, it sounds bad, but I’m just talking about tipping the scales back in my favor.
Actually, I may have a second shot at becoming the Preferred Parent, although I swear that’s not the reason I finally decided that I was on board with trying for baby numero two-o. It has to do with wanting Riley to have a sibling and having one more chance to smell a newborn’s head and probably being sort of eternally, optimistically foolish (see above re: shoes) and anyway, so yeah, I don’t have any idea how long it will take, but we’re officially going for it. Oh my god.*
* By the way, how disturbing is it that after I posted this, I saw on my referral-tracking-RSS-thingie a search for “regret second child”? If you regret one of your own children, is Google really going to help? I mean, isn’t that what eBay is for?
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