SCOOP: the love child of Katie Holmes and Winnie the Pooh
Ya'll know I don't "plug" stuff much--very few reviews or product endorsements on here, and even then, nothing that I get paid for. But, I have to say, I'm giving a shout-out here to a marketer who knows how to contact a blogger.
We often get pitches for products and services, pitches that start with "Dear Blogger: Nice blog! I thought this would interest your readers! Please post about it!" and then it's a plug for, like, cat piss removal products or motorcycle repair kits or a pet boutique located in Nowheresville, America and it's just painfully, painfully clear that this person has never read your blog. I get a LOT of pitches like that. To the point that I don't even open pitches, usually, i just delete them without reading.
But today, i received an e-mail from Parents.com and seriously, this PR person has read my blog (!!!), had read enough of me to know both my pseudonym and my real name, mentioned some of his "favorite posts" and gave his own feedback about the issues I was exploring in said posts, and then--AND ONLY THEN--mentioned what he wanted from me.
How refreshing.
And it happens to be something I am interested in and support: CUTE BABIES.
I mean, hello? WHO DOES NOT LOVE CUTE BABIES?????
I'm on the fence about ugly babies, I could take 'em or leave 'em, but cute babies? Yowza, gotta get me some'a those.
American Baby magazine was one of my favorite magazines when Frog was a wee little thing. I think it's the first one I read, because it was in the ob/gyn's office. It's so pretty...not cluttered up with a bunch of useless crap. All the photos have good lighting and all the mommies look happy. It has good information and pretty pictures and lots of white space--like Real Simple. I like a magazine that doesn't make me feel like I had to spring clean it. And even though Frog never won their cute baby photo contest (he's too old for it now, he's like, ANCIENT at three and a half, right? The modeling industry, it is so cruel. Thank God I was able to coax him out of his anorexia issues. <--JOKE) ...
Anyway, as I was saying, EVEN THOUGH THEY NEVER AWARDED FROG THE CROWN THAT WAS RIGHTFULLY HIS, I love the cute babies, and I love American Baby magazine, and I read The Goody Blog on their site, too, so, you know, this is not a difficult request with which to comply.
Full disclosure: they are going to pay me millions of....oh wait, no. They will provide a link to my site in their blogroll. So that's cool. I'm a whore for attention, as we all know.
ANYWAY, if you think your baby is cute, BRING IT, BITCHES.
Go here for the rules and stuff. Basically, your baby HAS TO BE CUTE, and "between three months and 24 months as of the date of entry." The grand prize winner will be featured on the cover of the August issue of American Baby magazine. Just like the adorable bear/baby hybrid child on the cover up there ^. They judge based on the baby's appearance, the personality as shown in the photo, and the quality of the photo.
Also, a highlight from the FAQ: they tell you how to submit a photo. And the great thing is that it comes with visual aids which are totally appropriate. I mean, it's a baby contest, right? And this: does this or does this not look just like a pregnancy test pee stick?
One line means, "HOLY CRAP THAT'S A CUTE BABY."
Two lines means, "UH....SERIOUSLY?"
And just as a public service (especially for my friend Penny), please do not send photos of your baby with food all over his or her face. Nobody wants to see that. Ew.
As a special favor to you, I will refrain from getting pregnant again and having another baby so as not to compete with your cute baby and KNOCK YO ASS OUT OF THE RUNNING. Cuz lawd knows I make me some cute baby.
thank you, JCPenney portrait studio:
Is it just me that thinks the disembodied ballerina legs are creepy?
Cute baby though.
(yet another little snippet I am posting before I go to entertain you while i'm out of town, much like that chunk of white slow-release food you put in the fish tank for them to nibble on for a week so you don't have to get a sitter for them like you would for a "real" pet)
p.s. If you have some time to kill, visit the JCPenney Portrait Studio page for more awesome poses, such as (and I can't link to them individually, but you will know them when you see them):
<--one of the side effects of pregnancy: no head
It's really hard for me to remember what it was like right after my son was born. I am, therefore, totally flummoxed when friends who have just had babies ask me to recall details so they can compare them with their current experience.You know how when you have a dream you can sometimes see yourself in the dream, like you're watching a movie? My early-post-partum memories are not like that. Every memory I have is of the baby or other people in my periphery. I look at photos and I don't recognize my hairstyle or the dishes on the table or outfits I was wearing.
Freud talks about how small children don't individuate until later in life, how at the beginning, they think they are THE SAME PERSON as their mother. I think perhaps the mother feels the same way. At least I know I did. Especially at the first pediatrician office appointment, when the nurse made me hold his little arm down so she could jab a GIANT NEEDLE into it for a vaccination?
I almost punched that bitch. I am not kidding. It was as if my body was somehow invisibly wrapped around him, so that the needle actually went through me first before getting to him, like that guy that got shot in the shoulder when Kennedy was assassinated. Except the nurse looked me right in the eye before she did it. No grassy knoll required.
I have three friends who have had babies in the past month and a half, so as you can imagine, it is CRAZYTOWN up in here. For two of them, this is the second kid. So, no biggie. Although S (whom I will talk more about later, and whom I have renamed The She-Kramer because she lives in my building and drops by all the time), almost died with her first kid so hello? Trooper. And the other mom of two is Daphne, the one I wrote about before with the post-partum bike riding (ow), whose baby I almost threw across the room, who is now on a two week vacation in Europe with a two year old and a newborn, something that makes me almost black out just thinking about it. Daphne does all the stuff Angelina Jolie does right after having a kid, except without a helicopter and five nannies.
Anyway, the third is, as you know, Eden, who named her baby--her first child--the ridiculously awesome girl name. Both Eden and The She-Kramer have asked me how long it takes for the baby belly to go back down to normal size. The She-Kramer asks this because her first kid was a vaginal birth and this most recent one was a c-section. Eden asks because hers was also a c-section, and it's her first, so she's kind of in a perpetual state of "WTF?" right now. I remember that state well, when you know there was no way anyone could have prepared you for it but you kind of can't believe how much stuff happened that no one tells you about, and you know you would have been annoyed if they HAD told you the bad stuff and scared you, but you can't help feeling sort of betrayed that no one at least gave you a HINT.
So anyway, the belly. Both Eden and The She-Kramer want to know how soon your belly goes away after a c-section. One of them is nursing, the other isn't. Both are about the same size still (so we can dispel that myth about breastfeeding sucking away all your fat). They both look GREAT, but they're not happy, necesarily, with still wearing maternity crap. Me, i was in love with my maternity crap so I really don't remember being eager to give it up. (I had this one pair of sailor pants from the GAP with THE SOFTEST belly panel ever, I swear, I wanted to wear them forever. I almost considered getting pregnant again JUST SO I COULD WEAR THOSE PANTS.)
Anyway. here's the thing. I have no freaking idea how long it took my belly to go away. There was a lot going on. I know that when I went back to work, my boobs were ENORMOUS. Like, not appropriate for the office at ALL. Can't believe my husband didn't tell me to cover that shit UP. Whoa. SO maybe I didn't notice the belly because my boobs drew so much attention that the stomach paled in comparison? No idea. I went back to work when FrogBoy was 11 weeks old, and though I remember sobbing on the kitchen floor the night before, my view of that is of a closeup of my kitchen floor, a beautiful 18-inch slate tile floor we'd installed when I was about 6 months along, literally spattered with tears and covered with pieces of the stupid breastpump that I was already at that point learning to LOATHE. This closeup view of the floor and boob accessories does not, therefore, include a wide-angle shot of what I was wearing or whether my belly was big.
I wish I could sort of pan out to see myself, maybe push that button they have for driving video games where you can choose whether your view is of the dashboard & windshield, or of the whole car. That would come in handy.
I never had a flat belly to begin with, actually, so maybe I don't notice the difference. Everyone (and by everyone I mean, people who are pregnant and to whom everyone looks thin in comparison) says I have a flat stomach and that I am "thin" but honestly, I just try to dress well for my shape, play up my
assets <---titstitstits, and hope for the best. I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight in a week but I am not back to my pre-pregnancy shape. Never will be. My feet are a half size bigger (thank God because otherwise I would fall over), and things have just moved around. I have all the same stuff--matter can neither be created nor destroyed--but it's arranged differently. And as I've been told by Martha Stewart is also true regarding flowers, the arranging part makes all the difference.
When I was twentyish I could not for the life of me understand how women would get plastic surgery. That was easy to say, back then, when I had a rockin' bod and porcelain skin and could smoke cigarettes and drink hard and eat whatever I wanted with zero consequences. Now I'm not so sure. When Eden e-mailed Penny and me about the belly question, the subject line was "tummy tuck," though I don't think she was seriously considering it. Maybe, though. I mean, it's a little early for that. But it's food for thought. I remembered reading an article on this called The Mom Job in Brain, Child Magazine, so I'm sending that to her.
What do you think? Should we value our 'goddess bellies' because they are a sign of fertility, proof of what we've gone through? or would you be open to plastic surgery to erase the outward signs of motherhood? Do you think it's freaky when you see a woman with five children and she's in the body of a teenager? or are you secretly jealous? If money was no object, would you have something "done"? Or are you worried that you'd accidentally die on the table and be all embarrassed you went under the knife for something elective?
Okay, um. What?
My eyes, owww, the burning.
Look.
Leopard-print turbans with feather-boa appliques didn't even work for 80-year-olds in 1940.
And if we're going with the assumption that naked babies are inappropriate (as we apparently are since this is offered as an alternative to the "naked baby shot," see copy), then don't you think the muu muu is a little low-cut?
Hussy.
Although....IF I had a baby.... and IF it was Pride Parade weekend, this might work.
But we'd need to buy red-patent stilettos to go with it.
I also like how the toe of the shoe encroaching on the top of the ad makes it look like it says "child's pray" instead of "play". I think that's loads more topical.
Pray for this baby, people, because there's a stage mom somewhere that has already clearly gotten way out of hand.
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Father’s Day has always been fraught with complications for me. To be more precise, fathers have always been fraught with complications for me. My father, in particular. Not a good vibe there, during ye olde childhoode. My dad and I get along now, surprisingly well, though there were years in there (eight to be exact, including my wedding) in which we did not speak at all, not once. By my choice. More on that some other time. But I think I’m so spoiled by how awesome my husband is, in so many ways, these days, that I forget how generally crappy a lot of other husbands/dads are. I mean, you know, we've had some pretty bad times, and there were times I've wanted to murder him, sure, but mostly? and recently? I feel really lucky.
So.
To the love of my life, fire of my loins:
Thank you for thinking I was a cute young thing, lo these many years ago in high school drama club, and for changing your dating paradigm (a. choose homely girl, b. kiss her, c. invite her best friend to prom like a total jerk) in order to be with me.
Thank you for marrying me even though your mother pretty much thought I was a heathen for not being born again and blamed me for your lack of relationship with Jesus (not having noticed, apparently, that you’d either slept through every church service for fourteen years or spent the entire sermon flipping through the hymnal so you could add "...in the bed" to the end of the all the titles: Jesus Loves Me In the Bed, He is My Rock In the Bed, Fill Me With Your Spirit In the Bed. Good stuff).
Thank you for wearing that god-awful tux I picked out even though it made you look like a butler with tortoiseshell glasses and a ducktail (actually, considering the ducktail and glasses, you should be thanking me for marrying you. Oh wait, you do that, all the time).
Thank you for not totally freaking out when I decided after fourteen years of marriage that wait, I did want to have kids after all.
Thank you for being there. For me, for our son. For supporting me while I go through grad school one class at a time for three effing years. For not once, not ever telling me, “You really should have gotten that Master’s out of the way BEFORE you had the kid.” For not once, not ever complaining about being on solo parenting duty pretty much every Tuesday night for three years so I can go talk about writing and literature. For telling me constantly how brilliant I supposedly am. For telling me what a good mom I am when I feel like a shitty one, and for forgiving me and stepping in to save the day when I actually AM a shitty one. For reminding me, speaking of which, not to curse in front of the boy.
For telling me to turn off the computer and come look at the sunset.
Or to come watch So You Think You Can Dance.
For never questioning my purchases.
For putting the boy to bed every night while I go to the gym or take a shower or write.
Thank you for being super excited along with me about FrogBoy’s first tae kwon do class, as we both frosted the hallway windows with our breath, laughing about how freaking cute he was kicking and shouting "keeyah!". And thank you for even BEING at the class to begin with, for doing things WITH us. I noticed you were the only dad there. The other moms were catty about our adoration from the sidelines (they themselves being too jaded to watch their four year olds in class) and acted like The Heathers, but I realize now that it might have been because I was the only one there who had my husband with me, at 4:30pm on a Friday. (And only one child, no baby crying to be changed or toddler begging for Cheerios, or both. Clearly I am a whore who must be punished.)
Thank you for being involved with our son’s preschool, and for doing adorable little carpentry activities with him and his friends when it’s your turn to visit the class, and for making him feel special when you let 'Onnnnnnly FrogBoy' touch the hand saw, because he had “the training” to use it correctly.
Thank you for giving me your honest opinion always, but still knowing when you really just need to tell me I’m right. Or to say nothing and just massage my shoulders until they release from their current disguise as earmuffs.
Thank you for buying groceries this Thursday, and for any other time you’ve done that. Because even though I write this cereal down on the list:
...and you inexplicably get this cereal instead (and yes, the size difference is accurate)...
...forgetting that I fucking hate generic cereal and what's more, that they don't MAKE cabinets big enough to hold a box that big, WHAT. THAFUCK...
...but still, I didn’t have to buy the groceries my own damn self. Thank you for that.
(But Sweet Lord, I’ve never seen so much candy and chips. This is not a frat house.)
Oh, but thank you for buying my favorite ice cream.
Thank you for being handy to the point that you not only "DIY" a kitchen for me, but paint it too, and draw portraits of me when I am pregnant and/or in high school (those being the only two times I’ve been willing to sit still for it), and barely complain a bit, even when I tell you your color choices for paint look like shit and I meant candy apple green, not the color of O.R. scrubs, and good god are you colorblind? For putting up with my attitudes.
For reminding me when I feel fat that my period is in two days, so it's just that I’m just bloated and crazy.
For reminding me when I’m a total bitch that my blood sugar is low because I skipped breakfast.
For sweeping in to handle it when FrogBoy vomits or wants to eat yogurt. Because honestly I don't know which of those is more disgusting.
Thank you , thank you for all the times you’ve been ‘in the mood’ but have taken one for the team so I could sleep.
Thank you for your sense of humor; for never calling time with our son “babysitting”; for learning to be good at gardening because I suck ass at it; for holding my hand during--and calling me a bad ass after--my un-anaesthetized c-section, even though you yourself were freaking. the fuck. OUT.; and for pretty much doing the dishes and laundry ever since.
Thank you for laughing your ass off at the blog posts I read to you, and not looking at the ones I don’t.
Thank you for always answering the question, “Does this make me look fat?” correctly.
Thank you for telling me after I finished breastfeeding for good that there was No Such Thing as an imperfect set of boobs. And for buying four heads of cabbage for me to put in my bra when I weaned. And for saying stupid things to get my mind off the pain.
Thank you for holding me while I sobbed on the kitchen floor the night before I had to send the baby to daycare the first time. And for telling me my first morning back at work that I looked great, even though I can see from the photo we took of "FrogBoy's First Day of Daycare" that my eyes were puffy, my hair looked like ass, and my cleavage was Not Appropriate for Children Under the Age of 13, much less an office environment.
Thank you for allowing me just occasionally to tease you for not being able to say “tortilla” correctly (“torteelya” is just so fucking cute I can’t stand it).
Thank you for trying to stay in shape and healthy, even though it’s hard, and for working constantly on the cigarette thing, and even when you are smoking, thank you for never doing it inside, and for wearing a different shirt so our son doesn’t smell it on you.
Thank you for always brushing your teeth and putting on deodorant. Seriously. It's amazing how many people don't do this.
Thank you for listening intently while I describe my friends' problems, or my own work frustrations, and then being OUTRAGED right along with me, even if you have no idea what the fuck I am talking about.
Thank you for finally learning that that's all I want: the empathy. For not trying to fix it all anymore.
Thank you for being the kind of husband I can leave at home with the kid for a four day business trip and not have to leave ANY instructions on how to do anything in the house or with our child. And for not getting angry when I give you instructions ANYWAY.
Thank you for being the strong silent type, but still, sometimes, sending me e-mails like this one from last week:
hve a slow productive day
unaffected by others
states of minds and actions-
(trying to do the same today 2).
Luv u
…that I receive at the exact moment I need them.
Thank you for waking up early sometimes and coming home just as I am waking up, with an iced latte in your hand just for me.
Thank you for being you, and for working so hard to be the man you are,
the husband any woman would love to have,
and the father most people only dream of.
If you could just, you know…less farting, smaller cereal boxes? And we’re golden.
Just kidding.
Golden already.
Happy Father’s Day, 'AquaMan.'
(Thank you for redefining the "F" word.)
I love you.
--'Momtrolfreak'
When I was an actress, most social interactions in my peer group had to do with telling people what show I was in, trying to get them to come see it, and going to see their shows. I would want my shows to be good, obviously, because I was stuck in them for quite some time, but almost more than that, I would pray that my friends' shows were good, so that I could avoid lying when I saw them after the curtain call. I am not good at lying. I always blow it.
Parenthood is kind of like that. Playdates and birthday parties can, if you're not careful, end up as: I came to yours, so now you have to come to mine. And as far as feedback? Babies are fraught with complications.
It makes me really nervous when a friend goes all "under-the-radar" with the baby names they are considering. Sweet lord, I think, what if the name is something hideous and I have to pretend it's cute for ETERNITY? A month or so ago, Eden did this to me. Eden--in that adorable phase you're in at around 8 months gestation, before you realize IT'S NOT EFFING NINE MONTHS YOU FUCKING LIARS IT'S TEN OH MY GOD I WILL NEVER NOT BE PREGNANT NEVER NEVER NEVAAAAHHHHHHHH--was cute as a button but refused to tell two of her closest friends what names she was considering. (Penny had tried this with me three years ago when we were pregnant at the same time but I had beaten it out of her. Eden is kinda tiny so to beat her would seem cruel. Don't think I didn't consider it, though.)
Anyway, she listed the names they had "already ruled out" but still, I felt like it could be some sort of double-blind experiment, like, I couldn't really say "yeah, good thing you ruled that one out, it BLOWS" about ANYTHING, because what if she was faking us out and one of the ones she mentioned was THE ONE, and she only said it wasn't because she wanted to get an opinion without officially revealing it? It made me nervous. I mean, you know me, I like to make fun of shit, but I knew in advance that I couldn't, even if it was a stupid name, because OH MY GOD WHAT IF THAT WAS THE REAL NAME?!?! It was like that scene in The Princess Bride when Westley as the Dread Pirate Roberts has the battle of wits with Vizzini (I effing love Wallace Shawn). I really felt like to have this conversation with Eden I would have needed to know in advance so I could have built up an immunity to iocane powder.
I just knew that if I let down my guard and laughed at one of the names, like "Darwin" (which I actually liked, I have to say), she would drop the facade and yell, "You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." But only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against a pregnant woman when a baby name is on the line!!!"
Anyway, Eden had her baby this weekend, and sent first just a photo without saying the name. Adorrrrrable baby girl (thank God for that, because when your friends have ugly babies, again, it really sucks), but no name. The suspense was killlling me. Birth stats came later: 6 pounds six ounces?!?! I am not sure if I would have even noticed if I'd had a baby that size, I could probably have just sneezed it out, but Eden is barely 10 pounds herself--she's a wee little slip of a thing, in a 'short' way not an 'anorexic' way--so I guess that's normal-sized for her. ANYWAY, then they sent the name, and it's such a great, great name. Perfectly vintagey, feminine-yet-strong, easy to spell, easy to say, just, perfect. I can't tell you what it is--it would be hypocritical to protect my identity but spill the name of a defenseless little baby, now wouldn't it? What kind of person do you think I am?
Anyway, WELCOME, cute little [anonymous infant girl]!!! You are UHHHHH-dorabull.
Can't wait to come over and smell your head.
Love,
Aunt Crazy
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Because her daughter is starting summer camp next week, Penny asked me the other day if I might have a recommendation on how to label her daughter's clothing, sippies, and other items to take to camp. Did I have a recommendation? Hell. Yes. I. Do.
I have an opinion on everything:
Which reality show should I watch? So You Think You can Dance, and when that's not available, America's Next Top Model.
What should I have for breakfast? Why, something bready with frosting on it, of course.
Should I break up with my boyfriend? Yes, men are annoying as Hell.
Should I get married? Yes, men are annoying as Hell. But they lift heavy shit for you, grill things, and some of them know how to do interesting things in bed. Oh, and they protect you from hairy spiders.
Pumps or mules? Pumps. Always pumps.
These earrings or those? Those.
How should I label my kid's stuff for camp? (Yes, I have a recommendation, and because it's that time of year when lots of adorable children are being sent off to camp so their parents can drink all day, use the restroom alone, and watch violent and/or trashy television without guilt, I am sharing that recommendation with the rest of you nice folks in computer-land.) With labels from Stuck On You. I don't remember where I first heard about them, but they are awesome. This one time? (at band camp?) I ran out of labels and I ordered some more from a different company because I could not remember the name of Stuck On You (their name was, ironically, not sticking on me), and I rued the day. Those other labels sucked. Suckity suck sucked.
Stuck On You's labels? They are to kids' gear what cockroaches are to nuclear war. You cannot kill them. They will never go away, even if you want them to. Even at age three FrogBoy still has a few leftover sippies from back when he was first going to daycare. THREE YEARS AGO. The sippies themselves are deteriorating, Nemo and Elmo have long ago faded away, the sippy spout is chewed all to Hell, but that sticker with his name and the little star on it? Like. New. They've been washed in the dishwasher probably a thousand times or more, and still, perfectly affixed. So no mean camp bully is gonna be able to peel this sucker off and pretend the coveted item is his, unless the bully happens to have a radiofrequency ablater handy, or maybe a high-pressure power washer (in which case, do whatever he says, those fuckers hurt).
So anyway, I have absolutely no reason to be telling you this other than my own gratitude to this company for making it a bit more fun when I had to send my baby to daycare that first time three years ago (read: they mitigated the excruciating pain of daycare separation by giving me stickers to play with). I have received no prodding, funding, remuneration, or free samples from this company (see my disclosure policy linked from the menu at the top of this page), I just really, really like them.
It's getting down to the wire. I have had a surreal year, with 3/4 of my friends pregnant. It is very, very strange to have most of the people you interact with socially be pregnant. I seriously don't know how ob/gyns handle it, they should get some sort of extra hazard pay because I don't know if you have noticed but pregnant people? A little bit crazy.
I was crazy when I was pregnant, too. But still, "surrounded by gestation" is a weird way to spend a year. Even if you don't see them, you can hear their pregnancies over the phone and read pregnancy between the lines of their e-mails. Sometimes that's a good thing, in that no matter what happens they are just chipper and optimistic because they've got all those hormones coursing through their veins and they are excited for their little bundles of joy to arrive. So you can say, "Ugh, I am so OVER this weather, man, it has GOT to stop raining," and they coo, "Isn't this the most adorable little crocheted sweater you've ever seen?"
One of my best friends, Daphne, just had her baby and I swear she was up and riding her bike (!!!!!!OWWWWWWWW?!?!?!?!) like five minutes later--she had ridden this long-distance 100-k or something ride when she was four months pregnant, so her insanity had been clearly established prior to this--and I met her for coffee the other day with her one-month-old baby and seriously, I am pretty sure she is a fembot because it's just not possible for a human to have bounced back so quickly. She looks guh-reat. She was wearing pre-pregnancy pants. With a REAL, UN-ELASTICIZED WAIST. (Oh and if you'd like to hate her more, she only had to push twice. The baby arrived before the doctor got there, delivered by a nurse. So she also gets to save on the money the doctor would have--actually, tried to--charge her for delivery. Her response: Um, you snooze ya lose, pal.)
When I walked into the coffee shop and saw her sitting there she looked so good I almost did not realize it was her and instead quickly glanced around at the other women with babies in carseats, just to rule them out before deciding that yup, that must be Daphne. It must have looked like I was scoping out the chicks at the lamest bar on earth.
And something I forgot: babies? They're really, really wee. I mean, you know, MINE wasn't, mine was gargantuan. I gave birth to a toddler (how he is this skinny string bean boy now I do not know, because seriously, at birth: Michelin tire man. Sumo wrestler. The nurses joked that he could have EATEN the other babies in the nursery. Yeah, nice. Thanks nurses. I am convinced that nursing is the number one chosen profession of the Mean Girls from high school.) My son is three, so I'm used to carrying a preschooler on my hip (when I carry him, which is rarely because I am exceedingly lazy). So I was prepped for preschool-weight kid-hefting and I go to pick up Daphne's baby girl and and seriously, I almost threw the kid across the room. She weighed NOTHING. It was like that moment when you're in the restroom in someone else's house and you pull down your pants and you go to sit down but their toilet is shorter than yours by an inch or something, so your butt expects to hit a SEAT at a certain precisely calibrated moment and it doesn't, there's just *air* for another inch, and so for one brief moment you have this free-fall sensation that scares you to death, because you're partially naked and FALLING, at someone else's house, and how can this be happening? It's just like that. Anyway.
So maybe that's why Daphne's labor was so short, because her baby is wee. Which reminds me (Daphne did not do this which was really nice of her), I haaate it when women who had a natural birth decide to lord it over everyone else. As if I am somehow an inferior mother because my child was too effing big to come out that way. It was Not. Happening. Speaking of which, I have this one friend who is literally 6'2" and gorgeous, like Xena, and she had this 6 pound baby and told everyone, OFTEN, how "it was a natural birth and so calm and peaceful and just what she had always envisioned, that it was very Zen, relaxing even." Well of course, Xena: you are a freaking Amazon and you gave birth to a 6 pound baby. Proportionally, I have digested burritos bigger than that. That would be like me having a 3 pound baby. Let me repeat: I am 5'6" and I had a NINE POUND TWELVE OUNCE BABY. If he HAD come out the "right" way, I would have been too embarrassed to TELL anyone: "Hi, I'm Momtrolfreak. I have a large vagina."
So anyway, now I've only got two Baby Mamas left to go, and they are both due in the next week or so. Eden is having her first child, which is super exciting. Especially since it's a girl so I can help dress it up in things my son refuses to wear. The other is my friend S, and her first child is in FrogBoy's class at school, so THAT'S exciting, to watch the phenomenon of Frog's little friend becoming a big brother. S doesn't know what she's having (HOW DO PEOPLE STAND THIS?!?!?! I can't even wait til I get to a restaurant to find out the damn soup of the day).
So it's Baby Week 2009 over here. Baby Week is much like Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, except a little more graphic and a lot more scary. Every time my phone rings I jump out of my skin. I am so, so excited, though, about watching them go through it all. It's an amazing, beautiful thing.
That's it. Babies are amazing and beautiful. What, were you expecting a snarky button on the end? I got nuttin'. Go on, you. Back to work.
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