Dude…that’s rude

My daughter has beautiful eyes. My hub has blue eyes and I have brown and hers are this gorgeous hazel-ish color. I totally covet them.

Being adopted, I’ve never looked like anyone in my family. And even though I didn’t KNOW I was adopted for like, my whole life, I was keenly aware that I shared no resemblance to anyone in the clan (I know..how did I not have a clue? Uh…well because you don’t expect that anyone would ever deceive you on such a massive scale. That’s how.)

Anyway, when I saw these lovely hazel colored contacts at my optometrist’s office, I decided I must have them and I wear them every day. See…in a slightly cruel twist of fate, it so happens that my daughter (and son) strongly resemble Hubz, so in this small way, she and I look similar and I like it. It makes me happy.

What doesn’t make me happy is when some dumbass comes along and thinks their keen powers of observation should be shared with me. To wit…

“Are you wearing colored contacts? ‘Cause I can kind of tell.”

Then WHY are you asking me?????? It’s not supposed to be a state secret or anything but that’s just rude.

Maybe I should ask you about those shiny 80’s style control-top hose you’re wearing. Or perhaps we should discuss that fake ponytail-on-a-banana-clip you’ve got attached to your head, hmmmm?

And to that end, I’ve put together a brief little primer for the rude and/or clueless people of the world on what NOT to do when faced with a little well-intentioned fakeness.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 1:

Don’t stare at someone intensely and then go “Do you have xxxxx or xxxxx or xxxxx? ’cause I can kind of tell”

Because that’s so tacky and the recipient of such a statement may be forced to call you on your Wonderbra, chicken cutlet bra stuffers, acrylic nails, dye job, highlights, spray-on tan, whitened teeth, braces, makeup or any other thing you do to feel better about yourself and that might prove to be a tad embarrassing and uncomfortable for you.

That’s right — keeping your astute observations to yourself is not only kind to the other person but a real face-saver for you, too. It’s a win-win and who doesn’t like one of those?

Stay tuned for further installments of my manifesto, loosely titled How NOT to Be a Rude, Gauche, Socially-Inept Idiot.

(Please note…”you” is not meant as YOU, the reader, specifically. And it’s supposed to be funny so don’t go taking it all personal and stuff, aiight?)

Mommy War? Or Momism?

EDITED TO ADD:

I fear that some of my intended meaning in the post below may have been misunderstood.

I am not asking people to stop making judgments. That would be like asking people to not breathe.

I was just thinking it would be nice if we didn’t have to SHARE our judgments in such an UGLY manner.

If you want some examples of said ugliness, go to Motherhood Uncensored and read the comments for the post called “You Didn’t Fool Me”.

Need more examples? Go to dooce.com and find her posts on getting her daughter to sleep. It’s unbelieveable the things people, mothers, will say to each other.

Personally, I’m tired of it. Being behind a computer screen doesn’t give one license to be an ass.

People need to think (oh the horror!) before they hit the submit button.

There. That’s my judgment.
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I know. I know. Who wants to hear another word about mommy wars? I damn sure don’t.

Unfortunately, it seems inescapable. Everywhere you go lately, someone’s talking about the “mommy wars.” Others question if the mommy wars are real or whether they are manufactured to sell books and drive up Nielsen ratings. After having really thought about it and witnessed it in action, I would say that the mommy wars are alive and well.

I have to wonder, however, is it really a war? Calling it that would suggest that there was a beginning point and eventually, an end point and that there would be a “winner” of sorts. I’m not sure there are any winners in this so-called war. The way I see it, the “mommy wars” are simply an extension of that age-old tradition of people judging each other.

When people of different races judge each other unfairly, we call it racism. When people of different genders judge each other unfairly, we call it sexism. Perhaps the “mommy wars” are really more like “momism;” mothers unfairly judging each other over their differences in mothering choices, practices and philosophies.

No matter how wrong we profess it to be, judging each other seems to be firmly rooted in our human nature. As mothers in the blog world, it’s hard to miss the ever-present refrains asking for non-judgment and sisterhood, and yet we STILL do it. We’re hard-wired for it, it seems.

That said, will this “war” that we wage against each other ever end? I doubt it. But is there any hope for changing it from its current incarnation into something less ugly and unkind? I believe there is but it begins with each of us making an effort to at least respect other mothers.

We don’t have to agree on working or staying home, breastfeeding or formula feeding, sleep training or not, co-sleeping or not, leashing or not leashing but maybe, as a first step, we could refrain from blasting other moms, both specifically and in the broad sense, out of simple respect for this motherhood thing since we’re all in it together. I’m not asking you to advocate child abuse or wave a sign in favor of things you don’t favor. I’m merely and gently suggesting we treat other moms as we would like to be treated and perhaps to agree to disagree.

And to that end, I have an exercise for you. Read about my experience. When you’re done, you’ll probably want to judge either me (for being a bitch) or my stepsister (for being selfish) and that’s okay. But can you do it without being rude or downright mean?

When my stepsister announced that she had NO intentions of breastfeeding her second baby because she didn’t want to lose any more of her breasts, I suggested that she at least nurse her son for the first few days so he would get the valuable colostrum, which is full of antibodies and other things that are so beneficial to babies. She flatly refused and I was in disbelief. How could she bring a baby into the world and deny him this one simple thing in favor of bigger boobs? I just couldn’t fathom what a selfish choice (in my estimation) she had made. But the key word is choice. It was her choice. I had to at least try and make peace with it so I never said a word. To this day she has no idea how harshly I judged her and honestly, we’re both better off for it.

And what about you? Can you resist the urge to blast either of us with a little eau de judgment? I sure hope so.

We will never stop judging each other. It’s what we do. But is it too much to ask that we might keep our judgments private while we work on mustering up a bit more understanding? Someday, when you are the one being scrutinized and criticized (and it WILL happen) wouldn’t it be nice if the moms around you were at least attempting to respect and understand your choices instead vilifying you?

I was going to end this essay here but after conversing with my husband on this topic, he said, rather matter-of-factly, “Don’t take this the wrong way but that’s a woman thing. Guys pretty much don’t do that stuff.” I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a man would provide me with a totally different perspective. And damn if he isn’t right.

You don’t see John or Dutch or MetroDad or Jon or Chag or Ed or Tony or Chris fighting with other dads about whether working or staying home is better or whether sleep training is good or evil or any other typical momism fodder. Insofar as I can tell, they don’t do it, or at least not to the degree that moms do.

Maybe the dads are on to something here…

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How to Make My Head Explode

A conversation with the pediatrician’s nurse yesterday…

Nurse: Here are his percentiles (handing me a sheet with my son’s height, weight, head size and corresponding percentiles for his 9 month check up)

Me: Are these the percentiles based on a 9 month old? Because he’s over 10 months now. He was sick twice when he was 9 months so we’re late

Nurse: No. Those percentiles are based on a 9 month old

Me: But he’s not 9 months. Why plot them for the wrong age?

Nurse: Because this is his 9 month check up

Me: But he’s not 9 months old. Doesn’t being almost two months older make a difference?

Nurse: Yes, it does

Me: Then would you figure them for his actual age, please?

Nurse: I can’t. It’s his 9 month check up

And then my head exploded. I’m typing this from the great beyond.

(The doctor did his stats for 10.5 months and it turns out he made a semi-major jump down from 97th to 85th percentile in weight but not height or head size so it was good that I got the right info.)

Raging Momvanner Ponders Toilets & Coffee

Occasionally I get email from you guys and you want to know stuff about me. And if it’s not anything too weird or personal, I’ll usually oblige and answer back, but I’m pretty well convinced that everything you ever really needed to know about me can be found in the comments I leave around the blogosphere…

Izzy comments on road rage and preggo face:

Found on Bamboo Lemur Boys are Mean to Their Girls

I’m so with ya. I’m usually a reasonably calm person but bad, stupid, shit ass drivers PISS ME OFF.

While I try to be chill as I usually have kids in the car, my inner road rager yearns to be free and tends to find her way out via expletives, typically mangled in a feeble attempt to not swear in front of the kids.

Nice glasses and cute hair. Wish I had a face for short hair. I learned the hard way, during a pregnant “I must have a haircut frenzy” that I do not have such a face

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Izzy comments on her badass minivan:

Found on Wendy Boucher’s Blog

Dude…I’m conflicted over my momvan, too. But a Prius would never work for me. My car is like a purse on wheels.

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Izzy comments on toilet sitting:

Found on A Mommy Story

I have a circular logic thing going…it’s like this:

If everyone thinks that the seat is dirty so they’re not going to sit on it, then it’s probably actually pretty clean, right?

But what if everyone else over-thinks it the same way I do and they all assume that it’s clean and they all sit on it?

Then it’s not so clean.

I could go on and on but I think you get the picture…

I’m a seat wiper and layer down of TP or I use a seat cover thingy. I hate hovering over the toilet.

And according to the Target staff here, the seats are wet because the toilets spray water when they are flushed. Uh yeah…nasty TOILET WATER.

ewwww, okay?

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Izzy comments on the joys of coffee:

Found here: A Crack’n Life

Dude..if not for coffee, I’d be lucky to go once a week.

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See? Now you know that I cuss a lot when I drive, that I’m frequently constipated, that half my earthly possessions reside in the momvan, that I think about toilets way too much and that I need a 12 step program to stop using the word “dude.”

Shut up. It’s Good.

They say necessity is the mother of invention and today, I proved that old adage to be true; sinfully, deliciously, and kind of grossly true.

I had a yen for something sweet. While I usually take great care to not load up on sugar and junk food, I couldn’t shake my desire for a treat. (Okay. That’s a lie.  I love sweets and eat them frequently but whatever, right?)

So, now that I’m being totally straight with you, here’s the real deal. I don’t buy a lot of junk food because I’ll eat it all of the kids, so when I found myself wanting a treat in the mid-afternoon, there really wasn’t anything to suit my taste. But then I stumbled across my stash of “morsels” from a recent cookie bender baking project and I had a brainstorm…

I melted a trio of milk chocolate, semi-sweet and butterscotch chips in the microwave and spread it on Ritz crackers… Oh. My. God. It’s the bomb! If you like sweet and salty things together like chocolate pretzels or chocolate covered peanuts, you’ll love this.

I know you’re probably thinking it’s kind of trailer park-ish but if you can get past that part, it’s really, really good. And I think just regular semi-sweet chips would work fine.

The funniest part is that I used low-fat Ritz crackers, which is a lot like drinking diet Coke with a Quarter Pounder Extra Value Meal at McDonalds — but I try not to think of that part as I enjoy the pleasures of the uh…chocolate cracker thingys.

And if you don’t mind, next time I bitch about my baby fat, have a heart and don’t remind me of this post :)

(Also, please pardon some of the little issues with my new 3 column template. I still have some kinks to work out)

PS: Do you see the BlogHer button to the left? After you leave your pearls of wisdom, shards of brilliance etc. would you mind clicking it and taking a really quick survey? Thanks!