More on babies having babies

July 9, 2008

So this morning at the gym, I was catching up on the latest In Touch magazine and towards the back, found a small blurb on Jamie Lynn Spears. I know this is really going to shock you all – she’s finding motherhood more difficult than she anticipated. She is used to getting 10-12 hours of sleep and now is having to wake up every three hours (she should be freaking grateful she gets three hour stretches!). So apparently her mom is stepping in to help her but vows to not make her life too easy.

OK. First of all, shouldn’t her FIANCE be stepping in to help her? What exactly is he doing in this scenario because I’m pretty sure he had a hand in bringing this baby into the world.
And secondly – why is this buried in the back of the magazine?

Why must we tout pregnant teen “celebs” on front covers and all over the news when they announce pregnancies and announce the arrival of healthy babies into the world – but when reality sets in and life suddenly isn’t all sunshine and roses – the teen learns babies aren’t just chubby cheeks and dimples – but a shitload of exhausting work – shouldn’t THIS be the front cover story? Shouldn’t THIS be what they are covering on Access Hollywood?

How is burying that towards the back in a small blurb actually helping any teens out there?

It seems to me that if this girl is going to get her old gig back with Disney, and she’s going to be touted ANYWHERE as a celebrity and possible role model for other young girls (I cringe even writing that) then she ought to be forced onto the talk show circuit, and put on covers of teen magazines all over the place, talking about the REALITY of having a baby, how exhausting it is, what it did to her body, how draining never sleeping but a few hours in a row is, and how NOT rewarding it feels at first. This is a baby who had a baby. So let’s put it out there for all the world to learn from. No one should care how she’s getting her body back or what her future TV deals are if we haven’t heard the truth out of her first.

In that vein, if anyone else is following the “Baby Borrowers” show on NBC, know that I am very much looking forward to watching the wrath of the toddlers brought on these dumb teens this week. The thing that has surprised me the most about this show so far, beyond how incredibly painful some of the teenage girls are to watch for even one second, is how mature most of the teen boys are. I cannot believe how quickly they stepped up to the plate and really stood in when their pathetic, whiney, princess, immature girlfriends cried because they didn’t want to wear a pregnancy suit or didn’t like being put in their place by the moms, or didn’t like being disrupted at night. Most of those girls are making me sick. Kudos for the boys for being mature.

And finally – two more celebrity babies, born to ADULTS, arrived this week. So let’s re-start the mocking of celebrity baby names we so love to play. What’s with Nicole Kidman’s daughter’s name? SUNDAY Rose? I mean, come the f on, Nicki Kids. Sunday? Think she went anywhere and introduced herself as “Sunday” to see how that goes over amongst mature adults? So freaking stupid. And then we hear the justifications about all the spiritual reasons behind the name and how it’s part of the name of the islands where they honeymooned, and on and on, and it still seems equally as dumb of a name to me.

 I heard on the radio that Matthew McConaughey’s son is named Levi, which frankly I think is really cute, so I won’t mock that. Plus I am amazed at how incredibly beautiful his Brazilian model girlfriend is, each and every time I see a picture of her, so really – Levi is going to be so hot.

That’s enough ranting for me today.

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Celebrities, Motherhood

A new kind of exercise

July 3, 2008

I don’t know about you but I do love catching re-runs of “Dr. 90210” on Bravo, or whatever channel it comes on. It fascinates me to see the kind of people that come in for plastic surgery, just how much they are willing to spend, and the different types of surgery people are seeking.

One of the more unusual episodes I watched was about vaginal rejuvenation surgery. Have you seen this episode? Now – anyone who has delivered a baby vaginally can fully appreciate why someone might consider vaginal rejuvenation. Let’s face it, your stomach isn’t the only thing that ends up all stretched out after birth.

And then, along comes a story in the NYT that is impossible for me to resist….an gyno has opened a spa for “Pelvic Fitness.”

Now come on people. This spa is wholly dedicated to “strengthening and improving a woman’s genital area.”

Is anyone actually mature enough to get through this piece without giggling?

For a whopping $150, you can let the good doctor shove her fingers inside you and you are to contract your pelvic muscles around her fingers – so she can gauge just how loose you really are.

My…can I count the ways I’d RATHER be spending $150?

Should I start? Or leave you to making your very own list?

Ahh….ladies of Manhattan…rejoice now that you have your very own gyno spa!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/fashion/03SkinOne.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin

Have a great July 4th kittens. My DD was in the back yard today, waving around her American flag, and I felt compelled to hum a tune along with her as she waved the flag around the yard and we marched. Took me a few minutes to realize I was humming the British national anthem….

ha ha.

I’m a true patriot.

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Uncategorized

Tranquility and Peace

July 1, 2008

Gather round, kittens, for if you have children at home – the story I have to tell today is like lore. You’ll have to dust off this corner of your brain and really think hard to remember a time like this. Many of you will think it can’t be. Some of you won’t even remember. But I am here to help you breathe out the anger and feel the peace. It is such a lovely place to be.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Over the weekend, we went to the beach to celebrate my sister’s birthday. We had a great weekend and after tucking DD into bed on Sunday night at my mom’s house, DH and I hit the road, back home. My mom wanted to keep DD for a few days and what kid wouldn’t rather be at the beach in the summer than in their boring old house?

And so it began yesterday but escalated to a new level of calm today. CHILDLESS MORNINGS.

Rather than catching up on the same episode of “Little Bill,” “Diego” or “Wonder Pets” and battling with an irrational 2.5 year old over why breakfast is important and why she IS eating it despite her loud protests to the contrary, then handling the emotional stress of her not wanting mommy to leave for work, today I had the house TO MYSELF.

I arrived home from the gym to find DH out front watering ( NOTE: he is obsessed with green grass, he will fall victim to butt dead brown grass by month’s end, we go through this exercise every summer, but he is still holding out hope that this year, just this one year, he will have the greenest looking pasture of them all. And who am I to crush that dream?). He soon thereafter finished watering and left for work at 7am.

This meant – JUST ME.

Think back kittens.

To the last time at 7am on a random Tuesday morning that you were the only person making noise in your own house.

DH had my coffee made, the paper out – it was the life of a queen. I lounged in front of the “Today” show.

I almost didn’t recognize anyone on the TV screen, it’s been so long.  So, we reacquainted ourselves.

I read the paper.

I drank coffee. (yes, decaf, for any preggo police out there).

But it wasn’t just any old cup of coffee, it was WARM COFFEE.

I read my horoscope.

I leisurely got ready for work.

No drama, no tears, I even had time to look in a full length mirror and then get to work on time, without plowing down an old lady with a cane to make the light or tail-gating some new teen driver to get past them and save a minute here and there.

It is true. It is all true. It is a morning of yester-year. A foreign place and time to really almost anyone reading this blog.  Treat it like it was your own kittens.

The only thing missing was a view of the water, the soft crashing waves and a hot houseboy.

But really – just the peace and quiet of a random Tuesday was more than enough for me.

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Motherhood

Supreme Decision

June 30, 2008

I meant to blog on this topic on Friday but ended up being too busy to get to it – but yesterday’s Washington Post page one piece only further validated my thoughts that this is a very important blog topic – the election and the Supreme Court.

Last week’s Supreme Court decision to lift the ban on handguns in the District really appalled me. As anyone who is living in DC knows, including the very people sitting on the bench, this spring and summer have been marked with an increase in gun violence and crime in the District. Listening to the radio on the way to work on Friday, all I heard in response to the Court’s decision were comments from police chiefs in cities like Miami and Los Angeles reaffirming the reality that allowing people access to guns isn’t a measure of safety because it almost always ends up being used against them in a crime, or finding its way to the hands of children, etc.

Guns are horrible things. Like Chris Rock said, if the guns are going to be legal, we should make the price of a bullet about $5k each, then we’d see a dramatic drop in random gun violence.

Setting all of that aside – as we think about the election in November – at the end of the day – is there ANYTHING more important than the impact on the Supreme Court, when deciding who should be the next President?

This is what scares me the most about a McCain presidency – the potential for a full conservative take-over of the highest court in the country. Every woman in America should think about that – and every parent of little girls – should think about that – as they cast the vote – and consider how a conservative Supreme Court could very easily overturn a woman’s right to an abortion.

And in case you’ve forgotten, good old maverick, renegade McCain – he’s pro-life, kittens.

This election is pivotal for so many reasons – but along the way – I fear that far too many people aren’t even considering the repercussions of the Supreme Court as they consider voting for McCain.

It’s a Supreme Court election – don’t forget it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/28/AR2008062802078.html?sid=ST2008062900126&pos

 

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Motherhood, Politics
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