Next, women who love tools and the tools who sorta kinda love them

Jason is in the living room watching TV with Kyle.  Apparently VH1 or some such channel tricked a bunch of guys by telling them they were going on a TV show called “Mr. Awesome”.  Turns out they were going on a show about them being tools.

So far one guy had his other girlfriend come out right after professing his love for the girl friend who got him on the show.  Another kissed another girlfriend when he thought no one was looking and another took her guy back after he couldn’t say he’d be true to her.

Now, the behavior of the men sickens me but these girls.  Come on!  He’s not going to change, he’s not worth this.  They have video of them being jerks and you’re still hoping he’s Mr. Right.  He’s not.

Let me say this in small words.  Once he cheats he’ll continue to cheat.  If he treats you like a doormat he always will.  He is not worth it.  This show should be called “Women who love Tools”.

WoW is down.  I am sad.  I shall resort to actually doing some people things.

The breastfeeding guilt trip.

First I want to say outright that this is not meant to be a rant or bash on breast feeding.  My friends and family will tell you I support mothers who want to breastfeed and I do think that almost all the time it is what is best for baby and mom.

But, isn’t there always a but, a mother on a board I visit often posted that her 4 month old was suddenly losing weight, was always hungry and crying for food and that she was only getting 2oz at a feeding.  She’d tried just about every medical and housewife remedy for her low milk production.  She was frustrated and sad but said “I feel that I’ll be a bad mother if I don’t breastfeed my daughter.”
At what point do we women stop judging other women and our mothering choices.  Oh sure there are points where we need to draw the line.  Not putting a baby in a car seat, smoking around small babies and children.  Hell even stepping up to the plate and stating Pepsi in the bottle is probably not the best of ideas.  There just seems to be this feeling that we must judge other mothers for our choices.  Breastfeeding or bottle feeding, co sleeping vs. putting baby in the crib, attachment parenting vs letting grandma take the Peanut over night.  These are choices.  Doing one verses the other will not put the baby in danger.

Babies, as I’m fond of saying, are like people because they are people.  Each has their own likes and dislikes as well as mom and dad.  I’ve never been fond of locking myself into one position or another when it comes to parenting.  Oh, I knew what I did or didn’t want to do but you have to adjust.  I did not want Kyle to sleep in our room, but guess where his bassinet is?  At the foot of the bed.  He just flat out sleeps better if he can sense me around, why make us all miserable?

Believe it or not some baby’s hate being swaddled and cuddled.  Even at the tender age of weeks they know they are independent and do not want to be bound up.  Why fight that?  Because a book told you it was ‘best’?  Or because all the other mommies make you feel as if you have grown a second head and that head is smoking an unfiltered Marb while discussing the latest recipe for cat?

Guess what?  Books don’t have all the answers.  They have a lot of great ideas and advice but they aren’t some sort of bible that if we deviate from the prescribed path of baby salvation we’ll damn our offspring to hell.  You can make choices.

And breastfeeding is just that, a choice.  It’s a choice you should lean heavily to choosing of course but every mom must consider at some point it’s not the best one for everyone.  And other mothers need to put their little ones paci’s in their mouths when the bubble up that urge to tisk and tell her what a bad choice she’s made.

And trust me, in this day and age not breastfeeding is quickly becoming the harder of the two choices.  Between looks from strangers on the street to your doctor’s sigh when you announce your decision to bottle feed it’s a brave women who says “I’ve weighed the options and I know this won’t work for us.”

It’s also brave to say that you will commit to breast feeding your child knowing that there is a good deal of pain at the start, that daddy won’t be able to take on any of the night feeds when you feel like if you don’t sleep right that moment you’ll die.  Actually that’s a braver choice than deciding on an un medicated birth.

And it’s a good mom who makes her choice and lives with it.  It’s a great mom to bend to the needs of her small child to ensure that they thrive not that mom doesn’t have to deal with other mother’s who need to feel better about their own choices by demeaning hers.

Damn Darcy

This last summer J and I had a friend staying with us.  The short version of his sad tale is that his mother is insane.  I’m not sure it’s clinically insane but I do know the women is one crayon short in the box.

And so Darcy stayed with us a summer to try and think without her yelling at him in Mandarin at the top of her lungs while she gave the dog thing she has an ice cream cone.  Somehow the PO got the idea in their minds this meant Jason and I moved.  It took us a while to notice the problem because almost all of our mail continued to make it to us.  Our car bills, WE, Time Warner, and bank stuff.  You know the letters you run out to get.
Meanwhile stuff was being sent back.  And suddenly we figured out even that wasn’t consitant.  I have gotten cards that have two envlopes.  One that got to my mail box and the second with the yellow sticker stating we’ve moved and we have no forwarding address.  All the packages our most generous friends sent us for Kyle arrived.
The final shove is two fold.  Our insurance cards have not yet arrived even though I’ve called 5 times and we are now stalking the mail box for Kyle’s birth certificate and his social security card.  As it’s now 6 weeks we are getting nervous.

So I call our insurance company in a good pissed off mood and ream the rep out that yet again our cards are not at our doorstep.  A manager finally called me back today and she finally told me that our cards are being returned saying we don’t live where we live.  Well now I get even more pissed.  Mostly because it took 5 people to tell me something as simple as that.  I mean, really, how hard was it to do that?  Yes it took longer than saying “Well Ma’am, I’ll send them out again.”  Fucking lazy people.  Also I’ve fired reps on the spot who have spoken to me the way I was spoken too over the course of the last 5 months from those people.

So anyway, before I get off on a rant I can’t control, I called the Post Office and the lady there said that it wasn’t anything they’d done on their end.  Someone at the main branch here must have decided that, but she did agree with me that it’s more than weird some stuff is getting through.

So what does this mean?  Jason or I, most likely him, will have to go to the court house to get another birth certificate for Kyle then take that to the social security office to have them reissue his social security card because without these things we can’t get him insured.  Given that right know the kid has cost us almost $8k in medical bills if we had to pay them out of pocket, we are sort of in a bind to make sure it’s done.

So all this mess I lay at Darcy’s door.  In fact blaming Darcy for everything is somewhat of a sport for me and our friends.  I think this one might win the weekly “What was Darcy’s fault” pool.