Category Archives: Women

As it turns out, it is the little things

Posted on August 5, 2015 | 1 comment

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Posted in Family, Parenting, Women

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Clogging the toilet bowl of equality

Posted on March 22, 2015 | 3 comments

What fools we are, us women. Prancing around with our right to vote and our equal rights amendment as though they mean something. Thinking we can have our cake and eat it too (and if we eat it standing up in the kitchen it doesn’t have any calories).

Well, I have news for you, America. As much as we say the women’s movement has helped us come a long way, baby, we have been deceived. Like teenagers who get overly excited when a celebrity retweets them, we have been fooled into thinking we matter.

Think I’m crazy? Well, let me just give you an example of how far we haven’t come.

There is a segregated place that women are forced to go to almost on a daily basis that is so perverse, so medieval, so inhumane, it makes one think we haven’t moved forward one iota from the Dark Ages.

Naturally, the place I’m talking about is the women’s public restroom.

Yes, even though we finally have trendy T-shirts featuring Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s face, the fact that we are still forced to use these, dare I say, “facilities,” is outrageous. I mean, we can make someone with Julia Child’s voice a star and yet we can’t come up with a better bathroom system than the current one we have?

If you have never entered into a women’s public restroom (re: you’re a man who didn’t have the nerve as a kid to take the dare from your friends), let me enlighten you.

You’ll first recognize a women’s public restroom by the line outside of it. A line that swoops and curves around in a fashion that should never be seen outside of an amusement park (and only then in cases where it’s a ride that’s going to make you vomit in the fun way). Slowly and painfully do you watch the women in this line zombie shuffle…and shuffle…and shuffle…and shuffle…pausing to let a tumbleweed amble by…and shuffle, until finally they reach the door, where they wait in another line inside the restroom (since there are only two stalls to make way for the gigantic, unnecessary couch in the corner).

Mind you, this whole time their bladders are aching with the fire of a thousand menstrual cramps.

After what seems like a Bugs Bunny cartoon passing of time (the sun went up, sunk down, the moon rose, the sun came back up, back down, the moon rose…) they finally reach the stall door. And here is where the fun part begins.

Whoever was the first woman to decide it would be much more sanitary to “hover” over the toilet seat rather than making actual cheek-to-seat contact should be made to wear diapers and banned from all toilets. As for those of you that continue to “hover,” I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

Contrary to myths circulating fourth grade classrooms the world over, you can’t get cooties from a toilet seat and there is no such thing as a South American poisonous spider that hides under the lids and bites your lady business when you sit down. So sit your happy little ass down. Because you know what happens when you hover? You sprinkle when you tinkle. And you never, ever, clean it up. Which, of course, forces the next woman to hover, and the next, and the next…

BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS TO CLEAN UP YOUR PEE, YOU DISGUSTING HEATHEN!

And then, of course, there are the women who think they need to use a wad of toilet paper roughly the size of a basketball to clean their vaginas when they are done. This, in turn, causes the toilet to clog and also causes a shortage of toilet paper. Which forces the woman in the one lone stall that still has toilet paper to ration it out amongst her brethren, which merely slows down the entire operation and makes the bitter writer at the end of the line seriously weigh the pros and cons of getting a “urinating in public” ticket.

But wait, what’s it like on the other side then, you ask? Well, according to my husband, who for purposes of anonymity I will only identify here by the code name Ryan Hugene Huddle, men have rules of etiquette when it comes to public restrooms.

“When you first walk in and there is already someone at the urinal, you take the farthest one away from them. You always want at least one urinal between you and the other guys. If it’s not very crowded, you can even wait until someone finishes so as to avoid the ‘right next to each other’ urinal action.”

“But what if it’s really crowded?” I asked.

“Well, you can’t avoid peeing beside each other forever. Sometimes you just have to do it. But, honestly, when it comes down to it, we’ll just pee right there in the street.”

And there it is. Ladies, it’s sad but true what this says about our era. We may have burned our bras and went overseas to fight in wars, but when it comes down to it, we still can’t pee in the street…at least, not very discreetly what with our comically large, bowling-ball-sized wad of toilet paper and all.

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Posted in Humor, Politics, Women

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Rage Against the Green Bean

Posted on March 15, 2015 | 6 comments

As someone who was born into a loving family that lived in a prosperous country during a fairly enlightened historical period, I have rarely had to use that most basic lizard part of my brain. You know, that section of the human mind that is devoted entirely to mere survival.

From the moment I was born, I’ve always had shelter. I’ve always had clothes on my back (even if those clothes were all neon from 1985 to 1988). I mean, I’ve never even really had to worry about where my next meal is coming from, let alone had to hunt or forage for my food (which is good because I have a suspicion that cheese, the main staple of my diet, doesn’t grow naturally in the wild).

Hell, I’ve never even been in a physical fight, unless you count the endless Thunderdome sessions I had with my cousins growing up, which I don’t. Sure, we may have legitimately been trying to kill each other but none of us had the upper body strength to actually do it.

So, you know, it was all good family fun.

But then I became a mom. And when you become a mom, that primal part of your brain is constantly lighting up like a Christmas tree. Actually even before you become a mom. During pregnancy, you turn downright feral at times. Or at least I did. We’re talking “hunched over and devouring a steak with my bare hands while growling if anyone else got too close to my meat” level of feral.

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I mean, we’re talking “striking out at anything that is a perceived threat” level of animalistic behavior.

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And then there was the heightened sense of smell, which allowed me to tell which bushes other pregnant women had peed on within the last two weeks.

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And when your baby finally is born, it only gets worse. For example, take how I reacted anytime someone else tried to comfort my screaming newborn. That sound, those piercing, stabby cries that are like throat punches to your very soul, should have had me overjoyed that someone, anyone, would be willing to take over for awhile (especially considering newborns like to breastfeed every 13 minutes and my body was still recovering from the gaping exit hole they slashed in my abdomen because my darling fetus thought the original exit was beneath him).

And yet, the maternal animal in me couldn’t bear to not be the one comforting him. It took everything I had not to rip that kid away from the nurses, or from my husband, or from both of our more experienced mothers when he was crying and scurry off into the corner with him like Gollum holding his precious. Because it was actually less painful to have an infant screaming in my face than to hear him crying in someone else’s arms. I just HAD to comfort him. HAD TO. My lizard brain wouldn’t let me not do it.

(Luckily this feeling passed quickly and by the time he was 2-months-old I was practically begging any stranger who had at least one arm and was not currently murdering anyone to hold my hysterical wailing BANSHEE for a FREAKING second just so Mommy could eat her sandwich WITH TWO HANDS FOR ONCE).

And then there are the lightning quick animal-esque reflexes that suddenly appear because nothing in the universe moves as fast as a message from a mom’s brain to her hand to “stop the baby from eating that firecracker.”

But nothing, NOTHING, brings my cavewoman brain front and center quite like when my now one-year-old refuses to eat the food I give him. I was actually shocked the first time I felt the rage building up inside me as he spit out green bean after green bean. And the more he resisted the food, the angrier I got. It got to the point that I was actually shaking and had to get up from the table and walk away.

Because, see, when you’re a mom, you only have one prime directive and that is to feed your children. (And judging by how my mom still stuffs me with food, this prime directive never goes away. Although, by the time you are grandmother, it has morphed into “must feed everyone within 500 yards.”). So, while the modern, logical part of my brain knows that this is just my son being a picky eater, every fiber of my cavewoman self is internally screaming “EAT IT! EAT IT NOW! OR YOU’LL STARVE! YOU’LL DIE! EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT! EAT ALL OF IT! AHHHH!”

And I know it’s only going to get worse the more he grows toward toddlerhood (the official toddler motto: “No! Icky! Poo Poo Head!”).

So, I guess the only thing left to do is buy a leopard skin unitard and a gigantic Nerf club and fully commit to this new role. Because he will eat those green beans.

Oh yes, he will.

Oog. Ugh. Grrrr…

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Posted in Family, Food, Parenting, Pregnancy, Women

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It’s all fun & games until somebody poops

Posted on March 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

For all the crap you have to put up with as a parent (and I mean that as literally as possible), the compensation of watching your baby grow into a person right before your eyes almost makes it worth it.

(Any other time I would say “makes it completely worth it and then some” but I just got done cleaning World War III from my baby’s butt and I’m still a little bitter and shell-shocked).

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Butt seriously (see what I did there?), there is no feeling quite like realizing that little bundle of cells that made you puke up everything you ate since 1987 is now a fully formed human; one with a sense of humor and a sense of curiosity, one with ideas and feelings, one with preferences and opinions (although granted, my human has had opinions from Day One…hell, we use to argue when he was still in the womb).

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And now that Riker is one-year-old, his personhood is out in full force. Take for example, the fact that he now not only wants to play games, but is inventing games. My little human! Who only a short time ago looked like a young (old?) Benjamin Button and couldn’t comprehend anything of the world beyond my boob!

(Although, in his defense, my boobs are amazing).

All day long now, we play his games. Some are simple. Take the game “Pretend To Throw Up Tiny Toy Chair,” which is pretty straight forward. He shoves a tiny toy chair in my mouth and I pretend to throw it up. He giggles, retrieves the tiny toy chair and we play Round Two. Which is the same as Round One. Which is the same as Round 109.

And it will go to Round 109. Oh yes, it will.

This game is similar to the one he invented with his Daddy, which is “Stop The Strange Noise Coming From Daddy’s Mouth.” However, this one is a bit more sophisticated. Sitting on the floor in the living room, Daddy will make a noise that sounds like a hamster drowning and being electrocuted at the same time. Riker giggles and then shoves the closest small toy available into Daddy’s mouth to stop the noise. Daddy then spits out the toy (extra points for long distances) and makes the noise again. Riker fetches the toy and the entire process repeats. Mommy serves as referee for this game.

Which she does from the kitchen.

While chugging wine straight out of the bottle.

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And, of course, “Taxi Driver.” This is a game where Mommy or Daddy (or Grandma or the babysitter or a not too terribly smelling hobo) picks him up and walks him around the house while he directs the adult where to go using finger-pointing and crystal clear directions such as “Gworp!”. The goal, as far as I can figure, is for him to touch every single thing we own that is above 2.5 feet high.

Other games, however, are more advanced.

His favorite is “Ball On Couch.” This is apparently a strategy game where the goal is for us to get his big rubber yellow ball onto the couch in one VERY specific location. Once we get the ball in that location, he takes it and throws it back onto the floor where it rolls away. We then argue over who has to get the ball (Me: “You go get it.” Him: “BAH!” followed by finger pointed at me). Once I retrieve the ball, I hand it to him and he works diligently on putting it back on the couch. Judging by how much he cries when the ball is not in the right position on the couch, you lose points anytime the ball is not in the northwest corner just left of the red stripped pillow.

There is “Kitchen Set Bulldozer,” which is really more of a single player game. This involves him pushing his gigantic toy kitchen set around the house while on his knees. My role in this is more of facilitator, responsible for moving obstacles (such as my leg) out of his way and redirecting his path when annoying things such as a wall or small-to-medium-sized animals get in his way.

Then there is “Traffic Jam.” Which, if I’m being honest, I have absolutely no idea how to play. All I know is that he hands me every single toy car he owns (which is a lot considering he is a male American baby and as such, my house just spontaneously produces little cars in response to his presence and scatters them around in every room) and then looks up at me expectantly. So I go vroom-vroom with them. I make them crash into each other. I drive them over his head and down his back. I even put them in a long line and just let them sit there idling but not knowing why they’re just sitting there idling so as to give him realistic expectations of what driving a car is really like. But I am obviously playing wrong because he keeps looking at me with a disappointed face and handing me back the cars with strict instructions to “Bah! Drrrr! Pfffft!”.

Luckily, my son is very patient with my incompetence and even though he is by far the more skilled player in all these games, he lets me sometimes win out of the goodness of his heart.

Or, at least, I think he sometimes lets me win. I mean, what else could “Derpaduh!” mean other than “I concede victory to you!”?

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Why don’t parents talk about the joys of parenting?

Posted on February 16, 2015 | 4 comments

Remember when I was pregnant?

If you were anywhere within a thousand mile radius of formerly pregnant me you likely do. It’s hard to forget a real-life Stay Puft Marshmallow Woman wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting city and terrorizing the innocent town folk while loudly complaining about her swollen ankles.

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Fortunately for me, those miserable 10-months (yeah, ten months, it’s actually ten months…not nine, TEN) are now all just a faded blur of eating cheeseburgers in bed while sobbing. That’s one of the major perks about having kids. Your brain is so busy forming new neural pathways, like which is the best way to extract a raisin out of a tiny nostril, that it pushes all the bad memories of how you got said kid right out of your brain.

This is how siblings are created.

That said, however, there is one thing I can never forget about pregnancy no matter how many memories are abolished by creative problem-solving the best way to get a toddler down from the top of an unsecured bookcase. And that is all the horrible parenting tales I heard from other people. Most of them unprompted. 

“You think you’re miserable now? Just wait until he’s born and you never get to sleep again.”

“Well, if you think newborns are bad, just wait until he starts crawling.”

“The worst part is when they turn two. That’s when they turn into demons. Highly mobile demons.”

“You’ll want to kill yourself when they hit puberty. And them. Mostly them.”

“Basically, children ruin your life. Oh, but, I mean, it’s worth it.”

Almost every day I was pregnant with my oldest I was bombarded by these remarks. It got to the point that I started having panic attacks that the next 18 years of my life would be sheer hell. Which, of course, when I tearfully told other parents this, they responded with, “Eighteen years? Pffffft. Parenting only gets worse once they become adults. Your life is ruined until you die. And even then, as a ghost, your kids will ruin your afterlife.”

I never understood this cruel need to inform pregnant women of every bad thing that has ever happened ever in the history of parenting.

That is, until my own two little swamp demons were born and I found myself telling other pregnant first-timers all the worst things that had happened since my babies took their first breath. Which is ridiculous because I love being a mom. I can honestly say this is the happiest I’ve ever been. And yet, there I heard myself, loudly proclaiming how breastfeeding feels like taking a honey badger with a cheese grater for a mouth to your bosom every three hours (I mean, it’s true, that’s exactly what it feels like, but why did I feel I had to share that with an already terrified and miserable woman?).

So, why don’t parents talk about the joys of parenting? Why do we choose only to share the worst aspects of family life?

For a long time, I couldn’t figure this out. But then I started trying to write about it, trying to write about all the good things that come with bringing a life into this world. And to my surprise, I found I couldn’t. Turns out, I can easily describe to you the sights, sounds and smell (especially the smell) of every diaper blowout I’ve had to clean up. But the first time I sang my crying baby to sleep? Describing that is damn near impossible.

Oh sure, I can describe to you the circumstances, the facts of the matter. He was 2-months-old. He’d been crying for an hour. Nothing I did could get him to stop. Not bouncy-bounce time. Not the flying Superman baby game. Not even my last resort option of “Hey, look, a boob! Please eat again and shut up!”

Worst of all, Daddy wouldn’t be home for another hour.

Out of sheer desperation and because it works in every single movie that has a baby in it, I started singing to him. “Close To You” by The Carpenters, to be exact. Not because I had a particular fondness for that song but because it was the only song I knew all the words to that did not include curse words.

Over and over I sang that song, pacing back and forth the length of our house. He screamed. I sang. He screamed louder. That loud, piercing scream only young babies can do that stab you directly in the brain. Forever and ever and ever and round and round and round until I couldn’t remember a time when we weren’t singing and screaming and walking in a loop. 

And then it happened. Slowly at first, almost imperceptibly. The pauses between cries grew ever so slightly. The volume lowered at a snail’s pace.

And on I sang.

Eventually, I dared to look down at him, mid-chorus, his head resting on my shoulder. Eyes wide open, just staring at me singing. The cries had stopped. Just the occasional sniffling.

So I kept singing. And he kept staring. And I kept staring. Two more trips through “Close To You.” Until his lids got heavy. And then heavier. And finally, mid-“that is why all the girls in town,” he fell asleep.

And yet, I kept singing. One more time, the whole song through. Because I wanted to remember what this felt like. And that’s where my descriptive powers come to an end. Because I can’t tell you what it felt like. Not really. I love words. I’ve built my entire life around words. And yet none of them, alone or clustered together in a sentence, can accurately portray the love I felt in that moment. The meaningfulness I felt. And the power. The sheer power I felt. My voice had comforted another human being. And not just any human being. A tiny, fragile, scared, angry, confused human being that I loved more than I ever knew was possible. 

It’s the closest I’ve ever come to having a superpower.

But all of those are just words. It still doesn’t describe the bigness of that moment.

The best I can do is just matter-of-factly tell you that as I finally got to sit down with my peacefully sleeping baby resting in my arms, I went to rub my tired eyes and realized I was crying.

 

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Sorry, not sorry, but really sorry kind of not really

Posted on January 11, 2015 | 5 comments

I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions. In fact, I prefer to live every day like it’s New Year’s Eve, eating too much cheeseball and wearing outfits that are inappropriately shiny. So, when I say this next thing, it’s less a resolution and more…some sort of synonym for resolution that I am too lazy to look up.

I am done saying “sorry.”

Not that there is anything I’ve been saying “sorry” for in particular.

And that’s because I say “sorry” for everything.

For. Everything.

Which is why it has to stop.

See, I grew up in that unique part of the Midwest (re: everywhere in the Midwest) where saying “sorry” is right up there with breathing and playing corn hole (not as dirty as it sounds). We say “sorry” more than we say “like” and we, like, say “like” like a lot.

Of course, not everyone raised in the Midwest is like this. For instance, people who need to legitimately apologize for things never do. Like your crappy unemployed ex-boyfriend (I can change him!) who wrecked your car or your racist, meth-addicted cousin who always ruins Easter by doing lewd things with the ham. However, your great aunt Selma, who just cooked a seven-course meal for 43 people, will apologize profusely because the homemade apple pies made from scratch are a bit too tart because her grocery store ran out of the apples she prefers to use and even though she went to seven other grocery stores to try and find them she had no luck so please forgive her.

I personally am one of the worst “I’m sorry” abusers. At this point, saying “I’m sorry” is pretty much just a reflex. For example, here is a list of things I’ve actually apologized for in the past year:

My husband having a nightmare.

Liking a Taylor Swift song.

Talking too much.

Not talking enough (usually to the same person and within the same 15 minute period).

Making a woman move her gigantic purse from the subway seat next to her so that I (and the almost 20-pound baby strapped to my chest) could sit down.

The lasagna being too cheesy (as if such a thing exists).

Making the coffee too strong (as if such a thing exists).

Bumping into a coat rack (to the actual coat rack).

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There being nothing good on TV.

For taking too long to write on the weekends.

For forcing my son to eat vegetables.

For forcing my husband to eat vegetables.

For forcing my dog to eat the vegetables my son and husband both stealthily threw on the ground.

Hitting that guy in the face with my pregnant stomach repeatedly when I tried to awkwardly get up from a teeny-tiny restaurant table (although that apology might have actually been warranted).

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It has gotten so bad that I’m pretty much just apologizing for existing. For taking up space and oxygen. For daring to be a person with opinions and faults and bad moods and quirks and interests and guilty pleasures and a less than stellar record of walking without knocking anything over.

But the last straw, the reason I have to put a stop to this now, is that I realized I was constantly apologizing to my baby. My 10-month-old baby. A tiny human whose only goal in life is to kill himself in ever-increasing creative ways (his latest: whacking Mommy’s face before she’s had her coffee).

No parent should ever apologize to their kid for doing the day-to-day things that keep them healthy and alive. And yet, there I was. Saying sorry, I know you don’t want to but it’s naptime. Sorry, but you can’t hurl yourself off the couch headfirst. Sorry, but you can’t shove that fork (where the hell did you get a fork?) into the outlet.

And I know if I don’t end this now, I will eventually release into the world one of those 23-year-olds who can’t do his own laundry and thinks he’ll become a world-famous electro pop DJ.

But most importantly, I don’t want to raise my son into a man who thinks it’s normal for a woman to apologize for everything. Because too often, we do. It’s a bad habit too many of us need to break.

And mine ends today.

Sorry, but that’s just the way it’s going to be.

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I’m one of them

Posted on September 28, 2014 | 2 comments

I don’t know who she is. I don’t know her name or what she looks like. All I know is that she ruined everything. 

She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Just had to declare it from every virtual rooftop she had downloaded on her phone. And then all the others joined in. And now, they are the laughingstock of the Internet. 

It didn’t have to be this way. There was no need to go public with how basic they were. No one had to know how they bought a pumpkin spice latte when it was still 85 degrees. No one had to be privy to their almost slavish devotion to leggings paired with boots. Let alone their adoration for faux fur-lined vests. 

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Which is why if I ever find out who the first woman was to openly declare how much she loves fall, I’m going to strangle her with my infinity scarf. 

Why do I care so much, you ask? Because…(*whispers*) I’m one of them. 

And now, thanks to one million Instagram accounts overloaded with photos of ladies holding up a red leaf to their eye while they coyly smile at the camera (#snuggleweather), the world knows we all exist. And just how ridiculous we are. 

And they hate us. 

Oh sure, you could argue (and you would, in fact, be correct in arguing this) that I’m part of the problem. That just because I try to keep my basic-ness a secret doesn’t make me any better than the rest. But I didn’t ask to be this way.

Do you think this Aprill spelled with two L’s wants to be lumped in with all the Britanni’s spelled with an “i” and Megyn’s spelled with a “y”? That I want to wear vintage T-shirts featuring movies I’ve never seen or bands I’ve never listened to underneath my cozy knee-length cardigan (a knee-length cardigan that is just one of the 67 in my collection)? 

Do you think I want to race to my closet as soon as September 1st arrives and pull out my favorite furry slippers while wrapping both of my hands around a mug of green tea and sighing contentedly while I look out a window? Or that I want to curl up with a good book and read all day as soon as the temperature drops below 70 (my moleskin notebook and fancy pen placed just so beside me)? That I want to waste time scouring Pinterest for decorating ideas before realizing I suck at decorating and end up just shoving some sunflowers into a pumpkin? 

Do you think I want to be the person who only eats gourd-flavored baked goods for three months straight? Or that I want to be the person who snort lines of cinnamon like it’s cocaine while chugging apple cider martinis?

No. I don’t. I don’t want to be a part of this cliche. But here I am, frolicking in the pumpkin patch with the rest of my basic brethren. 

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I wasn’t raised this way. I was raised in a home where hoodies were merely something you threw on when it got cold. Where coffee was something you drank black. Where fall was simply just another season. My mom didn’t own Ugg boots or oversized, non-prescription, black frame glasses. No one in my family drank beer that was any flavor other than beer. The only candles that burned inside our house were birthday candles.

As a young girl growing up in the ‘90’s, wearing my torn flannel shirt and purple lipstick with my Nirvana CD blasting from my gigantic boombox, I never dreamed that I’d turn into that grown woman who lights 43 pumpkin-scented candles and asks her husband to cuddle on the couch in our Halloween jammies while we watch a “Gilmore Girls” marathon. In fact, I’m pretty sure that young girl would kick my ass with her Doc Marten boots if she knew what I became. 

But I can’t help myself. I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture. If I was brainwashed by the powerful pumpkin farmer lobby in Washington or if Eve herself made an apple-scented candle with the forbidden fruit and then knitted a cozy yet stylish hat out of fig leaves. All I know is that, as much as I try to fight it, I love all this fall crap. And now, courtesy of Hayleigh and Bayleigh and Jyssycah, I am the butt of several thousand Internet jokes.

So, thanks a lot, ladies. You just couldn’t keep quiet, could you? Couldn’t just let us all continue to worship this time of year secretly in the privacy of our own homes. Had to blast it out there, with no thought of all the shrapnel that would rain down on the rest of us.  

I swear, I’d throw this venti Salted Caramel Mocha latte in all your faces…

…if only it didn’t taste so good.

…(Sip)…

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