You are here: Home / Archives for rant
Aug 19, 2007

My Self-Esteem Was Shot Down By An Elf

By ·

It was a good Saturday, overall. Cordy was with grandma, and Aaron, Mira, and I went west to Indianapolis to spend the day at GenCon. I think we’ve established that Aaron and I are geeks, so this should come as no surprise.

There were only two bad events all day today. The drive home was miserable, thanks to construction on Interstate 70. If you don’t live anywhere near I-70, let me explain: you can never travel on I-70 without at least one traffic jam, due to construction, accident, or just something shiny on the side of the road that everyone must stop and look at.

Today, two miles of construction took 45 minutes. And Mira, who doesn’t mind being in the car as long as it’s moving, did not appreciate the slow crawl during that time. The fussing and crying nearly made me turn the car around and set up a new home in Indy instead of facing that traffic. Sure, I’d miss Cordy, but maybe we could see her again someday when they started construction on the other side of I-70?

The other bad moment ruined my high for the day at the convention. I was dressed in an entire outfit of non-maternity clothes, had shaved my legs, brushed my hair, and thought I looked pretty damn good. Aaron was carrying Mira in the baby sling, which always gets a lot of attention (women love a man wearing a baby), leaving me baby-free and feeling non-mom-like. And then the following happened while visiting a friend’s sales booth:

(20-something woman dressed as an Elf walks up to us)

Woman: Awww…she’s cute.

Aaron: Thanks.

Woman: (gesturing to sling) That’s a great idea. She looks so comfortable!

Aaron: Yeah, they’re wonderful…(starts talking about pros of babywearing – I admit I wasn’t fully paying attention at this point)…It’s really a great way to get around and keep the baby happy.

Woman: (turning to me, and I swear she said this) And it looks like you’ve got another on the way?

At this point, I should also tell you that when she said this, she actually began to reach out to touch my belly! Seriously! Thank her little elven Gods that she didn’t complete her impulsive action or I might’ve gone all Orc on her.

Me: (totally aghast) No, I’m not pregnant, I’m postpartum.

Woman: (who doesn’t seem to realize the social faux pas she’s committed) Oh. Well, she’s cute! (walks away, elven cape flapping behind her)

WTF? Maybe an Elf has a shorter pregnancy, but I don’t see how I could be pregnant and showing when I have a baby who clearly looks like a 12 week old. I spent the remainder of the day sucking in my belly and plotting a trip to Macy’s to lock my mid-section into some kind of support garment for the rest of my life. Maybe corsets could come back in style?

And so I offer this small public service announcement: unless a woman tells you directly that she’s pregnant, or you see a baby’s head crowning, NEVER ASSUME SHE’S PREGNANT. Sorry, don’t mean to shout, but this obviously doesn’t get through to some people. Save yourself and the poor other woman some embarrassment and leave any and all topics of reproductive status alone. (Oh, and don’t touch other people’s bellies without permission, too. You might just lose that hand, especially if the woman isn’t pregnant.)

Filed Under: Mira, pregnancy, rant · Tagged:


Aug 4, 2007

Forget Pigs, We’ve Got Flying Rocks!

By ·

I was sitting in my quiet living room this afternoon, with Cordy at preschool, Mira asleep, and only the tapping of my keyboard and click of my mouse echoing in the room. It was a peaceful moment, relaxing by myself. But then there was a loud *thump* against the front door.

Damn, I thought, a bird must have flown into the door. Or maybe a package was roughly dropped off by UPS.

I opened the door and looked out the glass of the storm door, hoping not to see a stunned robin on my front porch. But there was no robin. And there was no package. My glance shifted up, and I saw the neighbor boy and his friend standing at the end of my driveway, picking up a rock. The two boys noticed me and started nonchalantly walking back towards the neighbor’s yard, occasionally glancing at me from the corner of their eyes and mumbling something under their breath while occasionally giggling. The rock was casually tossed out into the street by the friend.

Opening the door, I still wondered what had happened. I walked out to check the mail, and then as I came back up the walk, I saw it sitting next to the doormat: a rock. A rock that I’m sure wasn’t there earlier in the day.

I picked up the rock, glancing back at the boys. They were still watching me carefully, acting like they had no idea where that rock came from, shrugged their shoulders, and then walked off down the street. As they turned to walk away, I loudly asked, “Gee, I wonder how this rock ended up flying into my door?” They gave no response as they walked away, whispering something to each other.

So apparently we now have flying rocks in our neighborhood. We can add that to the other fantastical items found in this small community, including fence boards that warp themselves, tree branches that break on their own, and a mystical stick that carves wavy, looping lines into the paint of our six month old, still not paid off SUV.

We have enough magic on our street to rival Hogwarts.

I wish some action could be taken, but so far we have no recourse because we did not witness any of these actions, so we can’t prove who did it. It amazes me that kids can be so destructive for fun, and parents can care so little. Without proof, though, the parents don’t want to hear about it.

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel, though. A sign has been placed in the yard next to ours much like this one:

(Not showing the real sign, since it would point right to where I live.)

Do you think burying a St. Joseph statue in their yard would help sell their house if I was the one who buried it instead of them? Maybe I’ll help them market the house: “Great neighborhood, quiet location, just watch out for the magic flying rocks.“

Filed Under: other people's kids, rant ·


Jun 26, 2007

I Need Help From The Blog World

By ·

First, go here and read my current problem with Pampers diapers.

After that, I would love your suggestions for a new diaper brand to try. We need something cut wide, that works well for a large toddler who likes to drink a lot of juice. Because Pampers now suck and we need new diapers.

Either drop a comment here or on my reviews blog and tell me what diapers you recommend. Much thanks in advance!

Filed Under: rant, reviews ·


Jun 25, 2007

Sometimes I Hate People

By ·

Over the weekend, I was saddened, but not terribly surprised, to hear that the body of Jessie Davis was found. Here in Ohio, we had been following the news reports of her disappearance from the very beginning. When they first reported it, I had a bad feeling, and knew that she was most likely dead. I’m so sad for her family, for her son, and for the little girl who was so close to being born but never got the chance.

Do you know the top cause of death for pregnant women? You’d think it would be some medical condition, but the truth is homicide is the #1 cause of death. Most often it’s the father of the baby who is the killer, too. Scary, isn’t it?

I only hope the police have enough evidence to make this a slam-dunk case and get the justice that Jessie and her child deserve. If the father of the baby killed her, he deserves everything the courts can throw at him.

***************

In other news, I then found this website today. WTF? These people are supposedly trying to get donations to pay for their baby or they are threatening to abort it.

I’ve seen a lot of Internet scams, but this one is pretty pathetic. They are supposedly well educated, but clearly incapable of getting a job. If there even is a real child, then they can get jobs and pay for the baby. Lots of people raise kids without anonymously begging the Internet for $50,000. Sure, it might mean, oh….working hard… but you do what needs to be done.

I only hope that the donation ticker is false and people aren’t seriously falling for this.

Filed Under: rant ·


Jun 18, 2007

Sleepless Nights (Not The Baby)

By ·

While Mira does seem to have colic, at least she’s sleeping her long stretches at night. She generally gives us a three or four hour stretch starting at midnight, and then wake again a couple of hours later and nurse on and off in bed until 8am. (The good news – I seem to have enough milk for her now.)

This makes me very happy, because I’ve never been one to handle sleep deprivation well. If I’m ever interrogated by the government or terrorists, they will be able to break me after one night of no sleep. While Aaron often lives on only five hours of sleep a night, I prefer eight hours to function at peak performance. Of course, I have a newborn, so I’m lucky to get five or six hours, but that’s generally enough to keep me upright, if a little fuzzy headed.

So you can imagine how I feel when I tell you that last night I got about an hour of sleep all night. And that wasn’t a consecutive hour, either. Baby crying? Nope. Toddler with nightmares? Nope. Loud block party? Nope.

It was the damn smoke detectors.

I swear these things are possessed. I’ve written about them before and the torture they’ve caused. The detectors never have any problems during the day. They sit and wait until nighttime, when everyone is sleeping, to sound off and drive us insane.

But earlier episodes were nothing like last night. Because it wasn’t the low-battery chirping sound keeping us awake. It was the alarm going off full-blast for 5-10 seconds, at random intervals ranging from 5 minutes to one hour. All. Night. Long.

The first alarm had me jumping out of bed, startled and confused and worried. I wondered if something was overheating in the house, so I conducted a top to bottom search, checking each room and sniffing for any hint of smoke or anything burning. Satisfied that there was no fire, I went back to bed, only to be jolted awake by another alarm a few minutes after I fell asleep.

Cordy slept through the first few alarms. But it couldn’t last forever, and soon we heard the soft cries coming over the monitor. Aaron went into her room to comfort her and get her back to sleep, while I got dressed and left the house at 3am to find batteries, hoping that it was a battery problem.

Finding batteries at 3am is not easy. I first went to a gas station, only to be told they were “temporarily closed”. So I drove a little more to the grocery store, but found they closed at 1am. Bastards. I drove a little further to my last chance: Wal-Mart. Folks, you think Wal-Mart is scary during the day? You should see it at 3am. I’ve never seen so many people with missing teeth in one place.

Batteries in hand, I returned home to find a crying Mira. I fed her while Aaron changed batteries. We thought that would be the end of things, but close to 4am the alarm sounded again. Taking the batteries out completely wouldn’t silence them – the smoke detectors are interconnected in the electrical system, and the batteries are just a backup. So we went to the source of the problem, and shut off the circuit. This left the batteries still in, so the alarms continued off and on through the morning.

Today, drunk on a lack of sleep, I stumbled around the house slowly removing batteries from each detector, waiting to see if that particular round plastic demon was the faulty one. Each time the alarm shrieked, Cordy dove onto the couch and pulled pillows and blankets over her head to hide from it. To make the day worse, Mira was awake and crying much of the afternoon as well, so there was no rest to be had.

The alarms are now silenced, only because we have turned off the circuit and pulled all the batteries out. Tomorrow I’ll be looking for a fire alarm repair company to come out and fix the problem. I may ask them to completely replace the damn detectors just to end having their beady little green LED lights staring at me, waiting to attack again.

In the meantime, I hope Mira sleeps well tonight, because mommy needs sleep.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Filed Under: fate laughing at me, rant ·