Cynical Mom

Please tell me they had no idea

My media center recorded today's episode of Blue's Clues for me.

The title?

"The Trying Game": "This episode is all about trying our best in the hopes of learning something"

Oh, you'll learn something all right.

Not exactly the advice I was hoping for

My OB's office says that it's OK if I continue to puke once an hour as I have done the last few hours, the only risk to the baby is if I get dehydrated. So I should give them a call back tomorrow if I'm still puking and not peeing frequently.

That's about as comforting as the LLL leader who told me it was OK for my nipples to bleed while breastfeeding.

Plus, they urged me to try to get some calories in, for my own health[1]. That's great, since the calories I've taken in in the last hour have worked out real well for me - I'm really motivated to take in some more and then give them up shortly thereafter.

[1] Not because the baby will get hurt in the slightest if I go a day without eating. That's the nice thing about the warm and fuzzy parasitic relationship POTUS and I share. POTUS will leech whatever he/she needs out of me without me doing anything special.

I know what my son's getting for Hanukkah

This season's sure-to-be-the-next-furby:

Anyone up for some billiards?

Cranky Mommy recently mentioned http://www.matchingmoms.org/, and my ears perked up. Seems like a great idea. It's so hard to meet other like-minded people without a lot of time, something that magically disappeared round about two years ago for me.

So I go to fill out my profile, and I see that I can choose from a variety of interests, such as: Adoption, Antiques, Arts, Attachment Parenting, Billiards, Bowling, Breastfeeding, Cats, Cooking, Dancing, Massage, Movies, Fitness, Shopping... but the closest thing to "Computers" is "Surfing the Net". They might as well have had a checkbox for "Forwarding hoaxes debunked on snopes in 1998" on the list.

They do have "Music (listening)" but no "Music (creating)". So why segment it at all? How is it that "Billiards" got on the list but Computers didn't? Why do I find it more than mildly annoying that nearly every single category on this interests list is stereotypically female?

Heck, I'm more than willing to admit that it may be that they're serving the needs of their customers best, and their customers do mainly have interests in those categories. But how do they know they're not turning away potential customers who are a little offput at the default list? Or hey, throw a bone to feminism, even if NOBODY puts it as an interest, put "Cars" on the list just to make stuck-up feminist wannabes like me feel better (as we skip past it and check "Scrapbooking" instead).

At least they do have "Computers" and "Engineering" in the section about the type of work that I am doing. (But then again, they also have "Unemployed"). So at least they recognize I might have something to do with computers at all - but is it unthinkable that I might actually enjoy the type of work that I do? Or hey, what if I happened to be particularly passionate about Food Service, is there no way for this form to let me announce that to the world in my 'interests' section?

I think my standards are too high, or I'm just not looking in the right place. There is no listing for 'Cynical moms' in the playgroup list and my knee-jerk reaction to one of the display names of the mom's groups was that they didn't pluralize 'mommies' correctly, so my takeaway from that is that I'm an evil person.

It's all for naught, anyway, because interest-based matching has never been very successful for me the few times I've tried it. I am very into photography, really enjoy taking pictures, working in photoshop, etc. But that doesn't mean I meld particularly well with anyone else just because of a shared interest.

Even if I shared two or three or four major interests, I don't think I'd really have a higher chance of success, because it's not really the interests I look for when looking for friends, but the personality. And how do you fill out a list of checkboxes to describe your personality or find people with a similar one? That's why blogging has been so interesting for me, to describe my own personality by way of what I blog about, and to pick up on others' personalities by reading what they write about. Of course if I decide I want to take the next step, then I go back to high school and get all insecure and procrastinate.

P.S. on that note, Elizabeth, I know I owe you an email... but I don't see your address on your site? You can reach me at cyn AT photo DOT lemson DOT com.

And about them there gender stereotypes

My two year old adores vehicles. Trucks, boats, trains, buses, motorcycles, planes, and the beloved helicopter. Our town is having Big Truck Day this friday, which I signed him up for (newish parent that I am, I didn't realize I'd have to reserve a spot in advance until another mother pointed it out - oops).

As the woman who reserved us our spot said over the phone: "Now at his age, I do need to warn you that there are some activities he will not be able to participate in, as they're not intended for children under three." No worries, I said: "I think he will be tickled pink to just see Big Trucks, and I've heard that there will be Big Trucks there."

So, on friday we will go see Big Trucks, and I know my little boy will explode in a fit of otherworldly happiness.

All the while I am reserving his spot and looking forward to it because I know how happy he will be, I am still thinking about how we are marching happily along the path to stereotypical likes and dislikes (let me guess what's next - dinosaurs?). But by that same token, his favorite color is still pink, and (having been borne to a mother who happens to still have her lovey in a drawer in her bedside table) he adores his blue doggie and pink kitty (ok ok, so he's not the most imaginative child when it comes to lovey names) like nobody's business.

Plus, I remember how much I totally dug dinosaurs and green army men when I was a kid (although interestingly enough, my mom doesn't remember those phases and instead remembers my longer-running barbie and my little pony fascinations). So I am hoping that achieving some sort of balance in gender stereotypes has a lot to do with me noticing what he enjoys and nurturing it, regardless of which specific gender it might be commonly associated with.

As I write this, I can't help but feel that five or ten years from now I will look back at me now and laugh knowingly and think about much I tried to be balanced in my offerings, but he turned out to be a stereotypical boy regardless. If so, then so be it; it makes me feel better now that I'm at least actively thinking about it and consciously trying to offer a variety.

Plus, tonight on the video monitor (aka "a luxury that I never knew I couldn't live without until I had it") we listened to him put himself to sleep by singing Itsy Bitsy Spider louder and more out of key than you would expect from a really drunk old man. And somehow, those kinds of moments make the rest of it seem so silly.

Perhaps he's onto something, I'll have to try that approach the next time I have trouble sleeping, i.e. in an hour: ...Itty bitty PIE DAH wakin up SPOW. down came WAYNE and washa PIE DAH ow. Ow came SUNNAN drydup ahda WAYNE anna itty bitty PIE DAH wen up da POW gain...

According to Washington State, size does matter

A local guy recently passed away after partaking of carnal pleasure with a member of the equine family. OK, those of us with the sense of humor of fourth graders, let's get our laughs out of the way and prepare for the really funny part:

Although sex with animals is not illegal in Washington state, Urquhart said that investigators were looking into whether the farm, located in Enumclaw, 40 miles southeast of Seattle, allowed sex with smaller animals that resulted in animal cruelty, which is a crime.

“If you’re talking about sheep or goats, there could be some issues,” Urquhart said.

Just one question - is size only important on the receiving end?

Getcher hypersensitive chick right here

A few weeks ago, my husband was preparing for a business trip to China; at the same time, I was in the mood for ice cream. He had just decided he wanted to get wine as a gift for some colleagues in China. I was planning on going to the grocery store to sate my desire for ice cream, and so I offerred to get him some wine as well. After a short discussion we agreed that he needed to pick the wine and wouldn't know what was best unless he was looking at the wine himself, so therefore he would go to the grocery and get me the ice cream instead.

At this point, I hadn't quite realized what a stereotypical turn this was taking (at least it was only around 10pm and not 2am).

So he goes to Larry's Market, the ritziest grocery store around. And, get this: they were out of vanilla. WTF? You don't run out of vanilla. It's what every ice cream is MADE from! That's like running out of tylenol and smokes at a drug store. OK not really, but hopefully you see my point.

So while standing in the ice cream aisle, he called me to find out my second choice. We debated the merits of a few different ice cream flavors, I settled on chocolate peanut butter, and he hung up. As I found out later, a woman was standing next to him in the ice cream aisle. After he hung up, she winked and said "Pregnant wife at home?"

Sigh. I was rather proud of myself for never having done that "I'm craving Foo, run out and get me some darling" stereotype that you read about. If I really felt like I needed something, I'd get it myself. And now this random woman thinks she knows me, dangit. I don't like feeling known by random ladies in ice cream aisles at grocery stores.

Oh yeah - and until this experience, my husband apparently didn't know that "Peanut butter cup" is not the same as "Chocolate peanut butter".

He knows the difference now.

Humans are curious beasts by nature

And having noticed a 10x increase in my inbound traffic today due to a link to the main blog URL from a 'parenting' board on http://www.theusuals.net, I am naturally very curious what caused the link. Unfortunately the parenting board in question requires you to have some tenure on theusuals (actually the site overall looks pretty interesting, I'm browsing it right now).

So, can one of you browsers currently wandering here from there help me out a tad? Just let me know which category the link fits best into:

A: Check out this blog - What a self-absorbed bitch!
B: Check out this blog - Look at the size of the wit on that one!

Or variations thereof. Comments appreciated. Honesty can be handled. And really, no fair that you can read me anonymously but I can't do the same for your board.

:-)

He's not ready to be taught this yet

Tonight, we had the bright idea to teach the toddler how to fetch bottles of beer out of the refrigerator. Because, ya know, it'd be funny, and we haven't gotten burned yet.

Unfortunately he is not yet strong enough to open the refrigerator. So we'll shelve this activity for a month or two and work on his biceps.

A thought just occurred to me

If this baby's a girl, I'm going to become even more rabidly feminist. This is probably not going to sit well with certain people. Ah, well.