Seven Quick Takes
ONE: I know you've watched “I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant.” I KNOW YOU HAVE. And if you haven't, I know you've heard of it and so I ALSO know that if you turned it on and saw some woman squatting over a toilet or in a bathroom and and moaning in pain while also looking confused that you'd KNOW what you were watching something other than someone just taking a poop. They don't put that stuff on television, you know? So tell me why they have a need, in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, to say things like, “Amazingly, Claire didn't even know she was pregnant, or about to deliver.” WELL DUH. Isn't that what this entire show is about? ISN'T IT? And then, without fail, they interview a young, female doctor who says something about women who think they have their periods throughout a pregnancy or who got pregnant while on the pill and then I, without fail, start thinking that SURELY there is a more creative approach to this show than the format they've got.
TWO: Although, do you know what I DO enjoy about “I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant” is comparing the real people with the actors hired to play them in the reenactment. Because they always hire someone who is WAY MORE ATTRACTIVE than the actual person who didn't know they were pregnant. I imagine this is a difficult balancing act. Can you imagine the auditions? “Well, that was a great job you did there, lying on the floor and panicking about the head sliding out from between your legs, but I'm still a bit concerned that you're a little too ugly for the part. We just don't want to offend the person that this REALLY happened to, you know?” Or perhaps this is simply because the reenactment actors have hair and makeup teams? I know they aren't sending any hair and makeup teams to the REAL people or else no one would be interviewed with greasy hair and wearing an ancient Old Navy t-shirt, which unfortunately, some of them are.
THREE: So remember how I told you about the lady with the German Shepherd hooked up to the chariot? I guess last time I wrote about her I had way more to say about other things, so I didn't tell you the VERY IMPORTANT part of the story, which is that the only reason I knew to keep a lookout for her in the first place is because she came whizzing down a hill a few weeks ago at top speed (dog running with the chariot being pulled behind it) and ran into my friend who was jogging with her baby in a stroller. The chariot lady actually knocked the stroller with the baby in it OVER onto its SIDE and KEPT GOING. Kept going! I AM SO TOTALLY SERIOUS. And my poor friend was freaking out, what with her BABY all tipped over in a STROLLER onto the ASPHALT and chariot lady was long gone and she couldn't even turn around and give her the finger. She did call the police and try to report her, but apparently the police couldn't do anything unless she pressed assault charges and I don't remember the rest of what my friend told me because I was still all open-mouthed at the BABY LYING ON THE ASPHALT but I think if you press assault charges, you probably need to be willing to secure a lawyer and possibly go to court. Which I don't think they were ready to do, since TECHNICALLY, no one got hurt.
FOUR: So THEN one evening I was walking the dog on the golf course by our house and I ran into all these people who bring their dogs out to play with each other after all the golfers have gone home and we chatted for a bit before I casually brought the chariot lady up in conversation and that's when I found out that these aren't dog people, these are Dog People who warrant CAPITALIZATION because they about fell over themselves talking about how wonderful the chariot lady was for doing all this amazing work with her dogs and how great she is for being so committed to them and isn't it so cool what those dogs can do? And I was going to mention how another thing that dog can do is knock BABIES in STROLLERS to the GROUND with all the reckless speeding down hills they do but I didn't want to be a total party pooper so Hambone and I continued on our way without me saying what I really wanted to say which was CHARIOT LADY HATES BABIES.
FIVE: Everywhere I turn lately, it seems there's an advertisement for some program to help my children learn to read. Today in the car I heard a particularly annoying one, where a woman talks about how it helped her three-year-old read at a fifth-grade level. And that it wasn't a fluke, because she used it with all THREE of her children and all THREE of her children went on to be the smartest kids in their class and two won the Nobel Peace Prize and the other one invented the printing press or something. Actually, what she really said, AND SHE SAID IT SMUGLY, is that her son went to kindergarten and after three weeks, they moved him right up to first grade. I just don't know how I feel about all this Learn to Read Early! stuff. On one hand, I absolutely believe in helping your kids learn to read the moment they start showing interest. My other hand, however, wants to close around the throats of people who can't simply settle for their children learning to read – their children have to EXCEL at reading, to the point where they have paper cuts from flash cards and do workbooks in their spare time and can't even go to KINDERGARTEN like a REGULAR KID. I can't WAIT for my kids to be able to read. But I don't think it's healthy for me to push them into that kind of thing just so I can claim those bragging rights.
SIX: We went to Target the other day, and as I was trying to pay while simultaneously trying to keep Lucy from diving out of the cart, I noticed Asher had gone very quiet. “Asher?” I called out, and then I turned around to look for him and there he was, directly behind me in the line, silently licking the red partition wall that separates the checkout lines. LICKING. THE WALL. AT TARGET. “ASHER!” I cried out. “Don't lick the wall! That's yucky and you'll get germs and diseases.” He looked at me for a moment before speaking. “Asher lick it just a little bit?” he asked hopefully. “No,” I said. “No licking it AT ALL. Not a little bit; not a lot. NO LICKING THE WALL.” The cashier snorted. Then he gestured to the red shelf that ran under the candy bins. “Asher lick that?” I just stared at him. “No,” I said, finally. “No licking anything.” File that under Things I Didn't Know I'd Have to Teach My Child: DON'T LICK ANYTHING I HAVEN'T SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED YOU TO LICK.
SEVEN: Thank you all for your very kind comments regarding the iVillage article. I never got around to reading many of the comments there, mostly because I didn't want to risk having them bring me down. I don't put any value on negative comments and I don't actually believe the negative things that people wrote, but I didn't want to give any of that negativity a foothold, you know? I don't need any reason to second-guess myself; don't need to waste any of my time wondering if I should have done something different or if I'm contributing to the obesity epidemic or if I'm selfish. Wiser to just ignore it and let it play out without me monitoring it and read the amazing, wonderful things that people said here instead. The Internet is such a wonderful place in some respects – it brings people together who would never had the opportunity to know and support each other otherwise. Unfortunately, it's also a place where you can be judgmental and hateful and remain completely anonymous. It doesn't necessarily make it right, but I like to think those women who left angry or hurtful comments (comments not only directed at me, but at other women who stopped breastfeeding or chose not to) would never say any of those things directly to someone's face; that it's the anonymity of the Internet that brings out the worst in them. Thank you all for being so kind and supportive to me and to everyone else who comments and shares here.
