consumerism
made of colorful plastic
and deranged children

Every now and then I pretend that I’m a hippy. Well, maybe not a hippy, but crunchy at least. I’ve always enjoyed going bra-less and barefoot. I like hummus and soft natural fibers. I might even start up a rainwater collection system for my yard when I have enough money. But today any sense of crunchy was abandoned.

Today was Disney’s Incredibles on Ice.

That’s right. $75 for mid-section seats (that’s 75 total, not for each seat!). Plus popcorn and a Coke – so that’s almost a hundred dollars we paid to sit through a two-hour long commercial for Disney World.

Oh, but the Wee One loved it. He got a free "incrediband" (a little plastic armband with a laser pointer type light on it) that he is currently wearing while he sleeps. He shouted and clapped and audience-participated and hid his eyes at the scary parts. He didn’t notice that his mouth was hanging open at the exciting parts. He covered his ears when the fireworks went off (inside!) and when Syndrome shot his fireball shooting weapon thing (real fireballs! Inside!). It was a great afternoon. And because it was Mother’s Day I got a pretty carnation at the door. Score.

Yes, we got totally sucked in. But we didn’t get sucked in enough to buy a $10 Dash head filled with a sno cone. And we didn’t buy any of the billions of light up toys or Incredibles dolls or t-shirts or coloring books. It was hard for the Wee One to understand that just because you’re excited and there’s tons of crap and everyone else is freaking out to buy it – that doesn’t mean you have to freak out, too. But happily he was content with his free incrediband and the indoor pyrotechnics, and we managed to escape the place without a) investing in a five-day, four-night Disney World trip (which will do one day, just not yet) or b) buying a disturbing Jack-Jack half-head mask thing.

It was so fun to watch the Wee One watch the show. It’s the first spectacle like that that he’s been to. It made me remember going to the circus when I was around his age and just being completely overwhelmed by everything there was to see. I actually got weepy at Disney’s Incredibles on Ice, can you believe that? I guess I am still a little bit crunchy.

Oh – and for mother’s day I not only got my traditional Krispy Kremes – I got a showerhead that doesn’t jump out of the wall and try to attack me!

‘Twas a fun day. Now I just have to get this albuterol out of my system so I can sleep. (Too much excitement from Disney, I’m afraid… 3 hours of contractions every 6 minutes followed our fun afternoon. They seemed to have stopped thanks to the drugs, but dang. The albuterol jitters are craaaaaazy.)

Anyway, happy Mother’s Day to all, and to all a good night. I’m going to go smell my free Disney carnation and have a donut and maybe, possibly, even go to sleep.

organization
not really an affliction
like I used to think

I am nesting. It’s official. I stand helplessly in every room of my house and imagine what can be done to clean it, organize it, and make it generally a nicer place to be. Then I go sit on my butt and listen to the Wee One tell me jokes (ex: Why was the cyclops such a good teacher? Because he had only one eyebrow! The actual answer is "because he had only one pupil" but the Wee One’s version is much better, I think).

My brains seem to be energized and enthused about this whole nesting phenomenon. But my body is all, "Riiight. You want ME to bend down and pick up 17,000 magazines from the bathroom floor? HAHAHAHAHA." So I’m in a level of Hell. I WANT to organize and clean my house from top to bottom. But when your crotch joints (whatever those are) hurt when you move, it kind of hampers getting into the whole nesting thing.

So I make lists.

And I bought this stuff – Floradix, I think it’s called. It’s an iron supplement. And I have high hopes it will give me the energy of ten Wee Ones. Except it tastes like that brief second before you throw up and I don’t think I’ll be able to take any more of it even thought it cost me $20.99 at Whole Foods. Also, I bought it four weeks ago and I think that after four weeks it ferments because it’s au naturale. Alas.

Anyway, I’m impotently nesting.

"Impotently Nesting" now THAT’S a good title for something.

you don’t feel dirty
when politics get results
that’s weird, isn’t it?

So! After the mama community completely flipped out and unleashed our wrath, as well as our lactating breasts, on the Round Rock Express (see the post below if you don’t know what I’m talking about), they have responded in an amazingly fast manner.

Click here and scroll to the B’s. It looks like the Express have a brand new policy on breastfeeding. It’s a great start, and I can only hope they will not only follow their new policy, but publicize it and issue an apology to the mama who was asked to leave her seat for nursing during last Sunday’s game.

Rock on, you bad ass boobalicious Austin (and Austin-area) mamas. Now let’s go enjoy some baseball.

"you’ll poke your eye out"
takes on whole new meaning with
"blossoming" body

If you get a bunch of mamas together and at least one of them is currently pregnant, the conversation invariably turns to her appearance. "She’s so tiny to be so far along," they always say, even if you’ve doubled in size and are currently floating at the top of the ceiling like a parade float. Women will then begin to go on and on about how when THEY were pregnant THEY were pregnant in their fingertips and earlobes and eyeballs, etc. It becomes a competition to see who was more grotesque at the end of their pregnancy – the lady with certifiable cankles, or the one who grew a whole extra butt cheek.

I’m here to tell you today that when I am pregnant, I enjoy cankles and a larger booty, but my real trouble is with the ladies on top. I get pregnant in my nipples. Snicker if you must, but it’s true. They’ve gotten me into trouble before, but only when pregnant. They become missile-shaped and always on guard. Even when it’s 95 degrees outside they require your attention. I feel like I should apologize for them when I walk into a room.

"Sorry for the nips, folks… just duck and then move along."

There isn’t anything I can do about them, though, so I’ve decided that instead of being embarrassed about them, I’m going to embrace them. If I go blind, my pregnant nipples will help me feel my way around a room. If I fall down, they will cushion my crash. If there is an intruder in the house, I can leap from behind a wall and poke out his eyes, or at least pin him to the floor, leaving my hands free to call 911.

Having pregnant nipples isn’t a physical feature I would have requested, but I can come to terms. And it also gives me a great one-up story when the topic turns to "Oh you should have seen ME at 32 weeks!" Even so, I still wanted to warn you in case we meet face-to-face anytime soon. You get a three-second free pass to be amazed and then I require eye contact. Don’t worry, they’ll still be there when we’re done talking. They might even start talking themselves one of these days.