I'd Rather Have A Stranger See My Ass Like That

Dear Husbands Everywhere:

I was thinking how much guys would love a world in which they could walk right up to a woman, lift her skirt, and feel her butt. Just whenever the mood took them. Niiice, right?

Marriage makes dreams come true! One of the perks is being able to slide that hand under your wife's skirt, without even having to buy her dinner first. (It's nice if you do, but you don't have to.)

One of the pitfalls of marriage is how women can complicate such a simple thing as you copping a feel.

Here's the thing: your wife (I'm not talking to you dillholes with trophy wives; I'm talking to the honorable rest of you with real wives who are over 30 and have birthed your spawn) wants you to see her behind-quarters in dim, flickering, flattering candlelight. She does not want her skirt lifted

in front of a wall-sized bathroom mirror with harsh, though eco-friendly, spirally bulbs floodlighting every single flaw in a blinding white flash of flesh.

This does not make us feel sexy. It makes us cringe. We would rather have a complete stranger lift our skirts thusly and take a peek because we don't honestly care what they think of our ass; they can kiss it, so to speak.

But we care about your opinion. Very much. We want you to continue to want to cop that feel. And even take a look, if the lighting is "proper." And we've been drinking.

I'm just saying.

Sincerely,

All Wives Everywhere, Pre-Cosmetic Correction


And thanks to AFF for my new favorite insulty-word "dillhole". I don't know what it means but I like it.

Have you weighed in on my request for Sex and the City advice?
And have you been FABULOUS and commented on my article in Shine magazine at Yahoo?

Why thanks honey!

I'm Shiny!

Warning:
Shameless Self-Promotion Post. (But who else is going to do it?)

I've mentioned here before that I write about working motherhood at the very clever Mommy Track'd site. I love the site! Anything that features a Three Martini Complaint Department has me at "click here."

You should go there. Really. You'll find me Around the Watercooler.

And go here too!! Pretty, pretty please with a cherry, whipped cream, and extra fudge sauce on top? Nuts optional.

How often do I ask you for anything?

Shine is a Yahoo magazine and they've been fooled smart enough to feature on the front page my latest article for Mommy Track'd about how daycare doesn't determine your child's Myers-Briggs score. Under "Parenting" I'm the giant headline "Does daycare really make a kid more social?"

Now that my name is in lights and all SHINY and stuff I'm going to go get me an expensive famous person hat for my big fat head. Like this one.

OK, the shoes bother me more than the hat. They aren't right with that dress. And may I just point out: SJP is a genius. That stupid hat is all anyone can talk about.

Please visit Shine and comment. We'd love for them to pick up more Mommy Track'd writing!

What's Your SATC Score?

Note: At the end of this long-ish post, I ask for your help!

I have a confession. I've not been a Sex and the City fan. At first, it was because we did not have HBO so I couldn't watch it anyway. When it finally turned up on TBS I wasn't interested due to the editing out of what supposedly made it so unique and great - explicit sex stuff from a woman's perspective.

Eventually though, I surfed across it and watched an episode. I was unimpressed, thought maybe it was just a bum episode, and so I watched a few more. And I thought it was... well... sad.

The characters seemed sad to me. They vacillated between desperate, whiny, self-involved, uber-jaded, and kind of pathetic and they had screwed up priorities. I did really like Stanford though. And I started to see other glimmers. Like when Carrie is in the fashion magazine prop room and the older guy drops his drawers looking to hook up with her? As TBS would point out: "very funny." Carrie looked like a drag queen in the one where she walks the runway in a fashion show, but I loved that they had her do a face plant. That's keeping it real. And the one where Carrie does the math wrong trying to justify how much she spends on Manolos, thinking her $400-$600 a pair has totalled like $4,000 and Miranda points out that actually her total is $40,000 and Carrie is like holy frick I could have made a down payment on an actual place to live!! Very funny.

But the one where Samantha is with, of course, a young stud, and he rolls over and looks down at her and mentions how her neck wrinkles don't show when she's laying on her back? Um, how f-ing sad is that? And the one where Carrie decides to "go young," sleeps with a boy she just met in a club (Didn't we learn not to do that type of shit? Why is it still depicted as acceptable behavior?) and wakes up in his place. Stumbling around in last night's party clothes with a hangover (very mature), looking for the door, she realizes she's basically in a dorm room. The apartment is trashed, the guy doesn't have coffee or a clean glass to offer her something to drink, and in her "quick exit of shame" she bumps into his burly roommate. She's a grown woman! How bad is that? And she smokes a lot. Why?

And many episodes with Carrie and Mr. Big bother me. Oh, believe me I see the appeal of Mr. Big. It's not hard to understand why she would go to some lengths to work that out. But when she is coming and going at different hotels with him in the middle of the day in odd parts of town so he isn't seen with her, well, that is so awful. And I know that's the whole point! Maybe I'm just uncomfortable watching other people's uncomfortable situations. Like the party in the Hamptons where Big, who is supposed to be out of town, turns up with a stunning 26-year old and Carrie is so devastated she vomits on the beach.

I have my own Mr. Big. I married him. And if this had happened or ever were to happen to me, I'd probably not be able to hold my vomit that long. I'd toss my cosmopolitan on his shoes.

In any case, I've adjusted to the TBS version. I don't love it, but I find it interesting. It is fairly realistic (except Carrie could never actually afford her wardrobe) in terms of what women do to themselves to find love, have orgasms, and make relationships work. Even if it can be sad to watch. And I love love love the clothes! I even know exactly what I would do to that green hat up there to make it acceptable.

So, I want to see the movie. Tell me SATC fans, as someone who has seen maybe 12 random episodes, what do I need to know? What did you most appreciate about the show? And if I were to rent a season to watch to bring me up to speed before seeing the movie, which season should I rent?

Time to show off your SAT-C scores!

Give That Baby A Bubba!

One thing I've never understood is why pediatricians want babies off the bottle at 12 months.

I'm usually a rule follower. Just try to convince me it's OK to give a child just a bit more in that medicine dropper than the 4 ml dose I was instructed to dispense and you will see immediate concern in my face. 4 ml means 4 ml. Not 4.5 ml.

But the bottle rule I completely ignore. I can't remember exactly when Sugarplum gave up the bottle, but I know it was when she was ready and that it was not at 12 months of age. I tried at 12 months (because I follow rules and they told me stuff about her teeth and her bite and probably other bad consequences of prolonged nipple sucking) but I quickly decided she still needed her bottle.

Shark Boy was harder to wean. He was in no way even close to ready at 12 months. At his 12 month check up I nodded when the ped reminded me it was time to wean him, but I had no intention of doing so. At 16 months we were back in his office and Dr. Wean saw the bottle in the side pouch of my diaper bag. "What's that? He's not supposed to still have those. Let's get to work on giving those up." He was good natured and offered a bunch of suggestions for how to wean a baby Shark. I nodded.

The next time we were in the office I put the bottle inside the diaper bag and zipped it shut.

I mentioned my annoyance about this stupid rule to my mother-in-law. She ignored this rule as well, it turns out. She said she once asked P's uncle, a pediatrician, what was the deal with the 12-month wean? She wasn't making her kids do that and was she really making a mistake? Uncle Harper said, "In all my years as a pediatrician I've not seen one kid yet go off to college with a bottle."

So she quit worrying about it.

I'm relieved to say my new, younger model pediatrician has yet to mention Honey Bear's bottle. Tonight, as I was rocking my baby Bear and he was drinking his evening "bubba" while gazing into my eyes, he pulled it out and offered it to me. Memories flickered in dormant corners of my mind, like fireflies ever so briefly illuminating memories of my other two babies doing that same sweet thing. I pretended to take a taste and he smiled at me, stuck it back in his mouth, and closed his eyes.

My baby needs his bubba. Mama is not going to rush this.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - Crop Circles

I have crop circles in my front yard.

It could be:
a lightbulb
a mini golf course green
a heart with an arrow through it (and a tree growing in one chamber)
the random result of a broken pan or pin thingy on P's riding mower

Happy Wednesday Y'All!