NothingSacred

Would you like some breast-milk in your eye, dear? Part 2

So happy baby news abounds... and with it the usual lunacy that swirls around all things natal. 

My dear friend Edna just gave birth to her fourth (4th!) little flower, Lilac, who joins her older sisters Gardenia, Jonquil and Violet. Edna is probably the strongest lady I've ever met as not only does she continue to give birth to sweet little angels, she does it from home! I know, I know... it sounds crazy to me, too. Home-birthing is for tougher broads than me, and I give them mad props for doing it the old-fashioned way. For me, it's all epidurals, all the time. In fact, I like (need?!) them so much that when I had Deuce my OB informed me that should I have any more children I should request my epidural in the 8th month. Yeah, I'm a screamer.

 

Anyhoo, as I said, Edna recently delivered another beautiful, healthy, perfect little blossom. Now, there's a whole underworld of home-birthing that I'm sure you all already know about-- but in Edna's state (one of those sorta mid-westerny ones), home-birthing is basically illegal, and thus gets very underworldy.

And since that scofflaw Edna has done it 4 times, I'm pretty sure she's catching the attention of local authorities. Especially now that she's moved away from a major city in mid-westerly state where it is easier to stay under the radar to, say, illegally give birth in a blow-up hot tub in your house to a suburb just bursting full of regular joe, I'll-have-my-epidural-now, hospital-birthing moms. 

So this time as Edna went in to file the necessary paperwork on little Lilac, she evidently caught the attention of some overzealous paper-pusher just jonesing to flex her authority. Super Clerk proceeded to call Edna to verify that she had, in fact, given Lilac a dose of those "prophylactic eye drops" all our kids are obligated to endure in hospital births.

No, she told Super Clerk, she had NOT given Lilac the drops as she is well aware that the drops are used to fight a possible infection if the birthing mother has any STDs. Since Edna is certain she does not have gonorrhea and syphilis and she birthed in the comfort of her own home and thus didn't expose her baby to any of the multitudes of germs and infestations and infections often picked up from seemingly-sterile-'til-you-get-a-flesh-eating-bacteria-hospitals, she was pretty certain little Lilac didn't need 'em . Furthermore she has no intention of giving Lilac the drops. Was there anything else Super Clerk might require?

That was when Super Clerk told Edna that the drops are required "by law" in fairly-small, mid-westerly state and informed her that she would need to set up an appointment with her pediatrician to administer the drops. When Edna informed her that that was also not going to occur she must've touched off some sort of over-worked government-employee crazy switch. Because when Edna asked again what her options were to satisfy Super Clerk since she was opting out of dropping chemicals in Lilac's eyes, Super Clerk actually said this:

"Well, you could squirt breast-milk in her eyes."

Uh, say what?!? Yep. That was Super Clerk's solution. Since breast-milk has antibiotic properties, Edna could grab hold of her new little peanut, force her eyelid open with one hand, grab a teat in the other and spray her down with nature's best! 

I was still chuckling about the absurdity of Super Clerk the next day when Edna rang me up to report that Super Clerk had just called her AGAIN to double-check that she had, in fact, squirted breast milk in Lilac's eyes! And Super Clerk had called Edna's midwife to tell her that the breast milk eyewash needed to occur asap and inquire with the midwife what religion Edna is so that she can finish her paperwork. So now Edna is is busy trying to research which religions are exempt from middling-sized mid-westerly state's nanny-statist rules on eye-chemicals to let Super Clerk know that she has converted. 

As if that's not enough, with all this birthing going on, Edna decided to share this fun little nugget with me: the rising popularity with earth mother types of placenta smoothies. Yeah. You heard me right. Some batshit crazy moms are now mixing up a little afterbirth for the ultimate bonding-with-baby-slash-I-might-be-a-cannibal cocktail. Pardon me while I go throw up.

There. Better.

I know you're all with me when you scream manically, WHAT THE FUCK!??!?!

And one more quick fun foray into recent birthing stories. My dear friend/sister Noele, just had her first son this past week. Little Dane joined his big sisters Kenya, China & Romania much to everyone's joy. Noele and HOM didn't find out what they were having, and Noele must've been pretty certain it was another girl as they didn't have any boy names chosen and when she was asked at her pre-birth appointment about circumcision she thought they were talking about HOM! She said she thought, 'well, certainly they must mean vasectomy, as HOM is already circumcised!'

Needless to say, we're all pretty thrilled with their new arrival, and when I asked her about that circumcision decision (because we were rolling our eyes at those whackadoos in San Francisco who are trying to ban it... for now a sane judge has blocked it from being on the ballot) for little Dane she told me the funniest thing happened to her and HOM.

After the doc came in and snipped the little guy, he turned to HOM and asked him if he'd like to keep the foreskin!! 

I can't imagine what one would want with a foreskin. I know I never kept any of my sons'... but I'm pretty sure they didn't ever ASK me that... then again, I was all hopped up on epidurals, so you never know. Is this some new trend? I'm hoping to God it's a wacky Boulder County thing and not some new nationwide craze.

I mean, really, what do you do with it? My first thought was: Dry it out and use it for a lucky key ring.  And then it hit me. Only nutbags who drink placenta smoothies would want some crazy shit like this. It's clearly meant to be a garnish for your placenta smoothie! 

Would you like some breast-milk in your tea, dear? Part 1

I don't know what it is but I can't seem to escape breasts/breast-feeding/breast milk all of a sudden.

First, I was bum-rushed at my club pool with a hot-tub milker, then I was treated to a first-hand look at Boulder's new topless lady law (it's A-OK with those hippies... only sadly there is no quality control on who is allowed to partake) whilst dining on Pearl Street with TOM. Sidenote: wearing a backpack and no shirt is not the most flattering of looks as you plan your fall wardrobes, ladies.

And now?? First off my friend, Hester, shares with me that while SHE was at the pool with her little 'uns the other day she witnessed a child getting a little teat treat who was old enough to then skip away and enjoy a PB&J.

Listen up, gals, if your kid is old enough to form full sentences do the public-at-large a favor and keep the suckling to the privacy of your own home, ok? We all have our different little ways of ensuring that our children will need mass amounts of therapy when they grow up, but those are called FAMILY SECRETS, and we'd appreciate not bearing witness to your sanctimonious over-the-top maternal instincts as you boldly eye anyone who dares to look your direction with that "SO? This-is-beautiful-and-you're-going-to-like-it-by-God-and-I-dare-you-to-say-something" attitude. Shewt, you're going to make us ALL need therapy for witnessing stuff like that. 

To make matters worse, after I heard Hester's tale of awkward, unintentional private-moment intrusion, I happened across a disturbing category of youtube vids on the subject. I was actually re-watching the hilarious video of mom my ride after accidentally catching a glimpse of my van's own rear portions. (I usually actively ignore it, even going so far as closing my eyes and blindly reaching in whenever I'm unlucky enough to get near the handy-dandy sliding rear doors or the awesome auto-lift back gate and I need to locate something. This method has bitten me in the ass on more than one occasion... "Boys? Is this a booger on me? Why is this all slimy? What the heck WAS this?!")

Anyhow, while giggling at the perennial youtube fave I notice that the suggested vids on the side feature a "how-to breastfeed" link. Say what?! There are videos on youtube about this?!

I told myself not to click. I just knew I'd end up on some government Big Brother list of porn users if I did. Youtube can't possibly be allowing people to upload vids of those most precious and sacred personal relationship moments between newborn and mother (to be done in at least relative privacy, por favor!), RIGHT?!!? But I couldn't resist. I HAD to click. And now, I only wish I could take it back.

Once you open up the world of breast-feeding on youtube there is no closing it back up. It is Pandora's Box, I shit you not. Video after video of various batshit crazy moms and dads who think it would be marvelous to share with the world this very special bonding with the world's most amazing baby ever birthed (their own, of course).

I'm pretty sure if I'd clicked through on the vid posters of this I'd find home movies on baby's first diaper mess, baby's first toilet shit, baby's hilarious spit-up video, and the piece de resistance of over-sharing: Mom's wacky episiotomy stitches!

Luckily, there was a plethora of WTF-- WHHYYY?? vids right there on that page. (Funny sidenote: I saw a sponsored how-to video produced by Gerber... who makes baby formula. I'm thinking the La Leche League Nazis forced them to post it to atone for them being in actual business. Next thing you know Pampers is going to be posting vids of how to make your own diapers out of newspaper!)

And there it was... the link to make me forget all about Two Girls & A Cup. And now, because I can't unsee this, I must share it so you can't unsee it.

 

OHHHH MYYY GAAWWDDDDDD! Make it stop, make it stop!!! 

Seriously, this lady puts them all to shame. Am I old-fashioned? A prig? A cold-hearted hate monkey for feeling so utterly revolted by this? Maybe so... but I'm not changing my opinion. This ain't right.

 

Bring some munchies, it's gonna be awhile

You know I love me some governmental retardation. Wait, that's practically a redundancy, isn't it? Well, when it comes together in that archetype of governmental hellholes we must all endure (no! NOT the post office, Edna!) AND it is in photographable signage form?? I'm as happy as a pig in slop.

I write of our local DMV, where on any given day one can while away hours on end waiting in a fluorescent holding tank reminiscent of an airport smoking lounge in Southeast Asia. You look around at your fellow captives... everyone is miserable, everyone has somewhere else they'd rather be-- anywhere else really.

If you haven't been able to garner childcare and have your beloved offspring very loudly losing their minds on the filthy floor whilst enduring the hard glares of the surrounding "patrons" it is perfectly understandable that you might re-evaluate your stance on Dr. Kevorkian's mercy killings.

And then you see it. The new regulations for proof of residency one must provide to renew your ID. It's a long list. Turns out the government certainly doesn't want to make it too hard for anyone to get an ID. And there it is. Almost at the bottom. One little nugget that will brighten your whole day while simultaneously reaffirming that the government has, in fact, lost its damn mind.

These are just some "suggested" materials to prove residency, which implies that there are many more things one could bring in and the DMV is playing fast and loose with the whole notion that one even needs to obey this rule. I mean, half of these things you could "pre-print" yourself. But, REALLY?? 

A Medical Marijuana Certificate?!?! That will suffice is securing your DRIVER'S LICENSE!??! 

Is this really the best form of proof that you are capable of driving? I mean, shoot, maybe I could just bring in a bar tab from Oskar Blues? Or pictures of me lighting a doob on my front door step next to the address plaque? Would that work?!

I don't know, this just makes me a little nervous. Now I'm looking into all the cars on the road next to me wondering which stoner couldn't find an electric bill or their tax forms or really ANYTHING else with their name and address printed on it, but sure enough(!), located their pot card! 

Evidently Gas, Grass or Ass, nobody rides for free is now 2/3rds state-sanctioned.

(Big thanks to Miranda R. for tipping me off to this)

 

 

 

 

Bid on James Unger!

Win a date with James Unger! He's raising money for A Woman's Work, a great local charity.

 

 

"A Woman's Work is a unique funding source for women in the St. Vrain Valley who need financial support for immediate needs that cannot be met by other sources.

A Woman's Work assistance pays for a wide variety of needs including child care, housing, transportation, medical needs and more.  All women who receive help from A Woman's Work must live or work in the St. Vrain Valley for at least 90 days.  In return, A Woman's Work asks only that the recipient pays the kindness forward."

The date with James is a 007-themed evening for up to 4 ladies. Guns, cars and martinis! Start with time at the shooting range, then a stylish ride to Denver for a deluxe dinner... 

If you can't make it to the auction, you can still help this worthy cause! Click on James' link and make a donation in his name. Your help will continue the great work this charity does for the amazing women in our community!

Hot Tub Etiquette: Boulder Style

So I recently joined a swanky new athletic club in that world-renowned bastion of wealthy, ultra-liberal, trustafarian mecca, Boulder, CO. I know. I can't stand the place, either. But I needed a change for my workouts. Something a little more demanding than my local Y had been providing so I made the plunge into an athletic club that is populated by a group of people who evidently work out all day, every day.

Plus, it has an outdoor pool, which was the real selling point for facing a summer with three rambunctious mini-men.

You would not believe how toned, taut and lean these people are! All of them. Even the septuagenarians (who kick my ass in spin class AND yoga). It's ridiculous. Every time I go to the pool I am surrounded by women my age, chasing toddlers, with stomachs that I swear are only made in Hollywood FX editing rooms. Of course I'm the only mom in a full piece. I keep telling myself that surrounding myself with them will only serve as inspriation once fall hits and I start getting serious about my workouts again. That is, if I want to continue working out with these people, who may or may not (as evidence below will show) be complete and utter pigs.

Anyhoo, yesterday Deuce, Trey, and my step-daughter, Ruby,  who moved in with us last fall went for an afternoon of swimming. (Ace is off at summer camp in the mountains, and truth be told, I miss the hell out of him.) 

I was glad Ruby went with us because she's old enough to understand how funny this sign is that I've been meaning to shoot a pic of it for a couple months now. It makes me giggle and shake my head every time I see it.

Really?!?! "Shaving and personal hygiene is prohibited"?!?!? I THINK that means that they'd rather you didn't shave or wash in the hot tub, but this is Boulder, CO ... so it did cross my mind that they are saying don't shave AT ALL. Ever. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Which leads us to... 

Why the hell does this need to be posted?!?

What sort of disgusting pig-people were doing this activity to begin with to necessitate it being printed on this sign?! And how many stinky, hairy, hippy athletes were engaging in this activity to deem it important enough to be the second thing listed-- above the health warnings to preggos?!?! 

I immediately conjured up images of distance swimmers standing in the hot tub, shaving any extra body hair that might be causing them drag. Men in Speedos with their legs propped up on the edge, women in swim caps, yanking aside their suits and spreading their knees to catch any stray pubes that might be poking out. This pool does attract serious swimmers, after all. Triathletes and what not. 

Here's the kicker. As we gathered our belongings to leave Ruby leaned over to me and whispered, "Oh my god! That woman is BREAST-FEEDING IN THE HOT TUB!!!"

Sure enough. There sat a super-taut Boulder mommy with her baby, tit out, in the hot tub full of kids blithely enjoying her soak like there's nothing weird at all going on. Sadly, we weren't fast enough with our cell phones to get a pic of it. Dang!! 

So all you out there remember your etiquette when you visit Boulder-- milking yourself in the hot tub: okay. Shaving your hairy ass in it: not okay. Got it?