Tag Archives: Miscellaneous

by

Life Without My Smartphone

A few years ago when the Droid Eris first came out, there was a buy one get one free and the first Eris would also get a huge discount. With that, my husband convinced me I wanted a smart phone because he wanted one with the discount. I looked at him with a “what do I need one of those for?” looks, but agreed because it was cheaper to buy both for the price of one and I did need a new phone. The first week all I heard from him was “how great this phone was” or “look at all this cool stuff you can do”. Much like every other time he did this, I pretended to pay attention and nodded in agreement.

I never quite appreciated that phone until our son started baseball and I realized that tee-ball was as exciting to watch as a chess game, and I could play games on my phone. Admitting that doesn’t make me an awful parent, it makes me an honest one. Then I realized I could easily put his schedule on the phone to keep track of games, practices and doctors appointments. Maybe this smart phone idea wasn’t so bad, but I didn’t understand those people who couldn’t live without smartphones.

That is, until now. I can send a grocery list to my husband’s phone so he can stop by the store on the way home. I can read the news while waiting at the bus stop for my son, and avoid conversation with the other mothers. I can manage my blog from it. There’s basically an app for everything: games to entertain your kids with while they wait for appointments to ordering a pizza so you can stop and pick it up on the way home. Personally, I love the pregnancy apps that give me daily bits of information. Today, I even discovered an app for Babies ‘R Us that I can scan items from my phone to add to my registry. This leads me to a question of what did we do before smartphones?

I take back everything I mocked my husband for in his excitement over the smartphones. I can’t go anywhere without it, and I find use for it everywhere whether it’s to prove my husband I was right about something or to get an address to a place we forgot to look up on the way out. The newest app to my collection is an app that tracks the infant feedings and changes, making it easier than the old-fashioned paper and pen way and less likely to lose it. Though since I’ve been pregnant I even lose my phone. With everything else being difficult and confusing, it’s good that we have our handy phones to make it a little more manageable.

by

Things I Learned: Random Rants Edition

It’s that time, and it’s been a while since I discussed silly little random things I’ve seen and learned a lesson from. An introduction to these points would be repetitive, so I’ll let them speak for themselves.

What I learned this week about being pregnant: My husband asked what happened to his cookies, and I told him that if he didn’t eat them where he would find them. He looked at me, and it occurred to me what he was thinking. “I didn’t eat them, what just because I’m pregnant, you think I eat everything in the house?” He tried to hide his smirk, and nodded yes. The next day, I nearly devoured a 15 lbs watermelon all by myself. He looked at me, smirking away judgmentally and lovingly and I realized that maybe he was right. Except about the cookies, even pregnant I still don’t really like cookies. It bothers me he was right and so smug about it. I shall be a good wife and remember this when I want something he won’t agree to and use it against him. Remember men, it only works because you let us get away with it.

What I learned while watching Fox News this week: I looked up to see them discuss a news story that none of the other news organizations bothered to air. I didn’t care enough to listen to what news story it was, but I couldn’t help but to laugh about the news articles I’ve read that never saw its way on Fox News. As if there was a God that wanted to prove a point, I read about Charles Worley and wanted to cry about how humanity is going. I waited several days, and not a mention of him on the news programs or as a headline on their website. In case you were wondering, he’s a pastor who wants to round-up gay people and lock them in an electrical fenced in area to die off. Also, check out the Anderson Cooper video with a follower of this pastor on Gawker. You’ll learn to love that quirky silver-haired man after watching this video. I’ll shout out a “thanks” to him for saying what we were all thinking in that way only he can. I’d like you guys to play the “Find the Charles Worley Story on Fox News” game too. But please, show us more of how unlikable Elizabeth Warren is because I’m pretty sure people take her as seriously as they take Joe Biden. Oh, I hope no one takes either of them seriously because they are both as nutty as an almond bar. Also, I’d like to know more about how religious freedoms mean the government can’t tell the religions what to do, but the religions can tell the government what to do. Last I check, gay marriage was more of a religion topic than a governmental one.

What I learned from Gawker: You’ve become my most reliable source of news over Jon Stewart now. I’m not sure if that’s sad for me or sad for the organizations that call themselves “News”.  I’ve also learned that I’m going to start watching the Anderson Cooper show. I’m glad I mentioned him in my novella that is finally in the polishing stages.  Please for the sake of corporate news cynics like myself, continue to tell us stories the mainstream media refuses to share with us. Gawker, my family loves you.

by

Those Silly Little Battles

I’ve only been a parent for about 10 years, so I’m nowhere near an expert on parenting. In all that time though, I was told by people to always pick your battles. What does that even mean, “pick your battles”? Aren’t I supposed to be the parent? Battles are supposed to be between people of equal standing, so I assumed as a parent that I’d have an upper hand by being an adult. They laughed at my stating this, and said I was a naïve child. Maybe so, being a single teenager probably makes me the last person who should comment about anything to do with parenting especially since my first-born wasn’t even more than a fetus yet.

Soon enough, I realized that he didn’t listen when I tried to be the boss of everything. Even worse, I realized that I sounded like a naggy old lady doing so. It did hit me eventually that they were right: it’s way too tiring to fight over everything with your child. Obviously, the serious things you still need to stand your ground. But I learned that eventually you pass some power over to your child. Is it good for them to eat hot dogs and mac and cheese everyday? Not in the least, but it’s better than spending more time fighting with him than him eating. But you can work around that with vitamins and other ways to trick vitamins into you child. Even something like clothes it’s better to bite your tongue than fighting about why plaid shouldn’t be worn with plaid. Friends don’t let other friends wear plaid on plaid, remember that. (Or like I ranted about before, that awful boys in skinny jeans trend.)

If not being stressed about every little things isn’t enough of a reason not to fight your child on everything, consider when you were younger. When your parents said “no”, didn’t that make you want it more? It started not to matter that you wanted it, that wasn’t the point anymore. Now it’s a matter of they told you that you couldn’t have it and you suddenly wanted it more than air itself. Do I like my son in a fedora with skinny jeans? No, definitely not.  But I’ll take that over a heart attack. So remember for you new parents: Pick your battles, you’re better off that way.

by

What Kids Really Learn

Before having kids, I thought the “Nature vs. Nurture” was a joke. My son isn’t biologically my  husband’s, but that doesn’t make him any less the father. This scenario is the only proof I need that while kids are born with a certain disposition, the environment they grow up with influences them more than we can understand. My son is every bit of my husband, the same mannerisms and likes and interests. It’s something completely interesting to witness, and last night this all came together for my inspiration for today’s blog.

This idea of what a child learns is all speculation. No one really knows how a child really learns, but one thing most people agree on is that a child learns from observing the people around them. This learning comes mostly from our parents. We see how they act and behave and a child learns from this. This can go from 2 extremes, the really silly and the really serious.

To start with, the serious. A daughter who witnesses her mother being mistreated by her father might grow up thinking that this behavior is something acceptable, and allows herself to be treated the same way by her future partners. A son who sees his mom beaten might grow up thinking that is the way to treat women and become abusive towards his partners as well. Nothing is guaranteed, but statistically it happens more often than not. Children are sponges for information, and without being shown what’s appropriate or not, can lead down a path making us wonder what we did wrong not realizing it may be too late to fix it. With this idea, in raising my first son I led by an example I hoped that he would grow up and be proud of. My husband’s parenting style is the same, and it worked out well the first time around and I hope it continues the next time.

Now, the silly way this can be proven true with a funny story of my household. My husband is a very overprotective person, one feature I find both lovable and annoying. Next to our bed, he has a wooden stick that he jokingly refers to his “just in case beating stick that can be used from anything from robbers or a zombie apocalypse”. One day, my son was sitting on the bed watching streaming videos and dropped his favorite stuffed animal. When he picked it up, he noticed the wooden stick and asked about it and of course I told him and he smiled that smile he gets when I tell him something about his father that makes him want to be more like him. And last night I found out he was.

I went downstairs before I went to bed like I usually do to check in on my son and nephew while they were sleeping. I went into my son’s room to retuck him in and I noticed next to his bed was one of those plastic bats ready to be grabbed for “just in case”. I couldn’t help but to let out a loud laugh which made him turn in his sleep. I called upstairs for my husband to see what I can only blame him for, and we sat laughing together.

This just makes me wonder if I’m right about children learning from what we do and how we behave. While no one really knows the answer, I’d like to think that you should set an example for your kids. Then you can look on with pride when they explain to you in the morning why they had a plastic bat next to their bed or why they picked up someone’s money and returned it to them instead of keeping it. We do a lot by raising our kids to high standards of behavior and giving them knowledge to be good people in society.

by

Fairy Tales

One night as we were winding down and talking, I went on a random rant of the day to my husband. His response was “I’m glad we’re not having a daughter.” We both laughed, I’m sure the world isn’t ready for another me and he agreed. My point was a simple comment in response to an episode of Game Of Thrones where Arya told Tywin, “Well most girls are stupid”. I, being the feminist I am, fully agreed with her little statement. Most girls are idiots and I, the pessimist over-thinker I am, figured it out. I figured out why they like boys who mistreat them and waste their time. The answer was simple really: fairy tales. I never cared much for them, but most girls are raised with them as lovely nighttime stories. Let’s be honest here, that’s where parents years and years before us have screwed up my gender. This is why my husband is thankful we’re not having a girl. Next time though, I think the world needs another me.

He thinks I over-think it, I think he’s just a silly boy sometimes. Let’s look at the facts here, and you decide. First, we have the poor but beautiful Cinderella who gets help from a fairy godmother to meet Prince Charming and get married. However, he doesn’t recognize her without seeing if a shoe fits? Really, he couldn’t be bothered to actually remembered what she looked like and if he had come across the Evil Queen herself and the shoe fit, we’d be looking at a completely different story. From that, little girls learn that all that matters is he found her based on a probable foot fetish and it didn’t matter who she was. Also a guy would never just look for a girl based on a shoe, he’d just find another girl because it’s easier.

Then we have Little Red Riding Hood. It starts off innocent enough, a girl wants to give her sick grandmother some food. But why would she get there and not be able to tell her grandmother was actually a wolf, not a human. Is a girl supposed to learn you don’t need to be intelligent, just cute? If you can’t tell that a human is actually an animal than I think you deserve the title of an idiot because, well, if I need to finish that idea than I’m worse off than I thought. The distressed damsel thing bothers me, too. Sure she was a girl against a wolf and needed help but maybe she wouldn’t have gotten there in the first place if she ran when she saw a wolf wanting to bite her head off in the first place. Screw that “My what big eyes you have” comments.

I’m sure if I wanted to I could come up with several more examples of this. I don’t want to read my daughter any feminist manifesto telling her she doesn’t need to wear a bra or shave her legs to get respect in the world. I want a good literature role model for her. We have Bella from Twilight that really just wants to marry a vampire and become one, which passes a message that girls just want to get married and suck the blood of their husbands or wallets depending on your interpretation. Luckily, we have Katniss from the Hunger Games who doesn’t consider love or marriage and kicks a ton of butt. We need more role models like that for our girls not ones that teach them that marriage and playing a brainless wife is what love is about. That’s how girls grow up to be idiots.

by

Who Needs Flowers?

My husband is a good man, as I often state. In the years he’s known me, he learned one thing: never send me flowers. It’s not that I don’t appreciate flowers for their beauty, only their beauty actually planted. I don’t see the point in flowers, they are just dying plants that only last a week at best and you pay a lot for. Maybe I’m just too cheap to truly appreciate a bouquet of stargazing lilies, but it causes problems on days like Mother’s Day where it’s customary to give your wife flowers to show your adoration. He always makes do with surprisingly thoughtful gifts that make me laugh that other men get off easy just buying some roses and having their ladies swoon at their feet. Not my husband, he doesn’t like to take the easy way in anything.

Usually he can’t keep his gift a secret from me. 2 years ago at Christmas time, he comes over to me with a box. “I can’t keep it a secret, I’m too excited. You might as well just open in now.” It was barely 2 weeks until Christmas, and his joy in giving me a present he thought I’d love turned him into a kid waiting to open his presents at Christmas time. That is the type of person he is. He doesn’t really care what he gets, but the joy in our eyes when we love our presents turns him into a giddy schoolgirl.

This Mother’s Day was different. He kept his mouth shut though I kept guessing what it was that he got me. He smiled maniacally, playing a game with me of “you’ll never figure it out”. I knew I figured it out though, but I knew I’d be shocked and thrilled when the day came. Sure enough, with a knock at the door and the shrill bark of our overly anxious dogs and in comes my husband and son with my surprise: An Edible Arrangement. Now, I knew this was coming but my fat pregnant self couldn’t help but be giddy and touched all the same. My number one food craving has been fruit, and here was a giant bouquet of my favorite food in gigantic size. The card was signed with a “love” from my husband, my son, and my unborn son. It was adorable, and I don’t normally call things adorable. No other word seems to fit.

I devoured that thing in a day. I regret that now, not just because all that delicious fruit was gone but because my stomach still hurts from my lack of willpower. Apparently, your appetite reaches “bottomless pit” mode at 6 months pregnant. The pain is worth it, so so worth it. Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate the things we do as mothers every day and to celebrate all our mothers for everything they do for us. So all Moms, including all the Moms in my life, you are awesome and don’t forget it. It’s all worth the pain.

by

I laughed thinking of all the stereotype jokes I have floating in my head at random moments, mostly about myself. For instance, I was making supper and I looked down at my toes while waiting for the food to boil. My original thought was whether I should attempt to paint them, but quickly turned to the fact that I was standing pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. I couldn’t help but to laugh, this made me think of stereotypes.

Well that wasn’t the initial reason the idea of stereotypes creeping into my head, it started a little while ago when Ann Coulter was on Fox News discussing about how Hollywood promoting stereotypes of Southerners as stupid and religious people as evil was somehow harming America. I suppose those are harming America more than racism and homophobia, though I have a feeling that stereotyping is the least of American problems. What is Hollywood thinking overly exaggerating people for the sake of entertainment and sales? Maybe they should learn something from our news shows about how now to use dramatic language and exaggeration to get more people interested in watching the news. Heck, maybe she’s got it right. We shouldn’t stereotype New Yorker’s as being a mass group of KKK members, and Christian religious groups aren’t evil cults that capture teens and torture them on their compound for their sins while gunning down federal agents. (That’s for Kevin Smith fans right there.) We should focus our stereotypes on Democrats and how dumb they are. That Ann Coulter, she’s my idol.

I know, sarcasm doesn’t quite translate well in written language.

My point is that we need to look at stereotypes very closely. My husband is an Asian that is a computer technician, and my best friend is a terrible driver and an Asian female. My other friend points out that my family can’t get drunk, they “get Irish”. Westboro Baptist Church protests all sort of minorities and people of different sexual orientation and preaches intolerance. Maybe the problem isn’t that we stereotype, but that sometimes there’s a reason for the stereotype: in some cases they are true. I say some, I’m not a racist or all for sweeping generalizations of people. Maybe, just maybe stereotypes exist because there’s some truth in it. So when some says, “you should be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen”, I laugh. Because I am pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen.

by

You Know It’s Too Big

One hilarious thing about writing is tricking your audience into reading an article based on a provocative title. I know what you were thinking, silly people but this is at least a PG-13 blog. It’s my “blessing in my belly making my stomach stick so far out” that has gotten to a point that may or not be “too big”. It’s all relative, I suppose. I might find my stomach to be too large, and my body giving out on me seems to agree. It’s more than aches and pains, it’s the hilarious ways it affects your life in the most vain and unimportant ways.

Recently while showering, I went to shave my legs only to find out this might be harder than normal. As if not cutting my leg open isn’t enough of a task shaving, I found my stomach made this more difficult that I had hoped. I did it, barely, while sitting down in an awkward position determined not to be that woman who makes her husband do it for her. I think I’ll go amazon chic before I allow myself to lose that sort of independence. I haven’t decided if having him paint my nails is the same idea, but on principle I’ll go without certain vanities. I bet I’ll give in though, I don’t think I could allow myself to go 3 months with hairy legs, especially with summer on my heels.

Yesterday, I wanted to eat popcorn while watching Game of Thrones or as I call it “the highlight of my week”. This doesn’t seem like it would be overly difficult. I go to the cabinet where the popcorn was and as I reached up to grab the popcorn, I realized that my stomach stuck out so much that I couldn’t reach to grab my popcorn because I was too far away to just grab it. Normally when this happens (a common occurrence when you’re barely 5’2″), I climb onto the counter to reach what I need and gloat how I don’t need my 6ft husband to reach things for me. Stupidly, I attempted to climb, but quickly realized that climbing wasn’t an option either. Not just because my husband looked on disapprovingly with a lecture ready, but because my fat little body was no longer as agile as I was 6 months ago.

So as I waddle around with my fan/spritzer combo to cool me off, I complain about the discomforts of the miracle of life while looking about how large I am in my head. The bright point is every kick I know I’m doing something right and in a few short months there will be a child here that everyone can fawn over and will be there to make me smile and forget about everything before. Then I’ll forget enough to go through it again.

by

And Now It’s 3 months

I was sitting in my living room, indulging in a nice salad and rice because that’s what my crazy fetus enjoys. It then hit me that in almost 3 months time, I’ll be sitting in that same spot with a swaddled newborn. It wasn’t the idea of the newborn that sent sudden waves of terror and anxiety in my body, it was the idea that there was only about 3 months left until he appeared. I had only 3 months and a lot less time to get things accomplished than I had hoped.

I looked at my bedroom, which I had destroyed in a fit early on in my pregnancy when I realized nothing fit. Where was I going to put this bassinet? What happens next? Do I baptize him? Who do I choose to be his godparents without offending everyone else? Will I be a terrible mother this time around, knowing that I wasn’t that great my first time? I couldn’t help to think “well with all those kids in foster care or the state’s care, I’m sure it could be worse.”

Then, I cheer up. “I’m sure it could be worse for him.” No that’s not what cheers me up, I’m not that awful. What comforts me is that in 3 months time I won’t have to pee every hour and all these aches and pains will vanish. I’ll have this little life staring at me wide-eyed and excited for what the next day will bring. That’s the best part of being a parent: realizing that you can open this new life’s eyes to something better than what’s actually there. Children are innocent and unaware if you don’t feel like changing out of your pajamas. They don’t care about anything other than whether you love them and are there to take care of them.

Maybe 3 months is perfect time. Time enough to focus on getting everything done and time enough to enjoy it while it lasts. Time enough to prepare for everything, and realize that all the preparation in the world won’t help for all the unknowns parenthood brings. Maybe 3 months isn’t perfect time, mostly because there’s no such thing as perfect time for anything.

by

The Corporations and Our Money

Ideally, this post would be an intelligent and informed commentary on greedy corporate America and how it affects the lowly people and their pockets. However, my intelligence is questionable and I’m not quite informed on the world of economics to discuss how this hurts our pocketbooks. What I am is a sarcastic and bitter critic of everything, and comments whatever comes to my mind regardless of things like actual facts and statistics.

After months of my health insurance company not giving me a straight answer on my appeal for the claim of “why do I owe $700?” and finally my bill going into collections as a result, it led me to wonder why I even bother with insurance. Granted, living in Massachusetts makes it cheaper to pay $700 a month on insurance than it does to pay the fine and not filing taxes. It does work out in the end as what could’ve easily been a $2000 bill, might only cost me $100 in the end since my deductible is slowly reaching its limit. Even still, I couldn’t help but to wonder why something like a single blood test costs $800, or how can you pull a kleenex out of a kid’s nose with a pair of tweezers and have it cost $400. I’m sure I could’ve taken it out of my son’s nose myself for $1, the price of tweezers. Maybe the problem isn’t that insurance costs so much, maybe it’s because the doctors and labs charge an obscene fee for seemingly simple things. Greedy doctors or greedy insurance companies or a combination of the 2? Does it really matter? It still hurts as you write out the check for the bills.

Then, there are student loans. In a previous post, I went off on a rant about the incredible rudeness of these loan companies and the fact that their interests rates are more than my husband’s car interest. I’m sure it also was a commentary on how they were pissed I was off by 5 cents on one of my payments. When you’re complaining about 5 cents, you really are greedy. They gave me the best news this week though, by lowering the monthly payments on 2 of my loans. Sure, it may only be $10 I’m saving a month, but when you consider that’s a box of diapers every month you get excited. I hope this isn’t the calm before the storm though, the idea of Senate not getting their heads out of their butts worries me because I don’t want my interest rates to go up as a result of our government being morons.

I could be missing the big picture by saying these companies are greedy. Maybe they have costs I don’t understand, that doesn’t count the big wigs of these companies clearing millions of dollars every year. I could just be a cynical bored housewife, or could I be right that these companies aren’t getting increased expenses but getting increased want of a nicer lifestyle at the costs of the lowly people bordering middle class and poverty. I’m all for a free market and people making it without having to apologize. Hell, I want to make it and have a fortune at my disposal, and I think most people in my position agree. What I do wonder is if maybe those big corporations are parasites living off us. With that logic, why do we complain about our money going to welfare people to live off of while we fund all these rich corporations to?