Sure, I have body issues, and I sometimes get a little bitchy about that. But! If my boobs can move the earth (that is what a quake is, yes?) then hell yeah, I'll flash...
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So apparently Jillian Michaels is going to avoid pregnancy and childbirth for the same reasons that she avoids cupcakes and joy: because those things aren’t worth the cost to her perfectly toned, perfectly muscled, perfectly perfect body. Which, whatever. She’s entitled to make whatever cost-benefit analyses she likes about life and love and muscle tone. I’m not going to judge. Not much, anyway.
The thing that got me about her remarks about avoiding pregnancy and childbirth for the sake of her body (I’m not going to address her remarks about adoption, which, ugh. She wants to rescue something? Rescue a puppy, Jillian) wasn’t so much that she was articulating her choice to preserve her body against the ravages of pregnancy – which is ridiculous, really, because she makes a living showing others how to get and keep their preferred physiques after pregnancy and childbirth and cheeseburgers, so she should know that she doesn’t have to choose (I’ll get back to this) (holy longest sentence ever) – but her choice of words in articulating that choice. “I don’t want to do that to my body,” she said. I don’t know what her inflection was, exactly, but in my mind’s ear the ‘that‘ is totally italicized and dripping with icicles of disgust. ‘That.’ Ugh. Why do women do that to themselves? It’s just so, you know, yuck.
From a recent post by a fellow blogger:
“There’s another something I want to throw out there. A tough lesson for us moms to learn. Not everyone likes kids. Not every store wants your baby in it. I’m telling you, the more they move, the less appropriate it can be to bring them along. The reality is that there are shops (and their patrons) who are totally not into babies. Right or wrong, that’s just life.”
Let’s try a little thought experiment:
24
Mar
Today, Tanner goes to the doctor. This is, in itself, nothing new – Tanner sees a lot of doctors – but today, he’s seeing the doctor so that they can start fumbling toward answers to difficult questions concerning when and how and how long. How long until his food needs to blended? Until he needs to be intubated? Until he can no longer sit up on his own? Until his lungs are compromised? Until he cannot breath on his own? Until my sister can no longer look after him on her own? Until, until…
The clock ticks so much louder now. Tanner’s condition is aggressive, relentless: his muscles are breaking down quickly, and as his muscles break down, so does hope.
23
Mar
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
You know that it’s going to be a long day when your four year old gets out of bed with giant wads of purple bubble gum stuck in her hair.
“How did you get gum in your hair? Did you get out of bed last night and get some gum?”
“No. The Gum Fairy put it there.”
“You know that gum isn’t for chewing at bedtime.”
“The Gum Fairy doesn’t know that. She thinks gum is for anytime.”
She went on to explain that this is a longstanding disagreement between the Gum Fairy and the Tooth Fairy, who does not approve of gum on pillows. The Easter Bunny, as might be expected, is agnostic on this issue, as it does not involve chocolate. (The Easter Bunny, we also learned during this discussion, is part kangaroo. “That’s how he can stand up on two legs and carry his basket. Regular bunnies can’t do that.”) One learns much when one asks the question: how did you get gum in your hair?
16
Mar
When I got to the South By Southwest Interactive festival this past weekend, someone told me to not tell anyone that I was a mommyblogger. “Say personal blogger, or lifestyle blogger,” this person said. “Just not, you know, mommy.”
It was too late. I’d already ridden in from the airport on a short bus full of hipster boys, who had asked me what I was there for, and whether I was in film or tech (the fact that I did not sport an ironic mullet tipped them off, I suppose, to the fact that I was not there for music), and I had felt compelled to explain that I was kind of in tech, if by ‘in tech’ he meant ‘writes about frankenvulvae and Ativan-dependence online.’
“I’m what’s sometimes referred to as a mom-blogger,” I said. “Oh,” he replied. “You’re a mom? Do you know anyone who buys animated shorts? Like, say if they were kid-friendly?”
11
Mar
Emilia wants to know what happens when we die. She asks a few times a week, on average, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on whether or not we’ve spoken about my dad or about Tanner or about dinosaurs. Today, she asked because they’d been talking about the Easter story at school. She wanted to know why Jesus got to fly up into the sky, and Grandpa didn’t.
You burned him, didn’t you? she asks. How could he fly after that?
Explaining death is one thing. Explaining the cremation, the afterlife and Divine resurrection are something else entirely.
24
Feb
(Photoshop narrative contrived by Jenny; random badness embodied by - from left to right - Karen, me, Laura, Jenny, Jyl, Rachael, and Alison, who took me down immediately after this photo was taken. Sarcastic...
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Emilia is in love.
“Mommy, can I make a present for Josh? Because I love him.”
— “You LOVE Josh?”
“Yes. But it’s not love like getting-married love. And it’s not kissing-love. It’s FRIEND-love.”
— “Oh, good. Wait… what do you know about kissing?”
“That it makes your cheeks go red.”
OY.
8
Jan
I think that I’m stuck in the denial stage of grief. It’s not that I deny the fact that my father is dead – his ashes sit in a box on my mantle, surrounded, at the moment, by a few Christmas ornaments and my kids’ picture with Santa and Emilia’s bardo-drawing – it’s that I can’t wrap my head around the fact – is it a fact? – that his death is the end, that his life is over, that I’ll never see or speak with him again. The absoluteness of it all, the finality: I’m having trouble accepting this. I can’t accept this. My heart aches from its stubborn refusal to accept this.