Strollerderby : top five

Five Movies You Shouldn't Watch While Pregnant

JeanneSager — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:58:00 GMT

Some women will tell you pregnancy was the best time of their lives. I'm not one of them, but hey, good for those skin glowing, energy flowing, cankle-free ladies. I still have one very big thing in common with most of them - I wanted to know all I could about the next step.

So I did what any good '80s kid would. I went to today's version of the video store and started checking out movies. To save you the sobbing and more than you'll ever want to know about urinary incontinence during pregnancy, here are the movies you SHOULDN'T be renting in your condition:

1. Nine Months: Going on name alone, you'd think this Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore '90s flick was a perfect choice for at-home date night when baby's daddy and your cankles propped on the coffee table. After ~~Pugh~~ Hugh starts showing his pregnant girlfriend he's nothing more than a commitmentphobic prat, you'll start glancing first at your fat feet and then at him, second-guessing ever iota of every conversation since you jumped up and down and yelled "it's blue!" When he sees her turning into a praying mantis (because females are known to eat the male after sex), you'll just get indignant. As the same old story you've seen in every movie continues, you'll start yawning, and by the time Moore's screaming and pushing, you'll be asleep. Get it while you can.

2. Sophie's Choice: I've got to hand it Meryl Streep. If she's not wailing about the dingo eating her baby, she's rising above her own happiness to repent for making the most horrible of choices a mother has ever made. It's a movie everyone should see simply to understand yet another piece of the Holocaust, but not one I'd wish one anyone. It's the choice you must make yourself.

3. Problem Child: The be all and end all movie to make you wonder, can one little kid really make life that insane? Macauley Culkin at his home aloniest (oh come on, what would you call it?) could never wreak the kind of havoc Junior Healy enacts on the ever affable John Ritter (still miss that guy) and his brow-beating b***h of a wife Flo. You know it's fake, you know it's played up, but a little part of your brain starts to wonder, what if I give birth to one of those?

4. Steel Magnolias: Plucky Julia Roberts defies the odds (and Sally Field, and her doctors, and diabetes, and a whole bunch of wise-cracking Southern broads) and has a baby. Plucky Julia Roberts' body can't handle parenting. She collapses on Halloween with her little boy watching. Cue tears. Buckets and buckets of tears. And that's when you're not carrying a baby and a rolling mess of hormones. If you must attempt this one, find a friend who doesn't have anything nice to say about anyone and tell her to come sit by you.

5. Terms of Endearment: Didn't I already mention dead mother and buckets of tears? Then throw in a love-hate relationship between a mother and daughter (mirrored famously by the actresses who played the roles) that will make you cross your fingers there ISN'T a girl in there, a mother-daughter reunion, a mother finding love again . . . aaaack. I'm all ferklempt.

Image: Amazon

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Part II: Why Parents of Boys Have It Better (And Why They Don't)

JeanneSager — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:36:00 GMT

Since giving birth to a little girl, I've been told over and over how I need to try for a little boy. Even my own mother - who has one of each - says it's something every mom needs to experience. But talking to moms who - by the luck of the draw (or the swim) - have only experienced parenting one gender, sometimes there are benefits to sticking with what you know.

According to a whole bunch of moms and dads to little boys out there, they've got it so good, they don't want to try it my way. Want to know what they've got that I don't have? Here's the top five reasons they tell me parents of boys have it better:

1. Two women living in one house usually find their period coincide. Dad - you won't have two women on the rag and ragging on you at the same time. Mom - no worrying that someone else stole the last tampon.

2. He can pee anywhere; and probably will. No lining a McDonald's bathroom toilet seat with TP. No balancing one foot on either side of the bowl so you can hold them right over the bowl. No worry that if Dad leaves the toilet seat up they'll fall in. The side of the highway is his oyster!

3. Mom - no finding your clothes have been liberated from your closet and your kid looks better in them. Dad - when you're starting to feel like those pants are too tight, just stow them in his closet - he'll never know the difference.

4. No crevices to clean during the diaper change. His family jewels handle a wipe-down of explosive diarrhea much more kindly than the cha cha.

5. About those snips, snails, and puppy dog tails. What's cuter than a puppy dog waving that little stump? A little boy wrapping his little fists around your neck and saying "I love you Mama/Dada." Yeah, I had to go there.

Now don't you want to know how the other half lives? Find out here: Part I: Why Parents of Girls Have it Better

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Part I: Why Parents of Girls Have it Better

JeanneSager — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:32:00 GMT

When my husband and I started trying to get pregnant, we never talked gender. We just had "the talk," the one about "the child" and "the baby." When my daughter crossed her legs the entire time the ultrasound technician was pushing around on her little house, we resigned ourselves to continuing to talk about "the baby" for a full nine months - albeit one we'd dubbed "Squirmy" for the almost constant rumba in my tummy.

Then she came. She. The 10 toes and 10 fingers I wanted, the one beating heart, two ears, two eyes, two hands, two feet . . . and no penis. And I realized she was exactly what I wanted. So, from a mom of a little girl, I offer up part one of a two-part list of the best of parenting. I admit it, I'm biased, so I'm starting with the reasons we parents of girls have it better than anyone else. They say write what you know, so I will. As for part two, I'll be calling on all my friends with little men running around - they won't disappoint you.

1. Moms already know how to handle the wiping part of the diaper change - it was the school nurse's mantra: "Always wipe front to back."

2. No "pee pee teepees." No "potty targets." She will never urinate in your eye.

3. She will never get a chubby from a too-tight carseat buckle and yell, "Mom, it's growing," while you're flying down the highway.

4. The clothes - that they're often cuter goes without saying - but I'm talking about the twice-as-much love situation. When she gets too tall for her knee-length skirt, it becomes a mini. When she gets to tall for her jeans, they become capris. Shirts become belly shirts, etc. Sorry, boys, we don't want to go wading

5. She looks good in pink AND blue. He just looks like his parents are trying too hard to be accepting.

Part II: Why Parents of Boys Have it Better

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Five Ways to Spot a Stalker Mom - So You Can Run

JeanneSager — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:34:00 GMT

I always thought it would be kind of cool to have a stalker. Not in the "I love Jodi so much I'd shoot the president" sense, but you know, someone who would still checking out my saggy mom butt even though he isn't required by the ring I put on his finger.

Then I found out about the Mommy stalker. I can spot the type these days from across the playground. She’s got a group of five or six kids around her, and they’re “shaking the sillies out.” In other words, she’s getting them high on kiddie crack, just in time to send them back to Mom.

I go to the playground now with a ready-made excuse. A story to write. Dinner to make. Because she’s going to ask what we’re doing later. She’s going to invite us over for a playdate. Worst of all, she’s going to do it right in front of my kid, who is going to say, “Yeah Mommy, please can I go? Please, please?” Judas.

Kids love the Stalker Mom. She’s fun. She’s annoying. She expects you to hang out during your kids’ playdate, and she doesn’t think that entails a bottle of wine. You want to avoid her at any cost. Don’t worry, the ‘Derby’s got your back. Here are the top five dead giveaways so you can spot a potential Stalker Mom at 30 paces:

She says “I heard that,” and titters when you drop a pile of books in the mud outside the library door and mutter “s**t.” (Yeah she heard it, because I said it. And, no, I don't mean "sugar.")
She prefers the floor to the chairs at story hour. Easier to crawl after the babies and pinch their butts. Also easier to lead songs that involve clapping because you can just brush the sippy cup, teddy bear and other necessaries abandoned by your child off the lap onto the floor. (I sit on the floor all day at home lady, while my kid is otherwise engaged, please, please, allow me to give my back a little relief).
She uses the word "fun." In every sentence. In reference to potty training and the like. In adult conversation. (Thus making conversation not freakin' fun at all.)
She's on a first name basis with the staff of Chuck E. Cheese. (Well, you know, it is fun).
If you have a kid, she will find you. And invite you to her house. And get your kid wound up. And make your kid fall in love. And you'll be the mean old Mommy (or Daddy) if you don't just let them play . . .

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Five Nonsense Kids Character Names Explained

JeanneSager — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:27:00 GMT

Sometimes the names they give to our kids’ favorite characters sound like they had a kid in on production. I mean, Pikachu? I say Gesundheit.

But listening to Mike Myers explain the Yiddish origins of everyone’s favorite ogre on NPR’s Fresh Air last week made me wonder – are all characters like onions? Do they all have layers? Thanks to my anal retentive side and too much time to spend in front of my computer, I offer up the first edition of children’s character names explained.

Shrek: According to his creator, his name came not from the swamp but the Yiddish word for “scary.” We’ll trust the former Linda Richman on that one – after all, if we ask too much she might get a little ferklempt.

Pikachu: I always thought the yellow Pokemon had a rodent-look to him, and no wonder. Pikachu loosely translates to “Electric Sparkling Mouse” in Japanese. Known for storing electric in his puffy cheeks and a tail that looks more like a bolt of lighting shooting out of his rodent rear, we could boogie woogie woogie with that description.

Lightning McQueen: Since we’re on the subject, lightning is an obvious name for a fast car. But the source of Cars’ sexy red racer’s surname is often mistaken. He was dubbed “McQueen” not for bad boy actor Steve who spent many a movie shifting gears but for Pixar animator Glenn McQueen, who died in 2002 from skin cancer.

Nemo: The movie that proved even a scaredy clownfish can take on the big bad ocean, Finding Nemo is technically named for “no one.” At least that’s the Latin translation of “Nemo.” We’ll take it from the seagulls – he might be no one, but our kids wish he was “mine, mine, mine.”

Winnie the Pooh: A secondhand name is just fine for a bear of very little brain. Winnie is short for Winnipeg, the hometown of a Canadian soldier who gave his black bear of the same name to the London Zoo. That’s where author A.A. Milne and son Christopher Robin (natch) met the friendly female who Milne later immortalized in print. Pooh, by the way, is also secondhand – it was the moniker of the real Christopher Robin’s pet swan.

More to come . . .

Image: Dan-Dare