This is one of my favorite posts by my good friend Wired Momma. What the h is wrong with being a typical wife? According to her, nada. I think she nails it when she talks about how it’s easy to be a wife when we choose to leave our careers on our own terms. For those of us lucky enough to have a choice of whether or not we want to work, when we can exit when we please, it’s rather easy to embrace a typical wifely role. We have the freedom to be a wife/ mom on our own terms.
But then, it’s easy to forget that some of us out there don’t have this choice or struggle with the choice.
And, it’s also easy to forget sometimes that for us to be happy being a wife means that someone else has had to give up something.
The husband. The husband who makes it all possible for the “happy housewife” to exist.
But why would the media ever want to cover that angle?
First g-d parted the sea so the Jews could leave Egypt. Then g-d made Peapod. In my rush home from a vacation (where, it can be noted no kids slept and I didn’t let them cry it out), I have had no time to do my yearly pilgramage to shop for Passover food supplies.
But, on my husband’s (he’s more observant then me) suggestion, I went searching for a solution online to the Skokie/ Lake Zurich-based Peapod and found quite the Kosher for Passover selection (although, it should be noted that Tam Tam Crackers are not K for the P).
Peapod (and I’m not getting paid to say this) is a sure lifesaver for those housebound by babies, weather or laziness. In fact, anytime I heard there was going to be any sort of precipitation nearing the Chicago area, I’d open up the browser and click, click, click. How satisfying to know that my next meal was only about 15 minutes (and a $7 delivery fee) away.
This afternoon, though, I slogged through the three (not ten) plagues of my household – a bad internet connection, a whining four-year old and a slobbering baby - to get this sacred grocery shop done. When I hit the “Checkout” button I swear it was better than when the plagues fell down on Egypt. When Peapod arrives tomorrow morning (between 8-10 am), I will bow down to the delivery man (or woman) like the Israelites bowed down to Moses. For I will be able to make my matzah kugel.
Let my credit card go (I really didn’t care how much more it cost to Passover shop this way)… Peapod saved my Passover.
Cross-posted at Second City Baby
Ever since I had my first son and started blogging, people are always asking me what pediatrician we see, what classes to take and other random baby-related questions. Now that I’m baby-fied again, I figured it was time to start sharing what little knowledge I have of raising a baby in the Second City.
Thus, I birthed a new blog, Second City Baby on ChicagoParent.com.
Many thanks to the folks at CP, who let me blog alongside other amazing Chicago bloggers!
Caitlin made me laugh when she brought everything but the Wii on vacation with her on a family trip. It’s so true.
I’ve done much of the same on my vacation, although I am blogging right now from my husband’s netbook. (I can’t bear the thought of my Mac Book going through security at the airport.)
For my son, I downloaded every conceivable Little Einsteins show, iTouch for kids app and unwrapped the early birthday present from Grandma – a Leapster 2 plus several games.
We’ve gone skiing, and so, I can’t possibly go down the mountain without my still and Flip cameras. (Mind you, the tech-heavy pockets only add insult to already puffed out long-underwear-clad hips.)
But what I’m really loving about my heavy vacation is that everyone in Snowmass seems to be on Twitter. In two days I’ve already added two new Aspen friends/companies to my Twitter account. From my BlackBerry on the Big Burn lift I can ask what the conditions are like on the top of the mountain and get someone to tell me if there are long lines for lunch.
In theory.
So far, I haven’t gotten immediate responses, so I’m not sure how I should dress for the weather tomorrow.
Maybe that’s just the lassez-faire ski-town Twitter attitude.
Or, perhaps, it’s just a sign that I should turn off the Tweets and just pay attention to my ski turns.
When Kathryn Bigelow smashed through Hollywood’s glass ceiling at this month’s Oscars, she took with her years of women directors being pigeon-holed and typecast as directing “chick flicks.” As Manhola Dargis points out in her savvy article yesterday on the topic, Bigelow told Hollywood what’s what and silenced the critics. Yes, there will always be the Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephrons and Drew Barrymores who will direct lighter fair, but Ms. Bigelow showed all of us that no matter what Hollywood thinks or reports about female directors, there’s now room in the club for women to direct more “manly” type films, if you will.
Flash to another section of the NY Times yesterday and you’ll find another outlet of the media doing just what Hollywood did to female directors up until this year - typecasting mommy bloggers as doing anything and everything to promote their blogs and make money. The article is snarky and sassy and makes it seem that all we’re out here doing is shilling for baby wipes at the expense of taking care of our kids.
The”mommy blogger“ behemoths have rightly stated their opinions online and I care not to rehash the debate of who said what, if you’ve chosen to work at home or at an office or out of your car or whatever. I just wanted to point out that even if it took 82 freaking years (can you even imagine blogging that long?), Ms. Bigelow rose above the “chick flick” female director fray and did something powerful and magical with her movie.
And we have to remember that we can too. The media can write its sensational headlines and try to pit mom vs. mom, blogger vs. blogger (or both), but as long as we write about what we believe in and do what we like with our sites, no one can mess. Eventually we will break through the clutter and be seen for more than the dirty diapers we journal about on occasion.
I just hope I’m alive to see it.
Months of filling out forms, making phone calls (some out of desperation), writing notes and chatting (battling the rumor mill) will all come (hopefully) to an end this week when we find out if our son got into one of the private schools we applied him for Junior Kindergarten. (Save the snickering for somone else.)
I know this isn’t the be all end all of anything or that my son will end up some sort of mutant rebel in a crackhouse if he doesn’t get into school, but because I can smell the acceptance diss letters in the mailwoman’s bag, I’m having heart palipatations like you can’t believe. (Only amplified by the fact that we’re headed out on vacation on Friday just about the day the magical envelopes are set to arrive.)
I can commiserate with her, sort of, but she does have a little special-ness that I just can’t compete with. (And not because she’s cute as a button IRL.)
But other than harass my husband with the what-if scenarios (which include everything but me lying naked on the doorstep of our first choice school in a harrowing attempt to woo someone with my sick-ass bod to let my child into the school if he doesn’t get in), all I can really do is wait. it. out, cross my fingers and hope for the best.
The good news is that if it doesn’t work out, a bunch of us are just going to open up a one-room school house in my basement just like Little House on the Prarie. Because I can rock a bonnet with the best of them.
Good thing there’s only 5 days to go. My wardrobe and heart can’t take much more angst.
