Plea for Prayers

I'll be brief. My aunt just had a baby today that is in dire straights. Although her pregnancy was normal and ultrasounds revealed nothing of concern, little Lynlee was born with her intestines in the spot where her lungs are supposed to be. Needless to say, her lungs did not really develop well. She was life-flighted to a pediatric hospital and is undergoing surgery.

Please, please pray for the baby and her family during this awful and scary time.

Thanks,
L

Babes in Frocks

This particular rant is brought to you by the letters B, C and G.

B is for Baby.
C is for Clothing.
G is for Gendered.

Today started off poorly. We got up and took my computer for a visit to the "genius bar" at the Mac store. A few days ago my computer...got dropped/knocked off the couch by someone. The someone who was using my computer was not me and not Lucy. I'll let you deduce who did it. Anyways, Wall-E, my computer now has about 1/4 of the screen that has a white semi-transparent overlay on it, making it difficult to see what's under there. I did a really excellent job of not getting mad about the situation and stayed calm and forgiving, until this morning when they told me it would cost $400 to fix. F. No.

So I was pretty pissed off. On the way home from that ordeal we swung by Goodwill to grab a 1 cup measuring cup to scoop Lucy's food because the one we used for that before was left at the Country Hound Inn by accident. Since Ricky knew I was really upset he was being extra nice and asked if I wanted to look at anything else at Goodwill. As a matter of fact I did, so I marched over to the baby section, hoping to cheer my spirits with thoughts of wee ones (I'll get to my point shortly).

To my dismay, although not surprise, all of the baby clothing was awful. A quiet rant has been simmering about this in my head for going on two years now and it's time a let it out. I hate, HATE how all of the baby clothing is so overly gendered. Every boy item is littered with sports equipment or references, tools or construction equipment, cars, or ugly animals. Every girl item has bows or flowers on it or is a nasty shade of pastel pink or yellow.

Why is there such a need in our society to have your infant instantly recognized as a boy or girl? Why are the things that represnt a gender so meaningless? Why do people feel the need to shove their children into gender stereotypes before they can even talk?

I can handle and even enjoy some floral print on girl clothing; I wear and love floral prints. I hate the boy clothes the most because they try to be so macho. If we are going to dress our children in clothing with graphics on them, shouldn't they be of things that we want them to love and enjoy, like nature? Or if we want to try to shove them into an interest at age zero, why isn't it music instead of sports or cars? I have yet to see any baby clothing with pictures of pianos or cellos on it.

I also hate almost all pastels. I'm not saying that I can't enjoy a good lilac or soft blue, but pastels are mostly barfy colors. Why do we think babies clothes/toys/rooms should be all pastel? Is that supposed to be soothing? I think it's just nauseating. We all know that I love animals and don't shy away from clothing, decor, etc. with animals depicted on it. However, why is it that most animals depicted on baby clothes or textiles are all cartoony (not in an artsy way) and dumb? I would rather have no animals at all than these weird cartoon versions of animals.

Lastly, I can't help but roll my eyes when parents dress their children in adult-type clothing. You're 3-month old looks hellishly uncomfortable and awkward in a suit and tie. Babies should not wear jeans. Jeans are uncomfortable for small children, I remember. They feel stiff and they cut into your tummy and they let a breeze up the leg. No baby jeans. As far as I am concerned, babies should wear onsies and leggings all of the time, with a cozy pullover sweater if it's cold*. The snaps of the onsies are essential because babies are constantly picked up--I hate to see babies whose shirts are up to their armpits with their tummies hanging out, it looks so uncomfortable, not to mention cold. Babies are supposed to look snuggly and comfortable. Dresses are fine on baby girls, but mostly for special outings or church, or if there is a onsie underneath.

So that is my rant about baby clothing. Obviously I am no baby expert since I don't have one of my own but I have two eyes and have seen enough barfy/gendered/uncomfortable looking baby clothes for a lifetime.


*See my future baby pinterest board for good ideas on how to dress your baby.
http://pinterest.com/laurenmh/future-baby-things/

I Honestly Want to Know

I hate the dynamic I feel on facebook during an election cycle. Everyone is posting nasty things about the opposing candidate and people get in arguments, etc. I hate getting on facebook and immediately feeling negative feelings toward people that I love because I cannot possibly understand how they could think what they think.

So I am asking you, republicans in my life, those of you who plan on voting for Mitt Romney, why? I honestly want to know your particular reasons for supporting Romney and why you think he should be our president for the next four years. I want to get inside the heads of some people that I love dearly so that I don't have to continue hiding them from my facebook feed.

Here are the rules: I don't want to hear why you hate Obama, why you don't like Obama's policies, or anything super negative. I want to hear why you do support Romney, not why you don't support Obama. Clear?

Also, please comment here on the blog, not facebook. And please be kind to one another.

Your Two Minutes is Long Gone

If the presidential debates don't make you squirm I don't know what will. Not only is it uncomfortable to hear all the lies, outlandish "facts," and to watch two grown men berate each other for an hour and a half, I feel for both of them on a human level. Gosh it must be terrible to get up in front of the entire country and try to prove why you should be allowed to run this country, while meanwhile the guy standing next to you is allowed to criticize you and call you an amoral liar every 2 minutes. I feel for both Obama and Romney for having to be in that type of situation. It's the closest thing to the Hunger Games I've watched for a while. I guess it takes a really strong stomach to be a politician, one that I certainly don't have.

Despite my tendencies to be loud, opinionated and unyeilding I watched the debates with as much of an open mind as I could muster. Really I think (and my opinion is the only one that matters right now) that I did a pretty good job. I'm a democrat and I voted for Obama in 2008 but that does not mean that I am perfectly content with the way things have gone over the past four years. I am willing to admit to Obama's failures. I really wanted to evaluate whether or not whether or not the Obama-Biden sticker on my car's back window deserves to be there. Here is my analysis:

• I hate vaugue fluff. It comes up most often when evaluating someone's writing but I get so irate when I read or listen to a paragraph of someone's speech and don't feel like I learned anything. I understand stylistic writing and I greatly appreciate when someone gives me background information before jumping to their point. However, the thing that bothered me the most during the debates was candidates' failures to directly answer the questions that were being asked and to do so with specificity. When someone says "Gov. Romney, what is your tax plan?" I don't want to hear about how Obama's tax plan is a fail followed by a sweeping statement about how you (Romney) want to stop squeezing the middle class. I want to hear about what exactly your plan is, and where you will find the money to support your promises. While both candidates did their fair share of avoiding the questions and answering vaguely I honestly think that Romney was the bigger culprit here.
• Obviously we all vote for the candidate that will best represent our own views and that places most emphasis on the particular topics that are most important to us. Some of us are focused most on the economy, some on health care, some on social issues and for me it's the environment (big surprise, right?). I believe in big government regulations that protect public lands, nature and endangered/threatened species. These things need the voice of big government to represent them because they cannot speak (in English) for themselves. I believe in the protection of the commons and am eager for the government to push a sustainable energy future. I don't care if I have to pay $10/gallon in gas if helps this country transition to a sustainable future. I'm not willing to bend over backwards for oil companies. It was crystal clear in the debates that President Obama's policies on sustainable energy and environmental protection come far closer to meeting my own standards than Gov. Romney's do. The way that Romney talked about wind and solar energy as an afterthought was a big turn off for me.
• I think that Mitt Romney is probably not a bad guy. I'm sure he's nice and I'm sure he really means well. I also get the feeling that he is out of touch with reality. You can study up on what it's like to be poor or middle class all you want but that won't really help you relate to people on the ground. I admire how much he believes in free enterprise and I agree that it allows some people to pull themselves out of poverty. But some people just can't succeed without more help. I think that the government should play a larger role in creating a framework for everyone to have what they need than Romney is willing to put in place. I am willing to sacrifice more so that the poor, elderly, handicapped, and children in this country can survive. I'm a little bit of a socialist (gasp!) and while Obama is not a socailist (no, he's not), his social policies align more with the "take care of everyone" side of things than Romney's do.
• Last but certainly not least. Romney's view of and policies regarding women's rights, women's health care and also gay rights are severely lacking. Whether Romney's religious institution has too deeply ingrained a sexist idea of women in his mind or he is just trying to please his constituency I do not know. I do know that he seems far more out of touch with what women actually need than Obama does. I believe that all women should have free access to contraceptives. Romney said that all women should have access to contraceptives but he left out the word "free"...pretty cruicial. Also, cutting funding for planned parenthood? Really? I won't get into all the reasons why that's a bad idea. 

So the Obama-Biden sticker will remain on my car window. I could never vote for someone who's plans and policies seem so unclear and unrealistic. I can't vote for someone who cares so little for our non-human brothers and sisters. I won't vote for someone who's view of women is awkwardly midieval.

Obama-Biden 2012