Mommage

Nerd Girls Have it All!

Some women may prefer to keep the sex of their unborn child unknown until that final push in the delivery room.  But when the moment of truth arrives, if the doctor announces "It's a Girl!", what's the first thing that goes through a mother's mind?.. Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?  While there's nothing wrong with wanting girls to be girlish, maybe we should follow the lead of Nerd Girls, a hot and sexy group of women trying to shatter stereotypes by attracting girls to careers in technology.  The Nerd Girls are living proof that a woman can be both beautiful and brainy.

If you ask a child to draw a picture of what they think an engineer looks like, what do you suppose they will draw?  According to Karen Panetta, a belly-dancing professor of engineering at Tufts University and founder of Nerd Girls, almost invariably the pictures are of males wearing glasses.  Furthermore, Panetta describes how people in her profession are viewed, and it goes something like this:

My Beautiful Mommy

I won't look different -- just prettier!  That's the message in a new book writen by Dr. Michael Salzhauer, a Florida plastic surgeon, aimed at the age 4-7 market.  It's titled "My Beautiful Mommy" and it delves into how to explain your plastic surgery to your child.

The imagery in the book is certainly one most youngens can understand.  "Mommy" is in a cocoon and only emerges into a beautiful butterfly after she's had a tummy tuck, nose job and breast enhancement.

That's right Moms... you're just a nasty old caterpillar unless you have an artificially narrow waistline and your boobs defy gravity. 

License to Be Old

Last week I finally bit the bullet and renewed my driver's license. It had to be done. It was soon to be expired and if I didn't get it done soon before the expiration date I'd have to pay some unholy late charge.

Grey Goose Got Ya Girl Feelin' Loose

Looky here.... 36 years old and on Friday I went to my first strip club ~ The Hangar Club.  Just one more item to cross off my "things to do before I die" list. 

It was a girls night out ~ some of my co-workers, my office manager, and I went out.  I didn't really know what to expect.  I figured it was going to be like those stories I've heard from my male amigos... a whole lotta looking but not physical contact.

How wrong I was.

The Battle of the (post-maternity) Bulge

I've never been what you call a skinny, um, "woman." I come from sturdy stock, and it shows. However, I've tried to at least keep the flab from getting too out of control by eating healthy and engaging in moderate exercise. While I never achieved size four status, I did manage to keep myself at a manageable size 10/12.

Until I got pregnant.

Queen For A Day

Chloe Marshall is a finalist in the Miss England beauty pageant....  that ordinarily wouldn't be enough to grab my attention.  Except that Chloe is a size 16.  Like me. 

Finally!  A regular-sized woman in a beauty contest.  A woman who celebrates her size and boasts that she wants to be an "ambassador for curves". 

Except that Chloe is being skewered in the media for being "fat". 

Zip Up Your Jacket, Mom

Men can see your BRA.  Yep.  That's what the kiddo hissed at me while we were at breakfast one morning in Philadelphia.  I was amused (mostly because it wasn't my bra ~ I had on a shirt with 2 layers and the lower layer was peaking out).

I guess it happens when you're a single mom.  My friend Tracy says the same thing too....at some point your son becomes your father.  Good thing I haven't started dating again.  I can't imagine what it would be like to hear my son admonish my date to make sure he has me back by 11. 

It's amazing how fast they grow up.

Not Enough Hours In The Day, EVER!

24 hours, that is it. We have to squeeze everything we need and want to do into a teeny tiny 24 hour window.  My work did a complete over haul of our computer system and to put it lightly it has been major chaos.  I have been working almost everyday sometimes until 1:00 in the morning.  I come home utterly exhausted both physically and mentally drained.  I feel that I do not spend enough time with my daughter, I see her in the morning when I put her on the bus and then again for a little while in the afternoon when she gets home, but then I am off to that madhouse (my job) again.   I am lucky enough to get to spend the day with my son, but with his speech therapy we are running all the time it seems.

Any little bit of energy I may have left goes to just getting through the day.  My needs are neglected, my husband and I might as well be roommates because that is about how often we see each other.  But as I sit here writing this it occurs to me, that this is all worth it.  My children are happy, healthy, well adjusted kids.  They live in a nice house, have plenty of food to eat, and do not want for anything so I guess that I am doing the right thing.  So would I change a thing? Nah probably not.  It is nice to be needed and valued at work as well as at home.  I just need a few more hours. Anyone interested in signing a petition to extend the day to oh I don't know 32 hours or so?  But you know that probably still would not be enough.....I know that all moms (parents) feel this way, not enough hours in the day, not enough!

--Contributed by Renee

On Going To Visit His Uncle Sam

It's official.  Kiddo has been accepted into Massanutten Military Academy for this Summer session.  He doesn't even know "he" applied, despite the fact that he signed the application.  Apparently he hasn't learned a darn thing from me, because otherwise he would have NEVER signed a piece of paper without reading it.

Last week culminated in a knock-down, drag-out brawl over homework.  I said, do it... he said, make me.  And I did - amazingly without having to resort to physical discipline.  Barely.  But it's isn't going to be long before he's bigger than me and phyiscal duress simply won't be an option.

One of the things he said about his homework just chilled me to the bone.  I guess it's time I tell you about my son's father ~ my ex-husband. 

You Do Have Rights

Recently a woman wrote a letter on Planetfeedback regarding a man who was giving her unwanted attention at work, too much attention in fact. He was sending her gifts and continually harassing her at  job. Her manager said he was powerless to ban the person from her workplace, and the author of the letter was writing to the higher-ups at her workplace in hopes that they would step in.