tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43548691313675672632024-03-05T08:46:43.585-08:00Honest To BetsyMoming it up in the blog-o-sphere in the comfort of my yoga-suit with hardly any baby spit-up on it.Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-22879294681884952792012-11-05T20:29:00.000-08:002012-11-05T20:29:11.416-08:00What's Brown and Sticky?A stick!<br />
<br />
It's been a while, eh? I'm a little nervous blogging after so long. I feel like a husband who forgot an anniversary. How do I get through the frost? <br />
<br />
Speaking of frost, this is where I'm from:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWGE6n0DKDtuAaxUQS5b2xaM_u8v8MkpmcwkIyl0e-ZhwRQH4FlCcu_77hxKwofBsArw1oyD6_Z0-3TFXs7jDDC6PV-PXbZTJrJsMMCzJm55XACptS4wncll8YCA6C_x_O84qHf4xmnvI/s1600/home.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWGE6n0DKDtuAaxUQS5b2xaM_u8v8MkpmcwkIyl0e-ZhwRQH4FlCcu_77hxKwofBsArw1oyD6_Z0-3TFXs7jDDC6PV-PXbZTJrJsMMCzJm55XACptS4wncll8YCA6C_x_O84qHf4xmnvI/s320/home.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's cold there, but I love it all the same. Not love it like I'm gonna be living there any time soon, but well, I've been kind of nostalgic lately. A little homesick. I usually get up there for my birthday, but not this year due to a hearty family cold that lasted 3 weeks.<br />
<br />
Yeh, I'm from the sticks. Here is a girlhood photo of me showing off something I decapitated:<br />
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No, that's not really me. But those are the sticks I'm from in the background. I like to think that in some small way, they are my sticks. It's not true, though. I am theirs. <br />
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Speaking of non-sequiters, I went to the library today and grabbed this album for my 4-year old son, thinking he might like it:<br />
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Oh, Man. He likes it. In fact he busted a solid African move to it for well over an hour. It gratified my heart, it did. Then I was blabbering about it to some moms after school (oh, we blabber) and the consensus was that I should get him in African dance lessons immediately. <br />
<br />
"Gosh," I thought, "I really oughta." But I can't really afford it in terms of time, money or sanity, so... maybe not. Then I felt bad.<br />
<br />
Then I got an email from "My baby this week" by <a href="http://babycenter.ca/">babycenter.ca/</a> (I always love these emails which began when my children were still embryos) and the email totally brought me to my senses. The gist of it was that 4! is a little young to be pushing kids into organized sports and for now I should just make sure he gets lots of opportunities for active, unstructured play.<br />
<br />
And then I felt good again remembering that I have a no-constantly-shunting-my-children-from-one-activity-to-the-next policy on purpose, not by mistake. <br />
<br />
Do you get worked up sometimes when you hear that somebody's 4-year old is taking pottery-throwing, cello and conversational French while yours is poking at a frozen puddle with the dog's chewing stick?<br />
<br />
I do. And I have to remind myself that poking frozen puddles is actually an important thing for a child to do and I want that for my children more than I want pottery/cello/French.<br />
<br />
The wonderful thing about my boy dancing to "Simba's Pride" for an hour is not that he has an apptitude for African dance (truly, he doesn't - he crashed into the coffee table <em>a lot</em>) but that he <em>can </em>dance for an hour if he wants. Yay!<br />
<br />
One fantastic thing about growing up in the sticks is that we had plenty of opportunities to poke at frozen puddles with sticks which were abundant.<br />
<br />
Speaking of abundance, I signed up for the Deepak Chopra 21-day mediation challenge which was supposed to begin today but the site is down and so I did not receive an email detailing my first meditation challenge towards "finding abundance."<br />
<br />
Do you think this is the first challenge?<br />
<br />
I don't, I think it's a technical glitch. But it's kind of amusing to picture all the tens of thousands of people signed up for the Deepak Chopra 21-day meditaiton challenge reacting all around the globe to not being able to do get their Deepak on.<br />
<br />
Heh heh.<br />
<br />
Here's my answer to that:<br />
<br />
<strong>10 Gratitudes Right the Hell Now:</strong><br />
<br />
The beauty of the North<br />
<br />
My boy dancing<br />
<br />
Fresh air moving through my lungs this morning in the sunshine<br />
<br />
The wagging of my dog's tail when I took him for that run<br />
<br />
The small kindness of a friend who is thinking ahead for me today<br />
<br />
My legs are strong<br />
<br />
Books and CDs are free at the library<br />
<br />
Cinnamon scones, scrambled eggs and coffee for breakfast tomorrow morning<br />
<br />
New boots<br />
<br />
A warm bed<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-65628764264471891282012-09-05T10:36:00.001-07:002012-09-05T10:37:42.235-07:00Sexual Cancers Awareness MonthI was driving around in my minivan full of kids the other day when hundreds of people ran by in their underwear.<br />
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<br />
"Oh, right," said I. "<a href="http://www.empowher.com/providers/article/september-national-gynecologic-cancer-awareness-month?page=0,0">September is Sexual Cancers Awareness Month</a>."<br />
<br />
The last time this happened I was pushing a baby stroller. I stopped at an intersection to let hundreds of people in wigs and boxers and bras and race numbers on their legs pass by. Some were gasping, some were prancing, all were in various states of undress. Me and my toddler cheered for them while the baby slept.<br />
<br />
"What was that?" asked my little girl. I didn't know.<br />
<br />
But I found out later when I saw a pamphlet advertising "<a href="http://www.uncoverthecure.org/index.html">The Underwear Affair</a>," a run to raise awareness and money for sexual cancers.<br />
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Their mantra is to "bring awareness to down there-ness."<br />
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Yay!<br />
<br />
As a sexual cancer survivor but not someone who is really "out" about it, I can honestly say, this sure means a lot to me peoples. When I found out about this run I had just been diagnosed / cured of cervical cancer and even though I was saved I felt awfully alone and, as my wee ones would put it, "scaredy" about it all.<br />
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Thanks for running around in your underwear, Western Alberta. It helps. I've seen you do it. It's helped me.<br />
<br />
XOXO<br />
BetsyBetsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-72024207897101128072012-07-04T23:10:00.002-07:002012-07-04T23:10:33.704-07:00To the ArcticOh no.<br />
<br />
I took my 2 & 3 year old to the IMAX today while big sister was at Grandma's, cause she's just much too stressy to watch nature documentaries, and we just love the IMAX. I always have, yo, and I always will.<br />
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This love goes way back to an era in which laser light shows in the dome theater set to the musical stylings of Lionel Ritchie used to make me swoon. And I'd wish, so, that I had someone to hug and kiss, and perhaps try to cop a feel up my neon pink, neon green, neon orange AND neon yellow ski jacket.<br />
<br />
Now I have lots of people to hug and kiss, which is nice. They include my still nursing cubs who do like to cop a feel.<br />
<br />
It's not really possible for us to look at a mother polar bear and her two nurslings without strongly identifying with them. Nor is it possible for us, no matter how much we're enjoying the splash park in a heat wave, to watch the polar caps draining into the Arctic ocean while Meryl Streep narrates, ever so perfectly, that "this gorgeous crown of ice" is disappearing and to learn how polar bears depend on ice to survive.<br />
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When Meryl explained how mother polar bears were going on epic long swims to look for food in the middle of all this wateryousness, and that the longest recorded polar bear swim was for 9 days! and that HER CUB DIDN'T MAKE IT, my son began to sob. Loudly. Un-self-consciously. Sobbing.<br />
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At the point in the film pictured above, the mother and her cubs are fleeing from a hungry male polar bear who wants to eat her babies because he's starving. That occasioned some keening wails from my little son.<br />
<br />
"They aren't nice daddies, like our daddy," I had to explain.<br />
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And don't even get me started on the plight of baby Caribou.<br />
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Oh GAWD, they need to migrate weeks earlier now, cause of global warming, which means they have to give birth WHILE migrating, instead of before, which means they are extremely vulnerable to the legions of starving predators. And all this information is delivered while a mama is licking off her newborn to the soundtrack of the Beatles being groovy and sensitive.<br />
<br />
So my boy wept unabashedly through the whole thing. And I held him. And our two year old ate popcorn off the floor. And o<span style="background-color: white;">ur hearts are broken. Broken.</span><br />
<br />
How is this borne? How do we, daily, bear this tragedy?<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"The greatest gift mothers can pass on to their children is a healthy planet,"</span><span style="background-color: white;"> is the movie's epigraph.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Excuse me while I save the planet. For my son and daughters. Meryl said I could. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">"We CAN?" my lamenting tot shouted back loudly when she told us.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I don't know though. We might need some help. And I really get the sense that no one much cares.</span><br />
<br />
And it's fatiguing. And it sucks. And I'm angry and defeated. And he's all raw about it. As he should be.<br />
<br />
GUH! ARGFLBARGH!<br />
<br />
Is this suitable for children? Of course not, but of course, because it's happening and it's true.<br />
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WAAAAAAAH!</div>
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<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-91168421429703678582012-06-10T07:47:00.002-07:002012-06-10T07:47:24.623-07:00Sex, HPV, Daughters and GodIn my gynecologist's office I witnessed a thing: a mom and her teen-aged daughter and her teen-aged daughter's boyfriend were there getting the girl a prescription for birth control pills, an exam, an HPV vaccine, and a "talk" from the doctor. We could all tell what was going, not just because of the configuration of those three but because the girl was quite vocal about it all, reading aloud snippets from flyers held aloft so that anyone could scan the titles, and clearly enjoying holding the floor by being hopelessly young and beaming with joy at being initiated into womanhood in a pharmacological way.<br />
<br />
The doctor came out from his offices to hand her some pill samples and more flyers and told her that she could go now unless she had any more questions.<br />
<br />
"Do you remember delivering me?" she asked.<br />
<br />
Everybody - the other patients, the women in the office, all the other doctors chortled. It was somehow delightful.<br />
<br />
"That was a long time ago," he responded.<br />
<br />
It looked to be about 16 years ago.<br />
<br />
Her lad was ridiculously gorgeous, well-muscled and out of place in a room full of women waiting for pap smears etc..<br />
<br />
They oozed youth, sex, and embarrassment. It was hard to imagine that they wouldn't be "doing it".<br />
<br />
The mom kept her head held high, but did NOT make eye-contact with another soul. She steadied her nose in a magazine until it was time to go and she could lead the couple gratefully out of the waiting room.<br />
<br />
My kids are little and this "situation" is a long way off, but then again, not really. We mothers know how our children grow in heartbeats. There will be a blink of the eye between the time visit our ob-gyn for a prenatal exam and a prescription for birth control pills, an exam, an HPV vaccine (or whatever they come up with next), and a "talk" from the doctor for our teen-aged daughter.<br />
<br />
Or maybe not.<br />
<br />
Maybe this day will never come because our daughters will choose abstinence.<br />
<br />
Or maybe (one can only hope) nobody will ever fall desperately in love with them, and she with him, so that they can think of nothing other than touching each other everywhere, every way, all the time.<br />
<br />
Or maybe we just will have no idea what's going on with our daughter and what's-his-name who we're not really sure exists. We'll have no clue where she's spending all her time. To me, this is kind of a worst case scenarios.Though, I know there are worse cases -- I don't feel like dredging any up right now.<br />
<br />
I had to respect this woman's pluck in handling her horny teen-aged daughter and her off-the-charts hunky boyfriend. Surely that is the way to deal with it - the team approach; the armament with facts, birth-control, vaccines and a gynecologist. Surely it's better gotten all out there under the fluorescent lights and glaringly white lab coats then all furtive and mythical from friends who embellish and whisper in privacy, without the sense of any grown-ups to buzz-kill with their sagging wisdom and experience.<br />
<br />
I'm coming at this from a particular angle, as we all are. My P.O.V. is of someone who was raised with a proper religious upbringing. My mother gave me a sex-talk when I was 22. It caused me great despair. It was too late and it was far, far too little. My mom had me when she was in her 40s and there's not so much a cultural gap between us as a chasm into which you could stick a whole 'nother generation. The fuddy-duddy brand of sexuality she hoped(?) I'd inherit from her just wouldn't do for me, not at all.<br />
<br />
I slept around some.<br />
<br />
It was mostly fun. Some of it, I could have done with out. And if I could go back again, there are definitely some things I would change. But I can't. Most of it was wonderful and fun and I think about my lovers with fondness.<br />
<br />
I remember listening to the CBC on the radio in my car and the announcer was talking about HPV and HPV vaccines and it was the first I heard of it and I thought, wow! "Lucky me, I'm glad I got through my 20's without catching that. Now I'm in a monogamous relationship with a baby daughter, and I'm off scott free."<br />
<br />
Incorrect.<br />
<br />
At a postnatal check up following the birth of my second child, my midwife discovered squamous cells on my cervix caused by an HPV infection.<br />
<br />
What I went through to get rid of cancer on my lady-bits was psychologically, emotionally, and physically horrible.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I think about the consequences of the sexual freedom I tried a little too hard to embrace in my youth and I wonder if it was worth it.<br />
<br />
If I had followed my parent's desires and expectations that I wouldn't even think about sex until I fell in love and then got married and was shocked and appalled on my wedding night to discover how horrible my "wifely duties" were, I wouldn't have gotten HPV.<br />
<br />
If I had married another virgin, I wouldn't have gotten HPV.<br />
<br />
The thing is that sleeping around is dangerous. There are risks. I was lucky. But not that lucky on account of, you know, the cervical cancer. That was caused by a virus that I caught that from someone I had sex with. It could have prevented me from having children. It didn't, but it could have. When I was a teenager, I don't think I would have thought of that as the worst thing in the world. Now that I have children, I think it would be. Thinking about one of my daughter's losing her reproductive abilities makes me want to sob.<br />
<br />
I don't think God gave me HPV to punish me for being unladylike. I think viruses spread because they can and every living thing follows the directive to eat, survive and reproduce. HPV is like any other virus -- it wants to move from host to host and survive inside that environment long enough to colonize another host with its' DNA. If the virus' host survives long enough to do this, it is successful. If the host dies after the virus has moved to another body, the virus is still successful. This is why little babies in Africa can get AIDS from their mama's breastmilk -- because viruses are opportunists, not because God hates little African babies and their mamas.<br />
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Sex is a great way to move between human hosts because it's a pretty good bet. People have sex. Sex is something that people do. I am a people. I am not angry with myself.<br />
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At the end of Blue Milk's <a href="http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/why-i-will-go-easy-on-the-save-yourself-rhetoric-with-my-daughter/">Why I Will Go Easy on the Save Yourself Rhetoric with my Daughter</a><br />
she asks: "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">So, how would you like sexuality to be different for your daughter, or girls generally, in growing up? How would you like your son to learn about girl sexuality differently?"</span><br />
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If I could pass one chunk of sexual wisdom onto my daughters it would be this:<br />
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You don't need to be too grateful for male attention. They might try to make you feel undesirable and inadequate, but that's exactly opposite to how they really feel. They can think of nothing else but you. That's how they are made.<br />
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This, and an HPV vaccine is exactly the kind of armour that would have helped me.<br />
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So, this girl in the gynecologists office: she's protected from several evils that women before her were not -- unplanned pregnancy, STD's, and perhaps most importantly, utter ignorance and blind eyes turned on her. I'm glad for her. As squeamy as imagining that day where I bring a daughter to my gynecologist to discuss her becoming sexually active makes me right now, that is exactly what I want for my girls and my boy and the young people they come of age with.<br />
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When I was young, it was AIDS we learned about in health class. Now it's HPV. In another decade, it will likely be something else.<br />
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And if something goes wrong, like it did for me, and my kids need rescue, I want it to be there, I want them to have people to turn to, including me, and I want it without judgement. I want medicine to keep on task of protecting sexual health.<br />
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This whole, "you've made your bed, now lie in it" thinking has been used against women and girls for the longest time, and it's shit. My vision for the future is more like, "you've made your bed, now start your day and know that you'll have a nice tidy bed to return to at the end of it. It's your bed to make. If there's some reason you don't want to lie in it anymore, get out of it."<br />
<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com301tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-14998338282120177852012-06-07T09:26:00.003-07:002012-06-07T09:32:56.940-07:00Girls Got Mommy Issues: The Anti-Diet Series IIWhen I was a teenager our Health teacher showed us a movie about the different text-book ways people can be kind of or really fucked up. I wish I could forget the scene about what's wrong with fat chicks, anyway. Overweight girls have low self-esteem, the narrator explained, so they eat to mask the pain of hating themselves which makes them even fatter which causes them to hate themselves even more which causes them to eat more to mask the pain of hating themselves even more, and so on.<br />
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"It's a viscous spiral of self-loathing that, for the binge eater, there is no escape," said the sonorous, concerned voice-over tinged with barely controlled, but controlled disgust.<br />
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The visual was this mildly plump girl in fortrel slacks grabbing hamburgers out of a fast food bag and cramming them into her mouth by fistfuls. She would take a few bites from the hamburgers in one fist and then, without swallowing, stuff some more bites in from the burgers in her other hand. Everyone gasped and/or tittered and/or guffawed. The footage of her eating was alternately sped-up and slowed down to give it a sense of distorted reality. Her hair was back-lit for that demented look.<br />
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One guy, who was always giving me a hard time, turned around and said "Gross." He looked at me when he said it, and sneered.<br />
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It bugged the shit out of me.<br />
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Is that how people see me? A mildly plump girl in acid-wash denim who, according to The Narrator HATES myself? I don't! Is that what people think I do? Purchase giant bags of hamburgers to cram into my mouth all at the same time with a crazed look in my eyes and back-lit hair? I don't!<br />
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Honestly, I've grown up quite mystified by the fact that everyone gets to be skinny but me. It seems I have to work so much harder then everyone else to control my weight.<br />
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I am a conscientious eater. I know a lot of nutrition. I am a smart chick. I should be able to balance the books, so to speak. But it's like there's always been something I just don't get about normal eating and normal weight.<br />
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I had a very thin boyfriend in University who patiently explained to me that the way he kept himself in size 28-inch Levi's was by simply eating when he was hungry, and not eating when he wasn't.<br />
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I was irritated by this facile advice and assured him that I followed the same strategy. However, that I was obviously hungry more often than him preferring to eat, for example, regular meals that included vegetables and quite doubted that his diet of cigarettes, Pepsi and hashish would benefit me in any particular way.<br />
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He shrugged and turned his palms upwards, spreading out those long, cartoon fingers of his in a gesture of helpless gentleness.<br />
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"I'm just saying, I eat when I'm hungry and I don't when I'm not."<br />
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What did he think? That I probably ate bags of hamburgers in secret because I hated myself? Screw that. Screw him. Nobody gets me.<br />
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Now, almost two decades later, I'm slogging my way through Susie Orbach's <b>Fat is a Feminist Issue </b>and her advice to readers is to eat when they are hungry and not when they aren't. She encourages women to let themselves eat. And to let ourselves not eat. You probably don't know what normal eating and normal hunger are, anymore, she says, because of all the diets you've been on. You've got to find by not following any one else's eating rules for a while, just let your body's needs be your guide, respond only to your own hunger cues about when and what to eat, for once in your life. Get in touch with when you are hungry and when you are not. Nothing is off limits, there is no magic food or evil foods, just what you do and do not want to eat. When you are ready to slim down, you will. If you don't want to, you won't. Don't think about trying to slim down. Don't torture yourself with food rules. Just examine.<br />
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Dude, I've been on a diet since I was 8. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, The 80s.<br />
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Orbach's "Anti-diet guide" has been a ridiculously liberating experience so far.<br />
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I cannot believe how many rules, judgements, condemnations and little rages flash through me every single time I choose something to eat. Or not eat. It's ridiculous.<br />
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So I've been trying to take all this seriously and not judging, just honestly examining and experiencing.<br />
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Here are some things that I've noticed since paying attention:<br />
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The other day my husband put a piece of boiled broccoli on everyone's plate and, knowing I don't like boiled broccoli and find the smell positively nauseating, he gave me <i>that look</i> that says, "You better eat this to set a good example for our children." And I took the vile thing off my plate and put it on his, and said, "Don't feel like it." And he gave me another <i>look</i> and I blew a loooooong raspberry at him and said, "No way!" And it felt wonderful. We've had a similar interaction concerning microwaved leftover oatmeal.<br />
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Being around my parents makes me want to eat junk food. I feel deprived after spending time with them, and like I deserve a treat.<br />
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I spend too much money on food at the grocery store trying to buy food that is beyond impunity: organic local kale to dehydrate my own kale chips, single-origin fair-trade organic shade-grown coffee beans, and the like.<br />
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The other day my mom and I were driving around the park while my 2-year old had was napping in her car seat and I don't know how "breakfast for supper" came up but we were chatting and I was saying that "breakfast for supper" is always a hit with everyone and it's so easy when you don't know what to cook for dinner. And then she went on about how my father liked "that kind of thing" too, and that's why she didn't make it very often, because he could just "eat and eat that kind of food" and she herself knows better than to "indulge" in "food like that" but my father is just "an eating machine who would stuff himself with bacon and sausage and eggs all day long if she let him." And I "let my kids have jam on their toast" and that's one "mistake she never ever made," because kids will "just eat jam if you let them" but she "knew better than to have those kinds of foods around the house."<br />
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And I was so mad and annoyed with her. Like, really? There's something so wrong with omelettes for supper? And you don't make food "like that" because your husband would enjoy eating it? And is that why we're all just perfect, the no jam rule?<br />
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Luckily a pair of Canada Geese choose exactly then to cross our path, all haughty like they were going to church in their Sunday best and were at a cross-walk looking down their beaks at us commandingly, and it was so cute that it was easy to change the subject to stopping to let the geese cross. Cause she would have gone on and one while I got madder and madder. <br />
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When preparing a meal, I picture my mother criticizing my food choices and I launch an internal dialogue where I defend them and she keeps attacking them. I do this way too often and when expecting a visit with her, it goes into overdrive.<br />
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So, yeah, I have a lot of mommy/food-issues. How predictable, really, in hind-sight I'm shocked that it's taken me so long to realize it.<br />
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That thing my mom does, where she prepares a big meal, say Christmas dinner, and a saskatoon cheesecake for dessert, and then when people compliment her on the meal, she goes on about how it's all for us because she doesn't like food that's "rich and fattening like all this rich and fattening stuff." It's hard to enjoy meals with her because of her insistence that we are all morally obligated not to enjoy it, unless we're "just like our father" who is sitting right there.<br />
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That voice that tells me I'm a bad person for enjoying food and, in fact, enjoying it greatly, is my mother's voice. I have been working all my life to ignore that voice. I am quite successful at it. I am a shut-the-fuck-up-that voice ninja.<br />
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"Of course I should enjoy this food," I think. Of course "I deserve a nice meal" or a treat, I think. Or, "I better eat this now, who knows when I'll get another opportunity to enjoy this, cause really, next week I should really start cutting back".<br />
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I rarely (never) say no to offered food. I don't like to deprive myself. I don't binge on bags of hamburgers, but neither do I only eat when I'm hungry, and not when I'm not.<br />
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I have this feeling like my relationship with food and my body is so complex but the thing about Orbach's book that is a revelation to me is that she acknowledges this complexity. It resonate with me in a way that the whole "fat chicks eat because they have low self-esteem" thing does not, not at all. In fact, the whole bag of hamburgers because you hate yourself is profoundly insulting to my intelligence. Eating, to me, is a an act of self-love, not of self-loathing. It's the permission to love myself and treat myself kindly. I have always thought of it that way, though I've never really allowed myself to think it out loud.<br />
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But now, I have a desire to tease apart all these complex relationships between food/body/self/mother/sex/rage etc. that Orbach talks about. Maybe it's not as complex as I fear. Maybe it doesn't have to completely mystify me. That would be kinda nice.<br />
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xoxo<br />
Betsy<br />
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<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-24193821384662043142012-05-22T22:44:00.002-07:002012-06-06T20:16:44.338-07:00What happens when I poke here...I imagine in my Honest2Betsy head that I don't even have to update you on what I've been up to, because, certainly, it's horribly predictably obvious that after posting about how angry<a href="http://www.honest2betsy.blogspot.ca/2012/04/evil-robots-yeah-theyre-after-me-and.html"> Betty Draper in a fat suit</a> and the other <a href="http://www.honest2betsy.blogspot.ca/2012/04/evil-robots-yeah-theyre-after-me-and.html">Evil Robots</a> make me and about skinny memes etc. etc. that you just <i>know</i> somebody recommended I read <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Susie-Orbach/113686492013311">Susie Orbach</a> and so I put a hold on <i><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Fat-Feminist-Issue-Susie-Orbach/dp/0883659875">Fat is a Feminist Issue</a> </i>at the library and now I've got it and am stuck somewhere in the middle of it, like a woman startled to discover she has squeezed into a pair of jeggings that are two sizes too small, and now has to get out of them without making a clamor in the change room.<br />
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Except that I am making a clamor, peeps. I'm having my own personal anti-diet revolution.<br />
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<i>Fat is a Feminist Issue</i>: there's not one, but too f-bombs in that title. So, despite that I'm, you know, <i>feminist, </i>and, you know, <i>foluptuous, </i>or more accurately, because of those two things, I've resisted reading that book before now because I've assumed that it was about how much society hates both females and fat people and also about how the two things are very intertwingled. I just don't need more information, thought I, about how much mainstream culture despises me and those who are round like me and sexed like me.<br />
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But it's not about that. It's subtitled "The anti-diet guide for women." I've never noticed the subtitle before, or heard it talked about, probably because there aren't any f-bombs in it. But because of a recommendation from a bloggy-friend and a flourishing loathing for diets and diet-culture, I've been gingerly making my way through <i>Fat is a Feminist Issue</i>, like a size 14 beauty in a new summer-dress, stepping nervously out of a mirror-less changing stall to timidly see how the thing looks. I've been discovering a lot of sore spots and clingly bits and too-tight spots and just earnestly trying to figure out what hurts, how it got that way, and how I can maybe make it better.<br />
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So. The last time I was on a diet was long after I'd sworn off diets for good. Some reputable source instructed me that I should "Never diet while pregnant or breastfeeding!" I first became pregnant more than 7 years ago. 3 babies latter, I've been breastfeeding and not dieting ever since. It's been wonderful. <br />
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But... I had such bad skin for a patch there, I just couldn't help going to the library (I do that) and reading up on how nutrition could solve all my skin problems. I ended up on this evil diet:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtKLY8sO7-yf0pVseV0CVX6C-OTGWP-MdQTt7D5dM2oMfUlT4JLfnjS62Yf08ItGea4sRLp_xzi_xZEetrTeiXpD-lWMQnVNYa7XpS5G0NsPRCzzku85sJNyZsZvdqT9Nq1qz9frsxTrg/s1600/The-Acne-Prescription-9780060188788.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtKLY8sO7-yf0pVseV0CVX6C-OTGWP-MdQTt7D5dM2oMfUlT4JLfnjS62Yf08ItGea4sRLp_xzi_xZEetrTeiXpD-lWMQnVNYa7XpS5G0NsPRCzzku85sJNyZsZvdqT9Nq1qz9frsxTrg/s320/The-Acne-Prescription-9780060188788.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
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I know that diets, statistically, cause the vast majority of the people who follow them to gain all the weight back plus a little more. I've never been able to quite wrap my head around why this happens -- especially to someone as <i>sensible</i> as me, but I know that to more than 90% of people, that's just the way it goes. But since this diet wasn't about weight loss, it was about "Clear and Healthy Skin at Every Age", I thought that probably, certainly, that wouldn't happen. </div>
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Um. It did. </div>
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I'm not sure I can explain the mechanism entirely but it all started off well enough -- eating salmon for every other meal wasn't that big a deal, 'cept expensive and yeah, the novelty of salmon for breakfast wears off pretty quick, and the complicated dinner recipes were very difficult to prepare with several small children at my feet and finding all the ingredients in the stores was even harder -- where are the hearts of palm? And the hazelnuts? And the Tilapia? And the chard? And why isn't there any fresh tarragon in Northern Alberta in November? In any case, the middle part had me sobbing, at one point, on my kitchen floor because I was working so hard to follow this "Acne Prescription" and I just couldn't believe that tonight's recipe had led me through the complexity of making a roasted-red pepper puree from scratch only to discover that there was an hour more of cooking to do on the next page for the Hazelnut encrusted Tilaipia and the puree was just to daub on top as a garnish along with a sprig of fresh tarragon which I just didn't have, and besides, I wouldn't be able to make the salad without <i>verjus</i> and what the fuck is <i>verjus</i> and ohmigod I better make something for the children before they eat me and I haven't had any carbs for two weeks and am breastfeeding and NOT FUNCTIONING WELL ON THIS DIET WHICH IS FOR RICH PEOPLE WITH HOURS TO PREPARE MEALS AND A PERSONAL ASSISTANT TO GET THEM <a href="http://www.bonappetit.com/tipstools/ingredients/2008/10/verjus">VERJUS</a>. </div>
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Shockingly, I did every thing right only to discover that all my skin problems were not solved by the unfollowable diet nor by the REDONKULOUSLY OVERPRICED SKIN PRODUCTS<b> </b>that Nicholas Perricone, M.D. must be soooo rich off of selling along with his books to people hoping to make up for their moral failings as a human being, or why else would they have such bad skin? And it was quite depressing. And I ate far too much Almond Roca at Christmas time and also drank far too much red wine. And yeah, I gained weight and I've still got it.</div>
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Sigh.</div>
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My first diet? Honestly, I'm too young to remember it. But I just spent the weekend with my mother and she was talking about how her kids were picky eaters like mine are until she put everyone on Weight Watchers, and then, boy howdy, would her kids eat up whatever she served for supper and no complaining, just hungrily grasping for whatever she put on the table. I vaguely remember this period. I remember helping her prepare broiled grapefruit. I was 8? 9? 10?</div>
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Sigh.</div>
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I was complaining to my middle-sister, the one who has always been thin (why can't <i>you</i> be more like that, Betsy?) that it really bothers me to hang out with mom because she just has so damn many food issues.</div>
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She laughed and assured me she's noticed no such thing.</div>
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Really? I was shocked, truly shocked, that anyone could describe my mother as someone without food issues.</div>
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Could it be me?</div>
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My oldest sister, however, describes my mother as someone who fed her kids junk food all the time and was always overweight.</div>
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Really? I don't remember that person at all. </div>
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In my mind, my mother is someone who has always been on a diet, who always is on a diet, who won't shut up about how morally superior people like her, who have their weight under control are, and how easy and sensible it is, and how blah blah blah blah. It drives me nuts.</div>
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And I've noticed that spending time with her makes me want to indulge in "emotional eating" afterwards. I just think, after all that, I deserve a bowl of ice cream, okay? </div>
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Sigh.</div>
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She's recently read <i>The China Study</i> and I should read it to because if only everybody followed the simple nutritional advice contained within that book, they would be lovely, thin and certainly disease-free. It's animal proteins, apparently, that are causing everyone to be fat, ugly, and tumorous. </div>
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Now it's animal proteins. Before that, as I'm sure you recall, it was carbs. And before that it was improper food combinations, and before that, it was simply portions. </div>
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Sigh. I don't want to hear it anymore.</div>
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The way Susie Orbach explains the problem with diets (like about how they don't work) is that they are a cause, a spur, and <i>a type of compulsive eating.</i> Dieters, while dieting, are evangelical. They are high on dieting. They are the Kings of their own Castle. They think constantly about what they can/can't eat, about what they will/won't eat about what they can/can't eat. They want to talk about it. They want you to be like them, to see the light too. Until they crash. Then they hate themselves. And eat too much.</div>
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And I just don't want to hear any of it. Ever again. From anybody. I'd rather hear about someone's bowel movements than the latest diet they are on. I'd rather hear my mother talk about her sex life, for the love of sweet Jeebus, than about how she has eating right all figured out and such a healthy relationship with food. </div>
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I met a group of women for a picnic/playdate at the park the other day and it was lovely until one of them starting going on about <i>The China Study </i>and how she's vegan now and blah blah blah. She had that look in her eye. Like she might as well be talking about ourlordsaviourJesusChristwholovesus and blah blah blah. She wanted to save our souls/midsections. It was the same tirade my mother had been on at me the week before.</div>
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I left. </div>
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I un-pryed my children from the monkey bars and left. "Naptime," I explained, instead of, "You are making me angry at my mother by sounding just like her right now with the blah blah blah."</div>
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Betsy is never going to diet again. Betsy is not a dieter. Betsy is an anti-dieter. Betsy is pissed about it. Betsy is not going to take it. Betsy is better than diets. Betsy doesn't know all the answers, she knows very little, but she knows the answer is NOT to diet. Betsy is awesome in so many ways, but none of the ways she is awesome has anything at all to do with dieting. </div>
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<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-92186673180683838492012-04-03T12:43:00.001-07:002012-04-03T12:43:16.540-07:00Evil Robots? Yeah, they're after me. And yeah, I'm fighting them.You know Y<b>oshimi Battles the Pink Robots </b>by the Flaming Lips? <i>Whattasong.</i><br />
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I've listened to it hundreds of times and it just gets more meaningful over the years, despite that the meaning, for me, hasn't really changed at all in more than a decade.<br />
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There was a time when I worked way up high in a gleaming office tower in the sky. I spent most of my full-time hours there with ear buds in, listening to and building and organizing my music collection. I did some work too. My anthem? Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEVPhWROTEqLxlOERKTzFIyC2rwgUbiyoVQ0-cPzp11mttKzL3rVlOfYoUcrtVSFDYsfnpptz7zZxMGKW6Ru2TocaDzlunOE1Cpfv81PlanvKj7KiOjTSYgWFhLEOTz9NlDCsdacQvoek/s1600/ear-buds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEVPhWROTEqLxlOERKTzFIyC2rwgUbiyoVQ0-cPzp11mttKzL3rVlOfYoUcrtVSFDYsfnpptz7zZxMGKW6Ru2TocaDzlunOE1Cpfv81PlanvKj7KiOjTSYgWFhLEOTz9NlDCsdacQvoek/s320/ear-buds.jpg" width="253" /></a></div>
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And I've gots to tells yas, I'm quite a bit likeYoshimi in the song because, hellsyeah, I battle the pink robots. We all do. They're at us, from all corners, all the time. Here are some:<br />
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<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_748486971"></span><span id="goog_748486975"></span><span id="goog_748486981"></span><span id="goog_748486982"></span><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLHmeL7D9ckLtFmFHv8PApE4JIAf1GgdO1baIGnI2RZbmITYC1Jaw64aoe4ju4PDqxxMPpXzWPrJcEk_I5z2TH2PI_UkxKYYZcm6EkuXeRxHlf0jI5ZRgtfX6cpTuV-ejxoXg2uhqTLo4/s640/hm-computer-generated-models.jpg2_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Fight them! They are not real. They are <span id="goog_748486985"></span><a href="http://draft.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_748486997"></span>computer generated images with human heads glued on top<span id="goog_748486998"></span></a>. <span id="goog_748486986"></span>They are evil and we can't let them destroy us.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja4JZggaXBsZmO0eknluuY-gcN9VBCprhQ3YSW3fRGR_nwKnjvIshFsSYxwiwQkKSAO3QOzoSCBgBxrkRoJHCtCkxfFBus79nB0JzxGX_fzSvmRHGCXlw5OQ4Xe7ncew3Qb9vscvtK8Ks/s1600/photoshopped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja4JZggaXBsZmO0eknluuY-gcN9VBCprhQ3YSW3fRGR_nwKnjvIshFsSYxwiwQkKSAO3QOzoSCBgBxrkRoJHCtCkxfFBus79nB0JzxGX_fzSvmRHGCXlw5OQ4Xe7ncew3Qb9vscvtK8Ks/s1600/photoshopped.jpg" /></a></div>
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Women and robots can be hard to tell apart. But they are different in fundamental ways. The one is capable of feeling, thinking, philosophizing, childbearing and buying clothing. T'other is capable of making you feel vaguely uneasy, making you wonder why everyone looks like that except you, distracting you from thinking about anything worthwhile, is cloned (has many twins but no daughters), and sells sells sells clothing. </div>
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How the gob-smacked pickle-munching lucky-strike slinging Hallelujah has the fashion industry convinced us that we should fit into clothes instead of the obvious fact that clothes should fit us?<br />
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Evil robots. That's how.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADyNrIwkBA4x_qDotp78X6BqAfS7XrLldtOEn3iOI7A6eJfglMgg-nqLFuLO7kRfsD1XMdt0T1etWWtQqjukQ9_D2LAerBRFAG_X-vcyoomFqw1D-JFP_FTRU0lXJnxEWX6KydFY-o5c/s1600/photoshoppedribs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADyNrIwkBA4x_qDotp78X6BqAfS7XrLldtOEn3iOI7A6eJfglMgg-nqLFuLO7kRfsD1XMdt0T1etWWtQqjukQ9_D2LAerBRFAG_X-vcyoomFqw1D-JFP_FTRU0lXJnxEWX6KydFY-o5c/s1600/photoshoppedribs.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The person on the left is a woman who works in the fashion industry. The thing on the right is a robot. Her ribs have been photoshopped out to make her appear less frightening and more <i>alluring. </i>She is not real, she is a digital cyborg.<i> </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Clothing is a thing. It is a useful thing. We need to wear it. You know that. You also know that besides just being a useful thing, clothing is a system of signs, a semiotics. We need to navigate both things -- the utility of clothing and the semiotics.<br />
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When I was a little girl, I experienced a crushing thing: whenever I would grow out of clothes, or clothes wouldn't fit me, I would say, "These pants are too small," or "This shirt isn't big enough." And my parents would diligently correct me by explaining that I was too big for the pants, or that the shirt was perfectly fine but that it was my size that was problematic.<br />
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When my slim older sister would grow out of her clothes, they would concede that it was the clothes that were wrong. But with me, with my body, with my wrong-sizedness it was important that they communicate to me that it was my obligation to fit into clothing, not clothing's obligation to fit me.<br />
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Most women, I know, experience that feeling of not fitting into their clothes like they are supposed to.<br />
This is a thing to rail against. Clothes are supposed to serve women. Women are not supposed to serve clothes.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PZ59FJ4jqn4NtNZdbn1ZKZ_6VjadWdNPhITHmIGeKd2NzlKj7PWRY8N0jY8EDyE3GwM718TzXLgL4SFu2IzCyRczLVEXFG8TwmRkPNZbadV5n_MXlFqA2Wx7nyb_cNAt79N0vtP_k90/s1600/hm-computer-generated-models-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PZ59FJ4jqn4NtNZdbn1ZKZ_6VjadWdNPhITHmIGeKd2NzlKj7PWRY8N0jY8EDyE3GwM718TzXLgL4SFu2IzCyRczLVEXFG8TwmRkPNZbadV5n_MXlFqA2Wx7nyb_cNAt79N0vtP_k90/s1600/hm-computer-generated-models-2.jpg" /></a></div>
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If you read my <a href="http://draft.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_748487036"></span>last post <span id="goog_748487037"></span></a>you might erringly conclude that I despise thin bodies. This is not true. Honest 2 Betsy does not endorse battling, besmirching, or devouring supermodels or any other spaghetti-sized people. It's not people and their people-bodies I have a problem with. Not at all. I like people. I wish them well. It's the cyborgs that piss me off.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkqmwQ5sZFHmYx99C8SgbIez9a1dKijwPdaAlUy_ySwZbzoGOzA6zOeKOkQMEsN2aXczcHk6PCPyzH4LBSyk92y6nszaCvD-fMcYaxbR4ICrkwo7Fsei1uOm1HNq4a7tXijRMECFtZXpw/s1600/kate_moss_cyborg1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkqmwQ5sZFHmYx99C8SgbIez9a1dKijwPdaAlUy_ySwZbzoGOzA6zOeKOkQMEsN2aXczcHk6PCPyzH4LBSyk92y6nszaCvD-fMcYaxbR4ICrkwo7Fsei1uOm1HNq4a7tXijRMECFtZXpw/s400/kate_moss_cyborg1.jpg" width="303" /></a></div>
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A robot e-mailed me recently to see if I would like a guest post by it.</div>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 17px;">Hi Betsy,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 17px;">I really enjoyed reading your blog - it's great! Most women really have insecurities concerning their figure and appearance but we should always remember that it's not always our outside appearance but we must also consider who we are as a person inside is the best." </span></div>
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To paraphrase this communique from a pink robot: it would be happy to write some blog posts for me about looking pretty and weight loss. Would I like that? Also, could I click on a link?</div>
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No. Because I fight pink robots. Evil robots! They're everywhere! They are programmed to destroy us!</div>
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Do you watch Mad Men? It's the damnedest. There are all these fantastic female characters in fantastic outfits. And the show reveals, like a just-below the knee A-line, how very crappy it can be for these women to be judged on their looks and every so often you can peek through the artful cracks in their well-coiffed composure what it costs them to be so wonderfully "packaged" all the time in a lovely semiotics of hosiery and pearls, slimness and deference, chauvinism and constraint.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5P2UckbhCUwfLTzpOrB2tpUKkQMKFW3ONLzU3sJj_d6dFmiT10BItldBoB9lesgN8IgqGEg-koE4M-YzIVrN03bfYloq6Nd9j_vd1TAlImI6FI9UgS7vZHTofSKa7iSp-7vcrSLeAayU/s1600/mad-men-style2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5P2UckbhCUwfLTzpOrB2tpUKkQMKFW3ONLzU3sJj_d6dFmiT10BItldBoB9lesgN8IgqGEg-koE4M-YzIVrN03bfYloq6Nd9j_vd1TAlImI6FI9UgS7vZHTofSKa7iSp-7vcrSLeAayU/s1600/mad-men-style2.jpg" /></a></div>
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There's quite a few moments when the human cost of all this "fuss" over women's bodies as <i>things</i> that must be rigidly controlled so as to be at all desirable is exposed. Moments like when Peggy overhears her male colleagues laughing about how fat she is, when in fact she's concealing a pregnancy. Moments like when Joan, ever so composed and good-natured about having another abortion, is assumed by a mother in the doctor's waiting room to be waiting on a teen-aged daughter like she is, and decides not to go through with it because she wants a baby and it's her body. There are moments when the female characters behave like people, not well-put together props. Then, mind you, the pink robots do like to take center stage.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKW1gXJSUfpKmQM3AnlIX_R0NwrzvBELn5oFTE1KgSWOc19LFyOky9IOa214antvEZfcviBoN1m6xwhX0aVyzlWW9X60OnA68nJQRR4xTdAdANuDjcVmboPWe87mOlAdtOsGQm1OgU1as/s1600/madmenstyle1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKW1gXJSUfpKmQM3AnlIX_R0NwrzvBELn5oFTE1KgSWOc19LFyOky9IOa214antvEZfcviBoN1m6xwhX0aVyzlWW9X60OnA68nJQRR4xTdAdANuDjcVmboPWe87mOlAdtOsGQm1OgU1as/s1600/madmenstyle1.jpg" /></a></div>
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Now here's the part in the blog post where I was struggling to say something deep and intelligent about Mad Men but went to bed instead, thinking some gem of wisdom would probably be waiting there for me in the morning. But it wasn't, so I carried on with my day, shopping and packing for a weekend trip to the Rocky Mountains where we stayed in a gorgeous hotel with outdoor hot pools, went skating on Lake Louise, went X-country skiing, went for an Alpine hike up on Sulphur Mountain and then through the Fenlands below, etc. etc. etc.<br />
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When I came back to real life and this post I still didn't have a satisfying conclusion for you, dear Reader, or for me. When I watched the new Mad Men on my PVR I was expecting a little inspiration but I got, HOLY EVIL, BETTY DRAPER IN A FAT SUIT.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1UsPAFZNfPDHzXGa3jm-_rkUChIAbESKBh7DAKLdO-3djqkkG1aWzZVVWQvCZfnza4fGVsEgfVIQ-Tgfq5FLNTjCu_NTVP2pXIHYydQcuOIDWz67Isa3iw8Hn04P7Pm8n1qPxg5r3-dw/s1600/fatbetty.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1UsPAFZNfPDHzXGa3jm-_rkUChIAbESKBh7DAKLdO-3djqkkG1aWzZVVWQvCZfnza4fGVsEgfVIQ-Tgfq5FLNTjCu_NTVP2pXIHYydQcuOIDWz67Isa3iw8Hn04P7Pm8n1qPxg5r3-dw/s320/fatbetty.png" width="305" /></a></div>
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I was so viscerally repulsed by the suiting up of this bitchy character in every fat-loathing stereotype possible (her husband likes fatties because his mom is one, she hates herself, she's depressed because her husband re-married a skinny hot French chick so she eats ice cream to make herself feel better, etc. etc.)<br />
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The point of the episode, <i>Tea Leaves</i>, sort of, is that Betty's lucky to be "Just fat" and not to have thyroid cancer like her doctor suspected.<br />
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But of course that's not the point. The point is to loathe this female character who smokes in front of babies and slaps her daughter and is a really poor sport about her husband sleeping around on her. We've loathed her for all these reasons before but now we can really get our hate on because she's getting her just deserts. She's getting what she had coming to her, the worst possible fate a pretty woman can possibly be consigned to: she's a fat housewife now. Ha ha. Ha ha ha.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Yss7ryTVg_jB-A1riBE2DnlGfABXysM_gLkR7LrAwNzsI6dxEkO5ttVI95DjwwTZSl2HvGYqYgK50OfgKFympH0DtyknOqfqfqiM5j8YM5E6xRaoSsG_Vz6SnZj6HJS6oNhgetlitLY/s1600/bettydraper_ice_cream.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Yss7ryTVg_jB-A1riBE2DnlGfABXysM_gLkR7LrAwNzsI6dxEkO5ttVI95DjwwTZSl2HvGYqYgK50OfgKFympH0DtyknOqfqfqiM5j8YM5E6xRaoSsG_Vz6SnZj6HJS6oNhgetlitLY/s320/bettydraper_ice_cream.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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But she's not a fat housewife. She's a very thin actress named January Jones in a fat suit. Here she is finishing off her fictional daughter's ice cream sundae because she's a fat, disgusting pig.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB3qQtFaX8clJ7GDUurPRJH1IXiE4ahzCagi-ZdWsCIPwHkfVXjiG0rZo98k6TZ_8cf4Wl8BUVr35PMehI9wNKWj4Moc1O5XCQiD_xzz8pphG_LCZN4t6wxkVPNvlbZwIgLTAQUlrRgEA/s1600/January-Jones-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB3qQtFaX8clJ7GDUurPRJH1IXiE4ahzCagi-ZdWsCIPwHkfVXjiG0rZo98k6TZ_8cf4Wl8BUVr35PMehI9wNKWj4Moc1O5XCQiD_xzz8pphG_LCZN4t6wxkVPNvlbZwIgLTAQUlrRgEA/s320/January-Jones-9.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
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Here she is all photoshopped up in GQ to look exactly like the computer generated models in an H&M catalogue. Robots. Evil pink robots.<br />
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It is my fear that all this is getting much, much worse instead of better. It is my fear that my daughters are growing up in a world full of pink robots, and Yoshimi isn't going to defeat them for us. It is my fear that Yoshimi just might let those robots eat my daughters.<br />
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I know it's going to be demanding, to fight those evil machines. But it's worthwhile. Because so much of it depends on women being "good sports" about it. I don't want to be a good sport about it. I don't want my daughter to be a good sport about it either. So much depends on women playing along with the notion that we're supposed to fit clothes, instead of vice versa.<br />
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The Fat Suit episode began with Betty not being able to zip up one of her dresses and refusing to go out with her husband because of it. Her mother-in-law came over to visit a house-dress clad Betty and urge her to do something about her weight so that she could get "back into that great closet."<br />
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So much of it depends on women literally "buying into" it because that's what IT is all about -- getting women to buy shit we don't need. There's really nothing else there.<br />
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But it hurts people. It really hurts real people. Once upon a time a small girl, about 5 years old, approached me in a public park and told me that her father would kill her if she ever got fat. Sigh.<br />
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EVIL. ROBOTS. PROGRAMMED TO DESTROY US.<br />
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And now, an Honest 2 Betsy pledge: I am enrolling myself and my six-year old girl in an all ages karate-class.<br />
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I'm just looking for some practical ways we can fight the pink robots together. We're going to need lots of vitamins, and to discipline our bodies, because we've got to be strong to fight them. Maybe we can get our black belts in karate.<br />
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XOXO<br />Betsy<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBYP6wYTiSOnt3L_XHIbklSnLvSOxEFDIqdkFjrQ5LVjrrNjtBbI_K10XHAdtMrbYrDy7YHComxmG_IkpCZKN_NPZ03c_E_WH_evcPR7LajJAeqefe_bsbxE99RXFedhhVJGLObFptEck/s1600/Piggy_karate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBYP6wYTiSOnt3L_XHIbklSnLvSOxEFDIqdkFjrQ5LVjrrNjtBbI_K10XHAdtMrbYrDy7YHComxmG_IkpCZKN_NPZ03c_E_WH_evcPR7LajJAeqefe_bsbxE99RXFedhhVJGLObFptEck/s320/Piggy_karate.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Hiyah!</span>
</div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-48461693044058991282012-02-29T22:38:00.002-08:002012-02-29T22:38:35.551-08:00If you're so skinny, why aren't you happy?I've always had the vague sense that if I had long, skinny legs and a ripping bod, I'd be a star of some sorts. Probs I'd have made it in some way that I haven't made it now. Maybe not, but if I was a thinner person, or thinnish at all at least in some places besides my knuckles, surely, I'd be happier.<br />
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When I think back to some of the happiest moments in my life (the birth of my daughter, for example) the photographic evidence disturbs me. Because the picture doesn't match the wonder and empowerment and great surging love I felt -- for daughter, self, husband, universe. It doesn't match it, because I'm not thin in the photo. I'm not thin at all. I'm bloated and double-chinned and bezitted. So it's confusing. I mean, I was sooooooo happy. Shouldn't I look thinner?<br />
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It's easy to look at photos of other humans and infer that if someone has long, skinny legs and a ripping bod, they are probably happy. I mean, look how thin they are. It's easy to, conversely, glance at people and assume that anyone overweight is miserable. You might do this on Facebook. You might sort people you used to know 20 years ago into categories of "doing great" or "not doing so great - got fat."<br />
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It's a very pervasive attitude. The weight-loss industry pretty much thrives on the basic assumption that thin=happy, fat<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;">≠</span>happy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGgDv0Su1d2QPLcwRH_GdLzjeIIYe7cSmJfisQjFgCjSGK4U4CUtxnWRJzMfa8K6Khj2T04iLbjvG2oDMF1raUp0hnF8TqUCQ7lncPZdMp_v9LmXkHskkYLaYpFJNPa2XAONRYie3sjGM/s1600/positivelyskeletal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGgDv0Su1d2QPLcwRH_GdLzjeIIYe7cSmJfisQjFgCjSGK4U4CUtxnWRJzMfa8K6Khj2T04iLbjvG2oDMF1raUp0hnF8TqUCQ7lncPZdMp_v9LmXkHskkYLaYpFJNPa2XAONRYie3sjGM/s320/positivelyskeletal.jpg" width="223" /></a></div>
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I've been thinking about these assumptions lately.<br />
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I have a thinner sister and a fatter sister. The thin one battles depression. The fat one does not. She laughs a lot.<br />
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I have a new friend who has an outrageously great bod. I've sort of know her for more than a decade now and always assumed she was a happy person for two reasons:<br />
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1) she is always smiling<br />
2) she has long, skinny legs, exactly like I asked Jesus for when I was a tweenager<br />
<br />
Now that I know her well, I've learned she cries a lot. And for good reason. She's had a miserable life. She's suffered a lot of violence and abuse. When she cries she still smiles. But you can tell she's crying, it's obvious because of the tears and the sobbing. The anti-depressants she's on keep her from wanting to kill herself (that's good!) but they've ruined her appetite. She misses food. She misses wanting it at all, ever. She just eats enough to function. She is not a happy person. Her long, thin legs and six-pack abs have not brought her the unmitigated joy that I'd imagined they should.<br />
<br />
I know a handful of thin people who have all related a similar anecdote to me, which is, "At one point in my life I was 20 pounds (or 30) overweight and I was totally miserable. Then I lost the weight and I'm happy again." This is a moral lesson of sorts that I'm supposed to understand. That we're all supposed to understand. But I dunno. Is it a fairytale that we just keep telling?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPULw3t6YrgZQekUqHG7kx3ehAOG4WRkQCswPC-N_u7m-6PWY02zmQEIbq1g8rlVi-wLttTowiB01sq71jX7qUi4VUmSfGvYE5DLlr_Oemyi97kc_pz-NWm-rFKQfcmQYcIvAwTM2VfsY/s1600/beforeafterdiet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPULw3t6YrgZQekUqHG7kx3ehAOG4WRkQCswPC-N_u7m-6PWY02zmQEIbq1g8rlVi-wLttTowiB01sq71jX7qUi4VUmSfGvYE5DLlr_Oemyi97kc_pz-NWm-rFKQfcmQYcIvAwTM2VfsY/s320/beforeafterdiet.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
<br />
Wow! Look how happy that person on the right is!<br />
<br />
There have been times in my life when I've been thinner, and times in my life when I've been thicker. When I am honest about these times, they don't correspond with the thin=happy, fat does not equal happy equation at all.<br />
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I try to avoid fashion magazines and shopping malls and mainstream media culture in general. But I love media counter-culture. So I've been on Pinterest. Which means I`ve been getting a daily does of anorexic thinspiration.<br />
<br />
There are a lot of "thinspiration" images on Pinterest.<br />
<br />
Have you heard this quote?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Dh3sbPTEm-GaBgi078NJYJf3Yr_Q2rD1jtc21VIWX-BiK2bGYyLwRW0VkD9pIiiPTCj2e1IN71uTFa_GalXkeY5cd9uUCDgxSOtaJ0ix4zl9PtVQr-wp8zEpe8rKP_RdznDppbKWC-0/s1600/katemoss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Dh3sbPTEm-GaBgi078NJYJf3Yr_Q2rD1jtc21VIWX-BiK2bGYyLwRW0VkD9pIiiPTCj2e1IN71uTFa_GalXkeY5cd9uUCDgxSOtaJ0ix4zl9PtVQr-wp8zEpe8rKP_RdznDppbKWC-0/s320/katemoss.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
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<br />
"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."<br />
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I dunno, it kind of got to me. It`s really meemy. I`d never heard it before, maybe you have though, because I spent the better part of an evening following it around on the internets and it's really quite famous and controversial as an anorexic rallying cry.<br />
<br />
It`s a Kate Moss quote. It`s <a href="http://jgirlatlaw.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/nothing-tastes-as-good-as-skinny-feels/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMi1hMDgwZGUwYmI2NzJiZjlk">there</a>.<br />
<br />
It's been <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2024237/Kate-Moss-pro-anorexia-tastes-good-skinny-feels-T-shirt-banned.html">banned by the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority for sale on t-shirts for little girls</a> at zazzle.com, but you can still <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/nothing+tastes+as+good+as+skinny+feels+gifts">get it on a novelty fridge magnet</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidRPH9b65O51uPsn5EzdH8DOxPgY8lxERmPt1tRUZVAk4tl22AQlyuf5EaXvSzp03PwU1iE2XNEqqh0tU5IGdv1xgQmrAYl4d96o70DwZjuk32yIyP-mfCyQ_Yy2idRG-cB_r7b-R7Ex8/s1600/skinny_girlshirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidRPH9b65O51uPsn5EzdH8DOxPgY8lxERmPt1tRUZVAk4tl22AQlyuf5EaXvSzp03PwU1iE2XNEqqh0tU5IGdv1xgQmrAYl4d96o70DwZjuk32yIyP-mfCyQ_Yy2idRG-cB_r7b-R7Ex8/s320/skinny_girlshirt.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>
<br />
I decided to learn a little bit about Kate Moss. I mean, she's really skinny. She must be deliriously happy. Right? I mean, right? Um... not?<br />
<br />
Kate Moss, if skinny feels so good, why did you check yourself into a clinic for depression? Weren't you skinny then? Didn't you feel good? Hasn't that cocaine addiction been treating you well?<br />
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And oh lordy pants, there's things called<a href="http://thinspiration-pictures.blogspot.com/"> thinspiration blogs</a>. They post pictures like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3rrkoU0-ANHcu0VEgdPWmo-p4tLk7WusNn4LzoXYBV7f12V_XHSPqRAqzgpn7ZewopHzMOt3Gzc6l5DaxrXxvOxVPciwEH4Z2qRVH0F40iwrsx4tD3HsdNFnskdNtBtS0F-D5deEKEe0/s1600/skinnylegs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3rrkoU0-ANHcu0VEgdPWmo-p4tLk7WusNn4LzoXYBV7f12V_XHSPqRAqzgpn7ZewopHzMOt3Gzc6l5DaxrXxvOxVPciwEH4Z2qRVH0F40iwrsx4tD3HsdNFnskdNtBtS0F-D5deEKEe0/s320/skinnylegs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I guess they are there to spread happiness and cheer among their numerous followers, but it's confusing because the bloggers who maintain them sound curiously unhappy. Like Lily of <a href="http://lilywantstobepretty.tumblr.com/">lilywantstobepretty.tumblr.com</a> whose images:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNe3B2DNn3AUPtI0rg2OgZKhhSpslaYY0kBb_HTy1F69fj3CHz3zpWBqu2FKL7HXgqVjqRsqohHW4vMyck5bm31JBKROJTDUgx1ACX9oDn_aqZ3RhlfpInTpC6haexqe5k-2gPy_VuBZ0/s1600/sadskinnybunny.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNe3B2DNn3AUPtI0rg2OgZKhhSpslaYY0kBb_HTy1F69fj3CHz3zpWBqu2FKL7HXgqVjqRsqohHW4vMyck5bm31JBKROJTDUgx1ACX9oDn_aqZ3RhlfpInTpC6haexqe5k-2gPy_VuBZ0/s320/sadskinnybunny.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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are interspersed with textual posts<a href="http://lilywantstobepretty.tumblr.com/post/15081138703/now-i-just-feel-like-cutting-my-wrists-open"> like this:</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #868686; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 23px;">Now I just feel like cutting my wrists open. Motherfucking fuck shit.</span><br />
<br />
She describes herself as both battling depression and having an eating disorder. Well gosh. My heart aches for her. She's very thin. She likes the Kate Moss quote. But I don't think it's doing her a service. I don't think Kate has been a good role model for her.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7OnOtSemldjrvbjqTwgQiOBh2G9iOckNIX1fBtrLT68JOBRWESFc2TFQ4__AUbbAdzWdFOPUsZJwS5D8c8IVdR9xi0sOvPxQMqmjUdES8Jy3YJXSm95nUGLB7TEoELLahj9tCFh32Eg/s1600/cocaine+kate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7OnOtSemldjrvbjqTwgQiOBh2G9iOckNIX1fBtrLT68JOBRWESFc2TFQ4__AUbbAdzWdFOPUsZJwS5D8c8IVdR9xi0sOvPxQMqmjUdES8Jy3YJXSm95nUGLB7TEoELLahj9tCFh32Eg/s320/cocaine+kate.jpg" width="243" /></a></div>
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There was an unforgettable moment in my life when when I'd just made it through a long ordeal with <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001617/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001617/">Mono</a>. I was a teenager. It got so bad that I went by ambulance from the small town I grew up in to a big city hospital and got hooked up to all sorts of fluids and drugs. My appetite had dissapeared and I was wasting away. I hadn't eaten for probably a month.<br />
<br />
<br />
Then I recovered.<br />
<br />
When I got back to the small town I was from and went back to school I was noticeably thinner. I wasn't thin. But I was thinner.<br />
<br />
"Wow, you look great!" "I wish I could get mono!" That kind of thing.<br />
<br />
The unforgettable moment I am referring to was when I was back in school, finally, and going from one class to another. I had to push open a heavy glass door that I'd never noticed was heavy before. I was utterly used to giving it a casual shove and it would swing wide open for me. But after my illness it required a shocking amount of effort. Because I was weakened. My muscles had lost so much strength and tone just lying there.<br />
<br />
Because... thin does not equal healthy! Thin does not equal strong. Thin does not equal happy. Thin = thin.<br />
<br />
Healthy = healthy.<br />
<br />
Maybe you're all like, Bets, are you just figuring all this out now?<br />
<br />
Yes!<br />
<br />
Maybe you're all like, Bets! Don't just let yourself go or anything! Fat people are the least happy people of all. Maybe skinny does not equal happy, but fat certainly definitely always must equal miserable!<br />
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I don't know. Not so sure. Starting to think otherwise...<br />
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<a href="http://www.districtlines.com/40736-Skinny-Tastes-Good-T-Shirt/Tom-Milsom" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXjWAu7PE5gCw3J2WZRCiFJY-NDoh1_EwVFB9L-zUpo5rYsMrL14BmkO_NlZ8DZxl5-P1Z4qmOW-DnCquYYYC1WRvgQ7WBL42niy2cUe2_paA_4TDMgUy_looRxJmEcSC0oHZBIiY_CE8/s320/nothingtastesasgood.png" width="239" /></a></div>
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Just sayin.</div>
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xoxo</div>
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Betsy</div>
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<br />
<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-46521296148614649942012-01-13T23:31:00.000-08:002012-01-13T23:43:16.264-08:00Tree Poser<br />
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I have to tell you something. I'm kind of good at Photoshop. I got that way working at a multi-media company and pestering the artist on staff to teach me a bit here and there. <br />
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I have to tell you something else. When I was doing <a href="http://www.honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2011/11/thoroughly-chewed-casserole-tftcb-part.html">this post</a> about the myriad ways women are horrible to each other I had an inner struggle that kind of shocked me. I had to decide whether I should be a bitch to you. Yes, you. And myself. And all women, really. Or should I treat you with kindness and respect? Should I do the same for myself? Not to mention those two daughters I have and am always thinking of...<br />
<br />
See, here's the thing...<br />
<br />
At the dog park this fall I made my husband take this photo on his iphone:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj01M9FXcM2R3OAlq0gNBizwbHqcrplr7m0Gn_z-Wjl9Y1IAUjZqT77cspdUDV71SBqRMR18BCkhP-ac8uPc1UL6BJRX4CKRDwc8FjC1Cxr8Z6nprsf96Jp8KA8DGgOGkKylnCNDY2fbP4/s1600/treeposer1_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj01M9FXcM2R3OAlq0gNBizwbHqcrplr7m0Gn_z-Wjl9Y1IAUjZqT77cspdUDV71SBqRMR18BCkhP-ac8uPc1UL6BJRX4CKRDwc8FjC1Cxr8Z6nprsf96Jp8KA8DGgOGkKylnCNDY2fbP4/s640/treeposer1_edited-1.jpg" width="478" /></a></div>
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I'm doing tree pose on a tree, get it? Yeah, you get it. But like I said, I'm kind of good at photoshop so of course I want to crop and lighten it: </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJCKfdwWsaBjZSAcq_qrdqPPyn3cBjKMTfCr6Xr7bbXiJjyIe1JcTlVz_XSXSoO7QNxTppyfZApfwK9jgXIRqFTT0K5ckE7tKtqX16Kfgr2_JV4jt-9JV1wQmpvxDuNwCEi4QhbFzzBX8/s1600/crop_brightened_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJCKfdwWsaBjZSAcq_qrdqPPyn3cBjKMTfCr6Xr7bbXiJjyIe1JcTlVz_XSXSoO7QNxTppyfZApfwK9jgXIRqFTT0K5ckE7tKtqX16Kfgr2_JV4jt-9JV1wQmpvxDuNwCEi4QhbFzzBX8/s640/crop_brightened_edited-1.jpg" width="456" /></a></div>
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That just goes without saying. And while I'm at it...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh-AA4I0Itbr5qeBJOFpZSZ5PqUQztTKU_p4Qty_bzP1PdnoYRQVpGY9CsPco1T8r8KLXk3ZhFo5d1zV8NK8VD4sLVSqh5_a_J4iem44tN0NWGVwSs5idtQmDgkFGeZGQ5XREdEvYxZ0A/s1600/lovely_soy_burn_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh-AA4I0Itbr5qeBJOFpZSZ5PqUQztTKU_p4Qty_bzP1PdnoYRQVpGY9CsPco1T8r8KLXk3ZhFo5d1zV8NK8VD4sLVSqh5_a_J4iem44tN0NWGVwSs5idtQmDgkFGeZGQ5XREdEvYxZ0A/s640/lovely_soy_burn_edited-1.jpg" width="456" /></a></div>
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Why not do something trendy like add a soy-latte coloured haze? And I can make the colours warmer and burn the edges so it kind of looks like a sunny glow is emanating from me. Awesomeness. The awesomeness of me.<br />
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And while I'm at it...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqtuM33HN1fnLBnJxfD073_yXVxwc5CM-mcAJ536biTDrUxMEJD4hCBcws_PdLMeNCB71Db93n42sQvsr-kt6lSxsVdLucZDZ0qgvOj1ue2iJFBCTR38l3cgprqh1xE_Jb2x-T_3XNb-k/s1600/carved_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqtuM33HN1fnLBnJxfD073_yXVxwc5CM-mcAJ536biTDrUxMEJD4hCBcws_PdLMeNCB71Db93n42sQvsr-kt6lSxsVdLucZDZ0qgvOj1ue2iJFBCTR38l3cgprqh1xE_Jb2x-T_3XNb-k/s640/carved_edited-1.jpg" width="456" /></a></div>
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Why not use the clone tool to carve off my own flesh? It'll take, like, a minute. I can make my waist and my hips and my thighs and my legs appear sooooo much thinner than they really are. That looks realistic. And you wouldn't be the wiser. Nope. You'd be all like, "Damn, Betsy, you're kind of thin-ish. Is it because you are a really good person? Is it because you do tree poses on trees and only ever eat vegans?"<br />
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But that would be a lie. Because I don't look like that carved up woman, I look like this woman:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbNrLGQD7OKMzZYtvlhAbDXaameQnqma2QghhAuER7nqkbvApJIYBlyFNVLinDnv8xCsIXDmvM9M8sYK3sS2JO7t_xomAcVy7YeD_KAojtvY7c1hs-7sQIiS4nPxHDT7YWGiu3BRN4qOc/s1600/lovely_soy_burn_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbNrLGQD7OKMzZYtvlhAbDXaameQnqma2QghhAuER7nqkbvApJIYBlyFNVLinDnv8xCsIXDmvM9M8sYK3sS2JO7t_xomAcVy7YeD_KAojtvY7c1hs-7sQIiS4nPxHDT7YWGiu3BRN4qOc/s640/lovely_soy_burn_edited-1.jpg" width="456" /></a></div>
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And severing so much of my flesh from my bones just to make you think I am thinner than I am would be an act of violence to you and to me. And to women everywhere. And to my daughters. Not like they'd know, right? They don't read my blog. But then again, they would know, right? Because they love my body. And they notice if I treat it with general disdain or with kindness. And that's kind of a big deal, isn't it?</div>
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So I didn't do it. I mean, I did do it, but I couldn't go through with it. Because I want to be a good person. The kind of person who does tree poses on trees while her daughters are watching. And the kind of person who doesn't post photoshopped versions of some make-believe version of herself with thinner thighs on her blog while her daughters are sleeping.</div>
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The funny thing is that I faltered with this at all.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIABsbKzZfmX62tCEsGgBh21CVFGb27WLdG1kr6GkuiymOYcXKXGlT4S0AJAkHNHMZyrAw1soERWxSltDVXOffWwUXt05A_nTPkE766gFYEcJDrk0CkLSNUfswiYtk2z7Yn_FlAoxxhzw/s1600/awkward.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIABsbKzZfmX62tCEsGgBh21CVFGb27WLdG1kr6GkuiymOYcXKXGlT4S0AJAkHNHMZyrAw1soERWxSltDVXOffWwUXt05A_nTPkE766gFYEcJDrk0CkLSNUfswiYtk2z7Yn_FlAoxxhzw/s640/awkward.jpg" width="478" /></a></div>
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Not funny as in "Ha Ha," funny as in "Fuck you so much you goddamned omnipresent mass-marketing media machine, you do so much harm to so many women and girls every single second of every single day and we don't deserve it." </div>
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It's out of control. It's internalized. It's sick. It's got to stop. </div>
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I vow to be part of the solution not part of the problem. Because this person literally looks up to me every single day:</div>
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And she's beautiful. And she thinks I am too. And I am. So I should act like it. And so should you. Because I bet you are beautiful too. And odds are pretty good you don't think so.</div>
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Anyway, I just thought you should know all that.</div>
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Namaste.</div>
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Betsy</div>
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</div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-50014940532356339582012-01-04T10:01:00.000-08:002012-01-04T10:29:27.778-08:00Confessions of a Half-Assed Blogger: Year-End Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>Deep Thoughts: </b></div>
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2012 - It begins with a number 2 and ends with a number 2. I'm considering making bowel health a resolution -- wait, <i>resolution</i> is too strong a word. I'm considering considering bowel health this year. It would probably be less of a thing had I not begun a New Year's Eve tradition with the kids that they love sooooo much: <i>fondue</i>. Yup. First we had the cheese. Then we had the chocolate. The combination of flame, sharp-pointy sticks, and gooeyness held the children in reverent rapture. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTNJUTRcIHmoi_LAIKzY26dZhCuyDhL8w9L3Kx8ms4SBk1QM0ZPaD2CbVX5aBQOV2RvIuiaHt8IRbWOl9FwOAwVFHKwyVX-4Ltta3B3Fr3HRZ2C1buElOX2a_NMziDI-ugn3lnAmpxWY/s1600/cheese+fondue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTNJUTRcIHmoi_LAIKzY26dZhCuyDhL8w9L3Kx8ms4SBk1QM0ZPaD2CbVX5aBQOV2RvIuiaHt8IRbWOl9FwOAwVFHKwyVX-4Ltta3B3Fr3HRZ2C1buElOX2a_NMziDI-ugn3lnAmpxWY/s1600/cheese+fondue.jpg" /></a></div>
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"It's like eating a grilled-cheese sandwich that's inside out!" remarked my 6-year-old. </div>
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"OH MY GOD!" said my 3-year-old when he experienced banana dipped in molten chocolate.</div>
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Fondue is an occasion all on it's own.</div>
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There's something pretty special about eating a cup of cheese on New Year's Eve. Indeed, it turns a lady's thoughts to bowel health in the New Year.</div>
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Here is the<a href="http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-formula-three-cheese-fondue/"> best cheese fondue recipe</a> EVER. </div>
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<b>Resolution:</b></div>
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Since it's the New Year and this is my New Year's blog post, I'm experiencing a kind of niggle that urges me to promise you I will blog more often and in a less-halfassed manner. But, dear Reader, I enjoy blogging half-assedely. And so my only bloggy resolve is to carry on just as half-assedly as before. </div>
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You'd think I'd resolve to drink less wine. This was the year we discovered wine as a revelation of sorts. We've always had wine around the house. But 2011 -- oh ye burgundy-stained annum -- this is the year we discovered having a glass while making dinner, a glass with dinner, and finishing the bottle and opening another one after the kids are tucked in bed. Then there's an uncorked bottle on the counter when you go to make dinner the next night, see? Don't think bottles of wine, people, think <i>cases of wine</i>. </div>
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Like I said, you'd think I'd resolve to drink less, but all there is in our hearts is the promise of drinking more and better wine and learning more about it. Well wine is awfully trendy right now, isn't it? We're on that wagon. That bandwagon I mean. We're not on that other wagon. We're off <i>that</i> wagon with no intentions of ever jumping on.</div>
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Here is the <a href="http://www.nataliemaclean.com/">best wine writer EVER</a>: Canada's Natalie MacLean, a sommelier for the people.</div>
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<b>2011 - WTF?</b></div>
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This is the year my two babies morphed into a toddler and a pre-schooler. Not having two under two is much, much, much easier than having two under two. Don't try this at home, peeps, just take my word for it. Instead of having two in diapers, I have one in diapers. And she won't be much longer in them. Instead of having two toddlers bolting off in different directions at the same time, I only have one stealth-runner to cut off at the pass.</div>
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"Stay right here while I get your sister," I tell my middle child, and he does. Phew. No need for those <a href="http://www.mec.ca/AST/ShopMEC/Packs/Daypacks/PRD~5019-903/littlelife-toddler-run-about-daypack.jsp">leashes I purchased at MEC</a> immediately after a crying jag at my daughter's kindergarten. She wasn't crying, I was, because my son had bolted while I was chasing the littlest one and I couldn't find him anywhere and the oldest one was meowing at me. He had to be rescued by all those daddies who stand around checking their smart-phones and looking disinterested while picking up their kids. Actually, they are paying attention and if you cry they will help you. Anyhoo, no more tears of frustration because of the bolting. I shouldn't be declaring "no more tears of frustration" in such a public manner because that's just begging the gods of parenting to throw some challenge my way that will utterly crush me. But, well, you know. We all make rookie mistakes sometimes.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrCM6c7wrQdlcWolF9SjsAG6VJt5IJaLylMFcmv_IAR-Jg4Qb3lf96p-KlVXWrxmz0X3y9juvg63jbIGRKEl8xAcz5wY_pUMYQDuZk9W4plqKj3g99-Hz4MNTV81y9eQIXIJwBGXOh1oo/s1600/littlelife_daysack_red_lg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrCM6c7wrQdlcWolF9SjsAG6VJt5IJaLylMFcmv_IAR-Jg4Qb3lf96p-KlVXWrxmz0X3y9juvg63jbIGRKEl8xAcz5wY_pUMYQDuZk9W4plqKj3g99-Hz4MNTV81y9eQIXIJwBGXOh1oo/s320/littlelife_daysack_red_lg.jpg" width="319" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's not a leash, it's a backpack.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawuE2ZuT0heVUtOBt4Az9LBzr8J07nDd67qhohWL9x1vCutDAuvUmzHadGzE_YNWu9bd9me-WkGWwLH9u_iY5fo1bhsS5Ti07e8BUdBcCFvIVJI2YlqeNY_mJm1IEfpIWLY5yXSKkAVs/s1600/leashpack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawuE2ZuT0heVUtOBt4Az9LBzr8J07nDd67qhohWL9x1vCutDAuvUmzHadGzE_YNWu9bd9me-WkGWwLH9u_iY5fo1bhsS5Ti07e8BUdBcCFvIVJI2YlqeNY_mJm1IEfpIWLY5yXSKkAVs/s1600/leashpack.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Psssst.... it's totally a leash. Unless you've had 2 under 2, don't even <i>think</i> about judging me.</td></tr>
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This is also the year that, since my baby turned two, I've kind of settled into stay-at-home mother as an occupation. Like before now I kind of thought of it as an unpaid mat leave. But, um, yeah. I'm a stay-at-home mom. Why is this so hard to type out loud? Hmmm... another half-assed post for another half-assed morning.</div>
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I simply must update my blogger profile so it doesn't say I live underneath a pile of babies. Because it's a pile of small children now. Which is both much more vigorous (I'm run off my feet) and in so many ways, much more bearable.</div>
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<b>Favourite Song of 2011:</b></div>
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It's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oFRWp7ZhuY&feature=related">Andrew Bird covering Kermit the Frog</a>. Yup. Swells my heart to utter fullness with sweetness and longing.</div>
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<b>Most Popular Post:</b></div>
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I don't want to talk about <a href="http://honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2011/03/uterine-orgasms-myth-and-mayhem-online.html">it</a> anymore. Let's just say a lot of people google "Uterine Orgasm." And also the <a href="http://honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-hers-foundation-on.html">whacktivists of the HERS</a> foundation are indefatigable. These two sentences alone will probably trip their Google alerts and unleash a flurry of comments about ugh...<i> I don't want to talk about it anymore. </i></div>
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Suffice it to say women aren't supposed to discuss healing from a difficult surgery out loud on the internet -- there's a whole foundation dedicated to shutting us the hell up and insisting we aren't real women and we might not know how ruined we are because we can't think straight without our uterus. They don't see themselves as anti-women, they see themselves as anti-hysterectomy and very pro-woman. But their miserable, ill-concieved, un-scientific, hateful methods are deeply, deeply anti-woman. I give up trying to educate them about why they shouldn't act like such assholes on the internet. Still. I can tell by my stats that women who need to read my post do. And that does make me feel good.</div>
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Stop hovering like that. <br />
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<b>Least Popular Post:</b></div>
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The one about the <a href="http://www.honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2011/12/scotch-tape-ball.html">scotch tape ball</a>. Whaaaaat?<i> Shuddup.</i></div>
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<b>Thing I Most Love About You:</b></div>
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I don't lack for connections. I have a loving husband, three children, and a fine dog. Mammalian contact -- I've got it in spades. But he's at work all day and I'm a stay-at-home mom. They are 6 and under and the hairy one is, you know, a dog. So sometimes, conversationally, <i>intellectually</i>, I feel a want. When I go to the internet I'm often looking for an intellectual connection and I find one. I love that. Thanks for being there.</div>
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With love,</div>
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Betsy</div>
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<br /></div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-64327801909918941142011-12-25T10:11:00.000-08:002011-12-25T10:11:23.284-08:00Scotch Tape Ball<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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by a three-year old boy, with love</div>
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Merry Christmas, </div>
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XOXOX </div>
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Betsy</div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-29345578326955437492011-12-07T20:00:00.001-08:002011-12-07T22:08:33.338-08:00Death, Jingle-Bells, and FishSo my two-year-old put a jingle-bell in her mouth today, and I told her to spit it out and she just laughed and shook her head "NO," because she's an imp and loves most of all creating situations in which she can say, "NO!"<br />
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And my three-year-old got very serious and told her, "Baby, you could DIE. If that bell went down your throat and got stuck you could die. And then we'd have to bury you in the dirt. Like Sparkles (our late goldfish), underneath the rock out front. And then...," he paused, considering the enormity of that hypothecial loss -- the full weight of her death -- he let out a low groan and a half-sob and every-so-earnestly told her, "and then we wouldn't have OUR BABY anymore."<br />
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"NO!" she said, and ran away giggling and jingling until I caught her and pried the wretched thing out of her mouth. <br />
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"NO! Bad you, Mommy!" she said, stamping her foot. "I no like you, Mama!"<br />
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A few things:<br />
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I keep hearing that "Three is the new two." As someone with a three year old <em>and</em> a two year old, OMG three <em>is not </em>two. Three-year-olds do have occasional tantrums and they are highly distractable, but they never crap their pants and they are HEAPS more reasonable and rational than the NO-sayers that are two-year olds. They understand, for example, the concept of mortality.<br />
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Also, when the crap-snot did that boy get so smart? We had a lot of goldfish drama this time last-year when, mind you, he was only two, and I thought that his older sister understood that Sparkles was gone forever but surely the concept sailed way over his head. Apparently not. Pets do teach kids about death. In a healthy way, I think. <br />
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I remember taking the loss of Sparkles very hard, not because I cared so deeply about the goldfish but because I knew that her passing was a lesson about mortality for very young children and so it was the end of an innocence.<br />
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And also because she died on December 25th. So that was the first thing my daughter saw when she got up on Christmas morning -- her goldfish swimming funny with a note from Santa Claus taped to her tank explaining that he brought her 5 gallons of pure North Pole melted snow for her next water change.<br />
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So this year my daughter wants hermit crabs. And I'm like, ugh, I know I'll just have to clean up their poo and then one day they'll die. And I'll be disproportionately sad about it. Because I know it will make my children sad. And it makes me sad that they have to be sad ever.<br />
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But they do. <br />
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And now, a Christmas Carol by my three year old:<br />
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Jingle Bells</div>
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Jingle Bells</div>
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A monster try to eat our baby!</div>
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Wham! Bam! Oof! Bam! Bam! Pow! (a long chorus, with much simulated monster-fighting)</div>
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Now the monster is punched dead and our baby is happy again!</div>
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<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-71451665559098814952011-11-09T09:47:00.000-08:002011-11-18T10:04:11.933-08:00Thoroughly Chewed Casserole -- TFTCB Part IVI think I've ruminated on casserole and the types of female relationships they represent long enough. I'm almost ready to put down that sauce-crusted fork and move on. But I'm glad I reached into the freezer-burnt corners of my psyche to pull some things out, to sprinkle some cheese atop them and to set them under the broiler.<br />
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Here's what I've learned:<br />
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1) I've been whiny, grudgy, and unforgiving. I would like to stop being like that now. I'm going to forgive myself for it, though, because I felt my heart needed protecting and sometimes, that's a thing you gotta do.<br />
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2) I'm not at all friendless -- I've got some great friends. And I've got a mom and a mother-in-law who are there for me when I need them. That is a big au gratin heap of blessing not everyone has.<br />
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Here's the chewy part: <br />
3) women have a special way of withholding praise, affection, and attention from each other when they are jealous. It is awful. It hurts deeply and is entirely crazy-making.<br />
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Enough with being concise. Now here's the ramble:<br />
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My older sister began shooting daggers at me the moment my parents brought me home from the hospital. Photographic evidence from the era bears this out. Since I can remember, she's been someone who I've admired tremendously, wanted to be just like, would do anything for (with the possible exception of "quit following/copying me!"), and who has seemed to love and despise me at the same time. For over three decades she's been treating with a blend of barely disguised contempt and grudging tolerance.<br />
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I have four older siblings but that relationship with my jealous big sis has been paramount for me. I've stopped following her around and copying her -- but she's still jealous of me. Pretty typical sister stuff: she thinks I have it <em>so easy</em> and I<em> always get my way</em> and I get <em>everything I want</em>. In many ways, this is true. Quite simply, she has battled depression most of her life and I have not. <br />
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I, for reasons no-one could possibly pinpoint, get to be happy and she does not. <br />
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I feel very guilty about this, though I know better. <br />
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When I announced my first pregnancy to her, we had this conversation:<br />
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Me: "I`ve got some exciting news. I`m pregnant."<br />
Big Sis: "You`re kidding me."<br />
Me: "Nope. I`m going to have a baby. I`m three months pregnant."<br />
Big Sis: "Well that just makes me feel sick to my stomach. Hearing that makes me feel so anxious."<br />
Me: "Um.... why?"<br />
Big Sis: "I just don't know whether or not I should have babies. I'm worried sick about it."<br />
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Then she went on for a while about herself and how my news made her feel bad. She didn't bother with any of the clichés such as "Congratulations," "I'm happy for you," or "How are you feeling?"<br />
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I felt such an imprecise blend of longing for her approval, anger at her self-absorbedness, and despondency that she isn't able to be a better sister to me. <br />
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It's a strange grief you feel when your loved-ones have a mental illness. They are right there, but then again, they really aren't.<br />
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I wasn't up for many more chats with her that pregnancy. I had the skin of a pregnant woman -- thin.<br />
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When I called her to say I was holding my baby in my arms and that she was a girl, she said:<br />
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Big Sis: "Oh. Wow. Well I just went rollerblading. I'm freaking exhausted."<br />
Me: "Well then, I guess I should let you go? I'm kind of tired too, actually. <em>I just gave birth</em>."<br />
Big Sis: "Yes, you mentioned that. Well it was a really long rollerblade. My back has been sore and I thought the exercise would help. But it didn't at all. It feels way worse, if you can believe it. I need a bath or a massage or something."<br />
Me: "Okay then, well... take care."<br />
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Again, the clichés of "Congratulations," "How are you?" or anything at all having to do with myself or the baby were conspicuously absent. <br />
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I cannot begin to describe how deeply this hurt me. I was raw and wide-open and tender from pregnancy and birth and got the message loud and clear that I could expect nothing even close to emotional support from my big sister. She wasn't able. For whatever reasons, she isn't emotionally healthy enough to say "Congratulations, I can't wait to meet my new niece. I'm so excited! How are you? Tell me everything...."<br />
I think what's starting to click into place for me right now is understanding what a big deal having this very jealous and depressed big sister in my life has been and is. It's a bigger crayon then I've given it creds for, colouring pretty much everything. I'm beginning to understand why a side of guilt always arrives for me alongside an entree of success and happiness. I thought it had something to do with growing up Catholic. But I think it's an internal dialogue that comes from somewhere else. It's a "now what have you done, this wonderful thing will make your miserable sister even more miserable." <br />
Now I'm wondering, do I manifest relationships with other jealous women so I can replay this hurtful relationship again and again in other aspects of my life?<br />
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Or are women just jealous? Cause I often feel I'm surrounded by females who would just love to see me knocked down a few rungs and to see me flat on my face. And that's when I tell myself I'm surely imagining things. But really, I'm not sure I am.<br />
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I don't get jealous, honestly. I don't think I have that gene. I have never understood for a second why women seem to snarl and scrap over happiness as if this is something you can gain by ripping it out from some other's bitches jaws. <br />
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It just doesn't work that way. In fact, it works in quite the opposite way.<br />
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When I love people, I am never sorry to hear of their success. I am always happy to hear good news from them. I want them to shine. Their success is a thrill, never a disappointment for me.<br />
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Is that the very thing that inspires other women to be jealous of me? Could be. It's not because I'm skinny.<br />
<br />
My SIL lives in another province. When we had our third baby at home, she didn't call or send a gift. She didn't even bother to comment "cute!" on Facebook pictures. She waited until Christmas time when she could visit this month and a half old baby in person. Fine. But this is what she had to say:<br />
<br />
SIL: "Oh my God, she has so much hair."<br />
Me: "She does, doesn't she?"<br />
SIL: "You should see my friend who just had a baby. She looks sooooo great. You can't even tell she had a baby. Her stomach is completely flat. She works out lots and is just naturally gorgeous. Her birth was easy too. Like, one hour and it didn't hurt. She's an amazing person. She does yoga."<br />
<br />
Then she looked at my belly askance and said, "Maybe you should try yoga."<br />
<br />
She didn't ask about our home birth. She didn't have anything nice to say. You'd think a "Wow, she is so beautiful," or "Hey, how is life with three babies?" would come up. Nah.<br />
<br />
Later that day I put my snow pants on and left my jeans folded up on the sofa so I could take her daughters and my kids tobogganing. When I came back, my jeans had been moved just slightly so that the "size 12" label was sticking out. That evening she found three separate "opportunities" to bring women who wore size 12 into the conversation.<br />
<br />
As in: "So I saw this woman wearing such an inappropriately short skirt the other day. And she was <em>heaaaaaaavy.</em> She must have been, oh I don't know, Size 12. It was, quite honestly, horrifying. I seriously thought I might throw up."<br />
<br />
And so on and so on and so on.<br />
<br />
I know, right? What a hideous person.The only rational conclusion about this relationship is that this person (my SIL) hates me and would like me to feel terrible about myself.<br />
<br />
But why?<br />
<br />
I've been kind to her. I've thrown her a stagette and a baby shower. I've introduced her to all my friends and invited her into my life. She's in there. My people are her people. I've babysat her children and I've spent every Christmas for over a decade with her.<br />
<br />
People who know us well or at all say she's obviously insanely jealous of me. Even though I'm a size 12? Even so. But conceding that just makes me feel crazy. And guilty. Cause I can't help but wonder if these jealous sisters are right about me. Do I deserve less?<br />
<br />
Fuck no! I am fundamentally opposed to the philosophy of keeping your head down and your lights dim. That does not uplift a soul.<br />
<br />
But: A long time friend of mine is about a month shy of a scheduled C-section for her third baby. She doesn't want a C-section and her husband is recovering from an injury/surgery and her parents are splitting up and she's pregnant with two small children and all this makes me think about her and hope things go her way and want to call her and offer support by letting her know I've been there-ish and it's hard and I'm thinking about her.<br />
<br />
But.<br />
<br />
I'm still cheezed at her for not being there for me when I had my third. I vowed that if she ever had a third baby,<em> I</em> would <em>not be there</em> for <em>her. </em><br />
<br />
Isn't that asinine? It is and it isn't. The SIL likes to play us women off each other and set up situations -- like for example when our boy was a wee thing we invited her and my husband's brother and daughters over for brunch. We made waffles. But they didn't come. They called to say they'd be late. Then only <em>he</em> showed up well after noon with his two girls and asked me to babysit them for a couple hours while he went out with his brother/my husband. Okay. <br />
<br />
Later the SIL made sure I found out that she and the mutual friend had a girls day out together and it was wonderful, just what she needed. So. Instead of visiting her newborn nephew and sharing a meal with us -- she schlepped her kids off on me to help our mutual friend shop for yoga pants and drink lattes with her. Cause it was just what <em>she </em>needed.<br />
<br />
I'm still cheezed at the mutual friend about this, though likely, she was clueless. What I did decide to do was to "unfriend" those two. Not on Facebook, that would be brash. IN REAL LIFE, yo.<br />
<br />
It's worked and it hasn't. Our lives are too deeply interwingled to really be apart.<br />
<br />
What's changed is that my heart is in the wrong place. <br />
<br />
Which is where I believe their hearts are. Because I can tell that they wish I was less. And I don't want people like that in my life. They suck. And I don't want to be like that. But I've become it.<br />
<br />
What's my point? My point is this:<br />
<br />
1) I'm turning into the kind of bitch who witholds love and affection from people. It's taken me decades to learn how to do this. It didn't come naturally to me. Now it's part of me and I desperately wish I could unlearn it. But I don't know how. I'm all "Casserole for you, but no casserole for you, Biotch!"<br />
<br />
2) I probably load too much on my female relationships. I want friends to be the sister I don't have and when they inevitably "fail" I am disappointed. This probably makes it hard to be my friend.<br />
<br />
3) You can't really unfriend a sister or a sister-in-law or a sister-like friend. You can just be lifelong frenemies. I have no idea whether or not I will come around and be nice to my very pregnant friend. I don't want to be a grudgy, small person, but I don't want to be a doormat. <br />
<br />
4) Yoga doesn't make you skinny. Don't be daft. I've been doing yoga since 1992.<br />
<br /><br />
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HjnWR6iFpMbnAJFKmKaOLrDyOTxD-IzyYXscrTaWqXX6yfuLm1Zt0UOs6FOEa_bOacj1sL8a1ads2MtQ6keFtX_bMacxlO0c4SbxvmIpKUkTfApMIJW7taxhcjB9Yxj0R1yT4NqzyD0/s1600/treepose.jpg" /></div>
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Tree pose on a tree. Get it? </div>
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Namaste, Bitches. </div>
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xoxox</div>
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Betsy</div>
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</div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-2864025438975997022011-10-31T09:39:00.000-07:002011-10-31T09:39:06.477-07:0016 Year Old Casserole: TFTCB Part IIIA friend of mine had babies way before anyone else. We were still doing our undergrad degrees at University. But My roomate knocked her up, he did, and then he got a grown-up job to pay for a mortgage on a West End house. She became a stay-at-home mom who took the staying at home thing very literally. Now they are a family of five.<br />
<br />
I didn`t see her much while she was having babies. I didn`t drop by. She was on the other end of the city and I didn`t think she'd really want me to. I was, after all, more so friends with him and he was working all the time and she probably had a lot of other much better friends looking in on her.<br />
<br />
A little while back we were at the same house-warming party and I, having been on my <a href="http://honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2011/10/thanks-for-casserole-biotch.html">Thanks For the Casserole, Biotch</a> riff for some time already, told her this:<br />
<br />
"I'm sorry I didn't come visit you when you were having babies. Now that I know how hard it is and how isolating it can be, I really regret not dropping by with a casserole or something."<br />
<br />
She grabbed my arm and pulled me in closer. The conversation got intense quick, despite the fact that we were talking about something that did not actually happen and over 15 years ago at that.<br />
<br />
"I would have loved that." She said, emphatically. "Why didn't you?"<br />
<br />
"Well," I replied, backing my face away from hers to a slightly less uncomfortable distance, "I guess I just assumed you had, you know, lots of other friends probably and I felt kind of strange with visiting babies. I didn't know much about babies, honestly, and I spent a lot of time partying and going to bars and hanging out in pot-clouded rental suites writing sketch comedy and being, you know, a grunge princess. I didn't really feel <i>pure</i> enough to visit babies."<br />
<br />
"I would have loved to hear about those pot-clouded rental suites," she insisted. "I would have loved for you to hang out and to hear about your life. We could have drank a beer."<br />
<br />
"I know," I said. "I really get it now. And I just sincerely regret not bringing over a casserole and want you to know that."<br />
<br />
Then she set down her wine glass a little too hard so that she could hug me and she sobbed, "Thank you. That means so much to me." <br />
<br />
When I was leaving the party she yelled after me, "I'm going to bring YOU a casserole. You have tons of babies. I'm serious. I'm coming over with casserole!"<br />
<br />
She never did. It's okay. She has a teenager, a tween, and a grade-schooler. She's busy. She lives on the West End. And she's a gluten-free vegan so any casserole would probably involve the sturdy combination of lentils, cabbage and cumin. But that's hardly the point. The point is her drunken, teary pledge meant something to me. It was nourishing.<br />
<br />
If I'm to be completely honest, though, and this is my honest to Betsy venue for complete honesty, I'll need to admit that there were a few other reasons I didn't visit her than the ones I mumbled at that party.<br />
<br />
They include:<br />
<br />
1) I didn't want to have anything to do with babies -- I thought they were boring and strange and not something any reasonable 20-year old should bother herself with.<br />
<br />
2) The West End is a long ways -- what if I expended all that energy to get there and it was boring? Then I, heaven forbid, would have to experience boredom.<br />
<br />
3) What if I got there and the situation was not boring but heart-wrenching? I'd have to do something about it. There'd be children involved, after all.<br />
<br />
4) What if the baby was barfy? What if I saw something gross? What if I smelled something unpleasant? What if she was breastfeeding and I saw her boobs and it made me feel funny? What if it cried and the sound irritated me and made me feel anxious?<br />
<br />
So, to summarize: me, me, me, me, myself, and me.<br />
<br />
Are these the same reasons so many of my friends, acquaintances and my lousy stinking siblings didn't drop in on me to visit my new arrivals? Of course.<br />
<br />
Babies are boring or shrill and new parents tend towards the extremes of baby-struck bliss and bottomless need for the companionship of other adults.<br />
<br />
I don't feel that way anymore -- I like newborns. I like the way they smell.<br />
<br />
I like new parents too. I like how intense they are. I know how transformational becoming a parent is and I like the way it changes couples.<br />
<br />
And I get new parents. All they really need to hear from you is that you think their baby is very beautiful, you think they are doing a great job, and you give at least half a flying crap that a whole new person has emerged into being, into their lives, a person they are hopelessly, desperately in love with.<br />
<br />
That's why people who have had babies tend to drop by with a casserole or a pair of booties. They know new parents need a little fuss. Just a little can go a long ways.<br />
<br />
I went to visit my long-time friend, the one my university roomate knocked-up, the one I didn't drop in on while she was having babies, the one who now has a teenager, a tween, and grade-schooler. I took my kids on a field trip to her artist's studio just the other day. <br />
<br />
She's been working-from-home all this time as an artist as well as a stay-at-home mom. And this summer she was awarded a huge and juicy contract by the City to create something gigantic and beautiful. She has a crew of other artists working under her and by day and by night she is making this thing in a make-shift North-end studio.<br />
<br />
I brought a plate of carrots from my garden and some other veggies. "In case you are stuck in some sort of Tim Horton's vortex," I told her, "and you need the nutrition."<br />
<br />
One of her artist underlings, the feather-bedecked thick-glasses wearing one, looked wryly at my yoga suit, my veggie plate, my three children, and me.<br />
<br />
"That's when we know it's time to switch to Ceasar's," she said, gesturing towards a very well-stocked bar. "Clamato is full of vitamins."<br />
<br />
It was obvious that this gift would go limp in a corner until someone mercifully tossed it in the garbage.<br />
<br />
My kids were on their worst behaviour. The little one would scream unless I held her in my exhausted arms. The bigger one just rolled around on the floor saying, "Boring, boring, boring, this is sooooooo boring." And the middle-child spelled off copying his older and younger sister by turns.<br />
<br />
My artist/mom friend obviously enjoyed my mortification. She was jubilant about it. She dug how much trouble it was for me to leave the house with three small kids in tow. And she relished the fact that I came by to visit her because it is an acknowledgement that I am proud of the amazing thing that she is doing -- that I am curious and fascinated by her life which is, at the moment, far more interesting than mine. Ironic, huh?<br />
<br />
I feel so much closer now that casseroles have been exchanged, not literally but meaningfully.Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-77198415661308898892011-10-19T21:31:00.000-07:002011-10-19T21:31:57.661-07:00Innies and Outies: TFTCB Part III have a lot of new friends these days. Mom friends. Friends from the neighbourhood. Internet friends. (Pssst...I love you too, kind of. You give good, albeit virtual, casserole.)<br />
<br />
All these shiny new friends are more or less because of the "<a href="http://honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2011/10/thanks-for-casserole-biotch.html">Thanks for the casserole, Biotch</a>" grudge I've been swaddling and nursing and pretty much attachment parenting for the last couple of years. It's not that this chip on my shoulder makes me particularly attractive to prospective BFFs, it's that I've made a conscious decision to push the friends who I wished so dearly were behaving like much better friends <i>out.</i> I decided to protect my heart and to try not to care. I decided to start from scratch. Out with the old, in with the new. And because I am an extrovert, and I need to be social to thrive, and I need to connect with adult females to feel at all human, I have made new friends.<br />
<br />
I make friends easily. I'm outgoing. I'm kind. I'm non-judgemental. I'm empathetic. I listen. I bring a bottle of wine. I know how to make people laugh and lighten up and feel good. And generally speaking, I give a shit about people. I like people. I like smooth people, I like awkward people, I like funny people, I like smart people, I like quiet people, I like gorgeous people, I like plain people, I like loud-mouths and know-it-alls and I even like <a href="http://www.honest2betsy.blogspot.com/">train-wreck types </a>and misanthropes.<br />
<br />
So I was sitting on a park bench with a nice, shiny, new friend the other day. She'd just told me way too much information about her sex life (not good) with her husband who I see five days a week after school when we're picking up our daughters. And to steer the conversation off of that particular topic I mentioned I had a birthday coming up.<br />
<br />
"How do you like to spend your birthday?" she asked.<br />
<br />
"Well," I replied. "I used to always plan a little road trip up North to my parents cabin in the woods. I'd have a sleep over with my best friends. We'd drink beer and play board games and be silly. But these last few years I haven't felt like doing anything special at all. My birthday has just seemed so unimportant because I've been so busy giving birth. I kind of feel like doing something this year, though -- not a road trip but something kind of special. But I'm not sure what."<br />
<br />
"You know what I like to do on my birthday?" she asked. "I love to have dinner out with three or four of my best girlfriends. No kids. No husbands. Just us girls drinking wine and having a fantastic meal and a good long conversation together."<br />
<br />
It felt like someone yanked the hot wax off my soul at that moment and left it hairless, pink, and oh so smarting.<br />
<br />
I realized, you see, that that is exactly, completely, terrible, perfectly, acutely, just what I wanted to do.<br />
<br />
There is something rather special about friends who know you and who have known you for a long time.<br />
<br />
My new friends are great people, but they don't know my mother. They don't know my hometown. They didn't know me when I wore army boots to poetry reading, and they would have no idea where to find me in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse. (My parents cabin in the woods, dur.)<br />
<br />
So I did some hard work. I peeled back some oniony layers and I held the stinky, eye-stinging core of my ego between my fingers and I chopped it in half with a knife to see what was inside. And what I found was a very essential longing to repair some of the relationships I've tossed in the compost bucket.<br />
<br />
Not all. I'm not that magnanimous. But. Some.<br />
<br />
So I told them that my birthday was coming up and I wanted to spend it having dinner with my best friends.<br />
<br />
"Oh really?" they asked. "Who else did you invite?"<br />
<br />
It was a small guest list. And so I told them, without using too many words, that they were my best friends. And that I missed them. And that I needed them.<br />
<br />
And they spoiled me.<br />
<br />
And it was something lovely.<br />
<br />
I feel a bit lighter. I feel fluffed up and hung outside in the sunshine.<br />
<br />
Is all the hurt and damage we've done each other over the years undone? No. But I guess it doesn't have to be. Because some friends, once they are innies, just can't ever become outies.<br />
<br />
They're a part of you.<br />
<br />
Could I tell them all the things I've told you? No way. I have no idea why it's so easy to open up to strangers (sort of) and tell them all the ways I've been hurt and damaged but not be able to tell my closest friends. I guess it would be handing them way too much power. I guess it's a trust thing.<br />
<br />
Since having babies, my skin is much thinner -- translucent, really.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bibliomama2.blogspot.com/">Allison</a> made this soul-searing comment on my last post: "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">I have some very close friends, and at one time or another I have thought I would be dead without them, and at one time or another every one of them has made me wish I had more friends so I could cut this one loose and not be bereft."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">That really is the thing with innies. That really is the right word, "bereft."</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Is it how much we need other women that makes relationships with them so painful? Obviously.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Does our society idealize female friendships in a way that makes us expect to much from them? Probably.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">The trick is, I suppose, not to expect too much. The trick is to be in the relationship you are in, not the one you wish you had. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-11291654910088406762011-10-17T10:52:00.000-07:002011-10-17T11:12:14.668-07:00Thanks for the Casserole, BiotchMy last five birthdays I've been rather preoccupied with the imminent act of actually giving birth, or with recovering from a birth or with someone's 1st or 2nd birthday which is, in modern parlance, not just a birthday but a "milestone."<br />
<br />
Turning 32 or 34 or even 35 felt very un-milestoney. My birthdays flitted by like sparrows -- they were non-events.<br />
<br />
But this year, I've been thinking about my birthday. I've been thinking about myself. <br />
<br />
37 I am turning.<br />
<br />
That's the point at which you've been an adult for longer than you've been a child.<br />
<br />
Huh.<br />
<br />
It's got me pondering my adult life and the way I've constructed it and the way I'm living it and I've been, you know, evaluating things. <br />
<br />
Now my plan is to unleash a maelstrom of self-relective rambling into the internets. It's my birthday, and I'm going to write like it's 1999.<br />
<br />
I was browsing the adult non-fiction shelf at the library the other day and this caught my eye:<br />
<br />
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I like to read about happiness, and the pursuit of happiness, and women and happiness, and the scientific study of happiness. But I do try not to think about it too much because surely that is the quickest way to rid yourself of the stuff that happy is. I saw this book on a shelf of staff picks at the library, though, and I couldn't resist, and sure enough it has got me a-think-a-dinking and ouching in some places I tend to ouch.<br />
<br />
I've been carrying some grievances around with me for quite some now. They're quite well bundled up in toques and down vests and they are huddled up in my mommy heart and I've asked them to leave several times but they haven't. They just sit around smoking cigarettes, drinking low-quality beer from cans and playing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asshole_(card_game)">Asshole</a>. They are tree planters stuck on a bad contract in one of the shamefully deforested landscapes of my heart. (Go 1999!)<br />
<br />
These grievances of mine have to do with girlfriends. With BFFs. With my big sisters. With my sister-in-law. With craving the affection and companionship and intimacy of female relationships.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I feel kind of friendless. Sometimes I feel somewhat adrift, unloved, even kinda loathed by the women closest to me. I'm unsure where this fits on the spectrum of self-inflicted vs. just plain old inflicted. I'm also unsure of how much of what I'm feeling is genuine re-action to real injury and how much is self-indulgent, hormone-fueled lady-wank.<br />
<br />
I've heard from many sources in my readings up on women and happiness that women need female friendships to be happy. <br />
<br />
Meg Meeker, in her book, "The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers" urges mothers to "<strong>Maintain Key Friendships.</strong>" You need, she says, an inner circle of friends and an outer circle of friends. <br />
<br />
"Your inner circle are usually few in number--three or four. These are the friends who can step into our kitchens at dinnertime and take over feeding our kids, put them to bed, and clean up the peanut butter on the floor and the jelly on the chairs when we suddenly fall apart from tragic news. They feel like our right arm or our left leg, whichever we need on a certain day (Meeker, 40)."<br />
<br />
Our outer-circle friends, Meeker goes on to describe, "while no less valuable, are nonetheless different. These are the friends who bring casseroles when we are sick, who run our kids to school and soccer games, and who are always up for a brisk walk after dinner. They are companions who bring laughter and comfort and uplift us when we are down. Usually there are more outer-circle friends in a mother's life--about ten or so (41)."<br />
<br />
Which brings me on around to today's point:<br />
<br />
I spend far far far too much time thinking about the women in my life and inserting their names into the end of the sentence, "Thanks for the casserole, ___________."<br />
<br />
It's not that I crave tuna and macaroni together but don't know how to combine them. It's that there was a time in my life when I could really have used a freaking casserole, and none arrived.<br />
<br />
I had three children 4 and under and a scary medical crises that I didn't actually tell anybody about. I pretended everything was fine because I didn't trust anybody to be there for me. I imagined they'd gossip about my problems over glasses of Merlot at dinner-parties I wasn't invited to instead of providing emotional support in casserole or casserole-like form. <br />
<br />
I imagined they'd rub their hands together gleefully thinking about how lonely, scared, sleep-deprived, and milk-stained I must be with all those babies crawling all over me, instead of acting like an extra limb for me, helping to scrape the applesauce out of my hair or pull a toddler off a wall for me so I could string together a coherent sentence about how I was feeling. <br />
<br />
I didn't trust anybody to act like an outer-circle friend as Meeker describes them, never mind an inner-circle friend, so I didn't tell a soul who wasn't on a need-to-know basis.<br />
<br />
Now I'm mad at those people for the way I imagined they'd act. And when I tell myself that isn't fair to them, I think of the hundred ways they weren't there for me when I had babies and I stay mad.<br />
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I wonder if other moms experience the same sense of isolation in those early years? I wonder if I'm particularly unlovable, or whiny, or perhaps maybe extremely normal?<br />
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I was watching<strong> Parenthood</strong> the other day and one of the final scenes was a very well-attended baby shower for the character of Christina who was expecting her third baby. There was friends and family and balloons and cake and gifts stacked to the sky and I couldn't help but compare my life to that TV-life and feel inadequate.<br />
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Needless to say, there was no baby-shower that had to be kept secret because everyone knew I'd object to all the fuss but they just couldn't help coming together in a large group to lavish love and adoration on me in a flowering backyard when I had my third baby. <br />
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I know much better than to be hurt about that. TV-life I scoff at you -- you are just not real.<br />
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But what about these oodles of reliable female-friends Meeker insists should be always "up for a brisk walk after dinner" or on-the-ready when life gets tough to step into my kitchen and tuck my kids in bed. Is that TV-life or for realsies she's talking about?<br />
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In one way Meeker's advice to tend your key friendships is, of course, excellent. In another way her waxing on about female relationships just makes me feel like such a complete failure when, I could come up with plenty ways I'm failing without her help, thanks.<br />
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I've considered hurling that book across the room. But instead I've just left it on a side-table. I'm refusing to read further. I'm also not taking it back to the library, even though it's overdue.<br />
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It's a subtle game this taking responsibility for the shape of your life, for the condition of your relationships. <br />
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I want to get to the bottom of it. I need to.<br />
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So if any dear soul out there has actually read to the bottom of this post, welcome to "Thanks for the Casserole, Biotch" week here at Honest2Betsy. I'll be here all month.<br />
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Love & Tuna/Macaroni with breadcrumbs on top,<br />
Betsy<br />
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<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-21143704016901866182011-09-06T13:40:00.000-07:002011-09-06T13:40:08.316-07:00The Best Reason Ever Given to BreastfeedMy middle child just turned three and so I find myself, once again, nursing a pre-schooler. Which can make a lady feel a wee bit squeemy if she thinks about it too hard which I tend to do. So I'm glad I had this conversation with the little guy in which he cleared everything up:<br />
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He said: </div>
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"I need Mommy num-nums."</div>
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I said: </div>
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"I know you <i>want</i> num-nums, and I know you really <i>like</i> num-nums but maybe you don't <i>need</i> num-nums, now that you're such a big boy. Tell you what: you lie down in your bed and I'll go upstairs and tuck your baby sister in, and then I'll come back in 10 minutes to check on you, and if you still feel like you need num-nums you can have some in 10 minutes.</div>
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He said: </div>
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"Oh, I will need Mommy num-nums in 10 minutes."</div>
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I said: </div>
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"You will?"</div>
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He said: </div>
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"Yes, Mommy. Because I am a mammal."</div>
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<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-14976368466170270892011-07-18T12:24:00.000-07:002011-07-19T09:02:05.941-07:00Looks Like Pebbles Acts Like BamBamMy 18-month old daughter grabbed another kid by the tee-shirt the other day. He was a small boy, about her size but almost three. She pulled his face right up close to hers, looked him in the eye and then shoved him to the ground. He kind of just lay there looking discombobulated while she toddled away, her pink tutu-ruffle bum flouncing behind her.<br />
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I stopped my daughter in her tracks. "He doesn't like to be shoved." I told her. "It hurts his body and it hurts his feelings."<br />
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Then I helped the boy up and apologized to him.</div>
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"Oh God, don't worry about it," his Dad said. "He's got to learn."</div>
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Then she came back for more. She had that look in her eye. I stopped her. "No, you may not push and shove," I told her.</div>
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"Oh it's fine," said the boy's dad. "Please, just let him learn to stick up for himself."</div>
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By then she'd lost interest and went to play with some older kids while the boy hid behind his dad's legs. We made small talk about the mosquitoes. They're awful this year.<br />
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My 18-month old boy shoved another boy about this time last summer. The boy was a year older and quite a bit bigger but he was sensitive. He cried easily. He ran to his mother's lap sobbing. </div>
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"Ovalor hit me!" he cried.</div>
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"Is that true, Oliver?" I asked. "Did you hit him?" </div>
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My boy didn't respond to my question at all. He just became a tiny statue.</div>
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"You musn't hit your friend," I told him. "He doesn't like to be hit. It hurts him. See? He's crying. He's crying because hitting makes him feel bad." I made a sad face.</div>
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We were spending a weekend together at a summer cabin -- two couples with a long friendship and kids the same age who we hoped would entertain each other while we hung out on the beach. But the weekend was tense.</div>
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My son continued to hit the older boy -- not hard. It only took the smallest gesture to send him sobbing into his mother's lap.</div>
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I could tell she was getting angry with me for not punishing my son. I'd decided to deploy<a href="http://honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2011/07/dear-internets-youre-bit-judgy.html"> a gentle parenting tack</a> but against my better judgement I put him through a series of time-outs and stern lectures to please her and to see if it would work. It didn't. It made things much worse. The boys started running through their aggressor/victim game like automatons programmed on an infinite loop. But this time, everyone was looking at me for a big reaction. The game was on.<br />
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But I didn't like the game. So I barked at my husband to stop pampering his boat and to come inside and look after our 6-month old. I scooped up my 18-month old. I Nursed him. Then I walked him up and down the beach until he fell asleep on my back.</div>
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Like I said, the weekend was tense and it didn't really get fun after that. </div>
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Mid-winter that mom and I accidentally drank too much organic malbec at a dinner party and she revealed that she was mad at me because my son was "really hitting" her son and I "did nothing."<br />
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I asked her what she thought I should do, "hit him?"<br />
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"Yeah," she said sarcastically, "I think you should have just belted him. No. But you could have done "<i>something, anything! </i>You could have<i> at least </i>talked to him."<br />
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I insisted that I did talk to him. And that he was just a baby. And that I had another small baby. And I just couldn't stop him. I just couldn't.<br />
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Then I called her "judgy" before passing out at the bottom of the stairs. </div>
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We're not good friends anymore. Not like we were.</div>
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My 18-month old daughter is charming. She always has, inexplicably, an entourage of older children following her around, doting on her. She has curls and twinkling eyes. She works it.</div>
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Every so often, she takes down another toddler. She steamrolls them. They never see it coming. Toddlers just aren't used to being attacked. I can't say with a hundred percent certainty but it would seem she'd prefer to be the only one.</div>
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Her tiny foes hit the ground crying and I make her look at their crying faces and I tell her she is responsible, it is because she shoved.<br />
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"You musn't," I tell her. </div>
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Their mother's comfort them and when I apologize, they always tell me it's okay.</div>
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"It's kind of funny, but it's not," one mother told me, while her toddler cried in her arms. </div>
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Because she's adorable, they mean. Because she looks like a doll. Because she looks like Pebbles but she acts like Bam Bam. It is kind of funny. But it's not.</div>
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There was a new mom at playgroup the other day with an almost 3-year old girl and a newborn baby. We were chatting and I found out lots about her like that she had recently moved here, that my son and her older daughter were only one month apart in age, that her husband works long hours as a journeyman electrician, that her baby sleeps well, that she felt like she was the only one who breastfed back in Tennessee but that everyone does it here, that they won't try for more children, and that when her baby is a year old she'll look for work as a dental hygienist, and that she loves watching movies.<br />
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She didn't really ask me about myself. </div>
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So when our children got in a skirmish I knew they were the same age but I'm not sure she did. I think she might have thought my son was older than her daughter because he was a bit bigger.<br />
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He was playing with a large, plush snake. Her daughter wanted to play with it instead. She teetered over to him on her plastic, Disney princess high heels, and tried to grab it.</div>
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"No," my son told her, "Mine."</div>
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"Mine," she replied. She let out an awful shriek and started flailing and thrashing her arms at him. Then she lost her balance (<i>does a two-year old need high heels? really?</i>). She collapsed in a heap of DisneyTM nylon princess fabric and then crawled to her mother wailing.</div>
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"Did that boy hit you?" her mother asked.</div>
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I didn't understand why she was asking. We were both sitting right there. We both saw what happened. He was just standing still the whole time clutching the plush snake to his two-year-old chest.</div>
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"Ouch! Mommy! Ouch!" the girl sobbed. Then she raised a trembling finger, pointed at my son, and said, "The boy hit! The boy hit!"</div>
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The mother became quite frantic checking her daughter's body for "marks."</div>
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"Look," the mother said," holding her daughter's arm up for me to inspect. "He left a mark on her!"</div>
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I couldn't see one. It just didn't happen like that. And I can't understand why it was so important for her to see it that way. </div>
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Because he's a boy? </div>
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They left in a huff.</div>
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"Your son is a bully," she told me on her way out. Then, right to his two-year-old face, "Picking on a two-year old girl..."</div>
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*****</div>
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One of my favourite people has a little girl the same age as mine. They look like they could be cousins. They have different personalities, though. When my daughter looks at the T-Rex at the museum she stands on her tippy toes and roars at it. Her daughter covers her eyes and cries.</div>
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They don't play well together. My daughter either ignores her or attacks her. It sucks because us moms really would like to spend more time chatting while our children play.</div>
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Me and the other mom have talked about it and she knows that I respond the way I do intentionally and she's been working on a thing with her daughter. She tried to teach her to say, "Stop. I don't like that." She's been teaching her to stand her ground -- to reach her hand out to my daughter and say, "No. Don't hit me."</div>
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One day, it payed off. My daughter approached hers to initiate a shove -- just to make things interesting, I think. And her daughter steadied herself. She put her hand out in the international stop gesture. She put a serious and intense look on her sweet little face and she just very clearly said, with her body language, "Don't do that to me anymore. Don't mess with me."</div>
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My daughter made a little teletubby-esque squeal of surprise and delight. And she stopped pushing her little friend around. Just like that. There were many witnesses to this act of courage and we all heaped congratulations on the little girl. It was beautiful. And now my friend and I can drink a cold bottle of white wine in the backyard and eat tomato sandwiches while the children play in the sand. </div>
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*****</div>
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Here's what I've learned, what I'd like to say:</div>
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Let's teach our daughters to stand up for themselves.<br />
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Let's teach our sons empathy by showing them some.<br />
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Let's not make the roles of victim and/or aggressor the most fun and interesting ones there are to play.<br />
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Let's not be too quick to label boys aggressive and to call them bullies.<br />
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Let's not teach our girls to be victims. It's not a rewarding occupation.<br />
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Let's not judge moms for having kids that we think are too timid or aggressive. It not, in fact, possible for a mother to tweak and perfect every aspect of a child's personality.<br />
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Babies should not wear high heels. They are dangerous in the ring.<br />
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Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-83869060692349931352011-07-10T00:25:00.000-07:002011-07-10T00:26:17.591-07:00He Grew Out of ItThis time last year my almost two-year old boy picked up a handful of sand at a playground and threw it at another boy's face.<br />
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I remember it clearly. I was nearly in tears apologizing to his mommy about it. I just felt so <i>intensely bad</i>. I'd thought my methods to tame his aggressive behaviors were working -- clearly not. I was certain the boy's mother would be irate with me for being, you know, a <i>bad mother</i>, the kind whose toddler throws sand at playgrounds while she's busy nursing her 6-month old. I felt awfully guilty for having two young children under the age of two because it absolutely rendered me unable to do the type of micro-parenting that would make sure I could prevent my toddler from ever throwing sand.<b> </b>I was heart-brokenly agonizingly frustrated at my inability to change or control his behaviour and my eyes were welling up with tears.<br />
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"Good Gawd," the boy's mother said turning to me with a concerned frown after comforting her young son. "Why are you apologizing to me? You didn't throw the sand. And what on Earth are you so upset about? <i>He's a little boy.</i> Of course he throws sand. That's what little boys do. Trust me. I've had four of them."<br />
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And then she said, "<i>He'll grow out of it, you know.</i>"<br />
<br />
It was a revelation. It was an oasis. It was a lifeline. It was an unexpected inheritance. It was a month of sleeping in on weekends and a bottle of merlot with a friend. It was a rescue ship.<br />
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See, I saw his occasional hitting and shoving and biting as a problem that <i>I</i> needed to solve. I saw it as a personal challenge and a <i>personal failure.</i> And it wasn't just me -- a lot of people offered their p.o.v. on the situation and I got everything from "He must be modelling violence he sees in <i>your home.</i>" To "It's because <i>you're too soft</i>. You don't come down hard enough on him. If you don't make him pay he'll just get more and more out of control."<br />
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I got a lot of, "Well he's obviously just jealous because you are spending all your time with the new baby."<br />
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The common thread was that it was something <i>I</i> had caused and that<i> I had to fix</i>.<br />
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It's almost laughable to think back on all the bad advice I got around such a common thing -- an eighteen month old behaving like a big, pre-verbal, immature human -- hitting and shoving and biting to get attention, to lash out when he was feeling bad or overwhelmed, or just to see what would happen.<br />
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Why it took so long for some rare gem of a person to tell me it's a normal thing that he'd grow out of it, I don't know. But if you've arrived at this blog post because you are agonizing about toddler aggression and you are trolling the internets to find out what you should do about it and where you have gone so wrong, I have this to say to you: Relax. Dur. He'll grow out of it. It isn't your fault. It's not like <i>you</i> are shoving kids at the playground. It's not like <i>you</i> are the one grabbing toys from babies. He's not a bad kid. He's just a kid. You aren't a bad mom. You're just a mom. Don't make too big a deal out of it -- you don't want it to stick. When he plays nice, make a big deal of it. When he initiates social interaction playfully or gently, make a big deal out of it.<br />
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If he (or she) is about to whack another kid -- stop him! If he (or she) does whack another kid, try not to make it the most interesting thing that has ever happened. Make it an unrewarding activity by paying attention to the victim. Teach empathy -- make him look at the sad face of a child he's hurt and make him know it makes you sad too.<br />
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I would like to happily report that <i>he's grown out of it.</i><br />
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In retrospect I'm really glad I chose a gentle parenting tack -- I didn't try to teach him that hitting babies was wrong by hitting him.<br />
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It was important to me that he internalized the reasons not to hit, not that he didn't do it because he was afraid of what I'd do -- if I was looking.<br />
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I should mention that I was not that consistent about this -- I sometimes blew my lid and I tried a few different things that really didn't work. <br />
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He grew out of it anyway.<br />
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But that six-month old baby I had then is now an 18-month old toddler. And, oh boy! she's a toughy. And sometimes she hits. And sometimes she shoves. The other day she walked up to a boy, grabbed him by the tee-shirt, pulled his face close to hers, then pushed him to the ground before toddling away to look at something more interesting, her ruffle-bum tutu-pants flouncing behind her.<br />
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But everything is different this time around.<br />
<br />
There are two reasons why:<br />
<br />
1) I know better than to get really upset about this stage and to try to either over-parent my way out of it or take it as a sign of personal failure -- OMG. THEY GROW OUT OF IT!<br />
<br />
2) She's a girl. And people react really, really differently.<br />
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<br />Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-62937280330013782102011-04-20T08:00:00.000-07:002011-04-20T08:00:06.027-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXjZupPEAJGMUhd0xaV-EeB1Xb8RGgJPhbg-5FMfdRT1HyY5P_MLilhVqfAPuBGxutTais3K0gan8Fm0x8FmzqpvbDxBGwOOou_Fw1kQuYhYVoD7SCAUY11wUkCfozWmXIewEHrr_SOk/s1600/daddycare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="564" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXjZupPEAJGMUhd0xaV-EeB1Xb8RGgJPhbg-5FMfdRT1HyY5P_MLilhVqfAPuBGxutTais3K0gan8Fm0x8FmzqpvbDxBGwOOou_Fw1kQuYhYVoD7SCAUY11wUkCfozWmXIewEHrr_SOk/s640/daddycare.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
This is my yummy yummy baby son somewhere between 3 and 6 months old. I was looking through some old photos and this one leapt out at me. Well, THE KNIVES leapt out at me. My heart stopped beating for a moment there and I screamed, "Somebody get all those knives away from my BABY! O-M-G!" <br />
<br />
Does this photo not resemble something one might have to look at and explain to an instructor what 10 safety violations are going on before he or she recieves their babysitting certificate? <br />
<br />
The Bumbo is too close to the ledge, the baby isn't wearing any pants even though he's in the food preperation area and, oh yeah, THE KNIVES AND OTHER POINTY KITCHEN IMPLEMENTS!<br />
<br />
I don't think my husband took that course.<br />
<br />
What's going on here, if I have to spell it out, is Mommy is elsewhere, probably having some one on one time with baby's big sister, and Daddy is at home with his new son. He's large and in charge. Boys night in. <br />
<br />
Daddy is cooking (he loves to cook, halleluia!) -- something that involves chocolate and garlic (wtf?) -- and he was all like, cute cute cute! and he grabbed the camera and voila: this here snap.<br />
<br />
<strong>I'm tempted to ask --</strong> <strong>do you let your husband (or what have you) take care of your babies?</strong> I know, I know, it's so sexist it's painful. It kind of makes me want to smack myself on at least one side of my head. <em>But do you?</em><br />
<br />
I do (see above). And I know a lot of women are kind of amazed and jealous that my husband is so involved with the kids. He changes diapers and rough-houses. He lets them do make-overs on him and he takes them fishing.<br />
<br />
I love it. <br />
<br />
But it does sometimes require between a little and a lot of tounge biting. It requires that I backoff, shut-up, and let him develop his own parenting style, make his own mistakes, and gain confidence as a parent. It requires me that I tune out any of the worst attachment parenting advice that insists if a baby leaves his mommy's side for an hour or two before his first birthday and drinks from a (gasp!) bottle he will become a drug addict and it will be all your fault. <br />
<br />
I once took my toddler daughter to the bathroom and discovered that Daddy got her dressed with her panties on sideways so that one of her legs was through the waist, the other was through a leg whole, and her torso was through the other obviously very tiny little leg hole. Disaster? No. Difficult to resist the urge to ridicule him for it in front of our children while howling with laughter and never ever letting it drop? Hell yeah.<br />
<br />
It also involves some ego whittling. A mommy's got to quell both worries -- that baby won't be allright and that when she returns through the front door everything will be allright. Perhaps better than allright -- perhaps they'll be having the time of their lives and dinner will be ready.<br />
<br />
Baby has lived, I'm pleased to say, to tell the tale. He's two-and-a-half.<br />
<br />
And, by the way, it was <a href="http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chicken-in-Mole-Puebla-Style-238185">mole</a>. And it was good.Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-13286300066560324782011-04-14T14:52:00.000-07:002011-04-14T14:52:10.170-07:00A Moment vs. Every Single MomentHere's a moment:<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I am upstairs in the nursery rocking my baby girl back into her nap while she gently tugs at my breast, falling asleep between swallows of milk and then rousing herself to drink more. The house is quiet, it's just us and the sunbeams. Her room -- our room -- is beautiful. The maple floors shine, green viney plants climb the walls and frame the artful objets I've lovingly placed on shelves and walls. The window beside us is large and outside it, a magpie drifts in and out of a spectacularly blue prairie sky and a bare-branched elm.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUZkcG8TeHNUd0s46XAqRTZjBoVcreYNS40h8OrLwUxldYRf8QPoqvaQXnEn2n-pNSw3DR7rqpzaSPFPiyPBZbsX2r7m0zX15fj2CPWTcb_bPePlBkGQpFMG_XqmsL3d20N1SWbubUs60/s1600/rocking+baby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUZkcG8TeHNUd0s46XAqRTZjBoVcreYNS40h8OrLwUxldYRf8QPoqvaQXnEn2n-pNSw3DR7rqpzaSPFPiyPBZbsX2r7m0zX15fj2CPWTcb_bPePlBkGQpFMG_XqmsL3d20N1SWbubUs60/s320/rocking+baby.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">You'd think that would be an easy moment to be present in.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">But I am annoyed. All this spring sunshine is revealing grode in many homely locations. I have a brand new bottle of Citra-solve, a bucket of rags, a box of swiffer dusters with a telescoping handle, and a hand-held Electrolux. I've chased Hubby and the kids out of the house with the dog. This is my hour to clean furiously with nobody at all to unclean, furiously, behind me. All I ask of the baby is that she stay asleep when put there. For just one hour.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbnhicOV3NHuS9to83uEve-5wzcqTMPZfuDjDiRP-iPQ2i2oNEl5jt3O-NFfK4jS41wDPk2z1ixNuYwKtHEdHCDpHK0ROH4i4jQIPs3cd3WePDx4VUPuI1IBv0LcgjR1vNmBLqAfrw60Q/s1600/victorianrockingbaby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbnhicOV3NHuS9to83uEve-5wzcqTMPZfuDjDiRP-iPQ2i2oNEl5jt3O-NFfK4jS41wDPk2z1ixNuYwKtHEdHCDpHK0ROH4i4jQIPs3cd3WePDx4VUPuI1IBv0LcgjR1vNmBLqAfrw60Q/s1600/victorianrockingbaby.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">But no.... the sound of silence does not sit well with her. She'd like to be held. She'd like to doze in my arms, effectively pinning me to the rocking chair. Should I try to extract my nipple from her toothy maw and to set her gently down amidst soft, huggy, minky things, she makes like a murder of crows, all aflap and asquawk. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjVcR59-FNIu5GRBuKU7GUzGTr2g5pCsoMUgTkzzfGJWg7DB77W66yJCR2uhKxTHPJ_26tKq_TjGRTBhzerBYEBozxcHKPdiiJia_YMPWzXaGhL-Pl8FAxDdvXwb47W3iKNd6d0ycPMzs/s1600/nursingbaby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjVcR59-FNIu5GRBuKU7GUzGTr2g5pCsoMUgTkzzfGJWg7DB77W66yJCR2uhKxTHPJ_26tKq_TjGRTBhzerBYEBozxcHKPdiiJia_YMPWzXaGhL-Pl8FAxDdvXwb47W3iKNd6d0ycPMzs/s320/nursingbaby.jpg" width="195" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">She's got me by the tit.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">And all I can think about is this one dusty corner in the living room and how satisfying it would be to wipe it clean. If I could just... agggggghbllllgh. I was <em>just about</em> to clean it, I was, my hand hovered above it when that murder of crows sounded from the nursery. Now all I can think is, "I'd rather be sucking up that dust bunny with an Electrolux, but nooooooo, I have to sit here peacefully rocking a beautiful baby."</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">One of these days I'll be a little old lady in an empty house with no one to unclean things for me and all the time in the world to suck dust bunnies with a hand-held. And I know that I will not, for a second, wish to travel back in time to clean the dust-bunnies I didn't have time for while I was raising children. I will, however, I'm sure, wish to visit that sun-drenched nursery to hold my baby in my arms while she dozes and I rock in a silent, golden torpor. And I won't be able to remember why I didn't long for that moment to never end.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">What's up with that?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Some endlessly repeated advice people give new moms is "Enjoy every single moment -- they grow up so fast."</div><br />
It irks me so.<br />
<br />
It is well-meaning but terrible advice. What makes it particularly vile, thanks for asking, is that it often comes from people who have held a very unreasonable newborn at 2 a.m. and should know better. And it's often directed at a mommy who is in a cloud of postnatal hormones that makes her feel... let's just say, <em>a little raw,</em> and who is quite overwhelmed by the everythingness of motherhood and whose back is sore because she hasn't put the baby down for hours and hours and hours and she just really needs a hot meal and for someone to tell her she's not terrible at everything.<br />
<br />
Better advice would be "Let yourself enjoy parenting whenever you can -- try to relax and don't fight the sappy bliss, give into the sappy -- when you want to drop everything to hug and kiss your babies, DO IT. They seriously do grow fast. But in those moments you're not enjoying yourself, in those moments that make you want to crawl out of your skin to scuttle up the wall and hide in a dark corner, in which time appears to be standing still and you fear that gritchy little infant will NEVER let go of your tit, forgive yourself. It's okay. You're not terrible. It's hard!"<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4WSO_jt0uyzIoN-KK4WSHNuMrm0Rh6Ir8Rw5RDEQgoKxP8m1isT8ef3Hl2azWwUZo9O_0XeSuBY_CW4FL_RsixCOlWiqs-grmzvpe03al2PabwtsftL6Ln9uAP5rwD1aBgcFgh1d9sv8/s1600/rockingbaby2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4WSO_jt0uyzIoN-KK4WSHNuMrm0Rh6Ir8Rw5RDEQgoKxP8m1isT8ef3Hl2azWwUZo9O_0XeSuBY_CW4FL_RsixCOlWiqs-grmzvpe03al2PabwtsftL6Ln9uAP5rwD1aBgcFgh1d9sv8/s1600/rockingbaby2.jpg" /></a></div><br />
There's something so frazzling about enforced peacefulness. It's a special kind of awful.<br />
Wee ones need us to be active sometimes when we're dead tired and need us to be still at times when we want to be active. It requires a sort of submissiveness that doesn't come naturally to me -- I doubt it comes naturally to anyone. <br />
Everyone gets why 2 a.m. feedings are stressful. It's the 2 p.m. feedings, drenched in sunlight in a cozy chair that inspire lookers-on to assume you must be steeping in maternal bliss. It's that assumption that adds an extra level of "AAAAAAAGGGGGH" to it. <br />
<br />
Human babies do come, after all, from human mommies and we can't enjoy every moment of it. We just can't. We're people who have been transformed into mothers and not into earthly projections of enlightened selflessness.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZcj7tlKGJUOSMfwbub1fjA8Ps5RD_hl71RtRxiFKHCSTrpGuZi1is2xpY4AbxoAbNY6D9Px4SMDu9Y4L-T_NIuw4D1u0BVYKFk5aLvMS1YYEHC9fQdUZWt4DaBO0Vxx4uQw8ehTTMfYM/s1600/Krishna2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZcj7tlKGJUOSMfwbub1fjA8Ps5RD_hl71RtRxiFKHCSTrpGuZi1is2xpY4AbxoAbNY6D9Px4SMDu9Y4L-T_NIuw4D1u0BVYKFk5aLvMS1YYEHC9fQdUZWt4DaBO0Vxx4uQw8ehTTMfYM/s320/Krishna2.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div>Maybe you are steeping in bliss. Maybe you're not. Every parent has visited both sides of that coin. Excepting, perhaps, Siddhartha Gautama who did transform into an earthly projection of enlightened selflessness after, mind you, leaving his wife and baby behind at the palace to embark on his spiritual journey.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-9079138417187263622011-04-01T08:39:00.000-07:002011-04-01T08:42:07.975-07:00Laughing all the way to the Breastmilk Bank<div style="text-indent: 0px !important;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">So. Someone gave my five-year old one of those doll care kits a while ago, including a bottle, a car-seat, and a disposable diaper. You know, plastic things for raising plastic babies.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFuEDLX1Dd0Rl28-ORP2GHnMJfxzGZZQCx5RzH2_pfK2D8YQRH7-Z5uhaQ6wTwfh9qKmfGNiM9VX-MMjQze5JCkuhIqrzJ8O5OzFX8eX0uqeglWf1WY6cA-_6PP6TdcHv13nYUJejY5JE/s1600/bottle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFuEDLX1Dd0Rl28-ORP2GHnMJfxzGZZQCx5RzH2_pfK2D8YQRH7-Z5uhaQ6wTwfh9qKmfGNiM9VX-MMjQze5JCkuhIqrzJ8O5OzFX8eX0uqeglWf1WY6cA-_6PP6TdcHv13nYUJejY5JE/s1600/bottle.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">I boo the toy industry for including a bottle with every baby doll. It's one way bottle feeding is normalized when it should be the exception. It's one of the reasons I steer clear of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">beyond-pink doll aisle. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">I don't want our babies, even our plastic babies, to be bottle-fed. I want them to be breastfed. It's important to me.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">I wasn't so mean as to take the things away from my daughter. But I did bury them in the chaos and debris of life with small people. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">They resurfaced.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">And they got my daughter all fired up about taking care of her usually neglected dolly again. Which made her younger siblings, of course, crazy with desire to possess the thing for themselves. Which is how I ended up at the library with a 5 year old, a two-year-old, a 1 year old and a carefully swaddled doll named Susy. They wanted her to come with. It was her first outing. She got dropped several times in the parking lot (by her two-year old Daddy), fought over prolifically, and had a real close call with the book-return conveyor belt. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">No matter. I quite enjoyed the whole thing as I can't help but to equate my son and daughter fighting over who gets to hold a baby doll with a promise of grandchildren. My daughter had a fairly elaborate scenario worked up, in fact, in which I am the grandmother.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">Ka-ching!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFWsKOY4esywdGhHdM5-6-DaL4HzqVErKv9MmkRyR0M79Pd0B1tJiDT3AO60wH2G7nNCTZyZzX8D-qjghWZthtVFztMcDS_VcITqYuAYcjJVobkEk_YTZ7ApblvwGtSXnqi7cS82F5KIc/s1600/piggy-bank.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFWsKOY4esywdGhHdM5-6-DaL4HzqVErKv9MmkRyR0M79Pd0B1tJiDT3AO60wH2G7nNCTZyZzX8D-qjghWZthtVFztMcDS_VcITqYuAYcjJVobkEk_YTZ7ApblvwGtSXnqi7cS82F5KIc/s320/piggy-bank.jpg" width="231" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">So. My little five-and-a-half-year old daughter is sweetly feeding her baby doll at the library with such tenderness and care, that a nice lady couldn't help but to stop and ask, "Are you feeding your baby a bottle, Dearie?"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">And Dearie replied, "Yes. It's breastmilk." Then she went on in a sweet and conspirational tone, "I can't breastfeed her because I'm not her mother. I'm her babysitter. That's her mother over there," she said gesturing to her baby sister who was sprawled out sleeping in her stroller. "She can't breastfeed her right now. So I have to feed her a bottle. I'm the babysitter. She pumped the breastmilk with a breastpump and I put it in the bottle to feed the baby."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">Then the nice lady backed away slowly while I giggled and grinned and chuckled and laughed all the way to the breastmilk bank.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">It makes me sad to think what a senseless trauma it was for a generation or two of babies not to have been breastfed because it was, basically, out of style. And it warms my heart to think how surely the damage to our breastfeeding culture can be repaired, just by doing it. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">Our daughters and sons are watching, they are. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">XOX</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma;">Betsy</span></div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-10890073028322864382011-03-30T11:49:00.000-07:002011-03-30T17:02:34.693-07:00Uterine Orgasms - Myth and Mayhem Online and Between the SheetsI've already railed on about how awful I think the<a href="http://honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-hers-foundation-on.html"> HERS foundation is</a>, so I don't want this post to be about them. This post is about resuming your sex-life post-hysterectomy. It's about sexual function without a uterus and how a hysterectomy affected my ability to have orgasms.<br />
<br />
Waaaaaay to much information for my regular readers, I'm sure, but probably helpful to some woman somewhere (bless your heart, Dear) wondering how a common gynaecological surgery will affect the rest of her life, you know, <i>sexually</i>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-n6DsbVrwQ1m5hLDEO4wKnSHjyuqiGhdlFbT2oXaNpG4uwisbwfLDX9zqVBmeR7d6mggRIV54jHdVI9sC_naKOBtBHpjrI30JZ2-lIJ-cq2xb2VcP2J-KpD3jBZmeRWLjU01_-BNxm2U/s1600/rumpledsheets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-n6DsbVrwQ1m5hLDEO4wKnSHjyuqiGhdlFbT2oXaNpG4uwisbwfLDX9zqVBmeR7d6mggRIV54jHdVI9sC_naKOBtBHpjrI30JZ2-lIJ-cq2xb2VcP2J-KpD3jBZmeRWLjU01_-BNxm2U/s320/rumpledsheets.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Here's the thing: I stumbled upon some <a href="http://www.hersfoundation.org/anatomy/index.html">whacktivism</a> pre-hysterectomy that said I probably wouldn't be able to have orgasms post-surgery and that even if I could, they wouldn't be <i>uterine orgasms</i> so they wouldn't be very good ones. It had me greatly disturbed. Having orgasms is very very high on my list of priorities (way higher than, perhaps sadly, a tidy home, maxing out my RRSPs and/or doing something about global warming.)<br />
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When I asked my doctor if a hysterectomy would affect orgasm function he said, "There's some debate about that. The majority of women say orgasm is a function of the clitoris but there's... some debate."<br />
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The flying monkeys from the HERS foundation are busy all over the internet telling women that they know first hand how great the loss of uterine orgasms are and should a woman post anywhere that a hysterectomy did not affect her ability to have orgasms, they will respond en masse that it's because she's never had a proper orgasm, so she doesn't really know and shouldn't be trusted.<br />
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Because I figured out how to diddle myself at the tender age of 4 and have been a quite dedicated to the practice ever since, I was very worried. I'm pretty sure, you see, that having orgasms is one of my fortes. I'm entirely sure that I've been doing it right and having the good kind.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizkAq3767YVfeHvmisEEGEi4Hz7e9NLABf2e18n7Z6iTH7wUZ8a5Nla285_aLvLZIG-LG2CNtyk8VYE5cHaJO68oeIQsgPUNMZclFjiC4TpGLftUt7gwfiwFCfqv7unJoUsuv0eOf4JcY/s1600/wavescrashing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizkAq3767YVfeHvmisEEGEi4Hz7e9NLABf2e18n7Z6iTH7wUZ8a5Nla285_aLvLZIG-LG2CNtyk8VYE5cHaJO68oeIQsgPUNMZclFjiC4TpGLftUt7gwfiwFCfqv7unJoUsuv0eOf4JcY/s320/wavescrashing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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10 years ago I wouldn't have been able to tell you much about uteruses and cervixes or any other of the more elusive female organs, but throughout the course of three pregnancies and a <a href="http://honest2betsy.blogspot.com/2010/03/hpv-story.html">gynecological crises</a> I've learned ever so much about which organ does what and what it feels like when it's doing its thing. I know, for example, what a cervix dilating feels like.<br />
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Also, I experienced a very peculiar pregnancy symptom in each of my first trimesters which was that I'd have, you know, erotic dreams, and than wake up having an orgasm. It was awesome. All the pay-out and I didn't have to lift a finger! Those orgasms were obviously uterine -- they originated, I'm sure, in my uterus which felt kind of warm and spreading and is if was drinking up vitality and pulsing with sexual energy.<br />
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Late in my pregnancies I wouldn't be able to, you know, get off at all -- my uterus would get so hard and tense that I just couldn't relax enough.<br />
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The reason I'm explaining all this is simply to insist that I'm sure my orgasms included my uterus -- some of them even originated there without any clitoral stimulation whatsoever.<br />
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So. Post-hysterectomy, as soon as was medically prudent, I, you know, tested my ability to orgasm and was delighted to find that I still could, sans uterus, that it was still a rewarding thing to do, like I wasn't all, "that was a waste of two-minutes, I should have sorted through some bills instead," and I slumbered much more peacefully in that knowledge.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFlOFd0B5-kP6PWjo0QqhWSN1oxaDSkSzP1cHTIrFgyDRXT2h4DnmPBQna9sIYZxJ2pWcghXCKrhDURGqjNcnZ8zMCjc0pdb9yIh3c1Ryszb2MNDmeA6SoMna5-n5hPIMjoSwti0t0_EU/s1600/curtain+billowing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFlOFd0B5-kP6PWjo0QqhWSN1oxaDSkSzP1cHTIrFgyDRXT2h4DnmPBQna9sIYZxJ2pWcghXCKrhDURGqjNcnZ8zMCjc0pdb9yIh3c1Ryszb2MNDmeA6SoMna5-n5hPIMjoSwti0t0_EU/s320/curtain+billowing.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
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But. There is something to that whole uterine orgasm thing. In the year following my surgery, I have definitely had the experience of having an orgasm and then thinking, "Where's the rest of it? Where's the back end of it? Where's that final cadence and chord?" I can assure you, I did not think, "That was a waste of time, I should have been alphabetizing something," but I did think: "Where's the rest of it?"<br />
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Now. The year I recovered from my hysterectomy was also the same year I had three small children, two of them being under two years of age. This is not a time in which anybody could reasonably expect to describe their sex-life as "rollicking". And it was difficult, and it is still difficult for me to separate all the threads of the various things that were taxing my mojo: the emotional demands of a newborn and a toddler and a preschooler, the physical exhaustion of caring for wee ones, the physical absence of my uterus, the emotional absence of my uterus, the psychological malestrom that is being diagnosed with cervical cancer.<br />
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It does seem to me that the big thing wasn't physical, though, the big thing was what was going on in my head:<br />
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It was hard to make love without thinking about my doctors, my surgery, my cancer diagnosis, and what was missing from my body. Words like "scar," "scalpel", "disease," and "barren" would rise unbidden to the forefront of my mind.<br />
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Not sexy stuff.<br />
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Do you believe what they say about the brain being our biggest sex organ? I do.<br />
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Well now. If you take the HERS Foundation's word for it, and I hope you don't, what I've described is very typical of women's experiences and it's the end of the story -- a woman can't have orgasms without a uterus and if she can, they won't be very good ones.<br />
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Well now. It's not the end of the story. Here's what I did: I just kept trying without trying too hard, if that makes any sense. I tried not to judge myself harshly. I tried to forget all about my hysterectomy, at least between the sheets, and made myself think about other things. You know, sexy things.<br />
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And an odd thing has happened -- my orgasms have improved greatly in their grandiosity, flavour, scope and spectrum. They seem to have "relocated" themselves. My G-spot, which a couple of years ago I would have described as "over-rated" has, to deploy an over-used phrase, really "stepped up."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaIzf5QCpR5nnj-uAUKYQYkK-CD-Mdbt52aT0RfOy3HVgcVyixWoETbbsTbbWwtBy1kaaPcZTRLb9PRXWs5kxqgfjG1acgu3WLa28R4b9oFSYzCsgS2mEauiaID3vS9fUhJWngwLcsJvM/s1600/Unicorn-Rainbow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaIzf5QCpR5nnj-uAUKYQYkK-CD-Mdbt52aT0RfOy3HVgcVyixWoETbbsTbbWwtBy1kaaPcZTRLb9PRXWs5kxqgfjG1acgu3WLa28R4b9oFSYzCsgS2mEauiaID3vS9fUhJWngwLcsJvM/s320/Unicorn-Rainbow.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />
In Mary Roach's fantastic book "<a href="http://www.maryroach.net/bonk.html">BONK: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex</a>" she writes about the "sexual physiology" of orgasms. According to her research, even paraplegics can have great orgasms. In people who can't feel their genitals, orgasms aren't located in the genitals. They're located elsewhere in a way that's hard to describe but nonetheless intensely awesome.<br />
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That's good news for women without uterus's who can <i><b>definitely</b></i> have orgasms. Great orgasms. The unicorns- leaping-over-rainbows-while-curtains-billow-and-waves-crash-on-the shore kind of sheet-grabbing, calf-clenching, God-praising kind.<br />
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You know this old joke?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWndQPUDMTooLXZbUgEjuUHVwdimtGqdiWLJcygoMPkOvmTFDF70CsQ47rvO1V_PY4uoIyfnlqHh-uGtjIFqTTKrFKU8Nx0Z9qCteVGYgKBvE2soUSC9P8FrTszQdFQTi8SWCL8zu3Rw/s1600/MenandWomencontrolpanels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWndQPUDMTooLXZbUgEjuUHVwdimtGqdiWLJcygoMPkOvmTFDF70CsQ47rvO1V_PY4uoIyfnlqHh-uGtjIFqTTKrFKU8Nx0Z9qCteVGYgKBvE2soUSC9P8FrTszQdFQTi8SWCL8zu3Rw/s400/MenandWomencontrolpanels.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's true. We're complex. There's a lot of variables that contribute to a woman's ability to orgasm. The good news is, our physiology (which we can't control) has a lot less to do with it than the things we can learn to control.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So if you're reading this because you're recovering from a hysterectomy or terrified of one, please relax. Just keep trying some different combination of buttons and dials. Try not to think about it too hard. You'll figure it out. Be kind to yourself.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Above all, trust your body/mind/soul's ability to heal and don't pay a lick of attention to anyone who tells you you can't. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">XOX</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Betsy</div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com361tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-82436980883235347722011-03-18T22:42:00.000-07:002011-03-18T22:42:29.410-07:00Reminding You to Get a Pap SmearLadies, have you gotten a pap smear this year? Have you had one in the last two years? In the last five years?<br />
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Book a pap smear.<br />
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That is all.<br />
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xoxo<br />
Betsy<br />
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</div>Betsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4354869131367567263.post-35227585535333542492011-03-17T17:09:00.000-07:002011-03-18T14:35:18.451-07:00Do You Believe in Luck?"Mama," my 5-year old daughter asked me very seriously, "Is luck <em>real</em>?"<br />
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"Oh, definately," I answered, without skipping a beat. "For sure."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4LyPg4WhbRvzHR3rWQhuBPU4vUYRzw51mzXOl2NsNJZrxUzEHt4wigC9-_u8mQhLf8aSGibLQ1uxQYsLENi3X4yEWZMJB3LOon2xMuv4-UT0JQR2-gTzD5EkwgDUvj35O_5_oPHYxiSo/s1600/findingafourleaf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4LyPg4WhbRvzHR3rWQhuBPU4vUYRzw51mzXOl2NsNJZrxUzEHt4wigC9-_u8mQhLf8aSGibLQ1uxQYsLENi3X4yEWZMJB3LOon2xMuv4-UT0JQR2-gTzD5EkwgDUvj35O_5_oPHYxiSo/s400/findingafourleaf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
I know so, because I'm lucky. Some people aren't. Well I guess all people have luck, it just depends what kind you've got.<br />
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There's good luck, there's bad luck, there's hard luck, there's tough luck, there's lady luck and then there's potluck.<br />
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By the strictest definitons of luck, there's not much we can do about it. Luck is the things that happen to us beyond our control. Luck is all chance, it isn't up to us. It's the things <em>other</em> people bring to the potluck, not what we put on the table.<br />
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There was a kid in my grade one class who was always finding four-leaf clovers. She was pretty and petite with freckles and shiny hair and her mom always dressed her in homemade calico dresses and very clean white knee socks. She was very much the opposite of me and never got shushed by our teacher or sent out into the hallway or ripped holes in her jeans jumping off the swing set. That kind of irked me about her. But what really really irked me, was the way she always found four-leaf clovers. I wanted one. But did I find one? <em>Ever?</em> No! <em>Never!</em> <br />
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I'd get down in the clover with her and look and look for all of fifty-five seconds before racing off to the monkey-bars to swing upside down and I never even found one. And then she'd come strolling in from recess with the delicate thing held carefully in her palm for the hundreth time in a row and press it in the pages of her textbook with her other ones. How lucky can you get?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH4xi5wePwMr66acgpV_bkZXffKvlDplS8a2dFauXmPivhBHT6t2qcC7rAm0gx33TWaJWWQLjMUQ1xf3V7sk7hBJxPrSY_0hIZE_vaxhhjRW6IXtM1HuzVuRyv-ai0bi-t0teCCyVDdCM/s1600/clover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH4xi5wePwMr66acgpV_bkZXffKvlDplS8a2dFauXmPivhBHT6t2qcC7rAm0gx33TWaJWWQLjMUQ1xf3V7sk7hBJxPrSY_0hIZE_vaxhhjRW6IXtM1HuzVuRyv-ai0bi-t0teCCyVDdCM/s400/clover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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Well, Dear Reader, today <em>you're</em> in luck. Because I've decided, for once, to at least try to be concise.<br />
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So here it is:<br />
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I think a lot of things in our lives are completely out of our control. Like where we are born, who raises us, whether or not we have lovely long legs or enough to eat.<br />
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But I think the things that matter most of all are within our control -- whether we approach life with an open heart, whether we isolate ourselves from those who are willing to be our friends, whether we eat crap or wholesome food, whether we hurry or take our time, whether we approach the world with a loving, open heart or with fear and disdain -- that kind of thing.<br />
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What this all has to do with me and luck is that whole cancer thing. There's a lot of evidence that says it's not my fault. It's just bad luck. <br />
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But I want to change my luck. <br />
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There's a lot of evidence that shows that people who eat well and excercise are less likely to get cancer and much more likely to survive it. Lucky them. Lucky me.<br />
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And there's also evidence that shows that people who undergo therapy -- the pscycological kind -- after a cancer diagnosis are way less likely to have a reoccurence. That sounds lucky.<br />
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I am a fruit and vegetable eater. I am an active woman and a belly laugher. I have always felt that cancer should be for other people. When I was diagnosed it was with the promise that I would be cured. What luck!<br />
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This time last year I made a promise to spend a year healing in the most concerted way I could. I have. But there's more to do.<br />
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Like anyone else who has ever been diagnosed with cancer I'm sure, I've spent a good deal of time asking, why me? What have I done?<br />
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I read a really good book: <a href="http://www.whenthebodysaysno.ca/">"When The Body Says No" by Gabor Mate.</a> I heard him on the CBC talking about how diseases are passed on in families. It's not necessarily genetics, he postulates. It may have something to do with your personality -- not whether you have a good one or a bad one, just the way you process the pain you've felt in your life. How do you deal with trauma? Do you internalize it in some way that let's you get by without really letting go of it?<br />
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I think that's what I do. I always have done that. I've taken great pride in being a happy person. But I it might come at too high a personal cost. I think I invest too much psychic effort in trying to be unscathed by this world. I think it's time for me to look more carefully at the very scathed parts of me and to own them.<br />
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When I was diagnosed, that's the thing that hurt most -- I knew I wouldn't die, I knew things wouldn't even really have to change. It was simply the realization that I wasn't unscathed, not at all. And there's so many people that I didn't tell about it because I just didn't want people to think of me like that -- damaged, afflicted, unlucky.<br />
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Who isn't damaged? And why should we feel so deeply ashamed of it?<br />
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What I'm saying is that I know what my next step must be -- I want therapy. I want to let go of past traumas and especially the shame of being traumatized. I want to let go of whatever dysfunctions I've internalized. I want to lose weight -- emotional weight. I think my life could depend on it.<br />
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Thomas Jefferson famously said, "I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."<br />
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I'm gonna work on it.<br />
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Wish me luck,<br />
BetsyBetsy B. Honesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14304239761034117602noreply@blogger.com5