Maternal Instincts

I get this sick feeling in my stomach whenever I hear that someone I know is pregnant/ had a baby.  In the past year 7 people I know have had babies- and I don’t know why but I almost get pissed about it!  The same thing happens when I meet the babies, an ill feeling followed by guilt and discomfort.  Can an antacid cure that…?

I’ve always been that way, I remember when my cousin had a baby when I was around 10 or so, and while we were visiting her parents I went to spend the night at her house with her and her new baby.  It was awful!  I hate the sound of lullabies, and she breast fed in front of me which I also found disturbing- I just remember hearing that sucking sound with rock-a-bye baby playing in the background.  I remember eventually having a breakdown saying I missed my mom and wanted to go home, I did NOT want to sleep over.  I don’t remember if my mom came to get me or if I stayed but ever since then I get the same feeling whenever I’m around a pregnant person or find out someone I know/knew is having a baby.

Two years ago I became friends with a girl who was pregnant when we met, and she was fun to hang out with when she was pregnant- she was really funny and goofy, I think it was the pregnancy hormones or something because she was just so fucking hilarious.  Then the baby came and she was so cute and I loved her but I was just generally uncomfortable being around them and dealing with all the baby stuff- and she also breast fed in front of me all the time!  Why!?  Isn’t that personal?  What do I have to do with it- I should have no involvement in that bonding time.  We eventually lost touch because she drove me nuts (the mom, not the baby) with all the stressful baby visits.  She would bring her infant over to my house and stay for like, eight hours.  I’m not kidding.  That is too long to have a baby and your milk-boobs around me, I’m sorry.

Then I found out that I friend I had lost touch with after college had a baby, and was weirded out then too.  Then a girl from high school I kind of knew, then a cousin, then another cousin!, then my husband’s cousin, and now I just found out that a friend from high school had a baby in November. 

So I have to visit these people (especially the cousins), and they make me hold their babies even though I tell them I don’t want to because I make them cry.  Then they force me to anyway and, right on cue, the baby senses my disgust and starts bawling.  Then we have to visit and stare at the baby while he or she does whatever it is that is so entertaining (they’re cute and all but a month old baby doesn’t really have the same entertainment abilities as someone who can talk and use the potty), and then I leave and have to deal with this sick feeling for the rest of the night.

I don’t know why babies and people who have them weird me out so much, but there is nothing that makes me more uncomfortable than baby supplies, people who think all I want to hear about and/or see is breastfeeding, stomach-touching, and the baby smell.  Maybe it’s because people change so much after they become parents, or maybe because the whole sentimental part disturbs me (just like any other kind of sentimental moment).

I feel like a monster for feeling like this!  I’m a woman so I should automatically be a baby lover right?  Well newsflash, I’m sorry but I don’t want to hear about your udders, and I don’t want to hold your baby.  Congratulations but just let me sit there quietly while everyone else fusses, I feel ill.

I would probably like to have kids some day, and I wont be afraid to hold my own baby I’m sure, but at this point in my life I honestly want nothing to do with babies- almost like I’m afraid I’m going to ‘catch it’ or something, I don’t know.  I can’t help it, I’m not impressed that women are doing what women have been doing since the beginning of time, and I am really not interested in having people breastfeed in front of me, I don’t care if you have a blanket over yourself, I can still hear it!  Give me a warning and I will leave, you stay there and do your thing.

So my apologies to all you new parents out there, I can’t help the way I feel- which is grossed out.  Maybe I’m immature, maybe I have some kind of emotional issue (what else is new!), or maybe I just don’t like breastfeeding.  I haven’t figured it out yet but until I do would you please just treat me like a teenage boy and not expose me to that kind of thing.

Thank you.

Homecoming

Yay!  After three long months as an unemployed immigrant wife I get to return home for a three week visit.  Back to one dollar bills, rudeness, Chicago accents, and Fahrenheit and pounds. 

I’m leaving my husband alone here for those three weeks -he’s in school so he can’t come with me- but it’s probably a good thing.  He has final exams coming up and it’s just better if I’m not here distracting him.  I have a feeling I will have to leave the country whenever he has a test!

I hate flying though, I’m always on the plane full of babies or people who scream when we hit a little turbulance- OH, or last time when I got stuck sitting next to a couple of hardcore Christians, that was fun.  But I’ll stick it out.

But that’s boring, I’m going home for the holidays just like everyone else in the world.  I feel bad leaving my hubby though, because I think the only food he can prepare is cereal and I’m pretty sure he will go to school wearing my clothes before he starts doing his own laundry.  Good wife that I am, I have a freezer full of meals for him and got all the laundry done.  He’s stocked up, just like tv when the mom goes away and has every pre-made meal labelled in tupperware with cooking instructions printed neatly on the front.

I may not be working yet, but I’m learning the ways of the 1950’s woman, and I figure that will be useful someday.Anyway, some things I’m excited to do when I’m home:

1.  Go shopping!  Good Lord I have not gone shopping without guilt for so long!  And my wardrobe shows it.  I’ve saved for this, and I am coming back to Canada in style.  No more crap clothes I’ve had since high school, and for God’s sake I need a pair of pants that fit.

2.  See my mommy, daddy, and brother- who I miss terribly!  I’ve been around inlaws for the past 4 months and even though I love them and get a long with them, I can’t really be myself 100% around them.

3.  My dogs!  They’re spoiled, annoying, and only care about food- but I can’t wait to see them and tease them- especially the little one, she’s a bitch.

4.  Seeing my friend Megan, she’s pretty much my only friend who hasn’t stabbed me in the back or developed a cocaine addiction, and she likes to shop, so I will enjoy her company while I’m home.

5.  Working out- my dad works as a massage therapist at a huge workout facility, and got me a pass for when I’m home.  I am going to do every day, get ripped, and come back and kick my husband’s ass.  I’m talking Chyna muscles here.

6.  Having a car- yes I do have one, but it’s a Saturn and would never survive here.  Too much snow, not enough salt, and way too cold.  Oh- and the car has bald tires and is missing a window, so it’s not really worth it to have it here, but oh dear is it a pain in the ass not having the vehicle!  I’m sure I will someday share my public transit stories, after the therapy.

7.  Seeing my extended family, and eating their food.

8.  NOT being a housewife for three weeks.  Fuck cooking, fuck laundry, and fuck paying bills.

 

 

The Girlfriends

Well I wrote a whole thing about why I haven’t been writing lately, and about my latest adventure last weekend, etc.  And my lovely computer let me finish and then crashed.  I could go back and just post what I wrote because it got saved as a draft- but I’m going to take a hint from my computer and just re-write the whole thing.  The first one must have been pretty bad because my computer never crashes!

So anyway…

I haven’t been writing because I’ve been busy doing other things- outside- and high.  So I haven’t written.  But it was really nice to read all the nice comments about my ‘Bees to the Face’ post.

So enough updates… and now for my latest Canadian Adventure: Hockey Season begins, and I’m one of the players’ womenfolk.

You see, in hockey, the men play the game and all the girlfriends and wives go to the games and watch- together.  We had ‘The Girlfriends’ in the States when my husband played there, but they were a little different.  I didn’t sit with them when I went to the game because, well I had better things to do.  This hockey season in Canada, however, things are different- and I really don’t have anything better to do!  But I was pleasantly surprised by this native group of girlfriends, and then drunk, and then sick. 

6:30 pm Friday- We get a ride outside of the city to the rural town where this night’s game is taking place.  And when I say rural town, I really mean it.  The player giving us a ride was instructed by his girlfriend to drop me off at a house they were at on the way to the game.  I am deposited and the men leave.

7:30 pm- It is me, The Girlfriends, and a couple of boys who don’t play on the hockey team.  We drink and watch Canadian football. 

***  Now- I am NOT a drinker, I may get high like Snoop Dogg but I rarely drink.  When I drank in college I turned into a slut, when I drank after college I got sick… so I really don’t enjoy it, but sometimes….

8ish- whatever, it doesn’t matter what time it is- we leave for the game, late, and with 5 of us crammed in a small vehicle we drive along the deserted, snow covered roads towards the hockey rink, passing wine coolers around as we go.  I don’t condone drinking and driving, but I wasn’t driving!  Ha!  No, seriously, no one was on the road so if we crashed we would have only hurt ourselves- we would possibly be found three weeks later frozen to death under a make-shift pile of lycra, fleece, and hair.

Anyway, we get there safely and bypass the hockey rink for the curling rink (where the beer garden is) and YES- this tiny town has both a hockey rink AND a curling rink, how delightfully Canadian

So we go to the beer garden and drink some more, occassionally going into the hockey rink to check the score- mainly focusing on strutting around like hot shit groupies (at least that’s what I was doing- because I was DRUNK).

The game ends, the men sniff us out and join us in the curling rink.  We all drink and eat stale chips together, my husband looks at me and knows I’m drunk, and promptly switches tables- he’s been down this road before.

Then, the queen of The Girlfriends (there is always a Queen, she is either a) the prettiest, b) is dating the best player on the team, c) is most popular/ always knows what’s going on.)  So the Queen invites me out to some strangers car to smoke weed.  For some reason she pegged me for a stoner- go figure.  So we go out to this random car, I roll a joint, and we smoke the car owner’s weed. 

About 15 minutes later we emerge from the car, and I am realizing that I am wasted off my ass.  We go back inside and after swallowing my own puke a few times I figure I should head to the bathroom… I stay there because I am too dizzy to make an entrance back into the beer room and am too embarrassed to crawl.  Eventually one of the girls comes in and asks if I’m okay- I say I’m fine, just drunk and sick… then finally my husband came to my rescue and we got a ride home from the Queen and her boyfriend.

Needless to say, I was humiliated… yet I feel like I have passed any kind of weird initiation into Canadian culture.  Being one of The Girlfriends at a hockey game is probably going to be a big part of my winters, and if I had to drink myself stupid and then puke in some random bathroom then fine!  I’ll be ready for the next game.  And looking back on some of my past drunken endeavors, this was really not bad at all.  At least I had the sense to stay in the bathroom, not come on to someone’s boyfriend, dance, tell jokes, or try to drive. 

My Bestest Friend

In college I had two best friends, we did everything together and people laughed at how close we were- we were always together and always had our own little thing going on.  Then, I won’t even waste my time going into details, the effects of 3 girls being friends surfaced and I was systematically squeezed out of our clan- the clan I started!  I was the main up of our little family… and those bitched turned on me.  But again, I won’t get into it.

The one friend burned me quite often with gossip and lies… so I was still nice to her but didn’t trust her or tell her anything.  The other friend was my best friend, I never had a friend like her before, she was like my sister.  Well, gossip and lies seaped into what remained of our friendship during our senior year of college, and it turned into a big stupid girl fight and we didn’t speak for months.  It was so serious that I actually removed her from my friend list on Facebook… true scandal. 

I still don’t even know what the Big Fight was even about, and it took me a year to stop giving a shit.  But this friend still e-mails me occassionally, making nice, acting like nothing happened and that we’re still friends (even though I haven’t actually talked to her for 2 years).  She asks what I’m up to, saw I got married and congratulated me, said she would like to talk on the phone, blah blah.  I would always write her back nice emails, telling her what I’ve been up to (trying to make it sound less depressing, of course), asking how her family was, how she was… and I even called her when she said she would like to talk- I left a message because she wasn’t there.  This is not a big deal… but she NEVER writes me back!  It is so annoying because I was fine with never talking to her again- that’s what I did with the lying friend- but she keeps writing me with her little feeder emails- trying to get dirt and being nosy.  She sends these feeder emails about every 3 or 4 months.  Asking me what I’m up to… I respond, and then ask her the same, and imply that I am expecting a letter or call back… and nothing.  What a fucking weirdo.  I’m not telling her anything else about me and my life… she’ll get a “fine, how are you” and that’s it. 

Girls- you are so dumb.  If you are mad at someone, tell them why.  If you hear someone gossiping about your friend, just don’t tell them- it’s hurtful- but don’t join in the gossip either.  If your friend has a boyfriend and isn’t spending enough time with you, deal with it- you’ve seen the last scene of Bambi right?  All the animals pair off with their significant other and that’s just too bad.  And if you want to keep in touch/ keep tabs on someone- have to common decency to reciprocate.