Husbands | Wired Momma

Category Archives: Husbands

Hoppin’ on the Tiger Train

December 3, 2009

A true first happened in my house this morning. And no, I’m not talking about my 4-year-old waking up at 3:45am when she realized the power was out and it was dark and remained up for the day, I’m talking about something else entirely.

Nestled into the couch with my warm cup of coffee, I opened the paper and didn’t go straight for the Style section. I didn’t even go for the A section. Nope. Today – I went for the SPORTS section. Like I said, stranger things have probably never happened chez moi.

Doesn’t take a genius to figure out why – like most other women in America, I am completely obsessed with the Tiger story. Following that obsession, I am obsessed with the slime who are the WH party crashers. Anyhoo – until a few days ago, I couldn’t have cared less about baby face Tiger. I don’t care about or even like golf. I really couldn’t care less about professional sports. And whatever products he promotes, I either don’t care about or don’t buy because he said I should.

But now, I am all aboard the Tiger trashing train.

Being a PR person by profession, I am fascinated with how poorly he managed the initial news break and allowed the rumors to fester for days. I’m sure he’s any crisis communications manager’s worst nightmare because I guarantee he wasn’t listening to their counsel for days…his ego too big for their advice.

Being a wife, I am fascinated because well, it’s any wife’s nightmare.

Being a mom, I am fascinated because if he truly did carry on an affair with one of these women for over 30 months, it seems he was cheating through two pregnancies and deliveries. Nightmare. Not to mention the message he’s just sent his children for them to digest as they get older.

Being a woman, I can’t help but think about these other women that cheated. Why do they disrespect another woman (Tiger’s gorgeous wife) so much, and why are they so self-centered – that they would participate in an affair with a married man. No, scratch that. A married FATHER. Why do women do this to each other?

Being not just a stylish and pretty woman, but also a smart one, I also can’t help but feel disgust towards Tiger – cocktail waitresses. Come the f on Tiger. You couldn’t have cheated at least with someone intelligent and equally as successful – you had to just make it about them being easy and gross and dumb? Takin a page out of the Bill Clinton playbook, apparently.

So clearly there are lots of reasons why I am obsessed – but let’s get to the heart of the real reason – I look at his unbelievably beautiful wife, who is also incredibly sexy, and has given him two gorgeous children – and I think to myself – jesus – if she can’t be enough for him – what the hell kind of chance do me and my two children later muffin top – have?

Now let’s be real. I’m not an insecure person. And I’m definitely not insecure in my marriage. But still – this kind of story surely secretly rattles all of us.

If Tiger were a politician, we’d expect him to stand behind a podium during a press conference and confess his sins and beg for forgiveness. Though Tiger has a higher profile than most of the cheating scum bag politicians who have stood up there, he is allowed to escape this ordeal – so we don’t have to sit around and wonder if his wife will or will not stand up there next to him. Instead, we are left wondering what she’ll do next. The angry side of us just hopes she kicks him to the curb and takes him for all his billions.

That same angry side of us also secretly hopes she was chasing him with a golf club that night and smashed in a window. Is that a double standard? Oh definitely. He’s not allowed to do that to her, cheating or not, but still – you read moi because I just say the truth. And I never said I was above a good solid double standard.

So these are all the reasons I opened up the sports section today and just might do it again tomorrow. Why are you obsessed?

2 Comments - Leave a comment!

Celebrities, Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood

Crazy for Pig

October 28, 2009

OK – I think we’ve reached fever pitch and we’ve all gone loco over swine vaccine. But that’s not what today’s post is about because the drama over swine is……snore….boring and also….stressful. I keep thinking that the drama over swine is just another reason to rail against our husbands.

Why? You ask?

Then you must not have a house full of kiddos that you are stressing out about trying to figure out how to vaccinate.

It seems to me that vaccinating the kiddos not just against swine but also against the seasonal flu this year – due to the nation wide shortages of both vaccines (our pediatrician ran out of seasonal flu on the very day my kids were scheduled to get their shots) – has become yet ANOTHER thing to add to the long list of things we try to cross off our lists each day.

The amount of hours I have spent trying to get through to our pediatrician’s office, only to finally get through and then be put on hold, and then have my call dropped, then start searching for free public clinics, and stalking the county web site, and then calling more places to see if they vaccinate children under 1…..is absurd. It is totally and completely absurd.

Then let’s add to it the public vaccination clinics. Another example of being anti moms and anti working parents – at least where I live – because they start at 4pm. What the? If they started early in the morning, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’d ship DH off in the middle of the night to go stand in line. But 4pm. Well, again, I’m on my own there. How in the hell am I supposed to go to a clinic and stand in line for 4 hours with a 4 year old and 11 month old? How? How is that possible? Can I pay a sitter to go wait in line? That would be $60 well spent, if I could just arrive in time to get them vaccinated. But no clinics around here have injectables…which my baby needs…..so do I waste my time trying to get one vaccinated only have to go face it all again a few weeks later for the baby, or do I wait it out until I can get both vaccinated? And why do I keep saying the word INJECTABLE every day…..until a few weeks ago, this was not a word I said or thought about…kinda like the word SWINE.

But again – all this stuff – takes lots of time to figure out – and gets to be very stressful – and here’s what I get when DH gets home
“You’re going crazy over this. Do whatever you want.”

S:DLKFHREOPSIrupoienf:lnhdsrpoihryfponhif:lindv;LKn#*$yu#*(PEOIH:SOIDG

Is my response.

How CONVENIENT to not have to worry about it and think about it and spend hours trying to get it sorted out…..cause well, I am doing it….not to mention….I”m going to be the one home with sick as hell kids.

I know I am not alone in this. My neighbor just called with a similar complaint.

Swine Vaccine distribution is anti-moms. Plain and simple. And another example of one of the invisible things we worry about and manage on a daily basis.

This is my rant for today.

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood

Role Reversal

October 6, 2009

There is something about motherhood that gives all of us pre-conceived notions about what is expected. Sadly, I do not believe this is true of fatherhood. The doting, loving, nurturing mom is the image we all have (or more realistically, the loving, nurturing, perpetually late, kinda frazzled but hopefully looking stylish mom). I don’t think we all have the same image of fatherhood. We love seeing sweet dads doting on their kiddos, or dads out alone at the park playing with the kids, but how often do you do a double take when you see this with a mom? You don’t. Fess up. You expect to see it.

We do double takes when we see things we aren’t accustomed too. Everyone knows at least one couple where the roles are reversed. Where when baby cries, dad is the first to jump up, or dad is the one scoping out all the schools and making excel spreadsheets while mom is not engaged in the process. I think whether we really stop and take notice depends on how extremely opposite it seems to us. I, for one, definitely notice when the dad is the one springing to his feet when junior is crying and needs tending too, or when mom tells dad to go deal with it. Part of me likes it. Part of me is confused. But I wouldn’t say judging is the word – everyone’s balance and role dividing is different at home.

But there is a line I am willing to cross. I put it out there last year that I totally judged Sarah Palin for running for VP because she had a 5 month old special needs kid at home. Would I have judged her if she were a man? Yes but not as harshly. I will be honest. Or how about instances where a couple divorces – don’t we all expect the kids to go to the mom? Well so what about when the dad gets primary custody and it’s not an instance of the mom being a crack addict or hooker?

Again, where is that line – and do you start judging the mom in a way you wouldn’t be judging the dad? Don’t you expect the mom to have primary custody? Doesn’t the court system do everything they can to keep children with their mothers? So if it’s part of our legal system – no wonder it’s part of our cultural beliefs.

I am totally late on the game with this topic because I read it over the summer and well, time and life got away from me, but in case you didn’t read it – Marie Claire did an article on women who chose to give up custody of their children. One in particular received the most attention, this family lost one of their children, divorced, and the mother moved from New York to San Fran. She felt it was better for her and the kids.

I am not going to pretend to know what happens when you suffer the loss of a child. But you still have other living children. And ain’t no one who can convince me those kids are better off with mom living in San Fran finding her career while they live in New York.

So am I saying that it’s the nuances that cause me to judge? Would I judge her if her husband got primary custody but she stayed in town? Probably not. But I also think the reasons behind it – she felt she needed time to herself and time to focus on her career and could argue this was better for her children?

Give me a freaking break. Find me one mother who doesn’t want more time to herself and would like time to focus on her career or whatever makes her happy beyond her children. I really need more time to focus on my spa experiences and fall wardrobe, don’t you?

But don’t you sign away your needs once you become a parent?

Or is it just when you are the mother?

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Husbands, Motherhood, Work

Addicted to Dr. Google

September 16, 2009

I have noticed something alarming happening all around me. It is the latest and most prominent addiction crisis impacting the nation, particularly parents. Another group afflicted with this addiction is pregnant women. I think you all know what I’m talking about.

How many times have you found yourself, with perspiration gathering on your upper lip, your heart rate accelerated, your shifty eyes darting around the room, as you slowly type in the words on your computer.

You wonder what the first links will be, you wonder how many search results will turn up, how many pages deep you will go into the search before you are fully diagnosed.

You are staring down a Google search. You know you shouldn’t. You know you should close out, retreat and just go get some coffee. Or call the doctor. Or pediatrician. Or better yet, even call and equally as clueless friend (I like to fancy myself a pseudo doctor, I know as much as McSteamy – call me).

But you can’t help yourself. You can’t move away from the Google search. Another common scenario is that first time you are in the doctor’s office, doctor is mumbling words, you don’t know what it means, you really aren’t listening, you are wondering how quickly you will get back to your office and can settle into your chair. You worry your internet service will slow down, some jerk might be streaming video and slowing down the service. How quickly can you punch out the words and pull up the search? You hold your breath. What will you learn from the results?

Sudden death is surely imminent, of this you are certain.

The other common scenario is the foggy thinking of a sleep deprived new parent. It’s 3am. Outside the walls of the home, the world is quiet and peaceful. Inside the home, a small infant no bigger than your neighbor’s stupid looking small dog, is wreaking havoc on their world. They just need to sleep. They just need quiet.

And the baby has…..gasp……HICCUPS.

The mom is crying, the new dad is just dazed and confused, so what is the solution? Pull up Google. Google it.

“Should I type in ‘baby hiccups’ or more specifically “newborn with hiccups?” asks the dad.

Mom glares at him, eyes shooting lasers through his brain for such a numb-skulled question when time is of the essence.

He types in the phrase and 449,000 results come up. This man doesn’t have all night. What is a desperate parent to do?

An intervention is in order. We all are addicted to curing ourselves and solving our medical problems via Google search. It’s quick, it’s cheap and it doesn’t require loitering in a doctor’s office for hours on end.

The trouble is, relying upon Dr. Google only enables our imaginations to run wild. And if you have a flair for dramatics, as I do, then the most life-threatening possibility of all the Google searched possibilities, is the only outcome to your health crisis. This crisis is rampant and one that we must stop.

Google medical searches only keep your blood pressure up, your heart racing and give life to our worst case scenarios. I vote that as much as we can possibly do it, we refrain from relying upon Dr. Google to diagnose our ailments. It’s a slippery slope out there.

2 Comments - Leave a comment!

Husbands, Motherhood, Pregnancy