I don’t consider myself a prude. But this video {via Jezebel} made me want to cry:
{sorry if it’s cut off on your screen}
I want to just be awed by these girls, by their skill, by their energy, by the incredible time commitment such a routine must have required. But I just can’t see past their outfits.
I get that dance outfits are not the kinds of clothes worn on a day to day basis. Tight leotards, cut off tanks, and itt-bitty skirts and shorts are common. But these outfits look like something from a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. And these girls look too young to understand the significance of that. If these girls were sixteen even I don’t think I’d care. In my opinion sixteen is old enough to make a choice to wear sexy clothes for a special occasion {hello prom dresses!}, because most sixteen year olds {provided they’re not living in a cave} have had sex-ed, have begun exploring what it means to be “sexy,” and so on. Speaking as a former theatre geek and a mother I don’t think I have a problem with teenagers wearing sexy costumes for a performance if they really want to. And I think a lot of dance, theatre, color guard, and cheerleading moms would agree.
But these aren’t sixteen year olds {or, if they are, they’re the youngest-looking, tiniest teenagers ever}.
These are kids.
These are girls who are too young to dress up in red and black, lacy, satin-y lingerie costumes.
These are girls who do not have the maturity, experience of knowledge to understand what “sexy” really is.
And that is why I had to hold back the tears while watching the video.
There will be time enough to dress sexy later. They’ll spend the vast majority of their lives as adults. They will have many more years of worrying about their looks and their sex-appeal than they will years of worrying about completing their My Little Pony collection. They will, all on their own, start to seek our and explore clothing that appeals to the opposite sex. They certainly do not need a dance instructor thrusting such outfits upon them at their age. Besides which, the shockingly inappropriate outfits committed one of the cardinal sins of the performance arts: they distracted from the performance.
And that brings me to another criticism as far as the theatrics of the number…why these outfits? See, when I say I’m cool with teenagers wearing sexy costumes I don’t mean it should be solely for the hell of it. Costumes need to fit the performance. There should be a purpose to them. And the sexual nature of these costumes seem to serve absolutely no purpose beyond “being hot” {and again, little girls and “being hot” DO NOT MIX}. As one commenter on the Jezebel site pointed out, not even the original music video featured outfits like these. Beyonce and her dancers wore dance leotards. So *why* if simple leotards are good enough for Beyonce did somebody decide that little girls needed to be sexed-up? And *who* is that someone? And if they are a parent *how* could they think those costumes were a good idea? And *where* are they so I can slap some sense into them?
Seriously.
Ridiculous.
What do you think? Would you want your child dressed like this for a dance number {a dance number that, I might add, was uploaded to You Tube}? Speak your mind in the comments.

{Note: UHEAA is the Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority aka The Masters of My Student Loan Debt}.
Dear UHEAA,

Thank you for you recent letter informing me that my first student loan payment is due. I’m glad to see that your employees are in fact capable of using the US Postal Service. After they never sent the forbearance application as promised {you know, the form that would have kept this payment from being due in the first place?} I was worried they didn’t know how to send mail.
I must say, I’m a bit baffled. You see, the bill you sent says very clearly that you only except checks from US Banks. In case you didn’t notice my address when you sent me the bill, I’m in Canada {that’s the country above the United States}. I have a Canadian bank account {because it would be highly inconvenient to drive 4-plus hours and cross the border every time I need to do my banking}. So you surely understand why I called you today to ask what I should do.
And just FYI, “figure it out” is a really crappy answer to provide to someone who is trying to give you money. After all, why do you think I called in the first place? Could it be because I’m trying to “figure it out?” If you won’t take a credit card, and you won’t take a Canadian check maybe YOU ought to figure out what payment you will accept. Because I’m not about to pay for a money order if you’re not able to guarantee you will accept it.
In closing, thanks for nothing.

Sincerely,

Holly The-Woman-Who-Is-Trying-To-Give-You-Money-That-You-Won’t-Take-From-Her Shumate

I just got this message from someone I've never done business with, nor communicated with {that I'm aware of, maybe I know them on Twitter or maybe they comment on this blog}. If it is you, and you are reading this I have removed your name and website to protect your identity.

Hi Blogging Mommies and Friends!   My name is ******** and I am the owner of ***************. Some of you are familiar with our store, some of you have had giveaways or reviews, some have purchased from us and others have things for sale with us. I am a stay at home - homeschooling mom. I started this business three years ago wanting to help other moms stay home with their children. As you can probably understand in this economy we are struggling. We cannot compete with the big companies such as Walmart who bring items at cheap prices! That is why I am turning to you. I am a loyal reader of your blogs and know the power of a blogging mommy (and grandma)! :)  
We are a very small online business that supports other work at home moms. We carefully choose our items and only bring our customers quality items. Our items are often personalized, hand made and made to order. A unique gift!  
I am writing you today to ask for help (begging really). We are on the verge of losing our business. I would love to be able to stay afloat and keep some income coming in to the moms with items in our store. I am asking you to open your blogs and post about our store. A button to our store would be great as well. We do not have anything to offer for your advertising other than a huge heartfelt thank you from other mom's. I know many of you get paid for advertising. We need the help this season. If you could take a look at our items *********************, blog about some of your favorites and promote some hand (mom) made gifts that would be wonderful. If you are able to post about us please send me a link to your post. I would love to thank you personally. If you can pass this on to other blogging mom's that you know could help please do. I cannot express my gratitude in words.  
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

When that message arrived in my inbox I couldn't believe it. But I visited their website to check things out before I made my final judgment. And what I found on their website was not encouraging. I felt the items were overpriced {and not just compared to Walmart}. I can support WAHMs and homeschooling moms on Etsy without burning a hole in my wallet. I don’t spend money at businesses just because they’re mom-owned. I spend money at businesses because they deserve it.
Please explain to me why I should give away one of the only products I have {just because it's digital doesn't mean it has no value} to save someone else’s business? Why should someone get for free what my other sponsors pay me for because they couldn’t keep their business afloat? If one’s business can't make it without me saving it maybe they ought to change what they’re doing. And maybe I'm just heartless but if I gave free advertising space to every WAHM who wasn't making money I would never make money either. It is not my job to make sure every one else stays employed. And while the government might give out bailouts to industries that are "too big to fail" and that employ probably hundreds of thousands of people I am NOT the government and this business is NOT an entire industry. They say 50% of small businesses fail in the first year and 90% in the first five. Is it my responsibility to prevent that from happening by giving away what my business provides?
I find it rude and ridiculous to send me an unsolicited request for free advertising, especially when not offering anything in return. It's pretty common for bloggers to contact companies to set up reviews/giveaway {though in most cases businesses contact us} but we're providing a service in exchange for those samples. Offer a discount code for me to share or a gift card to host a giveaway for my readers. It would have provided publicity and traffic to the web store while giving me the opportunity to give my readers something worthwhile. 
See, I try to limit reviews/giveaways on my blog for a reason. I want my audience to have good content. I don't want to be a corporate swag sell out. I haven't yet done a review that didn't come with free stuff for my readers too {and I’m hoping to keep it that way} nor have I written up a business or product I don’t personally like. 
But all that aside I DESERVE TO BE PAID FOR MY WORK. My work is blogging. I have worked very, very hard to make a good looking site and I work hard to post regularly and with interesting content {something that has suffered a bit during our move and the holidays but I digress...}. And here's what I think offends me so much: by asking me to not get paid for MY work so I can make sure she can continue to get paid for HER work, she has essentially said that HER work is more important/legitimate than mine.
I wouldn’t send an e-mail to a business saying “Could you send me some free shoes for my kid? I’m a SAHM! I can’t pay you but I’ll send you a big ‘thank you’!” So why is it OK to come to me and say “Could you spend your time writing up free publicity or give me free advertising? I’m a SAHM! I’ll send you a big thank you!” This woman says she started this business because she wanted to help moms stay home with their kids. Well, what about me?
Blogging is work too. My blog is not just some digital scrapbook/diary to keep my family up-to-date. It is a product into which I put a freakin' LOT of effort. And if you are really a "loyal reader" like you say then you should know that. If you were a "loyal reader" you should know better than to try to manipulate me into giving away my work with a sob story and compliments that, frankly, feel less than sincere. You have offered nothing, not even publicity {though, even then, I’ve seen some compelling arguments against bloggers writing unpaid in exchange for publicity}. You, a complete stranger to me, want me to save your business in exchange for nothing. No discounts for my readers, no giveaway, no publicity, nothing. And by doing so you are essentially telling me my work is worth nothing.
Well I disagree. I think my work is worth something. That’s why I charge for advertising space {with the exception of non-profits}.  Maybe some people think that because I don’t make much {and believe me, I really, really, really don’t} then I won’t care if I go from making pennies to making nothing. I do care. Any professional blogger {or blogger with delusions of professionalism like myself} should care. So will I give away the one source of income I have on this blog to save your failing business?
NO.

ETA 2: Nic has responded. You can read her apology her.

ETA: Someone privately shared this link with me. It's the video the TSA released of the event. At this time I'm not sure what I'd like to say about it. I'm feeling disappointed and a little betrayed for sure. But I'm waiting to give Nic time to reply to this before I say anything more. Comments on this post are closed for now.

Today I read this post on the blog My Bottles Up. It’s upsetting to read, and will probably make your blood boil, but please go read it. Go read it now then come back here. I don’t mind waiting. And please, if you’re in the habit of commenting on blog posts, leave some support for Nic. She was treated horribly by the TSA agents, who violated their own policies.

The TSA website says:

It’s a great policy. Having just travelled with Lucy this past August I can tell you it’s stressful enough travelling with a baby or child without the fear of them being taken out of your sight. But a policy is only worthwhile when it’s followed. These TSA Agents ignored their own policy, ignored common sense, and ignored the desperate pleas of a mother and her son leading to her panic attack.

I can’t be sure how I would have reacted in that situation. I would have probably bawled, and probably missed my flight because I would have been too busy angrily yelling at talking to a supervisor. I don’t care if its for 10 minutes or 10 hours. Nobody has the right to take a child from their parent without permission like that. I hope word of this spreads. I hope those agents get a serious dressing down and retrained. And the TSA better apologize profusely to Nic.

I try to avoid drama on this blog, really. I do. I like to be enjoyable to a broad audience so I often keep my more inciting opinions to myself, unless it’s something I feel ethically obligated to discuss.

And I feel obligated to discuss Nestle, however briefly.

If you’ve active in the blogosphere you’ve likely heard about the Nestle Family event. Perhaps you’ve even seen some back and forth on Twitter under the #NestleFamily hashtag. I hope you’ve read at least one of these posts:

An open letter to the attendees of the Nestle Family blogger event

The great Nestle boycott

What Are People Thinking?

edited to add: #NestleFamily, Bloggers, and Race: Why It Matters

Great posts…though they forget to address the Nestle/child slave labor connection. If you haven’t, please take a moment to do so now. And maybe you could stop by the Infact website and scan this Wikipedia entry.

But this post is not just about telling you that Nestle is fully of suckiness and fail. It’s about personal ethics. It’s about getting in bed with bad people. Now, I’m sure there are plenty of bloggers at the Nestle event who had/have no idea how dirty Nestle is. This isn’t about them (though it’s probably prudent to research companies before you jump into bed with them).

If you know a company is doing awful, horrible, terrible things should you buy their products? No. If you know a company is doing awful, horrible, terrible things should you become part of their PR spin machine? EVEN BIGGER NO.

I just don’t understand how anyone could think otherwise.

Dear Sheraton,

I would just like to thank you for a wonderful experience at one of your Four Points by Sheraton locations in Toronto. On the night of August ninth my husband, baby, and I missed a flight due to a medical emergency {which ended up being not so big of an emergency, but that doesn’t change the fact that we missed our plane}. After a long, hard day of traveling via plane and ambulance we needed a place to stay until we could fly to our destination. Our airline directed us to you.

The very helpful woman on the reservations line got us a room with a queen-sized bed and a crib at the Four Points hotel near the airport. And since she didn’t tell us that there are, in fact two Four Points hotels near the airport we went to the wrong one. But that’s OK. Even though we live on a student budget we love spending money on cab fare. Really. What’s more exciting than spending a paltry $50 to ride through some of the most inclement weather we’ve ever seen? It was almost like going to the amusement park and riding a roller coaster {except that people are a lot less likely to die on a roller coaster…so really we were getting more thrills for our money}!

Upon arrival at the correct hotel the gentleman checking us in informed us that there were no cribs available for us. But that’s probably a good thing. My baby really enjoys being free to crawl and stand in a safe place and frankly, I don’t want her to get spoiled. It’ll toughen her up if she has an opportunity to stick her fingers in electrical sockets or cut herself on the broken mirror you provided in our room.

When we got up to our room I was very impressed. I just love that “hotel style.” This room was especially nice. It wasn’t cluttered up with useless junk like a mini-fridge or microwave. And that bed! Wow! I’ve never seen a queen-sized bed that was the same size as a double. You must have them custom-made! Or, perhaps they’re a rare, vintage model? Either way, it was awesome. Typically I prefer lots of space for co-sleeping so it’s safer. But what the heck, let’s snuggle! Snuggling up was even more fun since the room was so warm and humid. It was like being on a jungle camp-out.

The helpful hotel information packet provided in our room indicated that room service is available daily until 11:00 pm. What a lifesaver! In all the hustle and bustle of going to the hospital we hadn’t had a chance to eat a meal since breakfast. But somebody must have switched out the information packets with fraudulent ones {I suspect a disgruntled maid} because room service isn’t really available every day until 11:00, except for people ordering drinks. And while I’d usually love to down an entire bottle of wine on an empty stomach when I’m not feeling well, since I’m a breastfeeding mom that might not be the best idea ever. But if I weren’t nursing I’d totally be all over that! And kudos to you for not flexing the rules. Just because a customer misses the kitchen closing time by 5 minutes is no reason to coddle them. You know what they say, “almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. We ended up ordering a crappy, greasy pizza instead. Serves us right for being so presumptuous.

I was a wee bit disappointed that our $120 per night room didn’t include a free, continental breakfast. But paying $7 for a small bowl of oatmeal and a small glass of grapefruit juice doesn’t bother me when I get a free bottle of water in my room! I mean, I could just use the plastic cups and drink tap water but pfft! That’s not nearly as ritzy. Besides, I deserve to be pampered. The environmental impacts of bottled water be damned!

{It says “It’s water. Of course it’s free.”}

In closing I just want to again say “thank you.” You provided an excellent experience. While it’s true that I’ve paid less for hotel rooms with free breakfasts, larger beds, etc.and I even paid less for the bridal suite on my honeymoon {which included a big, jetted tub} your helpful employees and stellar accommodations are worth the extra strain on my already troubled wallet. You can rest assured that next time I have a freak medical incident that leaves me stuck in Toronto for the night and the Four Points hotel by Sheraton is the my only option I will so be staying there again! Keep up the good work!

{Sheraton Responds!}

Dear A/C Installation Man,

I’m super glad you and your colleague came to my house today and installed our new central air conditioning unit {figures it would be on the coolest, rainiest day we’ve had in ages}. I no longer fear hot weather. Now I don’t have to worry about having a grumpy baby {or a grumpy me} because the heat made it impossible to get a decent night’s rest.

However…it it really necessary for you to drop your heavy crap on the floor {with a big, huge BANG!} thereby waking my daughter who had just gotten to sleep after being very moody for a very long time? Most people don’t just drop their stuff, they place it. It’d be really neat if you could do likewise.

Also, just because I’m a SAHM does not mean I’m an idiot. You don’t need to talk to me like I won’t understand what you’re telling me. I may have “Mommy brain” but it hasn’t affected my IQ thankyouverymuch.

But, other than that it’s been super!

On our recent trip we spent a loooong time at the West Edmonton Mall (WEM). It was pretty awesome. We were there almost all day. Naturally Lucy wanted to eat on several occasions. And me, being the awesome parent that I am, did not starve my baby. I usually just find the nearest comfy spot to sit and nurse Lucy wherever that happens to be. And, when you're in a place as huge as the WEM and you have a hungry baby you don't really have time to track down and walk to whatever nursing area might be available. But, seeing as the WEM is so awesome I didn't want to leave without checking out their "Mother's Room." So, we went looking for it in anticipation of a feed. We found one (I think there were two total) tucked in a hallway off the main path. It was listed on our map, and there were signs. So it was pretty easy to find. Then (in case we really needed help finding it) there was this big mural on the wall:

I (being the highly critical art fan that I am) thought it was kind of an ugly mural, poorly done. But I give it an A for effort. And I was excited to see it. If this was how much attention they gave to the mere sign pointing the way to the Mother's Room I couldn't imagine what the room itself was going to be like. Grand...it had to be. Everything about the WEM was big and showy. And it was amazing! Amazingly BAD!

It was nothing more than a glorified bathroom, and a dirty one at that. That bench was the only seating available (except for the toilets). I'm sorry {no I'm not} but I am not feeding my baby in a public bathroom. They smell nasty. They're uncomfortable. I would never eat my lunch in one. And frankly, I find the idea insulting.

WEM: Let me show you how it's done. Behold, the Calgary Ikea nursing room:

And we've got happy moms and babies.

Maybe the WEM should have spent a little less effort on the mural and a little more on the actual room.

What is the nicest, or nastiest nursing area you've ever seen?

It's time for another movie rant. First, let me make it perfectly clear that I really like the movie Hairspray. I like the story, the music, the dancing, and the characters, as one dimensional as they may be (and hey, it's a musical...they're supposed to be one dimensional). None of those things are a problem.

"Then what's the big deal," you ask?

John Travolta.

Well, not so much John Travolta as the fact that they cast him as Edna (the lead's mother).


See, here's my beef. One of the main messages of the movie is loving yourself the way you are, and that big is beautiful. Yet the casting director saw fit to cast a man wearing a fat suit rather than an actual fat woman in what is a pretty big role (no pun intended). Would it have killed Hollywood to give the role of the large mama to an actual large mama?

I have some experience with the process of casting (albeit in local theater rather than big budget movies). And I'm here to tell you that it can be incredibly frustrating to be rejected for a role simply because one doesn't look right for the part. Now, considering the shortage of roles available for larger women in the first place I can't help but imagine how I'd feel if I was a plus sized actress learning about Mr. Travolta getting such a prime part. I'd be "cussing angry." Isn't it enough that larger women have to watch hundreds of parts go to the eating-disorder elite of Hollywood without watching the role practically made for them go not only to a man, but to a thin man?

I think that sucks.

What do you think?

Scariest words in the English language: "root, canal."

Followed closely by "over seven hundred dollars."

Also...I hope I never have to be told "you can do option A [for way more money than I can afford] or option B [which will cost even more money later]."

And here's my advice to dentists everywhere. If there is an option C, do not wait until your client has agonized over options A and B and is nigh unto a total breakdown to inform said client of option C. It's mean.

/rant

Anyway...the dentist went [as] well [as possible]. I almost had to get a root canal or say goodbye to my tooth altogether. But at the last minute the dentist suddenly remembered another option, which was to drill, see if the decay wasn't too close to the nerve after all, and fill if possible. Lucky for me the decay wasn't too close to the nerve after all and it was indeed possible to do a filling. And we made it out of the office without giving up an arm, a leg, nor our firstborn. At the moment I'm reflecting upon the experience while waiting for the feeling to come back to the right side of my mouth (it's slowly coming back, and the feeling is "oowwww!").

Bear got to play Nintendo Game Cube in the waiting room. Lucy got to take a nap.

Mama got needles in her mouth and a drill in her tooth.

Aren't I lucky?*

*Well, yes, actually. I am lucky. I didn't need a root canal or tooth extraction. But I'm going for pity here. Pity me. Pity poor little me and my "traumatic" experience.