Mommin' It Up!

February 4, 2009February 4, 2009

Let’s Make a Difference!

We are hearing a lot in the media about the set of octuplets that was born a few days ago in California. To a single mom. Who already had six kids, and apparently an addiction of sorts to having them. I am going to ask you to forget about the stigma attached to that story for a moment while I tell you about another family with multiples.

This is Adwai Mulual and her quintuplets, born in December. Adwai is a 28-year-old married bank teller from Sudan. She was surprised when her doctor in Sudan told her that in her first pregnancy, she was carrying “three or four babies” – he couldn’t be sure – and that she needed to go to the United States if she wanted her children to have a chance to survive the pregnancy. Because Adwai’s mother-in-law lived in the States, she took the opportunity to meet her and officially seek her blessing, as is the Sudanese custom. A few weeks after arriving in the US, at about 19 weeks pregnant, she became ill and was hospitalized. It was then that an ultrasound was performed revealing that she was actually carrying naturally-conceived QUINTUPLETS! Can you imagine??

Her four girls and one boy were delivered, small but healthy, in December. But now Adwai is all alone in a strange country (though her mother is here for a visit currently), where she must stay at least for a while to get the medical care her children need. Her husband is in the Sudanese army and has not yet been able to get leave and meet his children. And she needs our help. Mandi and Tara have started an initiative to help the Mulual family over at the One Dollar Give. From their post:

“At this time, although many offers of help were promised in the days after the baby’s birth, they have not received much at all. They currently go through about 40 diapers a day! I cannot even imagine the fear and worry that Adwai faces, as well as the exhaustion of caring for her beautiful children. We’re working to get in touch with any and all PR representatives we know who work with baby care companies to get this story in front of the right people.”

Please, please visit the One Dollar Give to find out how you can help! Current options include ordering diapers for them from the Amazon registry Mandi set up for them and mailing a check to a church that is coordinating a local effort relief, but the option to donate by PayPal is coming soon! Please stay tuned!

So far GRACO has come through and donated five car seats to the family. YAY GRACO!!!!!! Will more companies step forward to help? Diaper company? Baby care? Clothing? Formula?? I can only hope so!

In the meantime, let’s do what we can! Please visit the One Dollar Give for more information.

February 3, 2009February 2, 2009

Five Bloggers Walk into a Banana Republic

Last Thursday night, I got together with Andrea of Mommysnacks, Erin of 5 Dollar Dinners, and Cortney and Tricia of Once A Month Mom to go shopping for BLISSDOM! Because of course, any excuse to buy new clothes, we mamas are gonna take. I had never met Erin or Tricia before, but I must say with the whole group, it was like we’d always known each other. We had an instant comfortability, which I loved. First we ate at Panera Bread, where we chatted and I consumed my meal as well as both Cortney and Erin’s pickles, which they were just going to WASTE. (Please, I would never let a perfectly good deli pickle go to waste! I got me some of that!)

Then, it was time to shop! After jokingly taking a twirl around Forever 21 and scoffing at the sequined mini-skirts, we headed over to Banana Republic. When the very helpful sales guy informed us they had an extra 30% off clearance, we hoofed it back to the clearance section posty hasty. (We are all CVSers after all. We likey cheap.) And we all got some great scores! (Well, except for Erin, who’d already gotten something there!) Here’s Andrea showing off her cocktail dress for BlissDom – cloaked in plastic! It is really pretty, and she got it for about $15!

Cortney and Tricia got cute tops for less than $10.

And I got a cute purple sweater dress, which does not look cute in the pic, but is, I promise, very much so. It was $12 and change!

Then we moved on to White House Black Market, where Tricia got a CA-UTE dress for the cocktail party at BlissDom and Erin and I took a dorky picture in a mirror!

Then, came my favorite part of the night: New York & Co. At every store we went to, the sales people would as us if they could help us and what we were shopping for. Here’s how that went:

Us: We’re going to an event.

Them: What kind of event?

Us: A blogging conference

Them: ohh….(eyes glaze over)

So, at New York & Co. it was no different! But when we got to the checkout, where I was buying earrings and Andrea some cute tops, somehow the checkout girls wanted to know MORE. And Andrea began trying to convince them that we were very famous, important bloggers. Because, after all, we’ve been in the NEWSPAPER! And Erin was on TV!

The poor sales girls just did not know what to say. Andrea, Erin and I were giggling like idiots. It reminded me of Ron Burgundy in Anchorman: “I don’t know how to say this, but I’m kind of a big deal.”

After frightening the sales girls, we headed off to Caribou Coffee and got our drink on until they closed and forced us to leave by running the vacuum cleaner so we’d get the heck out. We probably should have told them how famous we are, maybe they would have stayed open later! Ya think?

Thanks girls! It was a great night!

February 2, 2009February 2, 2009

Danica Patrick SuperBowl Ads for GoDaddy.com = EPIC FAIL

I really hate football, so I always look forward to the SuperBowl commercials as a way to get me through what would otherwise be four hours of sheer boredom. Last night, however, I was more disgusted than entertained, especially by the GoDaddy.com commercials featuring Indy Racing League driver Danica Patrick. I hate that I’m even giving GoDaddy any press by writing this post, but I just can’t keep quiet. The ads were racy and one featured some gooberish college guys ogling Danica in the shower (you could only see her head & shoulders but STILL. It was inferred that the goobers were getting the whole picture.) The other ad was also in poor taste, and both offered viewers a chance to see the “unrated” conclusions online. I am sure the unrated conclusions are probably soft p*rn or worse, but I’m not going to find out for myself.

C’mon, Danica! You’ve shattered barriers for women by becoming the first successful female IRL driver, why are you taking such a giant step back in participating in ads that are demeaning to your gender? Do you REALLY need the money that badly? Because personally, I don’t think it’s worth it, and judging from all the tweets I saw about you and your poor-taste ads last night on Twitter, I’m not in the minority. (Do a Twitter search for Danica Patrick and you’ll see what I mean.)

The whole thing left me feeling pretty yucky – how about you? Am I overreacting or has Danica shelved her self-respect?

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Ok this is Emily jumping in here. Jenny unwittingly handed me my soapbox this morning, so I’m going to jump on it.

Danica Patrick has had a successful racing career, and she has broken barriers. There were, however, women who went before her. Janet Guthrie drove in the Indy 500 five years before Danica was even born. Lyn St. James won “Rookie of the Year” at Indy in 1992. Sarah Fisher drove along side Danica from 2000-2004.

She wasn’t the first… she was (and is) the most marketable.

It’s ok for a female to be a strong contender in a male dominated sport, if – and this is a big if – said female is hot.

Hot and heterosexual. Years ago, I was just as hot under the hood as Jenny is today when I saw a life-sized cardboard cut out of Danica advertising pepsi products. She was in her racing gear, she wasn’t wearing anything provocative… it was her wedding ring that made my blood boil. The folks at Pepsi had worked really hard to make Danica’s ring blatantly obvious – somehow they made the silver dollar-sized cardboard diamond shimmer. They might has well have tattooed “Don’t worry, I am not a lesbian!” on her forehead. In addition to her hotness, this fact is also key in her marketability.

But, let me play devil’s advocate for a moment, too. As quick as we are to find distaste for Danica using her sexuality to sell domain names (I haven’t quite figured out that connection yet), did we have that strong a reaction when Michael Jordan walked around in his Hanes? I doubt it. Why is it less of an issue for a man to be seen on TV in his skivvies?

What about when the ooglers were women taking a Diet Coke break?

And what if Danica did the commercial just to make money? Have you seen the advertisements splashed all over race cars? Their outfits? Their helmets? Obviously car racing is expensive, and sponsorship is big business. Are we offended by the giant Viagra car zooming around the track? (Yes, I am, actually, but it doesn’t seem to be a hot topic on Twitter).

Women have come so far in sports in the 30-some years since Title IX was inacted, but sexism and inequity are still very real. And while I could go on all day, I won’t… but I’ll bring it back to Jenny’s original question:

Are we over-reacting?

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Ok, it’s Jenny again. Now for shameless self-promotion: I am guest posting at the Crocs blog today and I promise I didn’t do anything demeaning to myself or my gender over there! Please go check it out!