Lesson 2: A Story of Baby Stuff

Hey corporate America, baby for sale!

Apparently, my baby is a totally pro-Capitalism and he hasn’t even officially joined us on this planet yet. That’s the thought that ran through my head when I first walked into the huge baby stuff store. I mean, I’ve been to stores like this before when I bought things for other pregnant people. But this was my first time here being knocked up myself. Knocked up, lost and totally confused as I stumbled into the terrifying world of babydom. 

My vision of what babydom looks like

Luckily I had a wonderful family member who had two kids of her own who guided my way. The worker behind the counter handed me a coupon book and a gun scanner thing, where you go around shooting every baby thing your consumer heart desires to put onto a baby registry. With my baby stuff-buying gun I was off, setting off section by section to get my baby as much crap as possible.

Now I need to point out that I have never been a girl who enjoys shopping. Maybe it's because I’ve always been broke, so high prices made me want to break into hives.  Still, running around a store makes me get hot flashes, there is SO much STUFF out there, and companies want to make sure that I make it MY stuff, because stuff man, we need to have as much stuff as possible. Comedian George Carlin has a great piece on this that sums up my thoughts perfectly.

Back to the Baby Store, the hot flashes and sweaty pits were already starting as I looked on at the endless array of bottle choices. This one is shaped exactly like that one, but it prevents your baby from being gassy. This other bottle is a preferred brand but it had like 5 pieces that needs to be washed separately every single time you use it so that baby accidentally doesn’t get a bacterial infection from you neglecting to disinfect everything perfectly. Way to go you terrible mother, I’m calling child services.

Why does everybody gotta be so judge-y though

Aisle after aisle, so many options. So many things I never even fathomed existed, baby wipe warmers, weird squiggly shaped block stuff your baby can lie on that’ll help them stop crying, strollers with 2692761 features, parts and pieces. Shields to stick on your baby's private parts to guard you from urine attacks (I was going to use a chemists face shield myself, sort of like the kind they had in Breaking Bad, but Babies R Us didn’t have any).

As my gun beeped away I kept thinking, who the hell needs all this?  Women have been raising babies successfully since before the Ice Age, and they didn’t have ergonomic chew toys (unless a Sabretooth tiger bone counts). Does baby really need an ergonomic chew toy? Well the kid may come up to me one day and say “Mom I’m in therapy and I have a massive overbite, all because you didn’t get me an ergonomic chew toy, thanks mom”. 

sorry kid

This consumer culture is insane. Seriously, the baby does not need all this shit. I don’t need all this shit. Babies need hugs, kisses, tons of diapers, food and attention. Obviously I don’t know what I’m talking about because I haven’t given birth yet, so once the kid comes out I will be drowning in regret for not getting those baby butt warmers.  But I didn’t have all that stuff as a baby, neither did my sister. And I personally think my mom did an amazing job raising us to survive into adulthood  (go Mom!).  Honestly, my baby would be happy sleeping in a box, like they do in Finland, and frankly it would have a lower chance of dying of SIDs if I did that instead (seriously, Finland has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world and their babies sleep in boxes).

So in conclusion, yes I have a baby registry, I agree with getting a high chair and obviously a car seat, and tons of books because I want my kid to be literate and smarter than everyone else’s kids.  Ha, that’s not gonna happen because I didn’t buy it a multifaceted baby mobile that blinks in scientifically selected colors that costs $500 and will stimulate them to become an Einstein one day. Coz you know, Einstein totally had one of those. 

His Theory of Relativity had nothing to do with overpriced baby stimulation

Oh well, I’m just trying my best here, I guess baby will just have to be happy with his box and tons of hugs. Ergonomic chew toys be damned.

-S. Nadia Hussain

Lesson 1: Boob Ownership Crisis

Lets talk about boobs. Not those crazy over-sexualized boobs you see on Tv but real boobs. You know, those boobs that will feed kids one day? Okay, that was mean, over sexualized boobs are real boobs too but those aren’t the kind of boobs I’m talking about. I’m talking about lady boobs that (at least in my case.. certainly not everyone goes through such dramatic boob-mutations) take on a personality of their own. My boobs are nearly their own sentient being at this point. I shit you not.

Within 6 weeks of pregnancy my boobs had increased a full cup size. A solid C to a D. Then by 20 weeks (where I am now) they were at DD status. These honkers are heavy and my back muscles were just not able to build fast enough to compensate. Back pain ensues. It’s pretty incredible. At first, I thought maybe they weren’t so big, maybe I was just being silly… until I was undressing one night and caught my husband staring at me like I was some kind of stripper. In many ways it’s nice to be stared like that well into marriage but I realized… it wasn’t ME he was staring at. It was the ladies on my chest. Suddenly I felt like one of those pairs of over-sexualized boobies for a minute.

<side rant> I want to talk about the over sexualized boobs though because they get a bad rap. It’s easy for me to look down on those boob-a-licious women who rock them out on commercials and TV and make us soon to be moms annoyed at their glowing presence. But for me its not that I’m annoyed that you have sexy boobies its that you get sexy boobies and it’s totally culturally acceptable but if I breast feed in public (which I plan on doing once I pop this mongrel out) then I’m scandalous. I mean if women can have those things so exposed why is breast-feeding such a big deal in public?? Probably because it’s not sexy. Seriously people, stop being lame. If you’re going to accept super sexy boobies you might as well take the milk producing ones for heavens sake. </end side rant>

Anyway, I digress, back to my boob conundrum.  Not only did my boobs grow in size my nipples did too. They do NOT talk about this in the What to Expect when Expecting book let me tell you. The size of my areola went from cute and pink on my nicely proportioned ta-tas (I have to say I was blessed with some great tits) to large-sized porn nips that went from a lovely shade of pink to “holy shit your tits are now 50 shades of dark brown and spotty weirdness”. 

You read that right.

My nipples steadily progressed from pink to dark dark dark brown. Beyond this they are now also slightly spotted in the areola and this slow progression to dark-dom doesn’t seem to be stopping. For a pale ass white chick this is slightly disconcerting. I mean, what do I even DO with that? My boobs, my entire life, have been steadily the same. Slightly increasing with menstrual cycle at times and such but overall the same. And they were mine. Now they are not mine, they are changing and growing to suit the needs of a little person I have not yet met and they will be taken up much of the time by said little person.

And there it is folks. It’s not so much that they are changing that is weirding me out (although it definitely is). It is that they are changing because they are no longer exclusively mine. They will be, in part, someone else’s for the foreseeable future and that’s kinda weird. I mean, even married, they aren’t my husbands (though I dare say he enjoys them on occasion) but this little person thing baby child is going to be taking over the parts of me that made me feel womanly. These are the things that help me feel sexual and lovely and hot and now they’re going to be sucked on a by a kid in all their porn star huge ass spotted nipple glory.

It takes some getting used to realizing that not only do your boobs have a mind of their own they don’t even belong to you anymore or at least, they will be hosting someone else. That is not in any of those books I’ve been reading. Not a single thing about boob ownership crisis appears anywhere. So lesson number one in this primer of knowing nothing? Your boobs aren’t solely yours anymore man.

--Hannah Hill