Monkeys, Maids, and Other Polically Incorrect Things

I am a reader. This is not a new thing. I have been a reader since I was born. (Okay, someone else was doing the reading then, but I still enjoyed it.) When I was little, my mom read my books to me so many times that I could recite many of them, and it was a family pastime to have me do this for company. I guess it's fun to make people think your three year old can read. I had favorites back then, and some of them have stayed with me over the years. I loved Curious George. (So I'm not super original. Sue me.) I loved Dr. Seuss and Madeline and Corduroy and all the other books that mothers read to their babies. Some children's books I discovered as an adult. I'm obsessed with A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. I adore anything by Beatrix Potter (so much so that I even sat through that mediocre sapfest of a film with Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.)

I am also a book collector. It is not enough for me to love a book. I have to own it. My children's book collection is significant, and I have been lugging it from house to house for my entire adult life. And now, my book hoarding has finally paid off. With the arrival of Lucy Addison, I now have a legitimate excuse to display and read from all my childhood favorites. So every day, I pull out the Boppy, prop up the baby, and read a good book.

This revisiting of my old favorites, however, has brought to my attention the politically incorrect nature of some of the classics. Now, I am not one to be particularly P.C., but I must admit that I did get a little chuckle thinking about how they are selling these less-than-modern tomes to children at your local B&N. In a world where everything has a non-offensive title (I'm not short, just vertically challenged), it's nice to know that we can count on classic children's literature to take us back to a different time.

Amelia Bedelia - The story of an artless, hapless maid with a penchant for taking things much too literally was one of my childhood favorites. Upon re-reading, however, I was shocked to find our friend Amelia working away in what amounts to a modified French Maid outfit, complete with lace apron and cap. Nothing says, You're my inferior, like making your employees dress in what would now be considered a Halloween costume. Then there is the cavalier way with which Mr. and Mrs. Rogers hire, fire, and re-hire poor Amelia Bedelia. I'm certain that she's not getting any health benefits at that job. Perhaps the president could use the frequently unemployed maid as his new poster child for the health care bill. I'm sure it would improve his standings in the polls for the under ten set. Also hearkening back to a time long ago (and maybe never) was the way which Mrs. Rogers lives. Not only does she have a maid, but she has a sewing circle, for crying out loud. Neither Mrs. Rogers nor any of her lady friends have jobs. So why do they all need maids? Oh, that's right, to clean their mansions. Now there's some relatable characters for today's youth. Either you're so rich that you have a staff to wait on your every need, or you're so poor that you must wander the streets looking for work (See Come Back, Amelia Bedelia.) Don't worry, A.B., you're still one of my favorites, and I swear I don't find it offensive that the only reason the Rogers take you back at the end of each book is because you can bake.

Curious George - So this little primate was definitely before the days of the Crocodile Hunter and Animal Planet. We are introduced to our long-limbed friend as he swings happily about his jungle binging on bananas and just being, well, curious. Then along comes the Man in the Yellow Hat, or as I will henceforth refer to him, The Man. The Man tells George that he knows somewhere where he'll be very happy...the zoo. Are you kidding me? Our monkey friend seemed just fine swinging on vines in his (probably doomed, let's be honest here) rainforest. The Man honestly thinks he'll be happier in the ZOO? Never mind the fact that he tricks George into a bag to trap him. Now there's some light reading for children. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more politically incorrect, poor, little George gets thrown in jail for playing with the phone and calling the fire department! (And while we're on that subject, what fire department has the number 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9? And shouldn't a monkey that can work a rotary phone be congratulated not imprisoned? I have trouble dialing the numbers on my cell phone's touch screen.) Of course, this is a children's book, and it simply must have a happy ending. So what becomes of our mixed-up monkey? Does he hop a jet back to the jungle and live happily ever after? No. He gets dumped in a zoo where The Man buys him and all the other trapped animals balloons. That's right. Balloons. And let us not forget that there is actually a book entitled, Curious George Gets a Job. I wonder if his employer pays for insurance.

Beatrix Potter's stories - Forget the outrage over violent television and video games. Miss Potter had it all covered way back in the day with her fantasy-meets-horrific-realism stories or as I would like to rename Peter Rabbit's story, When Farmers Attack. That's right children. This is not just a morality tale of do good things or bad things will happen. This story is VERY specific. Do what your mother says or you will get eaten and die. Kudos to Mr. MacGregor, though, for his clever mocking of the naughty Peter by hanging his jacket on a stick in the garden. That's not disturbing at all.

These are only three small examples of the politically incorrect nature of the books I treasure, and it is these very details that, in part, make them so dear to me. I'm not naive enough to say they hearken back to a simpler time, so we'll just say a different time. And yes, Lucy Addison will be hear about Madeline and her life in a Catholic girls' boarding school where the parents never visit their children. At some point, she'll probably even read some Mother Goose in all its Gothic horror.

She will not, however, be sung "Rock-a-bye-Baby" as a lullaby. A song about a child falling out of a tree? A girl's got to draw the line somewhere.

Confessions of a Baby-Hater

I know I have 30 more weeks of this insanity to go, but I have to let a little of the crazy out or I'll never make it. After ten weeks of being pregnant, I have come to the comforting realization that pregnancy didn't magically turn me into that girl. (What a relief.) Wondering who that person is that I dread morphing into? Allow me to elaborate.

The other day, Steve and I were watching a Married With Children marathon. One of the episodes was from the season where Katey Sagal was pregnant. It began with the family gathered around the kitchen dinette set having a "baby meeting." Peg is massively pregnant, and the rest of the Bundys are less than thrilled with the prospect of competition for the scant nutrition of toaster leavin's. Each time their lack of enthusiasm leaks out, Peggy insists that they do penance with a chanted "Hail Baby." After a particularly anti-baby comment, Kelly is told that she must say multiple "hail baby's in the privacy of your own room."

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are the belly rubbers. I actually read today where some woman said that she enjoyed having people rub her pregnant stomach. I think she should have her head examined. I have to come to terms with the fact that friends and family are going to be coming at me soon, hands first. (Actually, it's already started.) What I refuse to accept as inevitable are the curious hands of strangers groping my mid-section. I have never in my life felt the compulsion to touch a total stranger's belly, and I am completely mystified by others' desire to do so. As I told a friend the other day, I'm never going to be that person.

Of course, I've been painted as a baby-hater in the past. After I wrote a short story about a woman who fakes a pregnancy and miscarriage to stop her co-workers from hassling her about not wanting children, people assumed that I was opposed to even the idea of babies. Apparently being inspired to write a story after years of harassment about my procreative plans made me an evil, neo-natal nazi.

I like to think I fall somewhere between the pie-eyed baby enthusiast and the hardcore DINK (that's Double Income No Kids.) I like the idea of babies. I've decided to have a child. Therefore, pregnancy is just kind of means to an end. I don't like baby shower games, and I'll never see the point of gruesomely detailed birthing stories relived over lunch. Does that make me a terrible person? I don't think so.

The worst is being judged by the pregnancy romantics. After my first doctor's visit, the nurse stopped me as I walked away from the lab station of the doctor's office. Didn't I want to keep my pregnancy test? Was she kidding? Why would I want to keep something soaked in...well, you know. Did she think I'd forget the result? I smiled and said no thank you, but I could feel her judgement all the way to the waiting room.

Then there was the ultrasound. I'll admit that it was pretty cool to see the baby's heartbeat. I still felt like my response was somehow less than what the technician expected, though. My one concession to the traditional prenatal excitement? I posted the ultrasound pictures on Facebook. Okay, so they were kind of amazing.

So to summarize? I feared that the day I got pregnant I would change into somebody completely different. I guess I'll have to save that experience for when the baby actually gets here (as everyone I meet likes to warn me.) As for all my other anti-baby rants? Well, I guess I'll just have to do a little prenatal penance. Hail Baby.

One Ringy Dingy

So tonight we had a house full! My kitties went from their sedate, laid-back, stress-free life to an evening of 9 people in the house, five of which were children. Hobson remained unimpressed by the crowd of younguns, but Abby was a star, letting every friendly, little hand stroke her. In fact, I think Abby went into immediate withdrawals when all the willing hands left, and she had to resort to giving Steve and me the sad-nobody-ever-pets-me eyes.

If you know me, you know how I am about the house. I like things neat and tidy and orderly. It's probably a result of 13 years of living in my own house with no one to mess things up but me (or Steve)...well, that and being an only child. So, five kids (four of which were under 12) running around, eating dinner at the coffee table, drinking soda, playing outside (and then in and back out and back in) was a good experience for me. Overall, I think I did pretty well. I couldn't quite relax, but I did manage to keep the cursory glances around the room to a minimum. (And these were great kids, by the way.) Steve, of course, was a cool customer. He just dove in, playing the PS3 with the kids, never breaking a sweat. Whenever we have kids, they're going to love him...and either hate or fear me. Oh well, I supposed every family needs crowd control.

Today was also a big day because I got a new cell phone. This is a big moment in our marriage. For the first time EVER, I have a cooler phone than my husband. I feel this may cause some tension, causing an imbalance in our familial technology equilibrium. Steve just got a new cell phone a few months ago, but while we were standing at the Verizon counter, he had to check with our sales guy to see when he would be eligible to get a phone like mine. I feel such a sense of power...makes me generous. I allowed Steve to play around with my phone for a few minutes this evening. Between the new phone and the new iPod Nano I got for Christmas, I feel like such a technophile. And to think that when I met Steve, I didn't even own a VCR!

Now, it's after midnight and I'm still up on my laptop tapping away at my blog, yet another sign of my technological growth. Unfortnately, there is no technology that will make me want to get up and be at church at 8:45, so I better go to bed!