This Should be Fun, or Humiliating or at Least a Book Review
Thursday, February 18, 2010
One of my clients has a son the same age as mine so we trade stories and notes and suggestions. A few weeks ago she told me that her and her husband had embarked on the detailed where babies come from discussion. I immediately started thinking that perhaps my husband and I were behind the ball on this one. I asked how it went.
"Oh, not good", she told me, "not at all good."
Apparently this gentle parent-child conversation about the miracles of life had ended with her nine year old son in tears, yep, crying, big, wet, messy nine year old boy tears saying something along the lines of "Daddy does that to you ?" in disbelief and confusion.
So, needless to say, I am a wee bit gun shy about telling my son that yes, Daddy gives me a back rub and begs until I let him put his pizza* in my oven(and sometimes my microwave) and then we watch another episode of Six Feet Under until we fall asleep.
Then I remembered one of my all time favorite books, discovered at my cousin's house so many years ago.
Does this ring a bell for any of you??
This is the book that explains an orgasm to kids, so, uh, reading this with my nine year old should be a lot of fun for everyone.
It feels like a sneeze but much better, and if Daddy's feeling generous, you might get four or five"sneezes".
My husband and I do not look like that. He has hair on his head and I wax. Oh and for accuracy kids, Daddy's way too tall to have sex in the bathtub. We actually look a lot more like this.
Nothing screams intimacy and tenderness like bubble wrap thigh highs on a man.
Unless you're Daddy.
I ordered the puberty version. I figured I'd give Where Did I Come from a chance to sink in before springing puberty on him. 
Can't wait to hear what he tells his friends.
*I actually told the bebe that Daddy has a pizza rather than a penis since she is all about the tmi right now. I figured this would avoid an embarrassing mishap at places like the grocery store and bank. Now if she tells the teller that I was eating Daddy's pizza, the teller will just think my husband likes to cook traditional southern Italian food. When she's older, I will tell her the truth, that that is where jewelry comes from.
Labels: Dirty Jobs, family, kids, Momma's got to do everything., My kids are going to need a really good therapist.
Dear Formerly Fun : Angels Butts, Clogged Pores, Pro-active & Bat Boy
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Hey There, Beautiful!
I keep meaning to send this along, as I'm kind of at a loss of what to do. If anyone could answer this question, I think it would be you. My younger son (16), who once had the skin of an angel butt is now facing that whole teenager blemish thing. I've bought him ProActive, which might work if he used it on a semi-regular basis. Lots of blackheads on his nose and chin that I am doing everything in my power to avoid "helping" with. So, here's the query: Is it worthwhile to take him to an esthetician to get some extraction-esque facials? Is this done for teenaged boys?I'm just wondering if this could potentially help out, if it were done on a regular basis, or is it just a short-term solution? Inquiring minds want to know. While you're at it, maybe you know what happened to Bat Boy? He's been out of the news lately & I think they're grooming him for heading up Security for the Inauguration.
Thanks in advance for any advice you might be able to provide!
Hugs,
Shelley
Dear Shelley,
First, let me assure you that Bat Boy is alive and well and much to my 
surprise residing here in Southern California. He has just finished his first screenplay and has been seen several times in a public lip lock with a certain Hilton girl heiress.
As to your oily offspring. First, a little Acne 101. Blackheads, also known as open comedones, are follicles filled with plugs of sebum and sloughed-off skin cells. The oxidation of melanin gives the material in the follicle the typical black color. Blackheads will not magically go away on their own if left alone and acne can result from infection of the oil gland due to the blockage by the blackhead. Therefore, preventing and removing blackheads helps control acne.
You could certainly take your son in for a mini-facial. You could also attempt a basic facial yourself. Perhaps getting squeezed a little will motivate your son to stick to a routine. I frequently do facials on teenagers, though I omit the shoulder and decollete massage because with a teenage boy you never know what might pop up.
Instead I stick to a thorough cleansing with steam to soften the blackheads. I like to use a slightly oilier cleanser because in this instance, like dissolves like. I use a light scrub if there is no active, angry acne(scrub will only further irritate this condition) or a light chemical peel. I then cover my fingertips with folded 
tissue and gently squeeze to push out the blackhead. Never use fingernails or the metal implements designed for blackhead removal. Fingernails leave small cuts in the skin and with a comedone extractor, it is too easy to use excessive pressure and injure the skin. Plus, they are not very effective. Anything that doesn't come out relatively easy isn't ready yet and should be left alone. Excessive squeezing can damage the skin surround the pore and can actually increase the size of the pore leading to more blackheads in the future.
As far as care goes, your son can keep it very basic and doable. Put the ProActive cleanser in the shower and tell him to lather his face up and let the cleanser sit softening the oil and debris while he "does other things." Have him use the treatment lotion before bed, it's okay if he doesn't wash his face first, not ideal but if he's sixteen let's keep it simple. Then use the toner when possible. Do what I do with my husband, soak a cotton pad with it, find your son somewhere on the computer and swipe it on his face. If he could wash in the am, lotion in the pm, this would go a long way toward keeping his skin the very picture of cherubic heiny it once was.
Postscript: When looking for images, it is advisable not to type in 'angel butt', oy vey, the internet is a begrimed and squalid place.
Labels: beauty, Dirty Jobs, estheticians, Momma's got to do everything.
Dirty Jobs
Friday, May 23, 2008
My husband and I were watching television recently when a commercial for the Swiffer Wet Jet floor cleaner came on. I watched nonplussed as the gleeful woman traded in her dirty, ineffective mop for a super clean, Swiffer with pre-moistened floor cleaning pads.
“Doesn’t that make you angry?” my husband asked. “What?” I asked, intently watching to see how the floor looked before and after. “That,” he said pointing to the tv contemptuously. “You mean all the disposable, wasteful stuff they try to sell us?” I asked “No,” he said,” the fact that it’s always a woman doing the work in cleaning commercials.”
It had never occurred to me but my radar primed, I started noticing all the commercials for cleaning stuff. Sure enough, one after another were filled with impeccably dressed, serene and satisfied looking women happily scrubbing toilets and mopping floors.
There were no men in site. Were the men conspicuously missing in these commercials to trick us into thinking that if we clean really good with their product, absent the men, our houses will stay clean. Oh wait, let me not forget the one man, the only man who does make an appearance in the world of cleaning product commercials, Mr.Clean. Mr. Clean, standing there with his arms crossed like some maniacal taskmaster or hypercritical foreman, watching you clean.
Maybe I’m so conditioned to accept that ensuring the house is clean is my sphere, that I don’t balk that every product is directed at me. I brought this up at lunch with a few other women. “Why do you think they don’t show men cleaning in these commercials?” I asked them. “Because men don’t clean and if a woman saw a man cleaning in the commercial, she would immediately see the hypocrisy and be even more pissed that they were getting credit for doing something they don’t do.”
But my husband does the floors a lot I thought. “Because women buy these products,” another friend offered. It’s true, women account for the majority of cleaning product purchases, but why do I want to see a well dressed, serene woman Swiffering her floors? Even on the Swiffer website, they show a picture of a women cleaning in white pants. White pants? Really? I can tell you, I have never cleaned in white pants, maybe white underpants because it’s a warm day or I’m waiting on the laundry. That is just not what happens in my house on cleaning days. Contrary to the halcyon depiction in tvland, on my commercial, you’d see a harried, unshowered woman in her nightgown getting poopy cat prints and 3 days worth of the children’s breakfast spillage off the floors before her mother-in-law comes over and reports her to child services. And if women are indeed the marketing target, why don’t they appeal to women’s desires? How about a little wish fulfillment here.
I can see it now, the commercial starts and on the screen we see the husband, furiously cleaning the floor, mopping the sweat off his brow as he wipes the prints from the refrigerator. He scuttles about putting toys away and hanging up his wife’s coat and dispensing with a weeks worth of mail. He white gloves the mantel making sure everything is just so. This tv husband knows what you go through and unlike your real husband, he feels the work is anybody’s to do. Why shouldn’t he do it, it needs to get done. Or find some hunky man’s man that appeals to both men and women to endorse a few cleaning products. Get Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs to brandish a Swifter and I’d bet men and women alike would be filling their carts up with Swifters galore.
Labels: cleaning, commercials, Dirty Jobs, feminism, housekeeping, Mike Rowe, Mr. Clean, Swiffer
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