The MommyRoo Blog

As a new mom, I’m quite excited to begin to introduce the things I loved as a child to my daughter.  One of these things is, of course, the infamous Disney classics.  Over Labor Day weekend, I was especially excited when Comcast On Demand was doing a promo for their new Disney subscription and were showcasing Tarzan, 101 Dalmations, and Mary Poppins.  I chose to watch Tarzan and 101 Dalmations over the weekend.

I still thought these were good movies, but I noticed a few things about them that got me thinking.  1) These were violent movies.  Especially 101 Dalmations.  They are not only trying to kidnap the puppies, but they are also trying to kill and skin the puppies.  That’s horrible!  I don’t want to explain to my daughter what it means to “off” a puppy!  2) Why the heck do 99% of Disney characters not have both parents.  Most of the time, the mother has been killed or died somehow and the father independently raises the child.  Or, somehow, the child is orphaned or runs away.

I was reading something that said Disney movies are the way they are because they are written after old folk tales which were written during a time where children were often motherless.  While this makes sense, haven’t there been other good children’s stories written since way back in the day?  Maybe one’s that teach good morals, don’t have bad guys that would scare me to this day, and have both parent’s?

On the other hand, I watched Disney movies as a child.  I loved them and I still do like them.  Somehow, I’ve managed to end up as, what I would consider, a decent person.  I’m pretty sure watching Disney movies as a child didn’t scar me into being a horrible adult.

So, what do you think?  Are Disney movies too “bad” to let our children watch?  Or do they actually teach us good moral values and add some character to our kids?

Being that I work for web design company, I’m continually glued to the internet for 40 hours of my week.  Not to mention, when I go home, I also check my usual myspace, facebook, and two email accounts.  I’m on instant messenger all day long at work with my co-workers.  It’s a common topic at Zipline to discuss social networking.  Clients often bring it up in meetings and the owners of the company also try to keep as much in the know as they can about the topic.  Did I mention I’m also part of Linked In and Launchpad NW (work related social networking companies) along with my blog, of course.  The amount of times the words myspace, facebook, twitter, blog, and other various techy terms come up throughout the workday is quite astounding, actually.  This has led me to ask the question, “When is social networking just too much?”  The fact that I can keep in touch with long lost friends (most of whom I’m aquaintances with or barely know)  is great and all, but knowing the amount of time of my life it consumes sometimes makes me wonder if it’s all just too much.

Lately, I have a few predicaments with social networking:

1) I hate having to update my mypace and facebook with the same information.  Pictures take a while to upload and it’s annoying.  Usually, I just do myspace and don’t bother with facebook, even though I have more “friends” on facebook.  I just don’t have enough hours in my day to keep everyone updated on every site every day.  Which brings me to my current argument about Twitter.

2) If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s basically a constant status updater feed so you can continually update your status and view your friends’ statuses with a continually auto-updating feed.  I find this to just be ridiculous.  Both of my bosses are on Twitter, but I just can’t bring myself to join.  I really don’t care if you’re going pee, or eating lunch, or heading to a meeting, or pissed off about your day.  Call me heartless, but I don’t.  It’s just too much information.  If I wanted to know that badly what you were up to…I still do have a good old fashion cell phone (no…it’s purposely not an iPhone).  I’ll call you.  Or I can always use the backup plan on stalking you through your myspace or facebook account.

3) How do you keep your personal life and your professional life separate in the world of social media?  Lately, a few of my clients have added me as facebook friends.  Although flattering that they would consider me a web “friend”, how do you draw the line between personal and professional? There are some things that I’m fine sharing with my friends, even aquaintances, but I worry that if I share them and a client sees them, will it cause awkwardness in our working relationship?  So how do you resolve this?  I can’t necessarily not add them, because then I’m rude.  But does it mean that now I can’t post personal things about myself?  Or do I just continue posting as normal and hope my clients don’t think any less about me?

4)  When does it become too much?  Unfortunately, part of me thinks it already has.  I mean, the fact that I have a blog, in and of itself has to say something.  I have succumbed to the social networking cult.  I can’t tell you that I’m not addicted to my myspace and facebook accounts.  After all, I did meet my husband on myspace.  If social networking is already taking up this much of my time, though…how is it going to evolve within the next few years, let alone when my kids are my age.  Perhaps by then, there will be no need to physically talk to anyone at all.

Anyway, I thought I would just post about this, because it’s been annoying me for some time now and even though I don’t have an answer to the problem, it sure makes a girl go “hmmm….”

Today was an exciting day.  Not only because it’s my birthday, but also because of the recent presidential election and Barak Obama winning.  I voted for Obama, but even if McCain had won, I still would have been ok with it, because it’s still a new outlook on our country and glimpse of hope for us and for people around the world that we affect.  I think today says something about our country.  It displays the leaps and bounds our country has made within the last several decades in the fight for equality.  Not just for African-Americans, but for women, for the working class, and for anyone else who has been oppressed in our country.  This election was monumental, not only because we elected a black president, but because women were running for president and taken (relatively) seriously.  It was big step for us as a country.  It’s not every day that I am proud to be an American, because of what we’ve done.  But today, I can say…I am proud to be an American and I’m hoping and praying that Obama will bring us all the change for the better he promised us he would bring.

It’s been nearly 4 months since I last wrote a blog on here and I thought it was about time I did.  A lot has been happening in the last 4 months.  A lot.

The first major news story is my announcement that Jason and I are expecting our first baby on April 9th, 2009.  He is very excited, but I’ve been having a much harder time with the whole idea.  It has been a very rough few months.  I wanted to have a baby and this was something that Jason and I did discuss, so I guess you could say it was a planned pregnancy.  But when it came down to it and I found out I was actually pregnant, I just am not sure how I feel about it.  A part of me is excited, but more of me is just scared, anxious, and a whole other slew of emotions I can’t quite find the words for.

The pregnancy has also brought along a lot of hormone changes, and being that I just weaned off of Paxil 6 months ago, I’m not sure that my body knows what to do with them.  So instead of being excited, my depression and anxiety have come back, but worse than ever this time around.  I’ve seen several doctors about this and after literally months of consideration I’ve decided to get back on medication.

I can’t explain how hard this decision has been for me.  I’ve heard the horror stories of babies coming out and going through withdrawal.  But right now, my baby’s mom can’t handle it.  I’m exhausted.  I wake up some mornings just shaking and crying because I know I have to go to work and get through the day.  I’m not as excited about the idea of having a baby as I always anticipated I would be.  My thoughts consume me and I can’t escape them running through my head over and over again and drowning me with anxiety and guilt.

Part of me is disappointed in myself for getting off of the Paxil and now caving and getting on a new medication.  I feel like I let myself down in a big way and am wondering why I couldn’t just get through it on my own.  But another part of me is realizing that I can’t get through it on my own and when 5 doctors and most people in your life tell you it’s something to strongly consider, I think I need to take a step back and listen.  So I took my first pill last night and I’m hoping that soon enough I’ll be back to normal.

Jason and I had decided we wanted to have the baby through a midwifery.  We found one we love and have been to a few appointments.  But because of my depression, I think we are going to switch to an OBGYN so they can monitor my medicine intake and how I’m doing more thoroughly.  We met with one yesterday and we really liked him, and I have a girlfriend who also saw him with her baby, so I feel confident in our decision.  He prescribed me my new medication, so I feel like we’re in good hands.  He also wants me to see my therapist more often than I currently am, which hopefully will also help me out.  We are still hoping that I can take Bradley classes through the midwifery, however, so we can have the most natural birth we can.

So that’s pretty much it.  I’m pregnant and having a hard time, but getting help for it.  Hopefully things will all work out and soon enough I’ll be the glowing pregnant woman I always hoped to be.  I just want to be the best mom I can be to our baby and I’m hoping I’ve made the right decision.  I’ve had a great support system through all of this and can’t thank my family and my friends who know what I’ve been dealing with enough for trying to help.

I’m going to try to use my blog to keep everyone more updated on how the pregnancy is going, any major appointments we have, any big news we have to share, and of course for my normal ranting and ravings.

I hope to be writing more soon…

Getting back on the topic of booking my flight home to see my dying grandpa, let me tell you how unbelievably pissed off I am at Orbitz.  I spend 2 1/2 hours last night trying to book a flight back to Michigan.  My tickets were listed at $398 and when I went to purchase them, I got an error message saying the price had changed to due reservations through the airline and my price was now $517!  $517???  What the fuck?!   Oh…not to mention I couldn’t even book the $517 flight…it wouldn’t take me anywhere in the site except back to the same page I was just on.

So I called to see what the issue was.   Upon being connected to outsource to India  (let me tell you how happy that made me when I was already irate.   And don’t get the wrong idea…I have plenty of friends who are from out of this country, but when I can’t understand what you are saying to me on a customer service call because Orbitz is too damn cheap to pay Americans and would rather rip off these poor unsuspecting foreigners…I get pissed the hell off!) and trying to figure my error out with the lady, she no longer could even find my flight in their computer system and then told me their system was going through maintenance and to call back in a half an hour.

Do you know what happens to airfare late at night during a half an hour.  It goes up.  A LOT!  During this half an hour, I decide to just call Northwest Airlines, since the flights I would be flying are all theirs anyway.  The customer service lady there was very kind and did her best to help me, but the prices were still not even close to the original ones I was going to buy my tickets for.

So a half an hour later I call back.  By the end of this call he can offer me tickets for $550 some dollars.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Apparently, he submitted my complaint to tech support.  Riiiiigggghhhhtttt.  So I submitted one, too.  We’ll see how that goes, because I highly doubt Orbitz will do anything about it.  Which is bullshit.

The moral of my story is, don’t use Orbitz.  They are a pain the ass to deal with and use false advertising.  Not to mention, they don’t support American jobs.  So I can now thank Priceline for getting me a decent flight for well under $500.