Well, it's oh dark thirty in the morning and I am getting ready to leave on an adventure, but I wanted to make sure you were all invited to a fantastic event. Come to a baby shower! You can even guess which baby picture belongs to me. And you'll surely all be able to recognize Alliclaus.
In honor of this lovely occasion, I've been asked to share the worst ASS-vice I received about parenting as well as the best advice. So here it is:
- Worst ASS-vice ever: "You're not going to be one of those "time-out" parents, are you? Because kids who aren't spanked don't ever learn how to behave."
- Best advice: Cagey told me to buy a hat when Alliclaus was still a very hairy newborn. And she was right. If you are lucky enough to have a baby born with a full head of hair, people will stop you constantly to talk about the hair. "Did you have heartburn?," which is the weirdest of old wives' tales. "Is your husband *whispered* not white?," in spite of your own head full of dark hair. Having a hat saves you tons of time.
hee hee!
Nobody ever came out directly and asked me if my husband was white or not, but they would definitely inquire where the source of hair was from and obliquely skirt around the question they REALLY wanted to ask. However, I had TONS of hair myself as a baby and never lost it. When I am feeling persnickety, I play dumb, say it's from me and don't 'fess up to the fact my husband is from India. Bah on Nosy Folks.
I am not sure why, but the stupid heartburn questions irritated the crap outta me. Also, it was such a pain when you are trying to dash through the grocery store just to buy milk and you keep getting stopped to answer questions. I know that sounds rude of me, but sometimes you are in hurry to be somewhere.
Posted by: cagey at April 28, 2007 03:00 PM
LOL--my superpale babies were also blessed with Major Hair. And I confess I DID have heartburn!
Posted by: mayberry at April 28, 2007 03:55 PM
OMG thank you for writing that part about the hat. I wish someone had told me this when Noah was born!!!! I learned the Karate Kid 'wax on wax off' move to keep people from touching his face and head. And how true about being in a hurry and having to answer well meaning people's questions or commentary on the hair. It's cute but a curse too.
Oh, and I dyed my hair to brown from blonde so people would stop asking so many questions. Although, a little boy asked why Noah was so brown. LOL BTW, the 'whisperers' have always been women who have spouses of color themselves! Not sure what that's about, like they're more mindful they could offend if wrong? My son is OBVIOUSLY bi-racial & I'm not ashamed of it. I personally found the nuns who asked if he was Guatamalan to be the best question askers ever. LOL
Posted by: JenniferW at April 30, 2007 01:59 AM
People are stupid and ignorant! People always ask Don (50% Hispanic) "Is that your son???" Our son is very fair - light eyes and light hair, but looks identical to Don. Um, hello there are two gene pools mixing here people, have you seen the "white" mother who is so pale that it's almost translucent???
Posted by: Jenny at April 30, 2007 09:33 AM
I can't believe that someone asked if your husband was not white because Alli had dark hair! People really are amazing with the crap they say!
Posted by: Jennifer at April 28, 2007 11:20 AM