Category Archives: Stories

Eddie Bauer Taunts its Pregnant Customers

I have noticed a strange phenomenon with my favorite clothing company. For my last two pregnancies they make the cutest clothes and styles when I am at my largest and can’t wear or try them on in person. Eddie Bauer was relentless this second time around sending their catalog to my house and email. And worst of all they had the best sales on all my favorite items. To add insult to injury they gifted me triple point rewards on all purchases made the month of my birthday. Sadly my birthday month was also my due date month (at the very end of the month too!). Why would they taunt me at my most vulnerable and fragile state?

Then when I was not pregnant anymore I rushed to my nearest store only to find all the clothes I wanted are gone. I am not a shopper, in fact, I loath shopping for most things, especially clothes. I usually buy something every few years, wear it until it falls off my body in some way and then sadly wave goodbye to it at the good-will drop off. This last time I got a shirt just in time. Which is rare for me. I tried on a really cute one I had eyed through my entire pregnancy and watched as the price kept lowering and lowering to a point I would consider actually buying the thing. Then I go to the store, try on a size too small and one too large only to realize they don’t have my size. “No problem” the sales lady assures me, “just order it over there on our customer-service phone.” What a nice store, they must have been thinking of me when they installed the phones. All I had to do was pick it up and a sales representative was right there. I didn’t have to wait for ringing or anything else. It actually caught me off guard.

“How can I help you?” She chirps.

“Uh, I want to buy this shirt…” I started to blank on where to go from here, pregnancy really does a number on brain function and I was just beginning to get mine back after the abuse it had been through the last nine months.

After an awkward pause she gently directs me, “Can you give me more information about the shirt?”

“Oh, well it is hot pink, but I was hoping to get it in the ‘ocean blue’ color I saw in your magazine. Also this one is large and I want a medium.” I think I rambled on a bit more before she finally stopped me.

“Can you tell me what the catalog number is?” She was being so patient with me, I decided she must have to deal with people like me on a daily or even hourly basis. Thinking about all the other people out there as mentally deprived as me at that moment made me really anxious. I fluttered around the booth trying to figure out how to find the catalog number on the shirt. Would they have it on the tag? Thankfully she must have heard my brain trying to think because she added helpfully, “Look in the catalog in front of you.” I then noticed the catalogs stacked neatly in front of me. I quickly glanced around the room. How did she know? Was she watching me and giggling at me from a distance? I decided not to ponder on that one for too long as I grabbed for the magazine and began frantically searching the pages. I would think after pining over this shirt for months I would have memorized the page number for an emergency situation like this. “It’s ok, take your time.” She soothes me. This time I searched the room more thoroughly; she had to be watching me! I could feel people were starting to stare at the commotion I was making in the corner, so I quickly turned back around before they thought I was loony homeless bag lady and kicked me out of the store. I don’t have the best sense of style and my hair was all messed up because as a new mom I don’t have time to really make it look good, so I was actually in danger of my feared scenario coming true.

Finally I found the page number and ordered the shirt. Thank God! And they only had one left. I got so excited I leaked a little breast milk. Except they only had brown. I have a closet full of brown shirts, so I guess this one will fit right in with the rest. When things like that happen to me, like getting the last item in a clothing store, I think they must have set that up to make me feel I really scored big. Ha! I would exclaim and run off to the register and quickly pay and run off with my goods. Then the sales people would go in the back and pick out another of the same shirt hang it nicely on the rack. It would have to be placed in a semi-obvious spot, but not too obvious so as not to insult the intelligence of the victim, uh I mean, buyer. They do this for people like me who never buy anything unless they are pushed in some way. Seeing a really cool shirt that actually looks nice on me, and it is the only one, is too much to pass up. I am on to them now though.

I just got the catalog for fall and was really excited to see what they would have. I usually need new shirts after giving birth. Clothes never fit right after your body has been stretched to impossible limits. Sadly they are back to advertising un-exciting items. Or they have really cute things I would never, ever, wear.

Let me guide you to page 80 where we have a nice brunette lady sporting a chocolate brown cowboy hat, poncho, and tan corduroy pants. The pants appear to being going for the painted-on-as-a-second skin look, which I am sure I cannot pull off at this post-pregnancy time. And a poncho? Come on Eddie Bauer, I think I haven’t worn a poncho since I dressed up as Pocahontas for three consecutive Halloweens when I was a teen. I don’t remember being as sexy as the model while doing it though. Which leads me to another annoyance with clothing companies. How come all the clothes look so awesome on the models? I know that is their job, but in reality they should have normal looking people wearing the clothes so I can more accurately make decisions on what will actually look good on me. The model is also wearing a “come hither” look that I know will appeal to a number of men, but sporting that poncho the look just falls flat to me.

Another look (page 88) has another brunette model with a cardigan. I sometimes wonder if they have my profile information and send me catalogs with mostly brunette models that look like me. Which is kind of a bit paranoid to think about, but it is an awfully big coincidence.

I’m on to you Eddie Bauer.

The cardigan the model is wearing is beautiful with its rich autumn colors in merino wool. Then she has a tan skirt and lace up boots. I always love the skirt idea in theory but, I have a nice chicken leg look going on and I don’t want to spoil the view of my blinding white legs with a skirt that is so long it will cover most of them up.

sigh

Eddie Bauer, when will you learn? Its no wonder you almost went bankrupt. How will you make money off of me if you keep playing this dangerous game? I think the company must find it funny to taunt its pregnant customers; but in the end it is their loss.

Nipple Envy

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For the first time in my life I experienced major nipple envy. I pine for nipples that stick right out to the world and seem to say “I am here. I am happy (although a bit cold). I boldly face the world!” I found out after two adventures in breastfeeding that I have very flat nipples and that this, it turns out, is a very undesirable trait. I thought I had a pretty nice rack, I mean my husband seemed to really like them, I got lots of complements on how nice they looked and others just simply stared at them or directed their conversations to them. Aren’t these all signs of a more than adequate chest region?

Over the last few months I have developed a burning and passionate hatred for my nipples. I never ever felt I wanted to change a part of my body. Now I know if someone were to ask me “what would you change about your body if you could?” I will not hesitate to inform them that I would like new nipples.

I guess I should explain why a seemingly harmless body part has solicited such hatred in me. I’ll start at the beginning. A few months ago I had my second child. A girl (and she is perfect!), but sadly it seems my children never seem to fit my body. My hips are too narrow for their slightly-larger-than-normal bodies. My nipples are too flat for their higher-than-normal-pallet and slightly tongue-tied mouths. I had to use a nipple shield for a long time with my first born, so I vowed I would NEVER use one with my second. Just as Q-tips are evil and should never be used on your ears, nipples shields have somewhat of the same reputation.

In the hospital I struggled to get my daughter to latch onto my flat nipple. Try picking up a watermelon with your mouth without using your teeth. I imagine this is what it was like for my daughter to try to latch on to my nipple. She did what any self-respecting human would do and waged a battle with each latching session. So as a result my nipples were very badly injured in the war. I had cuts and grooves on both sides and blood everywhere. The hospital sent me home with a goody bag of lanolin cream, gel packs for ulcers and a 24 hr hotline number for breastfeeding help, and oh almost forgot a nipple shield, but I refused to acknowledge its existence.

A week and a half went by and I was still very sore, still bleeding, and not at all looking forward to feeding the baby. I knew I was in trouble when I started eyeing the nipple shield, so I began dragging myself to lactation consultants. I vowed I would see one every day until I got this right. I would not let this defeat me. I wanted to be a super-breast-feeder. After all: I had breastfed my son for a year and a half; I should be a pro. It hurt too much to breastfeed and my baby was gnawing away what little nipple I had left. I had nubbins where my nipples should have been.

Finally a lactation consultant identified an infection, but was unsure of what kind. Lack of identification was not a concern, because she had prescribed this cure-all nipple ointment that apparently could cure my infection, heal my nipple and end world hunger. So I dutifully smeared this cream on my nipple after each feeding, even though it burned and irritated my skin, I didn’t care, because it was ‘healing’ me and I wanted the infection to go away. After four days the infection didn’t get better. It got much worse. I now had pain radiating back into my chest cavity. It felt like someone had replaced my milk supply with shards of glass. I knew that this was not normal and so I trotted back to the consultant’s office. She ordered me over to my doctor and suggested another well-known lactation consultant that could solve all my problems with breastfeeding, help figure out how to end this infection and maybe solve the economic crisis if the government would only let her. At the end of my musical chairs with doctors and consultants it was concluded I had a staph and yeast infection super-combo that had traveled up into my mild ducts. I was prescribed an oral antifungal, oral antibiotics and still had to use the nipple cream so it could continue to topically heal the nipple and continue its fight against world hunger. I argued that my nipples didn’t react well to the cream and that it burned, but this concern was brushed aside and explained away that it was a rare side effect and not harmful at all. I didn’t want to jeopardize my wayward nipple healing process, so I continued to dutifully smear on the cream.

Soon it was the fourth of July and my nipples were celebrating the holiday too. Throughout the day my nipples would change colors from white to purple and back to pink/brown. It felt like someone was biting down on them randomly thought the day, even when I was not breastfeeding. I had been living with nipple pain for a month and by now I was sick of it and wondering if it would ever go away. Now I was desperate and since there was not as much skin left on the nipple I had to use a shield, so much for my determination to live without one.

After another month of complaining I started receiving advice from lots of well meaning friends and family. I started getting flash backs of the advice people would give me regarding my very itchy ear problem a few years ago. Cabbage, vinegar, garlic, salt water, you name it – as long as I could Google it and it worked for someone else I was willing to give it a try. Sadly nothing seemed to really get rid of the pain.

At three months of experiencing pain, I finally broke down and started calling lactation consultants again. My daughter’s latch seemed to be good. The last couple times I went to the lactation consultant she praised me on her great latch and I beamed with pride. (My daughter was showing signs of being a genius early in life. Obviously gifted.) After my conversation with her she instantly knew what the problem was, “Reynaud’s Syndrome” she piped confidently. I instantly had an image of a dirty old naked French man in a trench coat exposing himself on a street corner. Great, I thought, I have a “syndrome” named after that guy. After I ended my conversation with her I promptly started searching for all the information I could get on this new diagnosis. It seemed this accounted for the strange color changes my nipples would express throughout the day. It also explained why I was always so sensitive to cold, especially now.

I was reading all sorts of interesting tidbits about this new “syndrome” of mine, and one point caught my attention. Stress and high emotional response can trigger the reaction. I hide my emotion well, so this amused me to think that I could not seem angry, but my nipples could give me away. Good thing I keep them covered up. Other wise I would have to explain awkwardly to others that “No, I’m not angry right now. But my nipples are furious.” They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul; nipples are the windows to mine.

I made a doctors appointment for the next day to confirm the diagnosis. I was not about to try one more medication and have it not work again. Thankfully I had stopped taking the topical cream and switched to a more “natural” cream, but nothing dramatic happened. I did the whole song and dance of getting my blood pressure and weight at the doctor’s office.

The nurse’s assistant exclaimed excitedly “Oh my gosh! You lost like 15 pounds since last time you were here!” She glanced at my chart. “Which was, like, 6 months ago. Have you been doing anything special?”

I glanced at my three-month-old baby and wondered if she was trying to make some sort of joke so I interjected my own.

“Well… I went on the labor and delivery diet.”

She gave me a strange look. My sarcasm was lost on her.

“Oh. Okay. What are you coming in for today?”

I started to tell her all about he infections, the pain, etc.

She continued unfazed. “I see. How do your nipples feel, right now?”

I said they feel painful during feedings and I get attacks of pain in-between feedings. She shook her head as if to clear it of my ramblings.

“No, how do they feel? Right Now??”

I tried again “Uh, like someone is gnawing on them.”

She gave me another blank look and I knew at this point we were having a communication problem. She confirmed this by asking again as drawn out as she can.

“Hooow dooo they feeel?”

I decided I could either get really mad at her insulting tone or fight back with more humor so I answered:

“They feel angry. I think they are mad and wreaking havoc on my home life.”

She finally left the room. Was it something I said? I instantly regretted my smart-mouth comment.

The doctor came in and I quickly glanced over at my chart to see that the only description she has written in my chart after my story about being infected, not healing, and pain episodes was “Patient says her nipples are ‘angry.'” Ok, I have to admit she got me back good. Now I looked like a crazy.

I told the doctor what was going on and explained my conversation with the lactation consultant about Reynaud’s and she said “I am not exactly familiar with the syndrome, not to say it doesn’t exist, just that I am not familiar with it and how it relates to breast feeding.”

Ok great, this lack of information coupled with the description: “Patient says her nipples are ‘angry'” might only lead me to a referral of anger management for my nipples. I quickly had to dash away thoughts of my nipples battling it out with nerf bats. She prescribed the medication for Reynaud’s and gave me a look that made me feel slightly like a hypochondriac. She also said she really wanted to take a swab of my nipple to be sure that they were not any other major bacteria or yeast growing on them. This warmed my germaphobic heart to have her think to rid me of any lingering bugs on my nipples.

As I sit here now, I have the prescription that will “cure” Reynaud’s, if that is in fact my problem, in front of me. I don’t know if it will work, but I really hope it does. I do not enjoy painful, angry nipples and so far the only benefit I have gotten out of them is a good laugh while writing this and telling all my friends and family about my ailing nipples.

First Haircut

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Update: A version of story has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: New Moms. Check it out!

Today I took Isaac in to get a haircut. I love our little local shop and it is just a few short blocks away from our house and provides a perfect outing walk. As I was walking to the shop I remembered Isaac’s first haircut. I think every parent looks on their child’s multitude of firsts with love, pride, and happiness. I wish I could do the same with Isaac’s first haircut.

It started out on a cold morning soon after his first birthday. Tyler and I had decided that it was probably time for Isaac to get his hair cut for the first time. He looked a bit like a roughed up hippy and while we found it cute we had gotten a few polite comments from family members that alerted us to the fact that it looked “shaggy” and “unkempt.” Social pressure led us to believe that by not cutting our son’s hair we were making a statement against the establishment and we didn’t want to seem Un-American. Off we trotted to a salon that specialized in children’s hair. “Make you child’s first haircut memorable” it boasted. That was what we wanted, so we swaggered into the shop and proudly announced that it was our son’s first haircut.

If I was expecting balloons and a parade I would have been greatly disappointed when a girl unexcitedly pointed to a sign that read “please sign in.” I looked around and there was nobody in the shop. My husband and I were baffled, but figured they must have lots of appointments and a busy schedule so we signed our son’s name. The girl was sporting a nice skeleton tattoo on her arm along with her short spiky black hair and extra thick mascara. She was sipping a Snapple while she watched a TV over in the corner above one of the styling stations. The sneer on her face did little to assure me of her ability to work well with children, as I would expect any shop specializing in children would provide.

Tyler and I looked eyed each other while we tried to communicate with our special marital telepathic abilities. “Should we go?” I tried to wiggle with my brows in Morse code. “No, too awkward to leave now” he shrugged and coughed in wordless response. I did notice him eye the door longingly. Isaac began to fidget and wanted to play with the toys in the waiting room. Several of the books were chewed around the corners. Perhaps this was done by some feral child who had been dragged in from the wilderness by a concerned family member to get a haircut, I mused. I knew some people who would do this for animals and then release them back out into the wild.

The girl finished her Snapple and then calmly walked over to the counter. She checked the sign in sheet “uh…Isaac?” she asked as she looked all around the (empty) room. My husband jumped up and presented Isaac to her. “It’s his first hair cut!” I announced proudly. She looked unamused and asked, “Which chair do you want him to sit in? We only have one that is for really young kids.”

I quickly thought about this choice. Was it a trick question? I appreciated her illusion of choice though, first ask me where I wanted him to sit then direct me to the only choice available: brilliant! The chair she directed us to was a seat that resembled a battered circus elephant and was about four feet off the ground. It had a little bench for him to sit on, but no back and the place where he could stick his feet was too shallow. It also lacked a seat belt, but I could see evidence of where one used to be. It was frayed around the edges; the feral child had already been here. And it seems he escaped.

Lacking any sort of safety mechanisms, my husband bravely volunteered to hold our son in place while she cut his hair. After a moment the girl agreed. But she warned: “don’t get in the way ok, my scissors are really sharp.” Yikes, was that a threat? I suddenly began to worry for my husband’s safety. I hoped he wouldn’t try anything shifty, “no sudden movements” I tried to telepath to him, but he was looking away. Darn it, he was on his own.

My husband began to lift Isaac into the seat and as he was doing so I noticed that the seat was covered in hair. There was brown hair, blond hair, and some others mixed in between. Gross! Either the seat had not been cleaned for a few appointments or the calico feral child running around Chico with a well gnawed on copy of ‘Goodnight Moon’ clutched in his jaw had immediately preceded us. I quickly stopped my husband from putting Isaac in the seat. I hoped this didn’t qualify as getting in her way, her scissors did look pretty sharp right about then. “Could you maybe clean off the seat first?” I asked timidly. She looked inside the seat and let out a huff followed by an eye roll. I don’t know if she was annoyed by my request or angry at the hair for not blowing off magically on its own.

When the hair was cleared we continued with our goal: finally our son’s first hair cut! It was already proving to be the memorable experience that they had promised us. I couldn’t wait to see what kinds of memories the actual haircut would provide.

She began with a few snips and then grabbed the buzz cutter. As the buzz cutter hummed away my son started eyeing the thing with desperate concern. His little chest was rising up and down dramatically and already his lip was starting to protrude out in warning that he was about to cry. “Maybe not the buzz cutter today,” I suggest. She barely took her eyes off the television program she was watching as she replied, “Can’t do that, we have to use them.” Huh, I didn’t have any experience with hair cutting, so I was unaware that certain utensils were required. I wondered what they did before the invention of the buzz cutter; perhaps this is why long hair was so fashionable then? I would have to google that when I got home.

Isaac began to cower into my husband as she came closer. When his head was completely buried into my husband’s chest the girl gave out an annoyed sigh. “I can’t get to his hair from there.” My husband tried to move away in hopes to expose some of Isaac’s head for her to work with, but Isaac’s death grip coupled with my husband’s security lock on his body was not providing any entry. I tried to help, but we all had little success and by this time Isaac was wailing and trembling. Isaac’s first haircut doubled as his first traumatic experience. We were doing a great job as parents racking up the first experiences today.

Someone was holding him down, another was prying his head from a safe location and someone else was coming at him with sharp objects that were fashioned after implements of torture. The buzzer squealed and hummed in the background. I tried to dash away all the Sweeney Todd musical numbers and scenes that kept popping inappropriately into my head.

I tried to suggest more forcefully “Can we try to just use the scissors?” The girl was exasperated now. “It will take longer,” she grunted. She didn’t look happy to be the one serving us and continued to go at Isaac with her tools. He screamed and cried and fussed, but she battled on with her task with what would have been gusto, but for the utter lack of enthusiasm. I kept interjecting suggestions here and there and she would assure me that those suggestions would not work for some reason or another.

Finally we were done, and Isaac’s face was red and wet, and he still had a look of horror. I stood shocked with my mouth open at the whole event, while my husband’s face turned various shades of red. I could tell the experience of holding down our screaming son had triggered his fight or flight response. Meanwhile, the girl brought out her most torturous instrument of all and in the most sarcastically excited voice I had yet heard her utter she exclaimed “Smile” and I heard the hollow click and whine of a classic Polaroid. The flash blinded all three of us. If I ever am able to wipe this memory from my temporal cortex, I now have a picture to remind me and place all those horrible memories right back in there.

She gathered up some locks of hair off the floor and haphazardly plucked out the brown hairs that most obviously didn’t belong to my son. When it seemed she was pleased with her selection of blond hairs she taped them on to a yellow photocopied certificate and signed her name. She promptly misspelled Isaac’s name by giving him two s’ instead of two a’s and asked us how to spell “Smith” so she can get it right on the certificate. I didn’t correct her, since I was getting excited thinking about being freed from this place. I thought back to the chewed books and began to understand the stress children go through in this shop and forgave them their transgressions. I mildly wondered if I could chew on a few books while I waited for my husband to finish paying. She pasted on the picture with an Elmer’s glue stick and I realized that the smell of the glue that used to bring me lovely memories of school projects will forever be associated with this trauma.

We loaded up in the car and both my husband and I were speechless. Our son was still whimpering in the back seat. I decided that just this once I would allow him to use the pacifier I stash for naptime emergencies. He took it with a shaky hand that resembled a deprived smoker lighting up. I glanced in the window of the shop and saw the girl already back in her stool and enjoying what was left of her Snapple.

Just then we saw a happy couple walking toward the shop with their smiling little preschool girl. I had the urge to be a good citizen and warn them, but before I could roll down the window my husband was speeding away.

I turned to him instead and said, “Let’s never go back there.” He looked at me with appreciation and replied, “Somehow I knew you would say that.” As the shop faded into the distance the Polaroid began to slowly reveal the picture of the shock and horror that was our son’s first haircut.