Teeny Manolo

Jennifer, mija, what are these rumors I am hearing?  Yes, I know that you are actually two years older than me, but I am feeling maternal towards you, my dear, shhhh.  For it is being said that you are “horrified” at how much weight you have gained with your pregnancy, and that you will purposely stay out of the public eye until after your baby/babies are born. 

Que lastima, for a pregnant woman should rejoice in the changes her body experiences during such a joyous time.

And you may reply, “But Glinda, how is a former muy caliente woman to rejoice in her cankles and sudden inability to locate her jawline?”

Jenny who feels bigger than an entire block, while these changes may difficult for you to look at in the mirror, you must simply resign yourself to the fact that despite your fabulous wealth and talent, your body is going to do what it wants to do during your pregnancy.  And if that means puffs where there weren’t puffs before, then so be it.   You have never been a celebrity who worshipped with the cult of super-thin, so I’m having a hard time believing that you cannot embrace your enhanced curves. 

But being pregnant shouldn’t stop you from channeling your well-documented inner diva! Come on now, this fly girl can’t turn into a wallflower! Step out, look super fantastico, and show them how it’s done!

Christina Aguilera is stripped, all right.

I know that in this age of digital retouching and trying to make things look perfect even when they are far from it, I am foolish to even ask. But I am going to anyway. Where are the stretch marks?

Looking at that creamsicle-colored expanse of flesh, I can’t help but gaze in amazement at how perfect it is. Well, as perfect as distinctly orange-looking skin can be.

I don’t care if the ex-Dirrty girl has enough money to pay 10 magic elves to constantly slather her abdomen with Creme De La Mer, in that stage of pregnancy, stretchage has occurred.

Why are the marks on your skin, made when your body was accomodating the growth of a tiny little person inside of you, seen as so ugly by so many women? Christina and the editors of Marie Claire among them, apparently. I’ve heard perfectly beautiful women bemoan the existence of their stretch marks as if they were some sort of horrible brand, dooming them to a life of unattractiveness.

Honestly, I feel like shaking them. And not gently.

Get over it. When you signed up for the mom gig, your knew your body was going to change. And if you can’t deal with the changes, some permanent, some not, then maybe a reexamination of priorities is necessary.

I say stretch marks should be worn with pride. No one has a body that is flawless, and why do we keep trying to pretend they do?

Congratulations to all the celebrities out there who are refusing to officially confirm their pregnancies.

Jennifer Lopez, everyone in the world has outed you but you. You stay strong, girlfriend.

Christina Aguilera, you’ll still be “no comment”ing at the baby’s college grad. That’s okay, nobody thinks you’re just fat.

Philip, wear the bump proudly.

In this day and age of oversharing, it’s wonderful to see some people keeping the concept of discretion alive.

(thanks to Spirit Fingers for the pic, which I heartlessly stole from Ayyyy)

Now, I’m not sayin’ it’s true, what they say about curry. I’m just sayin’… if you’re pregnant but not yet all packed for the hospital, it wouldn’t hurt to go for the moussaka instead, you know what I’m sayin’?

But they do say that about curry, among other things:

Many people swear by sex, but it has to be with a man, because it is only they who can produce the active hormone. It won’t exactly come as news to anyone that they often have to be badgered into this with promises of other things, such as ice cream or money. C’s friend said in his NCT class, “This prostaglandin - can it be administered orally?”

Curry, by the way, only works as an alternative to sex. If you have a curry and then sex, neither of them work. [editor’s note: yeah, tell me about it! Oh, they mean for inducing labour! Ooops, my bad.] Likewise, curry and pineapple, since cooking the pineapple destroys the enzyme. If you had the pineapple as a raw garnish, that would work, but since you need to eat quite a lot of pineapple, it would have to be a huge curry. Pineapple and sex work fine together, and by happy coincidence, there is a pineapple tip in the food section of Cosmo Best Sex Tips of All Time, though a) I’ll tell you one thing that this book doesn’t say in any of its tips, and that’s “First, get pregnant and wait nine months. This will make you all the more attractive,” and b) this particular pineapple does, I’m afraid, have to be tinned. I’m afraid I can’t give you any more details, because I am shy.

I am not so sure she’s all that terribly shy, come to think of it. After all, she reads Cosmo, and you know what they say about Cosmo girls!

Now, I’m just sayin’ … it’s a strange coincidence, perhaps nothing more than a strange coincidence, but that article came out on a Friday morning, and by the following Monday no fewer than like, half the celebrities in the world gave birth. And the other half got pregnant. Except George, although I’m sure he was involved at some point of the equation, although he’s not saying anything without his lawyer present. And Angie was talking about picking another sprog out of some exotic catalogue, but then she’s always doing that, curry or no curry.

And I’m just sayin’ that this woman here happened to be serving curry at the dinner party when she went into labour a couple of weeks early and gave birth between courses. It appears you have merely to associate with curry for it to have its full effect. Fortunately, it must have been an extremely powerful curry, because labour lasted exactly eight minutes in total.

…as she prepared to present the main course - a home-made lamb curry - she felt her first contraction.

And just eight minutes later, after three pushes, little Trinity was born weighing 6lb 1oz.

But Mrs Kendrick hadn’t forgotten her duties as a hostess. As she was taken to hospital as a precaution, she yelled: “The rhubarb crumble’s in the fridge!”

A) Martha Stewart would be proud of her!

B) Can we get her recipe? We’d make a mint!

What not to wear when you’re pregnant? What the lovely and apparently very fertile Cindy Margolis is wearing right here:

Actually, don’t wear it when you’re not pregnant, either.

I see it’s an outie. Here’s the lovely Milla Jovovich, your basic immigrant megasuccess story. If I can make a wee confession here, I was always jealous of her; the international modeling career at eleven, the really quite sophisticated album at eighteen, the ice-blue eyes, the fashion line, the men, the movies, the millions.

And now, I have one more thing to be jealous of: how good she looks pregnant. You can see by her arms that she’s put on a bit of weight all over relative to her acting weight, but not vast, Fergie-like amounts. And she is living proof that your looks won’t go to pot when you do that. She feels no need to cover up those decidedly un-stringy arms. Those sexy female hormones need some lipids to work their magic.

One must confess, however, that an eight-months-and-looks-about-to-pop woman watching a horror flick like Resident Evil:Extinction isn’t exactly an advertisement for how gut-wrenchingly horrifying the movie may be. Sure, sure, she’s starring in it. She knows how it ends. I’m just thinking that, if Mama Jovovich’s nerves were less steely, the future Milla Junior’s rebirthing sessions could have been very interesting.

I really do have to thank Fracas for giving me the chance to let rip with the alliteration (consonance. whatever). Other than that, I really just wanted to point to perhaps the best roundup of resources for parents of preemies on the whole of the internets. Helpful links, a glossary, personal stories and acquired wisdom; it’s all here, beautifully written and elegantly laid out for instant reference.

Check it out for yourself, preemie parent or no; it’s worth a perusal.

< /endsoftieraincoaster > < /endalliteration >

During a time when the medical staff is bound to tell parents of preemies what seems like nothing but bad news and scary realities, what those parents need (and I can attest to this by the search terms ending up here) is hope and to see and hear the positive outcomes for other people out there.

This is what the pdf is about. In the middle of this post is a link to that pdf. You will be able to see pictures of, and read stories of other parents with preemies who faced the same scary situations and have hope and a miracle to show for their faith. The stories were gathered from around the internet, and links to those sites are included. Other links are also included.

Though we both found information, the pdf was a gift of love from LindaC. She created it and has given me permission to upload it here and make it available for anyone else out there who needs some hope.

Please create a bookmark to this post and come back because rather than post repeatedly and have you hopping all over the place looking for what you need, I will just continue adding to this page as I go through my files and find more information.

Now it can be told…

Halle Berry once occupied the treadmill next to my friend Zahid for a full hour, and he, in his particular way, noticed. Men are so competitive! Yes, this black chick (unusual in Vancouver, unless Somali FOB and thus unlikely to inhabit the gym, as the robes get caught in the belt) was not only keeping pace with him, but actually going measurably harder than him. And my friend, whose pride is not inconsequential, yet is open to correction, decided to engage this intimidating Amazon in conversation.

So he did.

And after the better part of an hour of who he was, what he did, how he’d helped the various tribes renegotiate their treaties with the Canadian government, etc, etc, you know how men are but she seemed interested and asked all the questions but eventually he got to feeling guilty for doing all the talking and he said, “but enough about me. Tell me about yourself!”

“Well, my name is Halle, and I’m an actor,” said the woman who was even then taking in several million for starring in Catwoman.

And he silently went, “D’oh!”

In unrelated news, here is a photo of Halle Berry rocking her newly-announced pregnancy, and it must be said that few rock it better or harder. She looks, to my unpracticed eye, farther along than three months, but she looks dead hot.

I’m not so all about the visible nips, nor the unexplained diagonal tension points on the outfit (I suppose it’s avant-garde) but I love the draping and the tightness and the fact that this reveals an unabashedly preggo body, in flats. She’s not going for a win in the Drop the Baby stakes!

Yes, she’s pregnant; yes, she’s the superfantastic!