"Mom-Shells" Make Me Want To Commit Momicide

I don't know about you, but I kind of want to give Gisele Bundchen a high five. In the face. With a chair.

To be perfectly fair (which admittedly, I tend not to be when discussing supermodels), I'm sure she's actually a lovely person. It's not her fault that Tom Brady obviously ignored the series of telepathic messages I spent years sending him, in which I attempted to convince him that models and B-list actresses weren't so great and he should find and marry me instead. I got over it when I married someone handsome, funny and kind and Tom Brady started having children he didn't want to claim and forgetting to shower on a regular basis. But her husband isn't why I want to give her a chair five. This is why:

Now to the unknowing eye, this might look like just another picture of a gorgeous supermodel in her skivvies, but in actuality, it is one of the biggest works of post-baby propaganda out there. Why? Because this picture was taken a scant three weeks after Giselle gave birth. Three. Freaking. Weeks.

Now if you're a mom reading this and thinking "What the what?!" you are not alone, my friend.

Let me back up a bit.

After Layla was born, I committed one of the most common faux pas of first-time mommies all over the world: I packed my regular old pre-baby pants into my hospital suitcase under the impression  (okay, delusion) that once the baby was out, I could just sort of pick right up where I left off body-wise. Unfortunately, during my pregnancy I really got into the whole "eating for two" deal and got an endless kick out of the fact that the bigger I got, the more people were telling me I looked great (because let's be honest, how many times does this happen in your life?!). I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed the crap out of the compliments and I'm glad I did. I was healthy, the baby was healthy, and I had an excuse to eat unlimited bags of Cheetos to a point that my fingers were permanently stained neon orange and I even had a series of stress dreams in which I gave birth to a giant Cheeto, but that is a story I should probably save for a trained professional.

My point is this: I know I'm not the only woman who has ever gone into the hospital nine months pregnant and roughly the size of a small compact car and expected to come out with the same body they had senior year of high school. So either every pregnant woman is dillusioned by hormones and artificial cheese or something else is to blame.

And as luck would have it, something else is to blame. And that "something else" is a six-foot tall leggy Brazilian who probably used a lot more than telepathic messages to get Tom Brady.

Okay fine. It's not just her.

The real problem, as with most things in life, is that nasty little "love to hate" machine called the media. This isn't the first time I've ranted about body image and standards of beauty. Both are thrown in our faces all day, every day. Next time you go to the grocery store, check out the magazines at the checkout. There's the requisite Kardashian story, a Jennifer Aniston pregnancy rumor or two, and then pictures of celebrities who "Lost 20 pounds and feel great!" (going from positively skeletal to virtually invisible) or celebrities who "Are binging because of a secretly gay husband/tanking career/alien abduction" (going from skeletal to fantastically normal, but don't get too excited because it's temporary). It's disgusting. But it's even worse when it's a new mom, usually out on the town looking fully-rested with a full six pack, approximately six minutes after giving birth. There's even a name for these ladies and their apparent superhuman metabolism and unfailing gorgeousness; "Mom-shells".

I stumbled across this phenomenon (or at least the official name of this phenomenon) a few months ago. Some editor from a tabloid (I honestly can't remember which one, but does it really matter? They're all the same) was on a morning talk show raging about how unfair it was that new moms feel pressured to be stick thin again post-baby, all thanks to the magazines full of mom-shell celebrities. Evidently, this woman, who had once paid a lot of creepy people a lot of money to basically stalk them and take their pictures, now realized that she was facilitating something dangerous and toxic because she had just had a baby herself and was subsequently hit with the full implications of her "work". Suffice it to say, this editor quit her job and swore that magazines were going to stop printing stories like this. I saw it as a win for women. There's just one problem: It hasn't really happened yet. Because apparently, we being obsessed with how big or small the bodies of perfect strangers are is an addiction we just can't seem to kick.

It honestly makes me wonder, is this a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" situation? Do people feel societal pressure to have a perfect, celebrity-esque body or are celebrities just trying to keep up with the public's expectations of them?

Either way, it sucks.

And while I will admit that I single Giselle out for purposes of my own personal vendetta, I could easily name 100 other celebrities that looked like she did only a few weeks after giving birth. It's not natural or realistic. It just makes the average new mom whose fingers are still vaguely stained orange, can only fit into sweatpants, and smells vaguely of spit-up feel really, really bad about herself. Which is the worst part of the whole deal.

Having a baby is one of the most amazing things I've ever done (and I was lucky enough to do it twice!). I am constantly amazed I was able to pull it off and actually live to tell about it. The human body is an incredible thing and I never really realized that until I had a baby. Post-baby is a time to feel like a super hero. It's a time to be amazed by the capabilities of your body, not repulsed by a couple of extra pounds.

Honestly, I'm torn between wanting to have a massive tabloid burning party and wanting to find every new mom in the world and telling her how awesome she is. I mean, come on. Look what you did! You made something out of nothing, grew it with your body, and even managed to get it out! If that's not infinitely cooler than anything you've ever done then you are a much more exciting person than I am.

When Ben is bugging Layla, I always tell her to just ignore him, because if he sees he's having no effect on her, he'll go away.  So I guess until the world decides that motherhood in it's purest, sloppiest, most natural form is sexy, all we can do is ignore the mom-shells of the world and hope the effect will be lost and the phenomenon will go away.

I can't wait for the day that a normal body is seen as a good thing. Won't that be nice??

America Has Spoken, Now It's My Turn

Well guys, it's over. The people have spoken and Barack Obama is going to be our President for the next four years.

I'd be a liar if I said this isn't what I wanted, what I hoped for, what I argued over, lost Facebook friends over, and campaigned for. But this isn't a "Haha, my guy won and yours didn't" post. What I really want to write about is respect.

Something that made this particular election so interesting for me was that Layla was learning about elections at school and we had several conversations about what it means to elect a president and why it is a privilege to vote. As the polls closed, the votes rolled in and the states on the maps turned shades of blue and red, Layla asked me if I would be mad if Mr. Romney won.

Despite my many (strong) beliefs, I told her no.

Because here's the thing: No matter what you believe or who you voted for, we are all Americans. This is our country. I am proud to be an American, proud to live in a country with the freedom to vote, the freedom to vocalize my opinions (even if I'm just bitching and complaining on Facebook), the freedom to even have an opinion at all.

If Mitt Romney had won, I would have been disappointed. I would have spent a few days licking my figurative wounds and I would have moved on. It would have been a decision made by my country and, like it or not, I would have shaken off my pride and gotten on board. I tell my kids "You get what you get and you don't get upset", which is what I would have been telling myself (and have told myself, in past elections). Because when it comes down to it, we are all in this together and going around pissed off about something that is over and done isn't going to help anything.

So here's what I'm asking of the world today.

If you aren't thrilled that Obama won another term, that's fine. If you feel like this is a great injustice to America, do something constructive about it. Write letters, volunteer for a campaign in the next election (by the way, if anyone needs me, I will be Twitter-stalking Julian Castro, trying to convince him to run in 2016), do something, ANYTHING, that doesn't involve acting like Donald Trump. This election will not create another Civil War, I can promise you that. It doesn't have to be a sign of an impending zombie apocalypse or a sign that the Mayans are right. It's not a reason to start saying things like "That's YOUR President, not MINE" (this sentiment was hugely popular after Bush won his second term and though I am far from a Bush fan, I never understood it). It's pointless, worthless and a waste of your energy. We can't undo what has been done, certainly not by telling your Obama-loving friends that you hope they "choke on their own idealism" as someone charmingly told me via Facebook moments after the election results.

That being said...

If you are thrilled about Obama sticking around for another four years, I ask you not to be a sore winner. Don't rub it in people's faces. This is not an school yard, no good will come from a "nanny, nanny boo boo" attitude. This is also pointless, worthless and a waste of your energy. It's one thing to be proud of the candidate you voted for, but it is quite another to showboat. Be respectful, no matter what side of the argument you land on. Obama didn't win by a landslide, not even close. Mitt Romney ran a very well-executed campaign that made us all think about our choices, which despite our many heated social media arguments is a GOOD thing. Not to be forgotten, Gary Johnson also ran a very good campaign (3% of the votes might not sound like anything at all, but for a Libertarian candidate, it's huge. It's like a Republican or a Democrat winning 100% of the votes. So good work, Gary!). Whether you agreed with his politics or not, the Romney campaign made us think and talk about the things that matter the most to us in our country.

We are part of a great country, one that is definitely not without its problems right now. But those problems go beyond party lines and we, as Americans, should go beyond party lines ourselves to help solve them. Maybe I'm just a naive tree-hugging lunatic (who very well might choke on her own idealism), but I do believe that people can still make a difference. I believe in hope and change. I believe in respecting the leaders of this country, whether you love them or hate them. I believe in showing respect, because frankly, could you handle being President of the United States? Yeah, me neither.

As we head into the next chapter of our lives, all I ask is that we stop concentrating on our differences and start respecting each other and working towards making our country a better place. I wish we lived in the kind of world where Romney would be calling up Obama right now and offering his help and expertise in business to help make his next four years successful, despite the fact that they are from different parties. Unfortunately, life isn't a Disney movie and politicians (on either side of anything) will probably never behave like that. So it's up to the rest of us. The easiest way to make a difference is to be kind, be respectful, be a gracious winner, shrug off your loss and come together for the good of the country we all love so much.

And, if nothing else, remember this: The political ads are finally gone from TV and the radio. The overwhelming relief that we don't have to hear that crap every five seconds anymore is the one thing everyone in this country can agree on.