Tales from the Tracks

Lately, I have spent much of my time patrolling websites like J.Crew and Bluefly, looking to see if any of the million or so items I have recently purchased have been reduced further in price.

Everyday, Bluefly sends me emails with their “lowest price of the season” or “biggest sale of the year.” While these emails, taken together, signify nothing, I cannot help but panic. Did I buy my jeans at the peak? I wonder. I often feel like an investor who got duped into buying stock right before the market tanked. These emails taunt me so.

My natural recourse, of course, is to hop on their website and see if all the jeans I bought have been marked down. Instead of searching for the products on my own, though, I now simply IM the sales reps - aka “flyshionistas” - who find my goods and credit me whatever difference I am owed.

I seriously spend so much time IMing these flyshionistas that they know me. I literally had one say to me today, “Oh you’re Erica.”

Perhaps it is a sign I shop too much. Of course, once I am on the site, I cannot help but browse a little bit. You know, to check out all the new deals

People stop and stare when I carry my “baby” in public. That is because my son, who is just a month shy of three, stands a whopping 3′ 3 tall, while I come in at a measly 5′ 2. My carrying him is quite a sight - his legs dangle past my knees and our heads are virtually the same size! Still, he insists that he is my baby and, as such, requests that I carry him frequently. There will come a day when he is too large for me to carry (likely very soon!) so I indulge him while I still can.

So just how tall can I expect my baby to grow? Well, the rule of thumb is to double the child’s height at age two. At two years, Gavin stood 3 feet even, so that puts his adult height somewhere around 6 feet.

I like to say that Gavin got the best of my Ex’s and my genes. With regard to his stature, I am very thankful he appears to take after his 6′2 father.

Sometimes, I can get really worked up over things. (My Ex would argue I always get worked up over things.) But this one is just plain infuriating. After all, there is nothing I detest more than ignorance and stupidity.

Facebook has recently been removing breastfeeding photos they deem “sexually explicit” or “pornography.” These are women’s photos showing themselves breastfeeding their babies. In some of these photos you can reportedly - gasp! - see their nipples.

You know, it’s times like these that I am reminded that Facebook originated in the college dorm rooms of 19-year old boys. Are they giggling as they remove this “porn”? Emailing it to their buddies? I mean, get over it. Breasts are not sexual - they are food sources for babies. It is our society that sexualizes them…through actions just like this.

Facebook, if you’re going to remove breastfeeding photos, you really ought to remove bottle-feeding ones as well. Summed up by one of my favorite quotes, “If breastfeeding in public makes people uneasy because the breasts are considered sexual, then bottle-feeding must be the equivalent of whipping out a dildo.”