Blog a la Cart

I didn’t think that I could get any crunchier.

I know, I know. Lily-Pulitzer, pearl-wearing, yacht-club-membering, New-England born me. Crunchy.

California does strange things to people.

I’ve been making my own baby food, using a cloth diaper service, and engaging in a little bit of hell otherwise known as natural childbirth with a doula and birth photographer by my side. All thanks to California.

Then, I moved back to Massachusetts. This time, to the Berkshires.

And all of a sudden I’m cloth diapering, AT HOME, because no diaper service will come to our town in the boonies.

(Reason #837 why I want to make sweet sweet love to our sexy new washer and dryer).

And I’m Neti potting up a storm as a way to cleanse my sinuses and exhume the phlegm due to this cold I’ve had going on two weeks.

For those of you that don’t know what a Neti pot is – it’s kind of like voluntary waterboarding. You shove a pot, filled with warm salty water, up one side of your nose, tip your head, and let the fluid and snot pour out the other nostril. At first, it feels like you’ve inhaled the entirety of the Atlantic, but after a while, that shit feels like heaven. You’re like a snotty Lil Teapot – tip you over, and pour you out.

I convinced James to get down with “The Pot” (as I’ve taken to calling it) because he’s been suffering from the same gnarly cold. In fact, the other day he was so damn congested that all that snot literally came out his eyeball – his I-B-O-L, y’all – due to the force of the Neti pot.

Now if that ain’t a detox, I don’t know what is.

Nothing spells rehab better than boogers coming out the  ol’ eyeballs.

I’ve also chosen a primary care physician who works in a practice titled “Berkshire Healing Arts.” That’s where they practice medicine and voodoo. Basically.

I’m just waiting for the “quack” from Private Practice to walk in the door at my next holistic-Shamanic-Reiki-acupuncture-yoga appointment. Because that kind of appointment totally exists.

I may even be thinking about popping out the next babe, in water, at home, with a midwife.

Obviously.

Shall I take you on a tangent for a moment? Okay, great!

When I was approximately one month away from Addison’s due date, my doula came on over for our final prep sesh, and screened a series of natural childbirth home movies to, ya know, pep me up for the big day.

Like a football huddle, but with vaginas spewing out babies.

We watched a bunch.

N.B.D.

After all, I’d attended 9th grade biology.

But the final video… no amount of scare-me-straight birth videos from high school could have prepared me for this gem.

Imagine a very large, very naked woman. In labor. With twins. In her personal home bathroom. With absolutely no medical supervision or support of any kind. Her husband watches on with a video camera. All the while her two-year old runs in and out of the frame, occasionally stopping to breastfeed while the woman is MID CONTRACTION!

How she didn’t strangle the bugger, I’ll never know.

It’s traumatizing already, isn’t it?

Well, the woman squats and out comes baby number one (who we later find out weighed in at OVER NINE POUNDS). She then just cuts that umbilical cord with a pair of sterile kitchen scissors, ties that bad boy off with some shoe laces, and swaddles the babe in a bathroom towel and lays him next to his two-year old brother in the other room.

The kid’s gotta take on older sibling responsibilities some time, right?

She then goes back in the bathroom to birth baby #2 (WHO ALSO WEIGHS IN AT OVER NINE POUNDS).

She squats. And out comes a foot. A MOTHERFUCKING FOOT!

Holy shit. BITCH IS GONNA DIE!

At this moment, I am filled with rage that my doula is screening a video in which I witness the death of a natural-child birthing woman. I thought she was supposed to ADVOCATE for this kind of stupidity.

But then, the woman fearlessly births that breach baby with barely a scream, without any help or support, while a camera captures the action.

I KNOW! RIGHT?

Now if that ain’t Woman Power and the stuff of horror movies, I don’t know what is!

Point being, if she can birth TWO nine pound babies, in a bathroom, by herself, with a breastfeeding little one, and a foot coming out the lady parts, I think I can TOTALLY handle some labor in a bathtub.

Ah the Berkshires, how you too have done strange things to me.

Back to what motivated this post.

Have y’all heard of a Diva Cup?

It totes sounds like something Britney or Miley would be rocking. And maybe they are – although I don’t know if Cyrus is old enough to have her period yet.

Yes, the Diva Cup is a silicone cone that one uses while menstruating. Which means, yes, I intend to shove a reusable cup up my vag the next time Aunt Flow makes a visit – IN THE NAME OF MOTHER EARTH!

Told you I’m all crunchy. (James said that this makes it sound like I have a crunchy vagina. That doesn’t even make sense, JAMES.)

I have a wise and dear friend who swears by this form of period blood protection – so while shopping at my local Food Co-op, shortly after purchasing a guide to vegetable-gardening and a composting bin for waste from said garden (I KID YOU NOT), I decided to give the Diva Cup a spin. A whirl? A go? I’m not sure how to describe my relationship with a device that will cradle my bodily fluid.

Regardless, there are two sizes of Diva Cup – one for the pre-partum crowd and one for the post-partum crowd. As in the women with vaginas that could house a small country, or Blue Whales. A family of ’em.

I felt like screaming at the cashier, I can’t help it if I have a heavy flow and wide-set vagina!*

Best part, the Diva Cup comes complete with a sparkly Diva Pin.

Nothing makes me channel my inner-Paris Hilton more than publicly declaring that I am carrying around a cup filled with menstrual blood in the Hooha

I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes in two weeks time. I can’t wait to be the person washing out her vagina blood in a public restroom. CAN’T WAIT!

You’re all thrilled, I’m sure.

And hey, the fact that I haven’t shaved in going on 10 days is in no way a sign of laziness but rather, again, a residual effect of living in the Berkshires.

But ya know what causes wide-set vaginas? THIS!

Totes worth it.

*If you caught the Mean Girls reference, I love you.