back in the ancient times of 1999, a pink, life-changing plus sign appeared on a stick in the palm of my hand. shortly after, i made it a mission of mine to digest every dr.sears book published. i choked down folic acid and iron pills every morning and placed headphones screaming tinkly notes of mozart around my tummy every evening (you know, to make my baby smarter). i labored for 54 hours unmedicated in the country’s first free-standing birth center in new york city. i breast-fed, delayed vaccinations and pureed baby food out of organic root vegetables. i toted nolan around in a sling until he started walking and co-slept until he was two.
now that i look back on it, i totally attachment parented the shit out of my kid.
so how did i end up buying an extravagant, poverty inducing vacation package to disney world a scant seven years later?
it’s 2008 now.
despite my best efforts, about 50% of nolan’s inclinations have been shaped by his friends and the television. aside from digging sushi and rufus wainwright (but nothing beyond the want one album - please), he adores pokemon, chicken nuggets and neon colored packaged widgets. contributing to the cause, nolan goes to grandma and grandpa’s from time to time. when i get him back i find myself having to refrain from bleating, “what the wal-mart did you do to my kid???”
usually to my dismay, nolan will come back brandishing an arsenal of t-shirts emblazoned with shiny logos (advertising the latest action movie) and ill-fitting shiny track suit pants made with the most flammable material known to man. i have assigned a special storage bin for these items because i just can’t bring myself to throw them out. please keep in mind that i do appreciate my mom and dad’s efforts. i love them. i don’t know what i would do without their support! but damn the man! damn the man and his pied piper-like cross-marketing ways.
disney world is the egg-laying queen mother of these evils … and i totally bought into it. after carefully placing my street cred on a high shelf at home i headed down to orlando with nolan last november. we ate the mickey mouse shaped ice cream bars, waited in long lines, suffered scratchy disney hotel bed sheets, took thousands of pictures, bought every pirates of the carribbean themed tchocke available and slept a total of seven hours over five days.
why did i do it?
because (regardless of nyc’s best spicy tuna rolls and homosexual baroque popstars) …
