I know why the American auto companies are failing. I found out yesterday, when I finally got my rental car with three rows of seats. The car Randy delivered to me, after my incomparably disastrous morning, was none other than the Dodge Journey:

It’s a disaster on wheels. It’s ugly. It’s boxy. It’s small. It has absolutely NO visibility when looking over your right shoulder to make a lane change or turn. The interior is cramped- so much so, that even reaching for your cup in the cup holder requires contortion skills. The seats are uncomfortable. It’s hard to flip them open and back to access the rear seats, even my 7 year-old hits his head on the ceiling in the third row. If the boys are sitting in the third row, there is no room for legs in the second row. It’s dangerous to Abby’s legs, the space is so small. Forget an adult’s knee needs.

And, I’m not the only one who thinks so… a quick Google search turned up a scathing review by The Truth About Cars, and he says: 

“…the instrument panel upper is finger sink soft. But all the bits attached to it, including the protruding center stack, are straight from the bargain basement. It looks, feels and smells cheap.”

“…the driving position is an ergonomic abomination. The steering wheel rim obstructs the temperature gauge and the right half of the tach, and the optional rearview monitor is positioned at knee level.”

As if that’s not damning enough, he adds 

“And speaking of Novocain, the Journey’s driving experience is the only aspect of the vehicle that’s more forgettable than the exterior styling.”

My question is this: Why is this happening? With all the excellent automobiles out there, with all the fantastic designs, ergonomic beauties, why are American car designs so freaking butt-ugly? And not only are they ugly to look at, they are uncomfortable, and in the case of visibility, unsafe. I just don’t get it. There are car companies doing it well, making a quality product with good retention of value. There are companies making nice cars that fit your body comfortably, and get good gas mileage. So why are the Americans trying to reinvent the wheel? Why not look at what is doing well, and DO IT TOO?

Driving this disaster makes me all that much for frightened at the idea of bailing out the American Auto industry. It seems like a bottomless pit. If a company is making a sucky product, shouldn’t it fail? Nature abhors a vacuum, so another will rise and take their place, right? Maybe the next car company will be competitive with our Asian and German neighbors, and we won’t have to subsidize the American version of the Yugo.

End rant.

Unfulfilled? Frustrated with cleaning up the same mess 22 times in one hour? Sick and tired of cleaning up broken Christmas balls? Done with nagging to get homework done, flush the potty or to finish eating dinner? Had it up to here with kids begging for more toys, candy, presents, computer time, movies, video games or other outrageously expensive landfill toys.

Me too.

It must be in the air; Fed-Up-Ness seems to be a recurring theme on a whole lot of blogs right now. Count me among the masses. If I have to tell Bean to leave the presents alone one more time, I’m taking them all back. If Abby yanks another ornament off the tree, I might duct tape her little chubby hands to the floor. If Jeffrey calls grandma one more time to beg for more toys, I might roll up the catalogs he circles everything in and whomp him over the head.

I know my kids need me at home. I know no one can replace a parent in the home, and that being at the crossroads is muy importanto. So I’m here. But man, sometimes I have to agree, a trained monkey could do most of what being a SAHM entails. Seriously. OK, the monkey wouldn’t love my kids the way I do, and he might bite an owie rather than kiss it, but he seriously could do all the other mundane, repetitive, thankless tasks that take up most of my day, leaving me with little brainpower or energy to be an interesting, thoughtful, engaging woman.

I don’t have any idea how to balance this. If anyone knows, let me in on it, OK? For now, I will continue to be the trained monkey in my house, and will try really hard not to bite my kids when they knock over and break yet another widget.

Sometimes, I just want to scream: “I am more than a human NAPKIN!”

My husband just called me from the airport. He’s on his way home from a business trip, and stopped in the airport gift shop and picked up a snowglobe from that city for each of the boys, then headed to his gate.

Going through the security checkpoint, they confiscated both snowglobes. They have liquid, don’t you know, sir?

He bought them IN THE TERMINAL at the AIRPORT.  I am so stinkin’ mad, I’ve got steam blowing out my ears. What a circus. What a scam.

The kids are each getting a nice, glossy postcard.

Ok, I know equating breastfeeding lunatics with a political group who terrorized and practiced genocide on a mass scale is hardly fair, but it gives you a fair idea of how strongly I feel about the groups of mothers who advocate only one way of parenting, birthing or feeding your children as correct. Grrrr….

I'm talking about the women and select medical or lay childbirth and breastfeeding support that try and espouse that their way is superior to any other. Who tout (loudly) that unmedicated childbirth is better in every way, and every case than any other method, that breastfeeding exclusively until your child is eating corn-on-the-cob and can tie his own shoes (alright I'm exaggerating, but I'm hot) is the only responsible means of feeding your child. Grrrr…..

This is an ongoing problem among mothers- and I hate it. Absolutely despise it. The thing is, I have the perspective of seeing the issues of childbirth and breastfeeding from both sides. I've had my babies both medicated with wonderful epidurals, and natural, feeling all the glorious burn. I have had terrible struggles with breastfeeding, I have pumped more than a 1000 hours in my childbearing years so far, had infants who cannot nurse, sick infants who require special supplementation, breast surgery, and finally an infant who nurses beautifully. Other than a nursing baby being much more convenient than pumping, none of these things is better than another. None of them are badges of motherhood or of my feminity or my womanhood.

I don't need or want someone with an agenda, political or social, trying to tell me what is best for my particular family, or why what I am doing is wrong. The presumption of many of these groups is that "If we educate you, you will understand and agree we are right"- To me this kind of arrogance is astounding. It is also unbelievingly presumptuous- to believe there is one way of doing something (giving birth or feeding your baby) insults my intelligence. It questions my stewardship over my children, and assumes I am ignorant and uninformed. That is a mighty big assumption, ladies and gentlemen, to make about any mother who doesn't make the same choices as another. I resent it.

There is a thread in the comments on MMW right now that got me all fired up about his. I tried to stay out of it for a while, and I tried to be civil. But now I'm steamed. Folks, there are as many "right" ways of loving and caring for you children as there are mothers. Unmedicated birth with a midwife is in NO WAY superior to a hospital birth with an epidural. (And don't start throwing links and statistics at me- I'm aware of them and have read a great deal-it doesn't change how I feel at all about allowing others their freedom to choose for themselves.) Breastfeeding until your child is two may help your child's health, but there are a thousand other factors that build a child as well. And frankly, I'm ready to kick over that Column of Superiority with women waiting to "educate" me.

Just say something to me when I pull out a bottle for Abby- it might be breastmilk, it might be formula. Say something.
I dare you.