The Fish Pond

Yes, I'm a Mommyblogger; I'm Also a Woman, Just Like You - Do NOT Dismiss Me

As I mentioned in my BlogHerDC recap post, I met one person I didn't like. Just one. Now, I don't expect to like everyone, and I don't expect everyone to like me. That's life. But I do expect to be treated with respect no matter what, and I certainly never expected to be dismissed like so much fluff by another woman at a BlogHer conference.

At BlogHerDC they did a "speed dating" exercise where they formed two circles of people facing each other, and you got to talk to the person opposite you, and every minute the inside circle moved to the left, so that each minute for however long they did it, you met someone new. It was done at BlogHer07 in Chicago, too, and I enjoyed it immensely, in part because it provides an opportunity to meet so many bloggers outside of your own genre. In Chicago I met some great bloggers with really neat blogs who I would never have met otherwise, but who I now read regularly (blogroll coming in future when I can finally get around to it), so I was excited when they announced it.

I lined up and started listening and running my mouth alternately. And sure enough, I met some great bloggers outside of my genre - food bloggers, life bloggers, professional bloggers, even a 15 year old blogger who was there with her mother (and how 'bout THAT for an experience? YAY, Mom!). And of course, the political bloggers. DC metro area blogging conference in an election year? There were TONS of political bloggers, even political bloggers who happen to be mothers.

With each person I met, I introduced myself as a mommyblogger, gave a brief description of what I blogged about, and then asked what the person I met blogged about. I had great conversations with everyone, save one. I introduced myself and immediately upon saying mommyblogger, I could see the light in her eyes change. Her smile no longer made it all the way to her eyes. She briefly told me she was a political blogger, and then started looking over my head at the next person she was going to talk to! I know I'm short and all, but it was just incredibly insulting. The person next to me was from the AAUW, and the political blogger started talking to her about a feminism initiative that AAUW was sponsoring, dismissing me. Thing is, the AAUW woman included me in the conversation. Political blogger woman kept giving me dismissive looks. Her body language made her message clear: you do not matter.

I may be a mommyblogger - that happens to be a big part of my identity right now. But they didn't cut my head open and remove my brain when they did my c-sections. I was a working professional woman for more than a decade, and just because I stay home now doesn't mean I forgot what that was like, or that I won't go back to the corporate world in the future. It doesn't mean I have nothing to contribute to political discussions; in fact, I would say I have more at stake and politics means more to me now precisely BECAUSE I am a mother and I not only care about the impact of the decisions that our country's leaders make on me, but on my daughters and sons.

And I am no less of a feminist because I stay home at this point in my life. My mother didn't work as a feminist to change corporate acceptance of females in professional positions for herself; she wanted to stay home. She did it for me, so that I would have the choice to do whatever I wanted, to be an astrophysicist or an engineer or a teacher or a doctor or a plumber or a truck driver or a nurse or a lawyer or a stay-at-home-mother, without being ostracized or marginalized for my choice. If she knew that more than 30 years later the same backward attitudes she battled are still at play, she'd roll over in her grave.

Ms. Political Blogger, I am a Mommyblogger, and I am proud. I am also a wife blogger, a daughter blogger, a sister blogger, a granddaughter blogger, a daughter-in-law blogger. I am a reader blogger, a writer blogger, a voter blogger. I am an activist blogger. I am an education blogger. I am a personal blogger. I blog about my life. And the things I have to say about that life are just as important, and valuable, and worthy of respect as anything you have to say, and vital, so that some day in the future my daughter won't have anyone looking over her head in a professional venue, dismissing her like she's so much fluff.

Now With More Color! And Indignation!

First, I told you it would darken fabulously. It's still got a way to go, but here's the current pastel version:

I personally like the lovely olivey green color. Note also the lovely mosquito bite on the left there. Fun!

Two days ago the mailman knocked on our door to deliver a couple of packages. He likes to do this rather than just leave them in the door, mostly because 3/4 of the time they are legos for Little Man who gets all excited about the mail, so the mailman likes to give him a little fun. Anyway, he handed the packages to Little Man and said "Guess what I just saw? A black bear." No surprise there.

What was a surprise was that the mailman was filling the mailboxes one row of townhouses away (for those who don't know, there's a big box at the start of every other row of townhouses that has all the boxes for the houses in both those rows. We all have to walk down a row to the box to get our mail. Kinda like the lobby of an apartment building, but with more weather.) and he said the bear came out of the woods, walked RIGHT BEHIND HIM DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET and went into the small wooded area in front of the houses WHERE OUR PLAYGROUND IS. The bear was completely unconcerned that the mailman was standing there watching him as he waddled down the road, in broad daylight, right in the middle of a townhouse development.

This concerned me. Most wildlife doesn't bother me in the slightest; in fact, that's part of the appeal of living here. We've had bear sightings before in the almost 20 years that this neighborhood has existed, but they were just that - sightings. One shot, and the bear was gone. Never have we had one this bold, one who keeps coming back and who obviously isn't perturbed by people. He's obviously well fed, too.

So I decided to call the Department of Natural Resources, who usually handles these things. I told the woman about all the bear encounters I know about and asked what they do. Well, in a word, nothing. She told me to lock up the trash, put all birdfeeders away, do whatever we have to do to eliminate the food source. I was silent for a second, then I attempted to explain that this is a townhouse neighborhood. It has 150 houses, lots of kids, lots of pets. The likelihood of getting all those houses to lock up their trash when only maybe 20% have sheds in which to lock them is pretty slim, not to mention that our trash has to be out to the curb by 7am on Mondays and Thursdays and what are we supposed to do then? Not put our trash out until the garbage truck comes? Take every Monday and Thursday off so we can wait for them? Obviously this bear isn't confining his food searches to nighttime. She said he's an adolescent looking for girl bears, and when he figures out there are no girl bears here and the food source is gone, he'll move on. I reminded her that I just explained that the food source is going to be there and it really isn't feasible to remove it. She didn't say anything. I said "You really don't do ANYTHING? We don't want the bear hurt, we want it to have a happy life, but we really don't want a kid or pet to be hurt." She told me again the whole shpiel about locking up the trash and putting away birdfeeders. I angrily thanked her and hung up.

Today I had planned to try the county animal control office, but I talked to my neighbor, also a mother with small kids, and she called them when she first saw the bear months ago. They told her to call the Department of Natural Resources. And we know how that went. So I didn't call, and instead posted to our neighborhood playgroup about the bear and the natural resources call, and asked for input about any other bear sightings in the neighborhood. Only my neighbor called me, and I already knew about her sighting. So far I haven't heard from anyone else. I'll wait until Monday, and then try calling the county again.

I am really concerned about the fact that this bear doesn't appear to be fearful of humans. I am worried it is going to take a kid or animal getting hurt before anyone will do anything about it. It's ridiculous that we need to be worried about letting our kids go play in the front yard or ride their bikes up and down the street because of a bear that is somewhere he doesn't belong. It's not like this is a rural, mountainous area that's his natural habitat; this is the DC metro suburbs. Sexual predators? Sad, but sure. Traffic going too fast? You betcha. Carjackers? Yep. Bears? Not so much.

Anyone got any ideas? I'm all ears.

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I also worry about how much I yell. Check it out at DC Metro Moms Blog.

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Believe it or not, I also sometimes find time to scrapbook. Find out how here.

Who the Heck Buys Something Like This?

As seen on the rack in Target, while shopping for presents for my cousin's baby shower and my godson's birthday:

  In a size 3T. Honestly, who would even consider buying this?

Almost as bad as girls' clothes. Almost.

Why Can't Anyone Make a Decent Looking Male Doll?

Sunny got a gift card for her birthday, and since she loves all things High School Musical, mostly because her sister does, she picked out Troy and Gabriella dolls. And these things haunt me. Well, Troy does. He's scary.

Gabriella, she's okay, her boobs aren't even too big:

Her main drawback is that she came with a necklace and a bunch of teeny tiny bracelets that are, of course, removable, and therefore lose-able, which Sunny does several times a day. I've even fished one out of the vacuum cleaner. Then there's the shoes, one of which was lost outside in the grass within three hours of her coming home, never to be found.

But Troy? He's hideous. Observe:

Why isn't he smiling? Why doesn't he have anything on under that jacket? Why is he wearing makeup? And, for God's sake, why the heck does he look like a woman on the mother of all Bad Hair days?

That hasn't stopped Sunny from playing with them, stripping them, of course, but it sure has given me nightmares.

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DC Metro Moms Blog is participating in a Topic Day with all its sister blogs. Hop on over and check out some great posts about education, be it public, private, or homeschool. Also, watch this space tomorrow - you never know what you might find.

Because Parents are Dumber than Five Year Olds, Of Course

It appears that's what the FDA thinks of us. The FDA has decided that cold medicines are too much of a hazard for kids under 6, not just 2, and are debating whether they are safe and even effective for kids up to age 11:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011700006.html?hpid=sec-health

What the heck is going on here? I understand not giving those medicines to kids under age 2, my pediatricians (who are wonderful) have told me from the beginning that cold medicines do nothing to help and to save my money, so I have. But no Dimetapp for my three year old? Potentially for none of my kids? What gives?

Does the FDA think all parents are so stupid that we can't safely give our kids medicines? Mistakes happen sometimes, yes, but honestly, I think more medication mistakes are made every single day in hospitals across the country than happen in two years with parents medicating their kids.

They say the medications aren't needed because the illnesses in questions are "self-limiting." WTF? Adults are allowed, nay encouraged, to take medicines to help us rest and feel better when we have colds, but we can't be responsible adults and make that same decision on behalf of our kids? When we adults get sick, we take cold medicines to help us feel well enough to function so we aren't evil grumpy grownups, so why can't we make the decision to help our kids not be evil, grumpy kids? I have to imagine that those who are making these decisions/recommendations haven't spent much time with more than one sick kid, haven't lost sleep as the kids stay up all night coughing and sneezing and blowing their noses and whimpering because they feel so awful and there's nothing anyone can do about it. A little bit of medicine to help them feel well enough to get a good night's sleep so their little bodies can heal can make a huge difference.

And do they honestly think that most of us don't know that the medicines don't HEAL anything, but rather treat the symptoms? I've grown up knowing that the Dimetapp that was prescription when I was a kid that my mother gave me when I got sick was to help me feel well enough to get some rest so my body could get better. Honestly, I've known that since I was 5 years old. They really think that an entire generation of parents isn't as smart as I was at five? Please.

When our kids get croup, we give them a steroid cough medicine to quiet their cough and help them rest so they can heal. When they get a fever, we give them a fever reducer to help them feel well enough to sleep without delirium, so they can get better. When they are teething or have an ear infection, we give them a pain reliever so they can eat and drink without pain, so their bodies can do the work needed for them to recover. I don't think any of us is under any delusions that it's anything other than a leg-up to their little immune systems, which are doing all the work of healing.

And with the advent of those little cups for dosing, and all the helpful syringes handed out by Target and other pharmacies, do they really think we don't know not to use a household spoon to dose our kids? Are they not aware that a few decades have happened since this was commonplace? I know NO ONE who does this, not even my father, or in-laws, not even my grandparents when they were alive. Not a single person. That's three generations, people, who DO NOT do this. Do you?

The FDA is apparently a bunch of asshats. I happen to like it when I can give my kids a little bit of medicine to help them feel better so their bodies can heal when they are sick, and I'm pretty sure I can do it safely - I haven't killed one of them yet. Dropped them on their heads, yes. Let them eat food off the floor, sometimes. But given too much medicine? Never. Who do I have to vote for to get the FDA out of my medicine cabinet? Off to go find a libertarian candidate who isn't insane...

And the List of Idiots Keeps Getting Longer - A Message to YouTube

It seems it wasn't bad enough that Applebee's, Facebook, and Bill Maher publicly and vocally oppose public breastfeeding. YouTube has done it, too. In their infinite wisdom, they have BANNED the League of Maternal Justice's breastfeeding video montage produced as part of the Great Virtual Breast Fest. Not flagged it, BANNED it. And they haven't offered any reason as to why they have banned video of photos of women doing something they are LEGALLY permitted to do. Somehow, it is permissible to post and share all kinds of video showing more skin than I show when I nurse my child in PRIVATE, much less publicly, but the League's video montage is BANNED. Oy.

Due to my somewhat incognito status, I can't post a video reply, but I am most certainly letting my fingers do their stuff. Please do what you can - go, tell YouTube that you support the rights of women to share photos of them doing what is natural, and legal, and not, in any way, obscene. Put up a post on your blog. The League of Maternal Justice is going to re-post their video montage with new music soon - please visit the site and comment in SUPPORT of their efforts.

There is still so much more work to do.

You Thought All You Had to Worry About Was Lead

Have you seen this?!? AquaDots have been recalled because when they are ingested they turn into the date-rape drug GHB! JUST what I want my kids enjoying during their holiday season. I almost bought some of these for Trout for her birthday last week. Something told me not to do it, and am I EVER so glad I listened to my something.

I'm giving my kids theatre tickets and trips to the zoo for Christmas.

The Great Virtual Breast Fest -- Because Breasts Are For Feeding First

  I am proud today to step up and participate in the Great Virtual Breast Fest, sponsored by the League of Maternal Justice. I am tired of all the garbage associated with feeding our children the natural way, the way nature intended, just because we happen to be out and about and some people think we should be cloistered away in our bedrooms or, worse, in horrid public bathrooms. Unfortunately, those people seem to be a vocal minority. It's time we nursing mothers, and those who support them, become the Vocal Majority.

Here, in all our nursing glory, are Nemo and me, taken this morning as he had his morning nummies:

Oh, the horror! Oh, the indignity.

Yeah, whatever. I happen to think it's beautiful. I have breastfed all four of my children, for various lengths of time, based on how long they, and I, wanted to nurse. I cannot imagine staying in my house and going nowhere for the better part of the first year of each of their lives - who would have done the grocery shopping? The transport to and from school for the bigger kids? Was I supposed to tell Trout no she couldn't take ballet, tell Little Man he couldn't take lacrosse, tell Sunny she couldn't take gymnastics, because the baby might want to eat then?

It's people like Bill Maher, organizations like Facebook, with their prudish attitudes, that made it so that my sister thinks breastfeeding is icky, that have made some people think we should be relegated to feeding our children in bathrooms, sitting on toilets. If I have to do that, then they are welcome to join me, with their dinner, of course.

Breastfeeding is amazing. It is one of the most rewarding and pleasurable experiences of my life, when Nemo's not biting, that is. I am beyond grateful that I got to experience it, that I stuck it out when things got tough, which they do, because this is hard. It takes guts and determination and, sometimes, lots of support. If you are nursing or want to nurse, you can do it. It is wonderful, and you will love it. If you love someone who is trying to breastfeed, tell them they are doing a fantastic job. Be a cheerleader. If you see someone nursing in public, give them a smile, or a kind word of encouragement.

I support the work of the League of Maternal Justice, and I urge you to do the same. Put up your nursing pictures, or nurse live with a webcam. If you feel uncomfortable doing that, visit their site to get a copy of their Boob Montage, and put that up. Put up a button, like this:

Go to their site, view the Boob Montage on YouTube, post some comments. Raise your voice loud, so we can drown out the idiots.

Breastfeeding Brouha - No, It Isn't Funny

Recently, the act of public breastfeeding has come under attack from both Facebook and Bill Maher, and whoever oversees the medical board exams in Massachusetts has demonstrated an astounding lack of support for something the medical profession purports to support.

For those of you who have been busy folding laundry or hiking the Appalachian Trail or just trying to avoid news media, Facebook has not only removed photos of women breastfeeding their infants from their site, but they have banned at least one woman from the site altogether when she questioned why the photo was removed. Bill Maher, in his comments about lactivism and and an upcoming nurse-in due to an Applebee's restaurant in Kentucky requesting that a mother cover up when nursing her infant, compared public breastfeeding to public masturbation and said that the woman should have planned better or stayed home, and seemed incredulous that promoting breastfeeding, i.e. lactivism, is actually a cause for some people. In another act of outrageous stupidity, the organization that oversees the administration of medical boards has denied an MD/PHD candidate and nursing mother of a four-month-old any accomodation to pump her breasts during her day-long board exam. She has sued to have arrangements made for the test she is due to take next week.

Now, Facebook certainly has the right to choose its own content, and if they deem photos of a breastfeeding woman obscene, then so be it. This is my site, and if I deem references to Facebook obscene, so be it. What someone deems obscene is subjective, and we all the option of not looking at something that we deem obscene. Close your browser window, turn off the tv, avert your tender eyes; there is no need to call for the removal of the subject of your discomfort. I do have to question, though, why images of women in revealing bikinis are not deemed obscene, or the existence of hundreds of pro-anorexia groups on the site are not deemed obscene.

Bill Maher? Idiot. Clearly. Breasts are okay in public only for your enjoyment, and not for the purpose for which they exist? Come on. Comparing breastfeeding, something necessary to the sustinence of life, to masturbation, something antithetical to the sustinence of life, if you take a purely technical perpective (which I am only doing for the sake of argument, mind you), is patently absurd. And you can't tell me this is a man thing - I am surrounded by men supportive of breastfeeding. And Applebee's really fumbled the ball there. The woman shouldn't have been spoken to at all about what she was doing, and when told about the Kentucky law allowing women to breastfeed wherever and whenever they need to, the management of that restaurant should have been falling all over themselves to make their lactating customer comfortable. If someone was discomfited by it, they could have relocated the table of the Uncomfortable One so that they couldn't see what was going on, or provided a blanket to put over the head of the Uncomfortable One, not the baby. Again, avert your eyes if you don't like it - we do still have free will in this country.

As for the call to lactivism, these incidents are precisely why lactivism exists. Because sexualized images of breasts are so prevalent in this country that despite my breastfeeding 4 kids my own sister still thinks breastfeeding is "icky." That despite irrefutable evidence that breastfeeding is the healthiest way to feed your baby (for both mother and baby), most women still choose to bottle feed for no other reason than thinking breastfeeding is icky, and it is deemed something shameful by our ridiculous puritanical society. In Europe it is not shameful, and no one covers up. As my grandfather said in response to the Janet Jackson incident "Why is everyone so riled up? It's just a tit - seen one, seen 'em all." They're just tits, being used to feed babies. Not only is it not something shameful, it is a beautiful relationship, something that should be supported and encouraged as much as possible in this country, for the betterment of our own society. Healthier babies, healthier mothers, healthier society as a whole.

When I had my first job back in the late 80s, I worked in a children's shoe store. One evening a woman came in with a child in her arms, a large child, I'd say about 2 years old at the time, and the child was sleeping. So I thought. She asked me to fit shoes on the child while she held the child, which I thought was odd, but proceeded to measure the child's size. I was shocked when I realized that she was breastfeeding the child while I fit the child's shoes. My 17 year old self was ridiculously uncomfortable, in part because I had never been exposed to a breastfeeding child before, or if I had been it was a tiny baby, not a toddler. But I didn't refuse to help her, I didn't ask her to cover up, and I simply made sure I maintained eye contact with the mother. With age and maturity I've learned why it is so important to breastfeed, and I'm glad I didn't let my discomfort get in the way of letting that mother live her life.

As to whoever governs the medical boards (is it the AMA? Really, I'd like to know and write a letter to support that student/mother), it is absolutely ridiculous that an organization that governs the very health care providers to whom we entrust our quality of life won't make accomodations for this mother. I seem to recall the Hippocratic Oath including the line "Do no harm." Does this board not recognize that not allowing this woman to pump they are potentially doing harm to both the baby and her mother?

Those of use who choose to breastfeed and make the commitment to do so have an obligation to support and educate others about the benefits of breastfeeding*. We need to demonstrate that public breastfeeding is not shameful, that we need not half-suffocate our babies by covering them up, we need not take them to unsanitary places to eat. We need to do what it takes to support women to make the choice to breastfeed, by providing time and places for working mothers to pump, by providing information and help when needed. By averting our eyes if we really feel it's necessary, and by giving mothers a warm smile and thumbs up when we recognize that it's not.

*Please note that I do not condemn formula feeders. One of my children has been formula fed for some of her life. I recognize that the reasons women don't breastfeed are widely varied, and include some people who just can't for whatever reason. Women who feed their children formula are not demons who are poisoning their children by any stretch of the imagination. But our society as a whole needs an attitude adjustment in regard to how breastfeeding is viewed in our country.

The Saga of the "Stolen" Sunglasses

Friday morning Trout tried to go out of the house in a skort that barely covered her behind, and I said "No Way" and sent her upstairs to change. She came down in another skort that was too short, so I sent her back up to change again. She immediately burst into an F5 tantrum about how I made her change from her favorite skort and now I'm making her change from her second favorite skort and I was so mean to her and she didn't have anything to wear and on and on and on. I gave some lip service to the "I know, it's hard to outgrow your favorite things" blahblahblah, but really I have no patience whatsoever about such things because really, my mom made me wear Toughskins jeans, so you have no reason to complain, kid. BigDaddyFish, however, can't stand the melodrama despair, and asked me to go to the mall and buy the kid some more shorts. I explained that I really didn't want to go do that so late in the season, since she'd wear them all of 3 times before she outgrew them, if that, and I didn't want to spend the money. He implored me to do it, and I caved, so after the bigs went to school Sunny, Nemo and I set out to the mall on a wild goose chase for shorts. For an incredibly skinny, long-legged, hard-to-fit kid. In September. When the air temperature is in the 80s, but you can buy blanket sleepers and winter coats in the stores.

We went to Sears with no luck, Children's Place where we scored a cute skirt on closeout for $6, and moved on to Gymboree. I try not to buy stuff regular price there because it's too blasted expensive, but they were having one of their Gymbucks giveaway thingys, and their clothes are at least reasonable as far as modesty (a major girl's clothes rant coming soon to a blog near you!), and since I was looking for skorts or shorts I thought I might find something on sale. I didn't, but I did find a cute corderoy skort and thin long-sleeved top that were not breathtakingly expensive and came down to her knee, so I headed to the checkout.

Next to the checkout were a couple of stacks of boxes that open in the front, three boxes high, filled with last season's socks. Sunny had brought her own money and decided she just had to have some fun socks, so we spent probably ten minutes digging in the sock bins looking for cute socks. We found some for everyone but Little Man. While we were digging, I noticed a young boy, somewhere around 15-18 months old, messing around in my diaper bag, which was hanging from the back of the stroller.

"No, no, sweetie, that's ours!" I said brightly with a big smile. He backed off and I did a quick check to make sure all my stuff was there. I glanced around but couldn't identify which woman in the store he was with, but it is a small store and I'm sure everyone there heard me. Two more times in the ten minutes we were digging through socks I had to shoo the child away, and not once did an adult come to his aid. I was kind and patient with him each time, but I was getting really irritated that a child that young was being allowed to wander around by himself and get so intimate with strangers. What if I had been a pedophile? What if I wanted one more kid to add to my brood? It's bad enough that my own kids dig around in my diaper bag and take stuff out and lose it, I don't need someone else's kid doing it, too. I myself would be mortified if one of my kids did that to someone else, and it would only take someone saying something once for me to make sure they were in my purview, most likely my hand, at all times. The fact is that I probably would have noticed it before the owner of the bag and put a stop to it myself. I did give the child's mother the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was having a bad day or whatever, but really the store is not that big, and a child that young shouldn't have been out of his caregiver's reach.

We finished with the socks and Sunny wanted to pay for her socks by herself, and while I was helping her a woman tapped me on the shoulder and said "Here, my son had this, it is yours" and handed me my sunglasses case. I thanked her and put it back in my bag, did a quick check to make sure nothing else was missing, and we left.

We went all kinds of places after that. We got a pretzel for a snack, we went to JCPenney (the best place for what I needed - I got one pair of longish bermuda shorts for $3 and a pair of uniform shorts for $9) and the Disney Store (Little Man's birthday is this week), we played at the froggie play area, and then we got in the car to come home. It was a shockingly bright day, and I opened my case to put on my sunglasses.

No glasses, just an empty case.

I immediately called Gymboree, and no one had turned in my sunglasses, or even seen them. I needed to leave soon because I had to get to the bus stop to pick up Trout and Little Man, but I grabbed Sunny and Nemo, didn't even take the stroller, and dashed into the store to look for them myself. No luck. I left my name and number and asked that they please call me if anyone came in with my very expensive, prescription sunglasses, good for no one but me. I am kicking myself that I didn't look inside the case to make sure the glasses were there when the woman handed me the case.

I checked today; no sunglasses.

I'm afraid the child either threw them in a fountain or something, or the mother found them in her stroller and assumed they were cheap kids' sunglasses (what can I say? I am a pinhead) and either kept them for her kid or threw them out. I am distraught. Yes, over sunglasses.

You see, I haven't had decent sunglasses in decades. Twice before this pair I tried to buy sunglasses, and they never did fit right, or they weren't really quite the right prescription and gave me headaches. These, these were perfect. They fit like they were specially molded for me, and I never had a problem switching back and forth between my regular glasses and my shades. I have a rotten weird astigmatism that makes it so that I can wear contacts, but I just don't see as well as I do with my glasses. I had those sunglasses 9 months - I picked them up on my way home from the hospital after having Nemo.

I'm going to miss them.