Baby Laughs, Star Wars, and Scrubs

In the spirit of OSC's great column at hatrack.com, I thought I'd start blogging about my opinions of books, movies and various products. Not that I'm an expert on any of those things, but if you're reading my blog you might care what I think, right? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Books

Since I'm a new mom, I've naturally been doing a lot of reading about babies. It was around my seventh month of pregnancy that I realized that I knew quite a bit about being pregnant - I had Dr. Sears' The Pregnancy Book and What to Expect When You're Expecting practically memorized (I loved the first, hated the second) - but I had absolutely no idea what to do with a baby once it was outside of me. So I started reading up and haven't stopped since. I picked up a copy of Baby Laughs by Jenny McCarthy (the former host of the dating show "Singled Out" on MTV) because several new moms had recommended it to me. Now that I've read it, I really wonder why. As it turns out, Jenny McCarthy isn't a very good writer. (I know, what a shock.) At the turn of every page I kept thinking, "I could have done better than this!" Not only is the writing bad, but she is seriously un- or misinformed about nearly every subject she addresses. She talks about the fact that breastfeeding can cause saggy breasts and how she decided not to breastfeed so hers still look fine. Guess what, Jenny? It's not bottle feeding that's keeping your ladies perky; it's the GIANT IMPLANTS inside of them. She mentions her implants several times elsewhere in the book, so it shouldn't have been hard for her to put two and two together. I guess hosting an MTV dating show doesn't make you a parenting expert. Anyway, maybe this is snobby of me, but I generally like to have the illusion preserved that the author whose book I'm reading is smarter than I am. So if you're looking for a book about being a new mom, skip Baby Laughs.

A great alternative is Vicki Iovine's The Girlfriends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood. It's well written, very funny, and even has a lot of useful information. It's also unique in that it mainly addresses how to take care of yourself during the first year rather than how to take care of your baby. Iovine has written a whole series of "Girlfriends'" books, including The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy (Everything Your Doctor Won't Tell You) and The Girlfriends' Guide to Getting Your Groove Back, and they are all equally funny and informative.

Movies

As I mentioned in a previous post, Eric, Sawyer and I went to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith a few weeks ago. Like so many others, we've been Star Wars fans since we can remember - literally, since we were born the year after A New Hope was released.(By the way, did you know that A New Hope's original title was Adventures of the Starkiller? True story.)And also like many others, we were disappointed in Episodes I and II. We both liked Sith a lot more. Finally, some character development! Yeah, OK, the script was still awful, but I felt like the story was good enough that even the worst lines were forgivable. By the end I felt empathy for Anakin/Darth, which I wouldn't have thought possible before. He faced the ultimate ethical dilemma: will you do the right thing even if it means losing the person you love the most? Watching him make the wrong choice was absolutely heartbreaking. Eric was depressed for the rest of the evening - I think the whole wife-dying-in-childbirth thing hit a little too close to home. Speaking of the childbirth scene, is it just me or did Padmé look about 4 months pregnant while she was in labor? I laughed when they held up two chubby 8 pound babies. Where was she keeping them?

On DVD

For the past week I've been watching the first season of Scrubs, which recently came out on DVD. I spend so much time nursing these days that I set up the glider in front of the TV and now as soon as I'm set up I just hit play and watch an episode at a time. I'm convinced that Scrubs is one of the most underrated shows ever. The writing is clever and funny in a quirky way you don't often see in a 30 minute show. It has Zach Braff. And it often gets musical! Here are a few of my favorite clips.