Shut up, Bill Rancic

On those rarest of days when the girls are at school, and the baby is asleep I sit my self down with a big cup of coffee and a big basket of laundry and indulge in the stay at home mother's favorite - and rarely enjoyed - treat, daytime television. With the creation of the DVR, I do have the option of watching a show that Tony simply refuses to watch, ex. The Pussycat Dolls, but what I love are shows like The Today Show and The View. While I genuinely like Today (even though Ann Curry is trying to be the new Katie Couric and it's not working) I watch The View primarily to make fun of Elizabeth Hasselbeck as mocking is my favorite pastime. So imagine my delight when I stumbled upon a new program on NBC called iVillage In the Loop hosted by two random broads and...drumroll please...The Apprentice's Bill Rancic! Oh, how the mighty have fallen! I put on my mocking gloves and I settled in for a good round.

I enjoyed a few minutes of forced, witty banter between Bill and his obviously inferior co-hosts ("I'm a celebrity, dammit!") concerning the topics of the day which included a segment on baby feeding as Bill and his wife are expecting a child soon. This is where is got ugly. Rancic tells the story of a woman sitting next to him on a plane with her baby who actually dared to breastfeed or as Bill put it with the maturity of a twelve year-old, "whipped out the tap". Now, I'm not a breastfeeding zealot, but I am currently nourishing a small human and did so two other times. I tried it, it worked for me, so I stuck with it. I was very prepared to go the bottle route if my "taps" didn't work out. So it is from an objective point of view that I tell you, Bill Rancic, to shut your damn pie-hole.

Bill, did you ever stop to think what that mother would have to do in order to feed her child if she didn't nurse him? No, probably not, but let me paint the picture for you in nice, broad strokes so you can see it, dummy. This woman was probably up at the crack of dawn packing her child for a flight, having panic attacks the whole time lest she forget his pacifier or favorite toy, and trying to remember to pack clean underwear for herself. Now, if she is traveling according to "Bill's Rules", she'll make time to sit and pump some breastmilk which she will need to keep refrigerated until her baby needs it. She will have to get this and all of his crap through security where, after catching some foot disease walking barefoot through the metal detectors, they will probably ask her to drink some of her own milk just to prove it isn't some new-fangled accelerant. Once she gets on the plane and her baby starts to fuss, which she will be freaking out about since she's sitting next to such a delicate flower as you, Rancic, she'll have to flag down the over-worked flight attendant and ask for some hot water to heat up her bottle since breastmilk can not be microwaved. I'm sure you're dying to ask the question, "Why can't she give the kid a bottle of formula?" Well, why the hell should she have to? All so you won't catch a two second glance of nipple while she's feeding her kid? Grow up.

OK, so maybe that wasn't such an objective opinion, but I am tired of people still not being over the breastfeeding-in-public thing. When you're pregnant they beat you over the head with the fact that "Breast is Best" - must we make it a rhyme? - and then once you actually have to leave your house with your offspring you feel like a leper if you have to feed your kid anywhere but a bathroom stall. I'm not ripping off my top, trying to shove a political point in people's faces when I do it, but I refuse to hide away or waste bottles of expressed milk to feed my kid in public. That stuff is liquid freedom and I'm either drunk or out of the house when it's being used. And I absolutely refuse to use one of those retarded covers called Hooter Hiders - I want to find the woman who created and named that thing and beat her to death (and if that name's not vomit-inducing enough she also named her company Bebe au Lait). You really need one more thing to juggle as you're trying to undo your bra and hold onto a screaming, wriggling infant. Besides after three kids I'm pretty good at showing minimal skin.

So Bill Rancic, I wish you good luck. No, actually, I wish you a colicky baby who doesn't give you a moment's peace unless she's nursing. If you can rip yourself away from the bottles of self-tanner and hair gel you are obviously abusing perhaps you'll get a chance to see your wife breastfeed and observe that it's not a display of sexuality or a political statement, it's just a mother feeding her baby.

Oh, and I found out today In the Loop was canceled. It's too poetic. Bill was fired.