How to make me think that you are not as cool as you probably think you are.

Just throwing this out there.  But does anyone agree with me that Red coupes with spoilers and after market mufflers are not automatically awesome (or sexy cars)? 
I'll say that there are red coupes with spoilers that lovely to gaze upon.  But that is because they are exotic or luxury vehicles.
Taking any ol'dodge neon or ford focus or (heaven forbid) a honda civic and tricking it out and then rumbling past me on the freeway does not make you look cool. period.

Cutting me off on the freeway and giving me a so cool tilted-head-nod-thing in your red-coupe-with stupid big-spoiler-tricked-out-honda-civic-that sounds strangely rumbly?

 I think you look silly. 
There.  I said it.     

And being peed on got me in a tither.

In an  unscientific use of statistics I would say that we have used cloth diapers 98% of the time with Elliot and Henry. 2% of the time we are traveling or have a broken washer (or no washer) and use disposables. Currently we are away from home staying with family…and have been using disposables full time.

My summary of how I like it. 0%.


Cloth Diapers. After the initial cost outlay they only require an extra load of wash every other day or so. Done. Finito.

Disposables. Other than the paper crinkle sound that I don’t like. And a funny chemical baby powder smell that I ignore. Well I have been peed on twice this week. IN. PUBLIC. By a fully dressed, paper diaper wearing Henry. After I spend $20 on a box of convenient diapers labeled “for little movers” . PEED ON 2 TIMES! IN. PUBLIC. That, in economicspeak, is a poor return on my investment.

How many times have I been peed on by a baby in cloth? ZERO TIMES.

So, to anyone who ever told us that cloth diapers are unhygienic and gross (or thought it secretly in thier head but was too polite to say it outloud, even though your face grimaces and we totally know who you are)  well guess what?  

gross = poop and wiping.

The type of diaper you use doesn’t change poop and wiping. But the type of diaper you use impacts your experience of walking through a mall with a huge urine spot on your shirt (say, all down your back if baby was sitting in an Ergo when he offended).

Huge urine spot on shirt of an adult = unhygienic and gross.

Books for extremists

Well.  thanks to our local library sale we are all stocked up on random books.  We love the spring warehouse sale.  $9 for a bag of books.  We pack 'em in and load it up. 

I spent a bit of time at the section labeled women's studies. Which, being of the female persuasion, seemed like a good place to look for books.   Do you wonder if there was a table labeled man's studies?    Well, no.  There was not.  Men don't seem to be as prolific of writers about their sex as women are.  AND because there would probably be lots of inappropriate things at their table.  And, its a family event. 

Any one still with me?  No.  Okay I'll keep talking anyway.

I walked away with 2 books.  Both wildly biased and bossy.  I had a hare brained idea to read a staunchly feminist book.  And an anti-feminism book. At the same time.  And compare.   

I don't know how I think of these wild and crazy ideas.  I must be fun like that. 

To summarize.  I was humored and insulted by the radicalness of both books.   Not consistently humored or insulted.  Just sporadically.  Does that mean that I am not a good feminist?   Because I don't necessary identify with the dish they are serving (read: sahm).  But.  I am a terrible unfeminist also.  I am just riding a fence and thinking the grasses on both sides of the fence are colored crazy. 

But maybe that is the way it goes with causes that people are willing to fight for.   Causes make people crazy and nearly unrelateable to everyone who isn't quite on the same page. (*cough* pro home birth *cough* pro vegetarianism *cough*)

What are some of your causes?  Anyone willing to share? 

I cannot find the cord for the camera so that I can upload the treasure trove of photos on it.  I cannot find it anywhere.  My frustration is at maximum.  Where is that thing?  Just stupified where it could have gone.


Happy Monday

Discourse on food, robots, and ballet.

In my new series titled Kristen lured me here with pictures of her children and then assaulted me with her opinions about stuff. (what? you fell for that?)  Well.  I now bring you FOOD.
 
Firstly.  May I start this off by saying.  If eating is so primal and instinctual why is it so confusing?  And, oh vey.  The vasts quantities of books on the subject.  The bookstore has major sections for recipe books, another for nutrition and diet, and in parenting we find a subsection on weaning/nursing.  There are best sellers on whole foods, or the obesity epidemic.  Now in addition to deciding whether you want to ascribe to whole foods, raw foods, ovo-lacto-pesco foods.  NOW my pseudo-hippy creds are challenged by the locavore and slow foods.  ( as a side note: the slow foods tagline is "good, clean and fair food" and my brain brought up images of funnel cakes).  Time OUT.  Can't we just eat FOOD?

And here is the part where I pepper in photos to keep you entertained. 

Elliot and a gaggle of small girls (old friends of 5 minutes) excitedly waiting for her FIRST BALLET CLASS.  Giddiness in the air...10 minutes class begins.

Elliot in the middle- smaller than her peers.  But already well studied.  She got a ballet lessons on dvd from the library and watched in 700 times.  She is an expert on plee-ins and first position and all the warm up stretches.  Ready to start on advanced choreography.  Hope she wasn't disappointed.  (2 minutes until class begins)

Sometimes when I hear food-talk it sounds like people are programmed robots...with our scientific robot programs that mathematically redact our bodies until all we are is metabolism, thyroids, proportions, ratios, and scenarios.  On further insult our food is distastefully reduced to scientific units of calorie, carbohydrate, and fat with corresponding charts, tables and trends (Malibu, Adkins, Hollywood juice). 

Anyone think that perhaps we are oversimplifying in the wrong direction?  Maybe.  Throwing out the proverbial baby and not the bathwater?


Stay with me.  This may not be profound enough for some of you.  BUT there are more photos to come. 

Why not just real food for real humans?  Pop Tarts (brown sugar flavored) be damned but if you can't garden it or raise it...or if you can't go out and hunt, fish or forage it...may you shouldn't eat it?  Just saying.  Maybe it isn't food?  Or, maybe (at the very least) it warrants a second thought before mindlessly partaking.
Thinking that we could measure our food in steps removed from nature.  Like carrot sticks = 0 and pop tarts are at 1000.  With everything else somewhere else on the spectrum.  And then we seek to eat as close to 0 as possible...with a few funnel cakes now and again.
 

That is Elliot mid-plie.  Teacher asked them to just stand there...but when you know stuff you should show off stuff. 

Otherwise , doesn't food get redacted to scientific units and numbers...it's almost enough to make me loose my appetite. 

We went to a paint your own pottery place.  Elliot spent an hour and a half getting the switch cover just right...then I stamped on her initials. 

Hey.  Aunt Jennie.  This picture is for you.  See that brass tiger?  I've tried to make it disappear about 6 times already but it keeps magically appearing on this shelf. 

Spring is here and the ABC tree is in bloom. Or so says the bad mom.

okay.  fat lie. Spring is not here.  It is cold and, aside from a couple sunny days this week, it has been dull and gray.  We are ready for the good weather....only a couple more months.  

At the risk of sounding like a bad mom.  I am starting to cringe at sentences that begin with why.  Which is every sentence that Elliot speaks.  It is not a rhetorical why.  She is tenacious enough that if we don't answer (from exhaustion) she keeps asking.  We are suffering from an overload of curiosity.  Why did Toad crash his car again?  Why did  you sit on the couch and not the red chair?  Why did Henry just spit up again?  Why did you do it that way? Why is that girl wearing boots?  Why is that man's hair long like a girl?  Why is the little red hen red?  Why WHY?!  I don't know WHY!!!

and don't get this bad mom started on how I don't like playing pretend for 8 hours straight.  I just don't enjoy it.  Elliot can inexhaustibly play Laura Ingalls and Farmer Boy ALL-DAY-EVERY-DAY.
Elliot:  you be Mary
Us: let's play another game.
Elliot:  ok let's play school.  You be the teacher and I will be Laura.

Seems suspiciously like the same game to me.  humph.

Well.  That was cathartic.  So, back to the title of this post.  The ABC tree.  We are finding letters everywhere.  She has never seemed too driven to draw pictures.  Try as we might to show her smiley faces and stick people.  And she doesn't color.  she takes tests, does her lessons, and  gets information.  She asks questions (what is your name?  What is your city?  What is your husband's name?) and then scribbles the answer down.  She doesn't show much interest in drawing but is desperate to write.  And when her favorite game of spelling bee evolved into spelling test - she really did begin writing letters.  In her beautiful 3 year old hand.  Letters have been showing up everywhere.  A lot of E's, but an important letter for an Elliot. 

E. L. C.

E.

F.A.

E.L.C.

Someone's proud mama took a lot of photos.  Who did that?

the great anti-cell phone experiment comes crashing to an end

I got a cell phone this weekend. 
I caved.  After almost (not quite) a year of ditching the leash phone.  I caved in.
Because of texting. 
Because when I give out my number and say that it is a home phone...people get confused.  They try and sent me text messages.  Texts with important information.  Texts that I never receive because they sent it to a landline.  A landline that doesn't give them a error message.  And then I get in trouble because I never replied to the important information they texted to my landline.  Because a landline can't text back.  This confuses A LOT of people.  (too many people, really)
Are our collective memories of life-before-cell-phones so short?  How did everyone communicate before text message?  Come on people?! 
Therefore, in keeping with the herd and because I am a member of this society and because I get left out of a lot of things because I didn't get the text..well, because of all that - I got a cell phone. 

I am still making my stand about facebook.  I never log in to that (never).  So, no.  I did not get the invitation you sent to me on facebook...I guess you should have texted it to my landline. humph.

I am not putting my new number on here.  'cause that isn't safe.  Because sometimes this blog gets randomly googled from people in Pakistan who were searching for pink cuckoo clocks (NOT making that up). 
BUT the 703# is a landline.  I will try to send out my new number soon...but you could always text Izaak if you need it sooner. 

ok?  rant over.

the voice of nothingness

so, sometimes in updating this blog I think...what am I doing? hum.  I focus on life with my little ones.  I don't really have much interesting to talk about outside of that.  (though for argument's sake, my littles can't be that interesting to everyone).  I mean I wake up, brush my teeth, drink coffee, and some hours later I brush my teeth again and go to bed.  Boring.

I have tried to soliloquy (soliloquize?) but nothing comes out well written, so it's not published.  And, who cares about my opinion anyway?  A rant about the goth girl I see out walking everyday is better left in my head.  Though I do wonder if everyone thinks her makeup and footwear is as ridiculous as I think it is.  OK, I understand the idea of expressing yourself through personal style choices....but I think Gothic footwear is dumb.  

 I don't have adoption issues to work out like rageagainsttheminivan.  I don't have the daily grind joy of a very large full quiver family to talk about.  I don't write emotional and beautiful birth stories to share like Kelle at Enjoying the Small Things.  (but seriously you should read that link, its beautifully raw).

No major convictions to share.  No poignant writing skills to flash about.  No mission statement. Sure, I'd like to talk about things.  Things like extreme downsizing, and school, and birth stories, and choices we make, and opinions we have...but it never comes out right.   I can just give you this:

and these:

Glimpses at what makes us happier than imaginable.  When other things suck, we need to focus on what makes our hearts race. 

And, this posting is here and there and nowhere.  But nowhere is a place where I live, sometimes.  So, sorry if CHARMING US grows boring at times (or always).  As life ebbs & flows so does everything else. Right now that is good enough for me.  'cause I spend my afternoons looking at this.

 

Do you allow pets?

Izaak and I have a most favorite conversation that we repeat 50 times a day when advertising a vacant apartment.  (btw the craigslist ad clearly states in bold no pets/no smoking)

After 2-5 minutes of conversation where we are quizzed about all the items in the craigslist ad - the following takes place.

Caller:  Um, you accept pets, right? [guess they didn't read that part in the ad]

Us:  No. We have a no pet policy

Caller: What about... [insert any of the following] 1) a cat  2) a small animal 3) my dog  4) my 18 year old cat/dog that doesn't move 5) if I provide good references for my pet 6)  if I pay a deposit 7) but my lab is used to living apartments. 8) my dog has been to obedience school 9) a well behaved pitbull.  10) it's my favorite cat/dog and I couldn't bear to take it to the pound 11) what about if it was only here on the weekends.

Us: [out loud] Nope, sorry we have a no pet policy.

Us: [In our head] it's an animal still though?  or yep, your 18 year old cat still applies to the no pet policy or really?  or Oh, I guess since you said it was your favorite we will risk it for you - a stranger. 


The reason for this rant?  I just had the joy of overhearing Izaak 3 times in 10 minutes go through the same script.  hehe.