Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I suppose it was too much to hope that I could enjoy the Olympics without having to talk about politics, but I was wrong.

I don’t even like sports, but last night during the opening ceremony, I kept getting teary.  Why?  Because the Olympics are one of the few moments that we share as human beings.  Chances are, eyes from ever single country on this planet are watching (or watched) the same thing I was watching.  Chances are good L’s family in China saw it too.

When ever Chinese person we knew was getting more and more excited about the olympics in Beijing, I poo-poo-ed  it.  I thought it was a big deal over nothing.  But when I saw it?  It was a big freaking deal.  It was something Chinese people could be proud of.

It was a moment where the country of China was saying “We want to be a respected member of the international community.  We want to play with the big boys.  We want your respect and admiration and we are willing to bend over fucking backwards and pay through the nose to get it.”

That moment, where the admiring eyes of the world watched one of the most spectacular performances I have ever seen, was not about the Chinese government.  It was about the Chinese *PEOPLE*.  One-fifth of the world’s population that has been trying to claw its way back into respectability for the last 35 years.  Can’t the Chinese people have a couple weeks where they can be proud of the massive accomplishments they have made in the last three decades?

Is the Chinese government fucked up?  Heck yeah!  They oppress their minorities, deny women and families their reproductive rights and force people to move for public work projects.

Is the Chinese government any more fucked up than the US government?  It depends on who you ask.  In case you are forgetting, the US government is responsible for this and this and this.  Oh wait, there is this and this and this and this.  Seriously, I could google US human rights abuses and misdeeds until my fingers bleed.

Do I wish the Chinese government would have saved the money they spent on the Olympics and spent it for their orphans or the poor or whatever?  Sure.  But I also wish the US government would save the $3 TRILLION dollars it is spending on the Iraq war to provide health care for poor people in America too.  Besides, I would rather watch the fireworks in China than watch US bombs blow people up.

You don’t like the Chinese government?  Fine.  Protest all you want.  Boycott Chinese-made goods.  Ooooh, maybe you won’t even watch the Olympics.   Is that going to do diddly-squat to change things in China?  Heck no, it won’t.

The Chinese government isn’t going to straighten up its act if we isolate and shame them.  What makes countries behave themselves is being a member of the larger community of developed nations.

When China grows up –and it WILL grow up eventually, because you can’t keep down a fifth of the world’s population if they have a lust for education and wealth like the Chinese — it will have to answer not only to the rest of the world.  The Chinese government is going to have to answer to the Chinese PEOPLE.  People who will eventually be relatively wealthy and educated and plugged in to the global community.
The Chinese people have tasted the Big Mac and they want more.  They want more and they want to be better, just like most of the rest of the citizens of this planet.

Sure some wrinkly old guys are trying to cling desperately to their party’s place in the corrupt power structure, but then, we have that here too.

China is changing faster than pretty much anywhere else on the planet.  It is impossible to predict what will happen there in 10 or 20 years, but I will go out on a limb and bet there is democracy in China in my lifetime.  (Not that democracy prevents human rights violations, as the US is so eager to demonstrate time and again.)  Things are changing there for the better and I expect the trend to continue, but it won’t happen over night.

It isn’t every day we get the honor of a truly global event.  This week, our family is going to enjoy watching the Olympics with the rest of the world.  You now, with all those people whose governments are imperfect but whose citizens hope for something better, just like us.

If you want to talk smack about Chinese politics, I am not going to provide the venue for it on my blog.  Not this week.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

It appears that two months without shopping has had an unexpected side effect.  In the last week, I have tried to buy things at the mall, target, and another mall.  Each time I came home completely empty-handed.  Target for crying out loud!  How could I leave Target with NOTHING??  (Actually, you can blame that one on a tired and hungry toddler.  It wasn’t worth the struggle to buy new toothbrushes.) 

 I even spent about 1.5 hours shoe shopping online last night and didn’t buy a damn thing.

I wonder if this is a long-term problem or if it will resolve itself with more shopping practice?

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

When I decided to take M to the park, I was a little concerned about what might happen.  Sure, I wanted M to learn that she was being silly.  At the same time I didn’t want M to have an opportunity to hurt the other little girl’s feelings, which seemed like a definite possibility given M’s very forthright declaration of not wanting to play with someone who was “different” because she had “brown skin and braids”.  I was planning on very closely monitoring the situation.
As soon as we entered the park and the little girl caught sight of M, she headed straight toward us.  As she ran up, M said “HI!” but kept on doing what she was doing.   The other girl didn’t say anything.   M continued playing (and narrating her play to me and L) and the little girl continued following her wordlessly, always staying about 6-7 feet away.  The lack of interaction was a little strange.

M decided she wanted to swing, so M, L and I headed over there.  The little girl stuck right behind M, still not talking.

When we got to the swings, I decided I would talk if no one else was going to.

“So, what is your name?” I asked.

“Molly.”  she said.

“Hi Molly, this is M and L.”  I said.

“How old are you?” M asked, “I am five years old!  My birthday is on February 9, 2003!  What year were you born?
“I’m three.” Molly said.

Knowing that Molly was three, her lack of conversation made a lot more sense. Molly was only about an inch shorter than 5 1/2 year old M and she really looked 5.  As soon as we found out she was only three, it was clear she was just acting like a three year old who really likes big kids.  As the mostly one-sided conversation (from M) continued, I also concluded that Molly may be bilingual due to the way she was putting her sentences together and a slight accent.  (I am guessing her parents were from Africa, but I don’t know.)

M continued to chatter on and on.  Molly answered her questions occasionally.  M tried to explain an imaginary game that she wanted to play to Molly, but Molly didn’t always follow M’s rules.  I reminded M a few times that Molly was only three and M adjusted her play.  They ran off to the slides together and played uneventfully for another 10 minutes, until we had to go home.

On the way home, I reminded M that she had said she didn’t want to play with Molly before because she looked different.  “Well, that was before I knew her,” M said.  We talked about how silly that was and that Molly ended up being a good playmate.  We talked again about all our friends who had differences and how they are different.  (We have continued to have this conversation over the past few days.  M seems to enjoy it.)  We also talked about how M might feel if someone didn’t want to play with her because she was Chinese or had brown hair or was a girl.  M agreed she would feel sad and she didn’t want to make other people sad.  Then we went home and she went to bed.

Sorry to disappoint the folks who thought there would be some big, dramatic ending to this story, but it was real life.

I will be honest and say some part of me hopes that the original issue came up because Molly was only 3 (but looks 5) and didn’t play the way M expected her to.  Mr. A said they had talked a little before M started to ignore her, so it could be possible.  That doesn’t explain why M would blame Molly’s hair or skin color though.

The truth is I don’t know where this came from.  M does have some friends who are Black and she has made friends with other Black kids in the park easily recently.  There were no African American kids at M’s preschool, but there were a number of very dark-skinned south Asian kids.  While M could tell me where every classmate’s parents immigrated or ancestors originated from and their skin/hair color, she had never placed any good/bad value on it to my knowledge.
I know I shouldn’t have been so surprised that this would happen, but it caught me off guard.  I felt like we are trying to do a decent job of being anti-racist in our parenting.  I think talk a lot about race and ethnicity in what I think is an age-appropriate way.  I am realizing that we have talked a lot about differences, but not much about discrimination.   I think M has shown us it is time for us to broaden the conversation.

Maybe we haven’t done enough in our day to day lives either. Maybe it was a mistake to send M to the preschool where the ethnic mix was mostly Asian, white and hapa.  We knew we were sacrificing other diversity, but I felt like it was worth it for M to come out of preschool with a solid understanding of herself as (half) Asian and knowing other kids who shared that experience (which she did).  I don’t know.

While I am not proud of this situation, but if I had neglected to share it here, it would have been really hypocritical after all my talk about being anti-racist.  Even if we parent in a perfectly anti-racist way, our girls will be out in the world being influenced by people/things out of our control.  We are trying to use it as a learning opportunity.

We just have to keep plugging away, I guess.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

For lack of anything more interesting to say, this post is inspired by Princess Nebraska’s story prompt.

I wouldn’t say it was my best idea.  One summer evening when I was 12 and having a friend sleep over at my house, I decided that I would show off by sneaking alcohol out of my parent’s liquor cabinet.

My parents have never been big drinkers.  An occasional beer or maybe Fuzzy Navel was about as adventurous as they got.  This meant that the selection I had to choose from was small.  All I could find was a bottle of Peach Schnapps and a bottle of Root Beer Schnapps.  My friend and I mixed them together in a big cup and swilled them down.  Then we fell asleep.
As you might imagine, the combination of various schnapps and a ninety-pound sixth grader didn’t mix particularly well.  It wasn’t long before I woke up vomiting all over the basement couch.  It was a particularly nasty smell as the mix of beef-a-roni and flammable root beer alcohol filled the air. My friend panicked and ran to get my parents.

When my mom came to clean up the mess, she did not seem to notice anything was amiss.  “It must have been bad beef-a-roni.”  I told her as I stumbled up the stairs to my bed.

The next morning, I had a bitty-league softball game.  When I got up, my parents deemed me healthy enough to attend.  I didn’t mention my nausea and my splitting headache.  In retrospect, I wonder if they suspected we had been drinking because they served particularly runny eggs.  Maybe they were trying to punish me by making my hangover worse.

That was the beginning of a series of bad choices that went unnoticed or unacknowledged by my parents until I left for college.  Did they really not notice the occasional binge drinking?  The saying I was at the library when I was really sleeping with hanging out with a skateboarder boy?  The sneaking off to the nearest big city to hang out in college bars?  There were a million instances where I was convinced I had outsmarted them.
If my children happen to read this in their adolescent years, I want to take this time to assure them:   I will notice.  And there *will* be consequences.

While I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with experimentation and sneaking around (isn’t that the job of teenagers?), there will be consequences.  Or at the very least an acknowledgment of their dumb choices.
Why?  Because *my* children will not labor under the illusion that their parents are too dumb to figure out what they are doing.

To this day, I don’t know if my parents really were too oblivious to figure out what was going on, or if they just chose to ignore it.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I swear, I never learn.

This winter I managed to successfully wean myself off caffeine because it wrecks my sleep no matter when I drink it.  (I sincerely believe I have this gene mutation.) Now, I only drink decaf coffee or caffeine free soda.  Unless there is a lack-of-sleep emergency, that is.

Last night, L was a sleep trainwreck.  She woke me up maybe four or five times (which is completely unacceptable for a 2.3 year old IMO).

This morning, I was very very tired, so I made myself a big cup of half-caf coffee.  HALF CAF.  That shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

So not 30 minutes later, I noticed I was feeling extremely anxious and shakey.  For no good reason, I am a giant barrel of anxiety.  And then I remembered the damn coffee.

Stupid coffee.

Now I am going to have to wait two hours for these damn jitters to wear off.
—————————————————————————

On to other things, I could use some suggestions.  M’s favorite books are the Junie B. Jones series.  For a long time, we would read them together, one chapter per night.  Now, all the sudden, she doesn’t have the patience to wait for that and has been reading them on her own.  Yesterday, she sat down for about an hour and a half and read three of them in a row.

She has read all but maybe 6 or 7 of them now.  I need to come up with another series of books to keep her busy.  She has already read all the Ramona books, but she isn’t quite ready to read at the Little House on the Prairie level of difficulty yet.

I also hope to keep her reading age-appropriate subject matter.  For example, I think she could probably read the Babysitters’ Club books level of difficulty, but she probably wouldn’t be interested in the pre-teen subject matter.  She is also adamantly opposed to anything remotely scary, so Harry Potter is not possible yet (plus, I think it is still to complex for her to understand the storyline.)
Any suggestions?

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Today, I finally managed to scratch one item off my list of 30 Things to Do Before I Die.

Only 8 years of watching them be eaten by others at dim sum, I finally tried chicken feet.  I was at dim sum with two friends today for lunch and I said I would give them a try.   I thought it would be no problem until they were on the table in front of me.

I am not usually a squeamish eater.  I have eaten frog, snails, intestines, stomach, rabbit, 1000 year old egg, and food served by dozens of dubious-looking street vendors without flinching.  None of those were nearly the challenge of the chicken foot.

Once it was on my plate, I couldn’t get past the nubs where the claws used to be.  Every time I looked at that part, I felt a little woozy.  But if I didn’t do it today, odds were I was never going to do it.   So I hiked up my sleeves, drew my chopsticks and took a nibble off a chicken knuckle.

It wasn’t terrible.  Mostly slightly greasy skin, but my teeth bumped up against cartilege or a joint or something and that was the end of that.  I could go no further.

But the nibble was enough to mark it off the list.

Now, I don’t ever have to feel obligated to do that again.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Is there anyone out there who may know how to fix my computer problem?  When I read other people’s password protected posts in wordpress, I can’t access the post even though I enter the correct password.  It just gives me a blank page.  

Any ideas?  It is really, really annoying.

Edited to add: I also tried to login with foxfire and the same damn thing happened, so it must be my computer, right?

Also, the blank page is giving me the address of blogpage/wp-pass.php  WTFityFF!?!

Problem solved, but I am going to leave this here for internet posterity.   My computer had TWO firewalls running at the same time and this was causing a problem.  Once I turned the Computer Associates Personal Firewall off, passwords started working again.  yay!

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Once upon a time, Mr. A’s job bothered me.  I mean, I am a FEMINIST.  A LIBERAL.  And here I am, living off the profits Mr. A earned by representing corporations who kill puppies and destroy the ozone layer for fun.

Just kidding, I actually don’t know what companies he represent actually allegedly did or did not do. 

I don’t know, because when Mr. A starts talking about work, my brain gets cloudy and I hum a nice “la la la la la” song in my head while trying to look interested until he gets it out of his system.  I learned this technique when M started telling me ridiculously boring stories about dragons, imaginary friends and super heros.  It works equally well with both of them.

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I used to be more bothered by Mr. A’s clients until I got used to living off his income and not needing to work myself.  The ethical stuff doesn’t bother me much at all anymore, now I just wonder why they aren’t paying him more.  Ahem.

Recently, though, Mr. A got assigned to a case that is clearly on the good guys’ side.  For the sake of lawyer-client-lawyer’s wife confidentiality, we will just call that client “Benevolent Corp.”  I like Benevolent Corp.  I think they are very interesting and cool, so I gave Mr. A a big thumbs up when he told me about the case.

I think Mr. A is trying to leverage this rare opportunity of wife job-approval.   His is name dropping Benevolent Corp. all over the place.

“I was really busy at work today, the Benevolent Corp. case is taking a lot of my time.” he said.

And: “I was researching blah blah blah for Benevolent Corp….” 

And “Today I was talking to XYZ person about Benevolent Corp…”

“I have to work late tonight — it is the Benevolent Corp. case!”  he said, knowing full well I wouldn’t begrudge the extra time for Benevolent Corp.

I am starting to think I am lucky he doesn’t work in public interest law all the time.  If it was his career I may actually have to be interested in his job, rather than just pretending to listen.  We would probably be a lot poorer if he did that kind of work too. 

Hopefully, he will get this bit of do-gooder-ness out of his system before it becomes a lifestyle choice.  Everything in moderation, right?

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I saw this over at Dawn’s and it dovetails with some questions I have received lately (here and IRL)about whether or not I will be closing up shop and why I blog.

1.)  Why did you start a blog?

I think I started blogging because I was very lonely.  We were living in a new city and had few friends here.  If that wasn’t enough, I was the very first person among all our friends to get pregnant and have a baby.  There was no one who could share the suck that is learning to be a parent.  It was a really hard time.

2.) Why do you continue to blog?

I love my blog.  I love the friends I have met here (both IRL and online).  I like getting feedback on things I am thinking through.  I like going back to see what the hell I was thinking in the past (even though it is often embarrassing).  I like it when people think I am funny.  I like having a place to vent.  I like meeting new people.  I like opening my email and seeing new comments.  I like knowing that someone will stumble on this blog and know they aren’t crazy or they aren’t the only one who ever felt how they feel right now.  I like helping people battle the scourge that is yucca plants.  Basically, I blog because I like it and the pros far outweigh the cons.  If it wasn’t enjoyable any more, I would stop.  Right now, blogging makes my little world better.

3.) Do you have a blogmother/blogfather?

My interest in internet communities started with the old Hipmama and Mamatron boards, but I rarely participated there.  I read blogs for maybe a year or so before I started blogging.  Dawn was one of the first blogs I read when I still lived in San Francisco and now we are real-life friends.  Most of the others I originally read are now long gone.

4.)  Any downsides to blogging?

Well, there was this incident.  That sucked.  There is also the double-edged sword of blog-drama.   It can be fun for a while, but then it just feels yucky.   I have always been someone who has the unfortunate tendency to take things a step or two too far then regret it later and blog drama certainly feeds that impulsivity.  I think I have managed to stay out of the fray for quite a while now.  Trolls used to bother me, but now they really don’t.  I moderate commenters who are just trying to be assholes, so that helps.  It also used to freak me out when I would meet people for the first time and they already know all about me because they read my blog.  Now I am used to it, so it rarely bothers me any more.

5.)  Do your ‘real world’ friends know you blog?

I used to keep it a secret, but I ended up with so many friends that I met online the two worlds began to overlap.  Right now, pretty much everyone knows about my blog except some relatives who are rarely online (though I suspect my sister will eventually find this — Hi there! Please don’t mention this to Mom and Dad!  You know they would not approve!).  Most of my friends know where they can find my blog if they want to.   I don’t link my name to the blog to protect my future job prospects (HA!) and to keep a tiny shred of anonimity for Mr. A and the girls.   

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

750- Miles.  Distance from our house to Seabrook Island.

5 - West Virginia style hotdogs at this restaurant.  Big thumbs up.  Difficult to find from the highway though.

2 - Nights in a town we dubbed “Asia of the South” while visiting a friend in North Carolina.  Seriously, all the signage in my friend’s apt complex was also in Korean.  Who knew?

3 - Days with my parents before Mr. A and I got extremely irritated.

0 - Arguments and confrontations about the irritation.  (Also, church discussion avoided.)

47 - Games played.  Wii tennis, Apples to Apples and Risk, mostly.

57 - Dollars.  Expensive rainy day visit to the Aquarium.

2 - Snails eaten by me.  Mr. A and I had dinner out at a nice restaurant.  Not fancy in appearance, but excellent food –though I could live without ever eating snails again.  (The first 4 chews of the snail were good.  The rest of the chews tasted exactly the way you would imagine snails would taste.  Ugh.)

103 - Dollars.  Cost of dinner and drinks at the fancy restaurant.

500 - Dollars.  Approximate total amount of money we spent on the entire week-long trip.  Thanks for financing the condo and the groceries Mom and Dad!

13 - Hours we will spend in the car tomorrow.  Fun. Fun. Fun.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

We seem to be facing a low-grade biblical style pestilence so far on vacation:

1.) L stepped on what we think is a hornet’s nest, was swarmed by about 30 insects and acquired two stings.  (Granted, this could happen anywhere, but it started us off on the wrong foot where creepy crawly things are concerned.)

2.) The chi-chi private-ish island where we are staying seems to be infested with spiders as big as M’s hand.  These things spin webs the size of a small house.   Seriously, that is about enough to keep me inside for the entire week.  That is, if I could be confident that they are not able to get into the house.  As of right now, I am not at all confident of that fact.

3.) I saw a cockroach the size of my thumb in the very fancy and clean condo kitchen.  Between the spiders and the roach, every time I enter a new room, as a precaution, I turn on the lights, stomp my feet a few times, and examine all the baseboards and corners of the room. 

4.)  Mr. A got stung by a jelly fish.   And yes, he did pee on it. Twice.  Actually, he peed into his cupped hand and splashed it on his leg.  Fortunately, we were near the beach club locker room so I didn’t actually have to watch this spectacle.   My niece also apparently brushed up against a jelly fish, but my sister would not allow anyone to pee on her.  She also rejected my offer of rubbing L’s pee diaper on little G’s leg.   G recovered despite her urine-free status a few minutes and one juicebox later.   Oh, and by the way, Mr. A claims the pee stopped the pain immediately.  (I didn’t tell him that Dr. Google claims it is not effective.)

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I had done a lot of research before our adoption and I felt I was as prepared as I could be.  The focus of most of my research was on post-institutionalized kids and/or attachment.  While it was a gradual process and didn’t happen overnight, I felt that L was attaching very well and in a healthy way.  I watched her like a hawk initially and even now, I periodically watch her critically to make sure she isn’t demonstrating any attachment issues. 

While I was very sure that L showed good signs of attachment, there were little things that would niggle at the back of my brain.  I have seen certain behaviors and reactions from her that were unusual, very intensely when we first met and less often but still occasionally now.  But they weren’t attachment and I didn’t have any other framework to use to identify them.  But I knew it was *something*.

Recently, I read Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes.  As I was reading, I started recognizing L and her behavior in the descriptions of trauma and traumatized children.  It was as if all the puzzle pieces finally fit together.  Since we met L, I have said she was traumatized by losing her ayis and her home.  I would refer to “trauma” in kind of a flippant way, but it turns out I was more right than I knew. 

I turned the pages with tears rolling down my cheeks because I could see that I wasn’t crazy.  I had see proof that my baby is a tough little survivor who was reacting in a completely normal way to a shitty situation (being handed to complete strangers with no warning).  I had a vocabulary for her behaviors: the disassociation, the terror, the reliving the trauma in similar situations.  It all made sense.

Despite all my research, I had only read brief references to trauma and L paid the price of my ignorance.  While she would probably have been traumatized by her handover no matter what we did (due to China’s crappy system of not allowing pre-placement visits), we could have avoided re-traumatizing her if I knew then what I know now.

This book is a starting place for me to figure out the next steps in helping L get past the trauma she experienced.  There are concrete suggestions.  While her symptoms are rather minor now, if they flare up again in the future, I know the kind of therapist I will need to find when she is older.  I know how to describe what is going on. 

Maybe it doesn’t happen to every kid, but it happened to mine.  I really believe this book should be on ever pre-adoption reading list for people adopting toddlers or older kids. 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Have I mentioned that I love getting comments?  I do.  I love, love, love them.  And you would think I would try to do a better job of answering them so people would be encouraged to write more.  As hard as it may be to believe it, I am actually pretty shy.  My palms get sweaty when I email people I don’t know.  I read and re-read my emails wondering if I sound like a dummy.  If I write to someone and they don’t write back, then I wonder if they thought I am more of a loser via email than I am on the blog.  Oh, the email anxiety!  (And now I am worrying that this entire paragraph may actually be TMI, but on we go anyway.)

There are other times that comments make me think of another whole post I could write.  Like this comment by Michelle from my recent post about my mom wanting to take M to church. 

Shouldn’t it be M’s decision? What wrong could come out of going to church a few hours per week? However, only good things could come out. If you are an atheist, it does not mean that your daughter has to be the same. Would you be angry with your daughters if one day they decide that they are Christians?

I think you’re projecting your own atheist mentality onto them without not seeing both sides of the story. What you believe now might not be what you will believe later, and certainly might not be what your children will believe.

This comment left me scratching my head.  I mean, M is only FIVE years old.  I make decisions for her all day long.  Why should church be any different?   

When M and L are old enough to make their own decisions, they will be free to go to church or temple or whatever they choose.   Heck, I will even let them be Republicans if it floats their boat.   But I am not going to send them to Young Republican camp just in case they may have those beliefs later.

Childhood is the time where their father and I will have the opportunity to share OUR values and OUR beliefs with them.  It is our perogative as their parents. 

My mom RARELY took my sister and me to church.  She missed her chance to share her beliefs with me.  She doesn’t get a do-over with my kids as a way of trying to fix her mistake.  This isn’t to say she can’t share her beliefs with our kids.  She can.  She can talk to them about it as much as she wants, as long as she is respectful of Mr. A and my beliefs. 

But we will not allow her to take our kids to learn OTHER people’s beliefs without knowing what our children are being taught.  I don’t know what the sunday school teachers teach there, or what the minister preaches.  I don’t have the time or the inclination to go find out.  Mr. A went to the Christmas play to see if he was comfortable with this specific church’s teachings.  After that, he decided he *wasn’t* comfortable with the girls going there.  I won’t send them to a church that may (or may not) tell them their parents and family members and friends are going to hell.  I am not willing to spend my sundays policing the messages that the girls receive from strangers. 

What wrong could come out of M going to church a few hours a week?  Well, *I* used to go to church every week with my grandparents.  And one week, the minister’s wife took it upon herself to show my 9 year-old self pictures of aborted fetuses and told us how abortion doctors would go to hell and how abortion is murder.

These statements were totally against this denomination’s official stance on abortion.  I also do not think they were statements that my parents would have supported.  But my parents weren’t at church, so I didn’t know how they felt about what I was learning there.

I was horrified and had nightmares for years after that day.  I was strongly against abortion based on that one conversation. 

Until I grew up, started thinking for myself and decided that woman was a jerk who was taking advantage of impressionable little kids.   I also decided I didn’t believe in a God who was not compassionate for women and families in crisis*. 

And I got a job at an abortion clinic.  I am very proud of that choice.  

Funny how things work out, isn’t it?  

Will I be angry if my children grow up and choose to be Christians?  Of course not.  My husband is Christian.  I have lots of Christian friends.  Most of my extended family is Christian.  I like most of them.  Heck, I even worked in Christian churches in my last job and I have tons of respect for the people I met and they work they do.

I will not be angry if my children grow up and choose to be Christian, but I will be greatly disappointed if my children grow up and don’t feel compassion for people in difficult circumstances.  I will be sad if they can’t love and accept people who are different from them.  I will be sad if they don’t grow up to be kind and loving with open hearts.

Could they learn these things in church?  Maybe.  Hopefully.  But the wouldn’t learn it in every church. 

They hope they will learn it from me.  If that is what my “mentality” teaches them, I will die a proud and happy mother.

*And does that mean I don’t believe in God? No.  That athiest label was not mine.  I only said I wasn’t a Christian.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

In no particular order, things that have been happening around here lately:

-We gave L the boot from our bedroom.  Yesterday morning, she woke me up 57 too many times after I had gone to bed very, very late.  I had begun to suspect that my proximity to her (her twin bed pushed up against my side of our bed) was actually encouraging her to wake up rather than sleep through the night.  Actually, it may have been more than my personal proximity.  It may have been that our bed is much much more comfortable because it has a tempurpedic mattress pad and her bed is hecka uncomfortable.  As a result, she was constantly stealing my spot and leaving me to sleep in the twin.  As of yesterday, we moved her twin into M’s room (now known as M’s old room, L and M’s new room, or as I said repeatedly yesterday and today: the room with TWO! BIG! GIRL! BEDS! YAY!!! CLAP!! CLAP!!)  So far, so good.  Who knows, maybe one of these days I will even get to get lucky on my tempurpedic mattress instead of the fold-out couch.  A girl can dream, cant’ she?

-I have concocted a new scheme that requires us to sell our house and live in a much crappier house for several years.  On some level, I think I can not bear to live in this house now that it is all fixed up and ready to sell.  My theory is we should sell, buy a new crappy house in the neighborhood (3 blocks over) we want to live in FOREVER, then when we have enough dough in 4-5 years, do a full-gut renovation and add an addition to double the size of the imaginary house.  I have already had my hopes dashed on two different houses: one was already in contract, the other is apparently full of exposed asbestos.  It would actually make the most sense to wait until spring to move forward with this plan, but I can’t stop obsessively searching browsing the MLS listing.  I am aware this scheme is a bit wacky.   I lived through my parents building a house when I was in high school.  That was when I witnessed the biggest argument in the history of their entire relationship, which was about bathroom fixures.  And seriously, do you think that my dad gave a rat’s ass about bathroom fixtures?  Building/remodeling can make people crazy.  You would think I would know better.

-Did I mention that we are going on vacation with my parents, sister and niece in a few weeks?  Given the recent tensions over the church thing, this may be the perfect setting for a lovely knock-down drag out argument.  It might end up being like high school all over again.

-Mr. A just walked in the door from work at 11:42 pm, so I am going to go visit with him for a few minutes before bed.  They seriously do not pay him enough to work such insane hours. 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

If I do say so myself, I am totally kicking ass at the not shopping thing. 

We are 25 days into June and I think I have spent less than $25 on frivolities.  And most of that was cheating with cheap take-out last week when I was going crazy because Mr. A was working so much overtime.   Oh, and I also bought a really deeply discounted set of sheets for about $28 because Mr. A’s hair product has yellowed all our pillowcases and they are grossing me out.   But over all, I am doing a good job not shopping.

Possibly, I need to stop talking about my cheapness though.  Because other people are starting to egg me on in my thriftyness.  Possibly to a slightly wacky degree.

First thing this morning, my sister called.  She wanted to let me know she read in the newspaper that Chipotle was giving away free burritos between 5:00 and 8:00.  I thanked her for the info and didn’t think about it again.  I don’t mind Chipotle.  I eat it occasionally because it is closer to our house and more convenient than any other burrito place.  But it is kind of pricy for a burrito that is only so-so.

Then, Mr. A called to tell me about the free burritos.  Mr. A sounded REALLY excited about the free burritos.  He kept saying “They’re free!  It’s FREE BURRITOS! Don’t you want to eat FREE BURRITOS?!” 

Mr. A loves burritos in all shapes, sizes and styles.  (And yes, they all give him digestive issues.)   He has also been humoring me (at least I *think* he has been humoring me) by taking his lunch this month and not buying much (though he did cheat a little by getting his bike tuned up). 

I figured, what the heck?  What else were the girls and I doing at 5:00?  We could stand in line or I could cook dinner.  Honestly, standing in line seemed a little more appealing, so I said we would swing by and pick them up.

Mr. A was so excited he called me TWICE to make sure I was on board and was clear about his order.  He was especially concerned that I might forget to buy his precious chips and salsa.  I was reluctant because chips and salsa were not included in the FREE BURRITO deal.  But Mr. A was insistant.  He needed chips and salsa, damn the $1.25 they would cost.

At around 4:00, when the girls and I were at a park in the vacinity of Chipotle, it started raining.  Actually, it was a downpour of almost biblical proportions.   I thought this would deter a lot of free-burrito seekers.  When the rain let up around 4:30, I was sure we would get a great spot in line. 

Oh, how I underestimated my fellow Midwesterner’s love of A) Burritos and B)Free Things.

When we got to Chipotle at 4:45, there was a line down the side of the building and around part of the parking lot.  When we got in line, I estimate there were maybe 150 to 200 people in front of us.  Within five minutes, the line behind us was at least as long as the line in front of us.

We could see some storm clouds off in the distance, but I told the girls we were going to stick it out for the free burritos.  It was going to be a Burrito Adventure.

At around 5:00, it started to rain.   At about 5:02, it started to pour.  And lightning.  And thunder.  Did I mention we didn’t have an umbrella?   To my disappointment, no one left the line in front of us because of the rain. 

We were all there together.  Burrito warriors.  Toughing it out for the carnitas. 

At first, M meeped a little about the thunder.  But once I gave her some pretzels and cashews, she started to enjoy standing in the rain.  L had a great time splashing in the ankle-deep puddles.  We were all completely soaked from head to toe, but we soldiered on.  Fortunately, it was not cold, so the suffering was not too extreme.

My sister, who was still stuck at work, called repeatedly to find out how many people were in line.  In a revealing demonstration of her lack of thriftyness and intestinal fortitute, she wussed out and went home with no burritos.

At around 6:07, a mere 1 hour and 22 minutes after we got in line, we finally made it into Chipotle.  We got our three burritos (one for each girl and one for me) and Mr. A’s precious bag of chips.  As we were leaving the restaurant, the last of the rain sprinkled down and the sun started poking through the clouds.

We brought our booty home to a very-thrilled Mr. A, who not only got to eat a burrito for dinner, but also has one left over to take tomorrow for lunch.  (The girls don’t really like restaurant burritos, so they ate eggs and bacon for dinner.)

Standing in the pouring rain for an hour to get a free burrito may actually be one of the stranger things I have done lately.  Maybe it will one of those stories that M tells about her crazy-cheap mother in years to come.  It wouldn’t be the worst story she could tell.  All-in-all, for a satisfied husband and a funny story, it was worth the wait.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

About a month ago, M got a letter inviting her to join a “Sticker Club”.  Basically, stickers club is nothing but a glorified chain letter.  M was asked to send a Sticker Club invitation to six of her friends and to send one pack of stickers to the first person on the enclosed list of two names.   Then, M was supposed to add her name to the list.  When her six friends sent Sticker Club invitations to six friends, M would theoretically receive 36 packs of stickers in the mail.

When I saw the Sticker Club invitatation, I groaned.  But M loves, loves, LOVES mail, so I dutifully helped her copy the letter and send it to six friends (Whose parents were, I imagine, as unthrilled as I was to be invited.)  Before we sent out our six letters, I warned M that she was unlikely to receive 36 packs of stickers because the whole thing was such a hassle.

So far, M has received one pack of stickers.

While it might sound like that is a disappointing return on our efforts, M was thrilled.  The day she got them, she spend the day carrying them around, making plans about where exactly she would stick them and protecting them from L’s greedy little hands.

That evening, she was examining her stickers when she said: “Hey Mama!  We should start a money club!” 

I didn’t get what she was talking about, so I asked her to explain.

“You know, we send letters and ask people to send us DOLLARS instead of STICKERS! It would be amazing! I would be rich!”

I had to explain to her that someone already thought of Money Club and it is illegal.  

But good for her for taking some initiative to hustle for the dough. 

Maybe next week, she will re-invent Amway.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

The last week has kicked all our asses.  Mr. A has been working extra long hours, missing most dinners because he is at the office until 11 or 12 at night and working on Sunday to finish a project that is due tonight.  That means the girls and I have been mostly on our own.  It is amazing how the lack of waking-hours respite just wipes me out both mentally and physically.  I feel like a tired, mopey crank.  Poor Mr. A has been looking more than a little out of it too.

Hopefully, once this project is complete, Mr. A will have a few weeks of 9-5.  Unlikely, but I am hopeful nevertheless.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

 Does this quote really add anything to the story?  I mean, sure, the guy may have said it, but does it have anything to do with anything?

“The neighbors are Asians — they don’t complain about anything,” Mr. Marinescu said. “And even when the kids play outside, it’s quiet.” 

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

Earlier this week, I was browsing the local real estate listings.  I wasn’t looking for myself, I was looking because my parents have been kicking around the idea of buying a condo nearby.  As someone who would like to increase my access to free babysitting, I am taking the bull by the horns.

While I was looking, I bumped into a house in a perfect location that had potential, but only cost a little more than our current house.   And by potential, I mean I was imagining doubling the size of the house and adding a second floor laundry (because isn’t that The Dream?) in a few years with a full-gut renovation. Ahem.  

I was interested enough that I called a neighbor who is also a realtor.  I was bummed to find out the house I wanted was already in contract.  But the realtor convinced me to look at several other houses that were twice as expensive.  Since I have been drooling over two of the houses in question, I agreed to look.  Besides, who doesn’t like to poke around other peoples’ houses? 

Inside, the houses were not exactly what I was expecting.  One house REALLY was not what I was expecting. 

 When we walked in, M looked at a vase that was sitting on a table and asked “Is that a PINEAPPLE?”    And the answer is no, it was NOT a pineapple.  It was a vase covered in breasts.  Very lovely, well-proportioned perfect breasts.  The overall effect *was* a little pineapple-esque.

Well then.  That was a bit of a surprise. 

As we walked through the rest of the house, I noticed more boobs.  Most of them were in paintings or prints sprinkled here and there.  Most were a bit more tasteful than the titty vase. Until we got upstairs, that is.

As I walked with our 60 year-old lady realtor into the master bedroom, I glanced at a print on the wall.  When it registered what I was seeing, I actually gasped. 

It was a hard-core kama sutra illustration framed and hanging on the wall.  (If you are curious as to which one, I think it was another more well-endowed version of the one in the second row, second one over in that link. Obviously, that link is not work safe.)

Now, you know I am no prude.  I worked at planned parenthood.  I used to survey teenagers about their sexual activities, including anal sex.  I even owned penis models once.  I am sex positive, really I am!

But here I am with a five-year old who was REALLY interested in looking at a stranger’s belongings and an older woman I had met only 10 minutes before.  I swear, the realtor looked like she was about ready to faint when she got a good look at that print. 

I quickly hustled M out of the room and the rest of that house is nothing but a blur in my memory.

But the giant picture of PENIS in VAGINA, now THAT is burned into my brain. 

Seriously, what are these people thinking?!?  Who can focus on buying a house with boobs and penises accosting you from all sides? 

I now know a leeeetle too much about those particular neighbors now. 

Actually, I am off to google them to see if he is actually a porn producer or something. 

Bomp-chicka-wah-wah.

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

It is very interesting, watching L get bigger.  I don’t have any point of reference for the whys and whens that are a part of every baby’s development and personality.  With M, it didn’t take much to refer back to Mr. A or my own childhoods/personalities to understand what was making her tick.  With L, we find new surprises every day.

Examples:

-The incredible shrinking girl.   Actually, L isn’t shrinking, but she is dropping consistantly lower on the height-weight chart.  She came home at about the 50th percentile for height and weight.  In the past year, she has dropped to the 15th percentile for both height and weight.  I keep mentioning it to people to see if anyone thinks I should be alarmed, but my friends and family are decidedly unimpressed.  She eats all day long, so at least I don’t have to be afraid she is malnourished.  She may just have a slightly delayed growth spurt.  Or maybe she just comes from slightly smaller people.

-The lump on her head.  L has a lump right above her forehead, at the front of where her softspot was.  I suspect she has a mild version of metopic synostosis, but so far any medical professional I have mentioned it to (several when we first came home) just shrug and are unimpressed by her lump.  Fortunately, her hair is beginning to grow low enough to hide the lump, but it is doubtful she will want to part her hair in the middle when she is older. 

-Teeth.  L *still* doesn’t have all her baby teeth.  She is 26 and a half months old and she is still missing her bottom incisors.  A teething 2 year +2 month old is no fun at all.   No sign of any 2 year molars coming in either.  And also all her teeth came in backwards order: tops first, then bottoms.  And they bottom middle two are at a 90 degree angle from each other.  They popped through the gums that way.  At this rate, L will be lucky if she can get braces on by the time she is 20. 

-L loves shoes.  Anyones shoes are good, but plastic princess high heels are preferred.  M never had the slightest interest in dress up or high heels and I mostly wear tennis shoes or flip flops, so we don’t own any.  When we go to other people’s houses, L can usually be found prancing around in sparkly cinderella shoes. 

-L loves purses and bags.  And makeup too.  I don’t even carry a bag, but L turns every single bag she finds into a purse.  I don’t even know where she has seen a purse.  Ditto for makeup.  I wear lipstick like 2x per year.  A friend’s kid had some play makeup the other day and L was a girl obsessed.  (As was M, but she is at least old enough to know what it is.)

-The color pink.  It seems to be L’s favorite color despite the effort I have made to make sure very few of our toys are pink.  When asked to identify a color, pink is the one she says correctly most often.  If asked to select one item out of several different colors, she usually picks pink.

I am refusing to acknowlege the three directly above may indict that L is headed toward girly-girldom.  I admit it does make me a tad nervous though.  This may be a huge sign that nature is trumping nurture. Yipes.