So, it seems as though we've had a few breakthoughs around here this week. Like the other night, when Mouse, after staying up until MIDNIGHT! slept until 6:30 the next morning. It totally rocked! Although, tonight she went down for a "nap" at 7:30 and is still. sleeping. I keep checking to make sure she's still breathing. Watch - now she'll wake up at midnight and want to play.
Also, the Bear turned a potty-training corner today. After her nap, I took off her diaper and let her run around nekkid. After a while, she said, "I have to pee in the potty now." So I took her and sat her on the potty, and lo! There was pee! All afternoon, we were on and off the pot, in and out of the bathroom. It was not the cleanest of days - she tried to poop on the potty but got up before she was done and left a trail of poop on the floor, and I caught her using one of her "special" wipes that she only gets to use when she goes on the potty to clean the floor. After she had spent twenty minutes wiping her butt with it. She's very big on doing it herself - the trick was that I switched from her little potty on the floor to a seat on the big potty with steps. She can get on and off by herself, and that's what hooked her. She is All About The Potty right now. Of the 73 times we sat on the potty between nap and bedtime (all of which were her idea, several of which were patent ploys to get another wipe), she peed at least 7 times and pooped once. All in the potty. I left her diaper off until bedtime and there was - get this - no pee on my floor. It was amazing to see her mind work. She could totally tell when her bladder was getting full, and she knew she should go to the potty to fix that. I think our next step might be some big-girl underwear. I don't think she'll be content to wear her diaper around the house after this, although she'll still need one when we go anywhere. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. I have hope.
Hmm... in other news, Stouffer's does not put enough sauce on their french bread pizzas, and Weight Watchers (maybe? red box) makes a much better marinara sauce than Healthy Choice. I'm noticing a sauce-related theme here. Hmmm. I am a picky sauce-eater, I suppose. I have been eating relatively healthily (with the exception of the frozen dinners, obviously) for over a week now, in a pathetic attempt to get rid of some of the excess poundage that I've been carrying since I had Mouse (ten extra pounds, if you *must* know) without having to truly diet or exercise. Lame, yes, but somehow that's about all I can manage right now. I'd like to exercise, but I just can't get out of the house without being made to feel somehow guilty about leaving the kids with Husband. He *says* it's ok, but his eyes and his body language tell a different story. So I don't go to work out on my own, and I really don't have the stroller or the sidewalks to take the girls with me. Our sidewalks are an insult to the good name of pavement, and our stroller is not really the walking/jogging type. It's better suited to a quick saunter more than anything else. Double strollers are so bulky! So, yeah, no exercise, and I don't want to really diet at the risk of cutting too many calories and compromising my milk supply. Eating "reasonably" is my sad effort to control the spread of my ass, a plan instituted when the doctor's scale revealed that I had actually *gained* a pound despite exclusively nursing a baby in the 100th percentile for weight and chasing a toddler all day. Really, I just don't want to stand up in front of a room full of teenagers next month and worry that they're whispering about my muffin top. I'd much rather have them complaining that I'm too strict. I'm very sensitive about my looks, I guess. While I'm definitely no Angelina Jolie, neither am I totally an Ugly Betty. We'll see how this goes. A haircut would go miles toward fixing what's wrong with me, also.
What a random collection of nonsense thoughts. I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Monday, July 10, 2006
Confessions of a frozen-entree connoisseur
Have I mentioned that Husband is back to working in the evenings? I find it ridiculous to cook dinner for myself and a toddler, and Husband patently refuses to eat leftovers, or any meals on a regular schedule, really. But biology dictates that we must eat something, and so it is that I have taken to eating frozen dinners.
Truth be told, most frozen dinners are pretty gross. Objectively, I can totally see that. But for some reason, I still enjoy eating them. It's like watching an accident - you don't want to do it, but you can't *not* do it, either. As an exercise in contemplation, I thought I'd write a little reflection on each night's dinner after I've eaten it. Maybe, on reflection, they won't seem so great after all...
So, tonight's dinner was four-cheese manicotti with a side of broccoli. Tiny manicotti - I thought I remembered they used to be bigger?! The four cheeses weren't a bad combo, but the marinara was more like tomato juice, thin and red and overly tomatoey. Somehow, I always manage to burn my tongue on the first bite, but by the time I get to the last bite, it's tepid at best. How does that happen? Still, I polished it off in record time, in between slicing pieces of cheese for the Bear. The broccoli that came on the side? I couldn't quite manage that. I love broccoli - the taste, the crunch, the color, the cancer-fighting properties, you name it. But there are a few things you need to know about broccoli, which apparently the good folk at Healthy Choice have forgotten: namely, you eat the crowns (you know, the tiny flowery bits on the top?), not the stalks (the tough, woody, stringy stems). Also, you only need to steam them for a little bit to get them to the right level of doneness. If you overcook them, they will turn gray and mushy and be totally disgusting. So, the tiny cup of "broccoli" was all stems and no florets at all, and by the time I had cooked the manicotti long enough to be done, the broccoli was overdone - blech. Even liberal seasoning was not enough to redeem *that* particular culinary misstep. All in all, it was par for the course.
On to other equally uninteresting things - I've been trying to figure out the Mouse's schedule. She's starting to put herself on one, and the Bear had a very strict schedule that she totally loved. She's still a creature of habit, although not so rigid as she was at 9 months or so. So, I figured that I might as well see if it would work for Mouse, too. I made a chart, divided up into half hours, and labeled each with what she was doing at the time - awake, asleep, eating. Then, I labeled her moods - happy, fussy, gassy, content, etc. Here's what we came up with for today:
midnight - 3:40 - sleeping
3:40 - 3:55 - feeding, sleepy
3:55 - 4:20 - sleepy but gassy, awake in crib but not fussing
4:20 - 5:00 - awake, drowsy but chatty
5:00-7:30 - sleeping restlessly
7:30-7:45 - feeding restlessly
7:45-9:30 - awake
9:30-9:45 - feeding, awake
9:45-11:00 - sleeping
11:00-11:20 - feeding, awake
11:20-12:30 - awake, getting fussy
12:30-2:00 - sleeping
2:00-2:15 - feeding, awake
2:15-3:45 - awake, content
3:45-4:00 - feeding, fussy
4:00-5:30 - sleeping
5:30-5:50 - feeding, drowsy
5:50-7:30 - awake, happy, fussy toward end
7:30-7:45 - feeding, sleepy
7:45-8:30 - sleeping
8:30-9:20 - awake, restless
9:20-9:30 - feeding, drowsy
9:30-10:30 - sleeping
10:30-present - awake but drowsy, content
So, what can we glean from this chart? Several things, I think:
a) I am anal.
b) Mouse naps a lot. Cat naps. Maybe she should be a Cat and not a Mouse?
c) She eats, also a lot. I'll probably feed her once more before she goes down for the night, bringing us to 11 feedings today. No wonder she weighed in at 17 pounds, 7 ounces at her 4 month checkup. Not a Cat or a Mouse but a Piglet, I think!
d) I am anal.
e) Is she sleeping too much? Not enough? I tried to add up the time, but got confused and quit.
f) I am bad at math.
Well, I think that's about enough crap from me - off to ponder the meanings of Mouse's sleep habits, and what I might want for dinner tomorrow night. Our options include macaroni and cheese, baked ziti, french bread pizza, and... oh, some other noodle/sauce variation, I think? What should I eat?
Truth be told, most frozen dinners are pretty gross. Objectively, I can totally see that. But for some reason, I still enjoy eating them. It's like watching an accident - you don't want to do it, but you can't *not* do it, either. As an exercise in contemplation, I thought I'd write a little reflection on each night's dinner after I've eaten it. Maybe, on reflection, they won't seem so great after all...
So, tonight's dinner was four-cheese manicotti with a side of broccoli. Tiny manicotti - I thought I remembered they used to be bigger?! The four cheeses weren't a bad combo, but the marinara was more like tomato juice, thin and red and overly tomatoey. Somehow, I always manage to burn my tongue on the first bite, but by the time I get to the last bite, it's tepid at best. How does that happen? Still, I polished it off in record time, in between slicing pieces of cheese for the Bear. The broccoli that came on the side? I couldn't quite manage that. I love broccoli - the taste, the crunch, the color, the cancer-fighting properties, you name it. But there are a few things you need to know about broccoli, which apparently the good folk at Healthy Choice have forgotten: namely, you eat the crowns (you know, the tiny flowery bits on the top?), not the stalks (the tough, woody, stringy stems). Also, you only need to steam them for a little bit to get them to the right level of doneness. If you overcook them, they will turn gray and mushy and be totally disgusting. So, the tiny cup of "broccoli" was all stems and no florets at all, and by the time I had cooked the manicotti long enough to be done, the broccoli was overdone - blech. Even liberal seasoning was not enough to redeem *that* particular culinary misstep. All in all, it was par for the course.
On to other equally uninteresting things - I've been trying to figure out the Mouse's schedule. She's starting to put herself on one, and the Bear had a very strict schedule that she totally loved. She's still a creature of habit, although not so rigid as she was at 9 months or so. So, I figured that I might as well see if it would work for Mouse, too. I made a chart, divided up into half hours, and labeled each with what she was doing at the time - awake, asleep, eating. Then, I labeled her moods - happy, fussy, gassy, content, etc. Here's what we came up with for today:
midnight - 3:40 - sleeping
3:40 - 3:55 - feeding, sleepy
3:55 - 4:20 - sleepy but gassy, awake in crib but not fussing
4:20 - 5:00 - awake, drowsy but chatty
5:00-7:30 - sleeping restlessly
7:30-7:45 - feeding restlessly
7:45-9:30 - awake
9:30-9:45 - feeding, awake
9:45-11:00 - sleeping
11:00-11:20 - feeding, awake
11:20-12:30 - awake, getting fussy
12:30-2:00 - sleeping
2:00-2:15 - feeding, awake
2:15-3:45 - awake, content
3:45-4:00 - feeding, fussy
4:00-5:30 - sleeping
5:30-5:50 - feeding, drowsy
5:50-7:30 - awake, happy, fussy toward end
7:30-7:45 - feeding, sleepy
7:45-8:30 - sleeping
8:30-9:20 - awake, restless
9:20-9:30 - feeding, drowsy
9:30-10:30 - sleeping
10:30-present - awake but drowsy, content
So, what can we glean from this chart? Several things, I think:
a) I am anal.
b) Mouse naps a lot. Cat naps. Maybe she should be a Cat and not a Mouse?
c) She eats, also a lot. I'll probably feed her once more before she goes down for the night, bringing us to 11 feedings today. No wonder she weighed in at 17 pounds, 7 ounces at her 4 month checkup. Not a Cat or a Mouse but a Piglet, I think!
d) I am anal.
e) Is she sleeping too much? Not enough? I tried to add up the time, but got confused and quit.
f) I am bad at math.
Well, I think that's about enough crap from me - off to ponder the meanings of Mouse's sleep habits, and what I might want for dinner tomorrow night. Our options include macaroni and cheese, baked ziti, french bread pizza, and... oh, some other noodle/sauce variation, I think? What should I eat?
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Preaching to the choir
So, we're all a little cranky in my house these days. Who knows why? The Bear is terrible-two-ing all over the place, what with all the "no" and the repeating of the same sentence over and over and over again until she gets what she wants, and the kind-of-sort-of potty training (five days in a row she has gone in the potty), and the nightmares! She has nightmares! About dogs! and birds! and flowers!
Mouse is teething, and not really happy unless she has a finger in her mouth to chew on, drool pooling on her chin. The teething gives her this really nasty liquid diarrhea (TMI, sorry) that goes *everywhere* and stains *everything*. I've taken to only dressing her in onesies that already have orange stains up the back, so as not to ruin even more clothes. So gross. Plus, now that we're putting her in her crib at night, she's waking every 2-3 hours, instead of once a night. I'm really hoping that evens out soon.
Husband is back to shift work, which means he leaves after lunch and gets home at midnight, effectively skipping dinnertime, bathtime, and bedtime, the three most difficult things to accomplish with two kids under two. Plus, we don't get to spend our evenings together after the kids go to bed like we would if he were home, so we get grouchy at each other.
And I am just plain tired. The cumulative effects of almost three years without a full night's sleep are starting to tell. I feel like a moron most of the time, I can't even think straight, I'm grouchy and short-tempered, I rarely get a shower, and... ugh. Every single morning when I wake up, the very first thing I think to myself is, "oh, shit. not again."
Pleasant, right?
At any rate, this morning we were all somehow sitting together relatively peacefully at church, and the text for the sermon was from Romans 5. In part, it says that suffering leads to endurance, that endurance in turn leads to character, that character leads to hope, and that hope will not disappoint us. It just struck me as being singularly appropriate for where I am in my life right now. I think that anyone out there who has two children under the age of two would characterize their lives as "suffering"!* And I thought to myself, I can just barely see the glimmering of endurance on the horizon. I'm not there yet, but I can see that we will get there eventually, and that I will be able to "endure" a lot more of the daily crap that goes on around here, and the guilt and stress that come from holding down a full-time job and being a full-time mom, too. Hopefully I will be able to endure it with a better attitude than I have had lately. It would be nice! And as for character - I'm going to have character out the wazoo (if I make it though this alive)!
It's just a little eerie (but kind of cool, too) when the text for the day seems to be picked out just for you. Perhaps its a message...
Also? Today, for the first time, I made it though an entire service without exposing my chest! Talk about your milestones...
*Sure, in comparison to real, actual suffering, this may seem like a cake walk. There are millions of people in the world who live in active suffering every day, and I'm not trying to trivialize their lives. But I think that the stress and depression that I'm going through right now, and their effects on my family, can accurately be described as suffering, too.
Mouse is teething, and not really happy unless she has a finger in her mouth to chew on, drool pooling on her chin. The teething gives her this really nasty liquid diarrhea (TMI, sorry) that goes *everywhere* and stains *everything*. I've taken to only dressing her in onesies that already have orange stains up the back, so as not to ruin even more clothes. So gross. Plus, now that we're putting her in her crib at night, she's waking every 2-3 hours, instead of once a night. I'm really hoping that evens out soon.
Husband is back to shift work, which means he leaves after lunch and gets home at midnight, effectively skipping dinnertime, bathtime, and bedtime, the three most difficult things to accomplish with two kids under two. Plus, we don't get to spend our evenings together after the kids go to bed like we would if he were home, so we get grouchy at each other.
And I am just plain tired. The cumulative effects of almost three years without a full night's sleep are starting to tell. I feel like a moron most of the time, I can't even think straight, I'm grouchy and short-tempered, I rarely get a shower, and... ugh. Every single morning when I wake up, the very first thing I think to myself is, "oh, shit. not again."
Pleasant, right?
At any rate, this morning we were all somehow sitting together relatively peacefully at church, and the text for the sermon was from Romans 5. In part, it says that suffering leads to endurance, that endurance in turn leads to character, that character leads to hope, and that hope will not disappoint us. It just struck me as being singularly appropriate for where I am in my life right now. I think that anyone out there who has two children under the age of two would characterize their lives as "suffering"!* And I thought to myself, I can just barely see the glimmering of endurance on the horizon. I'm not there yet, but I can see that we will get there eventually, and that I will be able to "endure" a lot more of the daily crap that goes on around here, and the guilt and stress that come from holding down a full-time job and being a full-time mom, too. Hopefully I will be able to endure it with a better attitude than I have had lately. It would be nice! And as for character - I'm going to have character out the wazoo (if I make it though this alive)!
It's just a little eerie (but kind of cool, too) when the text for the day seems to be picked out just for you. Perhaps its a message...
Also? Today, for the first time, I made it though an entire service without exposing my chest! Talk about your milestones...
*Sure, in comparison to real, actual suffering, this may seem like a cake walk. There are millions of people in the world who live in active suffering every day, and I'm not trying to trivialize their lives. But I think that the stress and depression that I'm going through right now, and their effects on my family, can accurately be described as suffering, too.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Righteous anger
Things that make me mad (in no particular order):
*people who don't know what they're talking about
*people who twist the facts to suit their own purposes
*people who are scared of other people just because they're "different"
That being said, did you know that there are bunches of wackos out there? People who distort facts to fit them into their skewed version of reality? People who flaunt their ignorance and intolerance in public? in front of people?
So, the NEA (National Education Association, for all you non-teachers), at their annual meeting, approved a resolution to the effect that race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identification, disability, ethnicity, immigration status, occupation, and religion ''should not affect the legal rights and obligations of the partners in a legally recognized domestic partnership, civil union, or marriage in regard to matters involving the other partner.'' How very open minded and tolerant of them, to acknowledge the fact that different people lead different lives with different lifestyles. How munificent of them, to refrain from passing judgment on these people just for leading said different lifestyles.*
In what is surely a logical response to this resolution, the AFA (American Family Association) sent out a panicked mass email to, well, everyone they could think of, apparently. In this email, the AFA claims that the NEA is "endorsing" gay marriage.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a pretty big difference between *tolerating* something and *endorsing* it. For example: bratwurst. I will tolerate bratwurst if others around me are eating it. I don't particularly like it for myself, but I have no problem with you eating it. *You* can eat all the bratwurst you want. *I* will probably not partake, thanks. So, I tolerate the bratwurst. I do not deny you the pleasure of eating it. That would be silly and impractical. Neither, however, will I slather it with mustard and cram it in your face for you. That you have to do for yourself.
So, then, the AFA's claim that the NEA is "endorsing" gay marriage is a logical fallacy. Onward. They further twist the intent of the NEA's resolution by positing that the "new NEA proposal essentially says schools should support and actively promote homosexual marriage and other forms of marriage (two men and one woman, three women, two women and three men, etc.) in their local schools."
Actively promote? Actively promote homosexual marriage? And other types of marriage? To actively promote something in the school system, you need to provide information on it to the students. You need to instruct them to think a certain way about something. The AFA is trying to make us believe that gay marriage is going to be a part of the curriculum in public schools. Sure. Right after we teach them to read and do long division, we're going to marry them off. To partners of the same sex! *Heterosexual* marriage isn't even in the curriculum! Know why? Because marriage is a personal matter, one that is unique in every situation. You just can't get that in a textbook.
Again, the AFA is putting words into the NEA's mouth, twisting their intent to scare those who are afraid of The Gays.
According to them, this new resolution in favor of respecting the rights of all our citizens, not just the straight, WASPy ones, "means the NEA will promote homosexual marriage in every avenue they have available, including textbooks, to all children at all age levels and without the permission or knowledge of parents. Their plans will include every public school in America." Again with the promoting. That's just like endorsing, right? I just can't figure out what makes these people think that we are going to go out and buy textbooks exclusively promoting gay marriage. I can't even get enough money for textbooks in my subject area (which is non-matrimonial). How are we possibly going to revamp every textbook in every classroom in America so as to thoroughly indoctrinate our students on the benefits to be derived from gay marriage?** That's just ridiculous. And? By enrolling your child in a public school, you are giving that school permission to teach its curriculum to your child. Also? If you want knowledge of what your kid is learning in school, ask!
Gah.
Here's my big problem - I think that marriage is a private matter, not something that should be decided by the government. If the authorities governing a particular religion want to forbid the right of gay marriage to their members, that's perfectly within their rights as a private organization. They can preach whatever they want to their members. If, for example, the Catholic Church wants to forbid their members to get abortions, more power to them. That's their right as a private institution. But for the state to deny a fundamental right to a percentage of their citizens on purely moral grounds? That can't, in good conscience, be done. Because we live in a country that claims to believe in the separation of the Church and the State. That means that the State cannot impose moral values on its citizens. And the only objections I've ever heard to gay marriage have been moral objections, based on traditional Judeo-Christian moral (religious) principles. Teaching moral (religious) values to the next generation is the job of the child's parents, not the schools. Who are we to say that everyone in America has to subscribe to traditional Judeo-Christian morals, when not everyone follows that belief system? There we go, cramming the bratwurst down people's throats, without even bothering to check if they like it first. If I wanted to live in a theocracy, I would move to Iran.
This is kind of disjointed, as most of my ranting tends to be, but my point is this - I don't think that the government should be allowed to dictate who can or can't get married. That's a matter for religious organizations to decide on an individual basis. Beyond that, I don't think that the government should legislate morals. I think that our schools should teach understanding and acceptance of others, regardless of the differences between us. If the parents want to teach a different school of thought (one that adheres to a specific religion's viewpoint, for example), then they should teach that to their own children in their own home. But I don't want the values of any one particular religion mandated in any school funded by *my* tax dollars or attended by my children. And I sure as hell wouldn't work for such a school. But that's just me.
On a related note - more wackos!
*No, these guys are not the wackos I was referring to.
**Which I'm assuming are the same as the benefits to be derived from heterosexual marriage - health insurance, joint decision-making power, and someone to put your cold feet on in the winter.
*people who don't know what they're talking about
*people who twist the facts to suit their own purposes
*people who are scared of other people just because they're "different"
That being said, did you know that there are bunches of wackos out there? People who distort facts to fit them into their skewed version of reality? People who flaunt their ignorance and intolerance in public? in front of people?
So, the NEA (National Education Association, for all you non-teachers), at their annual meeting, approved a resolution to the effect that race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identification, disability, ethnicity, immigration status, occupation, and religion ''should not affect the legal rights and obligations of the partners in a legally recognized domestic partnership, civil union, or marriage in regard to matters involving the other partner.'' How very open minded and tolerant of them, to acknowledge the fact that different people lead different lives with different lifestyles. How munificent of them, to refrain from passing judgment on these people just for leading said different lifestyles.*
In what is surely a logical response to this resolution, the AFA (American Family Association) sent out a panicked mass email to, well, everyone they could think of, apparently. In this email, the AFA claims that the NEA is "endorsing" gay marriage.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a pretty big difference between *tolerating* something and *endorsing* it. For example: bratwurst. I will tolerate bratwurst if others around me are eating it. I don't particularly like it for myself, but I have no problem with you eating it. *You* can eat all the bratwurst you want. *I* will probably not partake, thanks. So, I tolerate the bratwurst. I do not deny you the pleasure of eating it. That would be silly and impractical. Neither, however, will I slather it with mustard and cram it in your face for you. That you have to do for yourself.
So, then, the AFA's claim that the NEA is "endorsing" gay marriage is a logical fallacy. Onward. They further twist the intent of the NEA's resolution by positing that the "new NEA proposal essentially says schools should support and actively promote homosexual marriage and other forms of marriage (two men and one woman, three women, two women and three men, etc.) in their local schools."
Actively promote? Actively promote homosexual marriage? And other types of marriage? To actively promote something in the school system, you need to provide information on it to the students. You need to instruct them to think a certain way about something. The AFA is trying to make us believe that gay marriage is going to be a part of the curriculum in public schools. Sure. Right after we teach them to read and do long division, we're going to marry them off. To partners of the same sex! *Heterosexual* marriage isn't even in the curriculum! Know why? Because marriage is a personal matter, one that is unique in every situation. You just can't get that in a textbook.
Again, the AFA is putting words into the NEA's mouth, twisting their intent to scare those who are afraid of The Gays.
According to them, this new resolution in favor of respecting the rights of all our citizens, not just the straight, WASPy ones, "means the NEA will promote homosexual marriage in every avenue they have available, including textbooks, to all children at all age levels and without the permission or knowledge of parents. Their plans will include every public school in America." Again with the promoting. That's just like endorsing, right? I just can't figure out what makes these people think that we are going to go out and buy textbooks exclusively promoting gay marriage. I can't even get enough money for textbooks in my subject area (which is non-matrimonial). How are we possibly going to revamp every textbook in every classroom in America so as to thoroughly indoctrinate our students on the benefits to be derived from gay marriage?** That's just ridiculous. And? By enrolling your child in a public school, you are giving that school permission to teach its curriculum to your child. Also? If you want knowledge of what your kid is learning in school, ask!
Gah.
Here's my big problem - I think that marriage is a private matter, not something that should be decided by the government. If the authorities governing a particular religion want to forbid the right of gay marriage to their members, that's perfectly within their rights as a private organization. They can preach whatever they want to their members. If, for example, the Catholic Church wants to forbid their members to get abortions, more power to them. That's their right as a private institution. But for the state to deny a fundamental right to a percentage of their citizens on purely moral grounds? That can't, in good conscience, be done. Because we live in a country that claims to believe in the separation of the Church and the State. That means that the State cannot impose moral values on its citizens. And the only objections I've ever heard to gay marriage have been moral objections, based on traditional Judeo-Christian moral (religious) principles. Teaching moral (religious) values to the next generation is the job of the child's parents, not the schools. Who are we to say that everyone in America has to subscribe to traditional Judeo-Christian morals, when not everyone follows that belief system? There we go, cramming the bratwurst down people's throats, without even bothering to check if they like it first. If I wanted to live in a theocracy, I would move to Iran.
This is kind of disjointed, as most of my ranting tends to be, but my point is this - I don't think that the government should be allowed to dictate who can or can't get married. That's a matter for religious organizations to decide on an individual basis. Beyond that, I don't think that the government should legislate morals. I think that our schools should teach understanding and acceptance of others, regardless of the differences between us. If the parents want to teach a different school of thought (one that adheres to a specific religion's viewpoint, for example), then they should teach that to their own children in their own home. But I don't want the values of any one particular religion mandated in any school funded by *my* tax dollars or attended by my children. And I sure as hell wouldn't work for such a school. But that's just me.
On a related note - more wackos!
*No, these guys are not the wackos I was referring to.
**Which I'm assuming are the same as the benefits to be derived from heterosexual marriage - health insurance, joint decision-making power, and someone to put your cold feet on in the winter.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Home again, home again (jiggety-jig)
Okay, so my dad always used to say that when we pulled up in the driveway after a trip when I was a little girl. I thought it was funny.
So, we're back from vacation. The girls and I went to visit my parents, and Husband went to visit his. Everyone was pleased. He did not have to take care of the children, and I did not have to go to my in-laws' house, which is just massively inconvenient. Also? They positively slobber over the girls. Literally. Grown adults making drooling idiots of themselves over children. I mean, I love my kids, but I'm not really down with the baby talk and the spoiling and the, you know, constant worship. Anyway, it was a nice trip, complete with visits to the pool (and a newfound fear! of water! for the Bear) and to the zoo (boy, do we like animals. but not crowds! oh, no.) and concerts and fireworks. Quite satisfactory. And the best part? This year, I'm not pregnant!
Seems like everyone else in the world is vacationing, too. Happy wanderings!
Coming soon: word-twisting, soul-sucking theocrats and why they annoy me.
So, we're back from vacation. The girls and I went to visit my parents, and Husband went to visit his. Everyone was pleased. He did not have to take care of the children, and I did not have to go to my in-laws' house, which is just massively inconvenient. Also? They positively slobber over the girls. Literally. Grown adults making drooling idiots of themselves over children. I mean, I love my kids, but I'm not really down with the baby talk and the spoiling and the, you know, constant worship. Anyway, it was a nice trip, complete with visits to the pool (and a newfound fear! of water! for the Bear) and to the zoo (boy, do we like animals. but not crowds! oh, no.) and concerts and fireworks. Quite satisfactory. And the best part? This year, I'm not pregnant!
Seems like everyone else in the world is vacationing, too. Happy wanderings!
Coming soon: word-twisting, soul-sucking theocrats and why they annoy me.
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