Bliss

A beautiful picture of a beautiful place on a beautiful day!

I must just be lucky

So I was reading through the Washington Post this morning and there is a new blogger about parenthood, specifically momdom. Anyway, it is ironically called "On Balance". However I am failing to see the balance. For example, today's post from the blogger:

Heart-to-Heart

While I was brushing my teeth recently, my husband looked at me in the mirror and asked:
"That stuff in your blog about how I don't help out with the kids, that's old stuff, right? Or at least an exaggeration?"
I thought about letting it pass. It was late, a bad time to risk a fight. But this blog is about telling the truth, so I did.
"No, honey. It's true. I just don't complain anymore. And I don't think it's your fault. You're just not as good at the childcare stuff as I am."
He didn't get angry. "But everyone tells me I'm such a great dad."
"You are a wonderful dad. You do a lot more with our kids than my dad or your dad did. But moms can never really work full-time unless husbands start doing more childcare and household stuff. You know, staying home for sick days, worrying about the kids' lunches, that kind of thing."
To my surprise, he looked contemplative, as if he were chewing on what I said. But at least there was no fight.
By Leslie Morgan Steiner

I don't know why, but this chick just annoys me to no end.

My husband is the most supportive, involved dad I've ever known. He is a dream when it comes to caring for our daughter. We both work full-time and he has always done at LEAST 50%, many times more, of the getting up in the middle of the night, taking off when she's sick, doctor's appts, baths, and so on. Plus, he is totally engaged with her and incredibly loving. His goal is to raise a determined, strong, smart girl. I often overhear him saying how strong she is and how he is so proud of her.

I travel for my work and he never once has complained about being a single parent for a week here or there. From day 1, he has encouraged me to have girl time and alone time. I would not be 1/2 the parent I am, or even sane for that matter if it were not for my husband. I did not grow up with a father, so it is truly a blessing to see - for my own sake but more so for my daughter's.

For us its really just the way it is -- and the way it should be. 50/50. Somedays I do 75 he does 25 but then the next he's doing 75 and I'm doing 25. We try to recognize when the other is nearing a breaking point and then step in and take over. It has made for a peaceful homelife & resulted in our daughter getting the best we can possibly provide. We're not perfect, but I see it could be so worse.

Him not participating equally just was never a possibly - for me, but more so for HIM.

Bye-Bye Andy

Ok, I just have to say my official good bye to Andrew Card. Now, if Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Condolezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, oh and GWB could just turn in their resignations I'd be a happy camper.

Next....

St. John Magic

One of my favorite places in the universe to be is the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands. What's the magic people will ask. It is so hard to define, but I will try.

The magic is that after traveling to at least a 1/2 dozen other islands, I never have felt more at home than I do on STJ. I step off the ferry from St. Thomas and I just feel different. Calm, happy, sedate, warm, welcome. It seems like the stress and frustration of daily life just melts away with the sight of Cruz Bay.

The magic is that though this island is not perfect, it is real. There is traffic, congestion, overdevelopment looming ... but there are acres and acres of pristine park land, Francis bay with its sea turtles, Uncle Joe's with his finger licking BBQ, the goats that you nearly hit coming around the corners over in Coral Bay, and ultimately the freedom to wake up each day and say..."which beach is it today?" and know that NO matter what you choose you can't go wrong.

The magic is that no matter how many times I come back I discover something new each time. All I can say for sure is that the magic must be real, because my almost 4 year old who was 3 at the time - and has traveled all over - keeps asking to go back to our St John house! ;)

I am usually a rush around kind of gal, do as much as I can as fast as I can. In STJ, I linger. I laze in the pool, nursing a fronzen concoction. I smile more. I laugh so hard at times my stomach hurts the next morning. I dream more.

Men are from mars...

This is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time so I thought I would share. I have no idea if its true or the source, but it is surely funny.

Here's a prime example of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" offered by an English professor from the University of Colorado for an actual class assignment.

The professor told his class one day: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph
and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of
the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of his English students:

Rebecca and Gary
THE STORY :
(first paragraph by Rebecca )
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl , who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up
again. So chamomile was out of the question.

(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so
far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the pit.

(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news
simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human
race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie.

(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.

(Gary)
Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F--KING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an air-headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!"

(Rebecca)
As*h#le.

(Gary)
B*tch.

(Rebecca)
F**K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!

(Gary)
In your dreams, Ho'. Go drink some tea.

(TEACHER)
A+++ I really liked this one!!

iPod Makeover

I literally spent 5 hours yesterday reorganizing and reaffliating my songs with iTunes. Our music hard drive had a hiccup so everything had to be moved. PITA! Oh well. It is done now.

Current Top Tunes:

#41 - Dave Matthews Band
Alive - Pearl Jam
Always on My Mind - Willie Nelson
Bad Day - Daniel Powter
Better Together - Jack Johnson
Breathe 2AM - Anna Nalick
Broken - Jack Johnson
Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd
Crush - Dave Matthews Band
F-Stop Blues - Jack Johnson
Hallelujah - Rufus Wainrigh
Push - Sarah McLachlan
Some Devil - Dave Matthews Band
Surround Me - Ben Taylor (son of James)
Uninvited - Alanis Morissette
Wrong Turn - Jack Johnson
You and Me - Lifehouse

Uber Moms

Is it just me or does it seem that parenthood of today, particularly motherhood, is way different than it was just a generation ago? I swore when I had my girl that she would become part of my life NOT MY LIFE. And so far, almost 4 years in, I think I am keeping to my word.

My hubby and I both have worked to maintain grown-up lives despite the fact that we are parents. It is so easy to become completely absorbed, because the kid can easily take over your life if you let 'em. From day 1 we knew the other needed outside interests. He's always like go with your girl friends, go get a pedicure, whatever. He has volleyball 2 nights a week. Our daughter's needs come first of course, but we don't have a sense that she won't be able to survive if we aren't both staring at her 24/7. We maintain other relationships too because she's going to grow up and have her own life and friends and we don't want to be sad and pathetic when that happens. Balance people.

Before I had my daughter people who look at me with that "you will see" look in their eye, as if total absorbtion was just the natural order of things. I would shake my head and say nope. I REFUSE!!!

What's so wrong with 1 activity at a time? Right now, that's a 1/2 an hour of swimming 1 time a week. Don't get me wrong, at times, I wonder will she be able to keep up with the 3 activities at a time kids. But then I have a reality check and realize, I don't care. Is she happy, well-adjusted, fun loving. Does she seem to enjoy life? YES! Then we are all good.

Too often I think we don't trust our instincts, our intuition. When I first brought her home from the hospital I felt so ill-equiped, so clueless. I rushed out to the bookstore. I bought, I kid you not, 4 books on childrearing. You know what, I read each one and realized they all contradicted each other. I closed the books, and opened my eyes to the fact that I knew all I needed to know. Common Sense would prevail in our household.

It reminds me of the time when she was in a commercial daycare - Childrens' World. I show up and they tell me "Your daughter has been written up for biting." She was all of a year old. My response, using my outloud voice accidentally was "there goes harvard!" They were not amused. So I ask, "what happened?" The response: "Well, Child X placed his hand in her mouth and she bit him." ME: "And?" Them: "We had to write her up." Me: "Sorry, but I think it was an entirely appropriate response for a 1 year old when someone puts his unwanted hand in her mouth." Soon thereafter we went in search of new childcare arrangements.

Now teaching her at that moment, "no no biting is bad" would have given her 1 year old brain the mistaken idea its OK for someone to invade your space, put their hand in your mouth and you can't do anything about it. Yeah lets try to obliterate any sense of control she has over her self and what happens to her person. I don't think so.

Here's to common sense parenting. Becoming rarer and rarer! When you don't care what others think and you are no longer trying to keep up with the Jones, you will be happier, your kid will be happier. Dare I say they may even grow up to be a more grounded, reasonable, & happy people? There I said it ;)

Just a Quote

"My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders." —Mark Twain

Neighbor Battles & Shared Driveways!!

Ok, so I know its been a while. Lo siento! I've been dealing with a few neighborly troubles. Our neighbors who moved in last December (that's 3 months and counting) are let's say ... not so neighborly!

That's the Driveway above facing their house. The entire part coming down from the street - our property. We are nice enough to let them drive across it ... but park on it NO.

So we had a lovely confrontation with them the other night. Apparently the police had stopped by to ask them to move their van (which by the way had been blocking both their and our mailbox for 4 days). So, though it wasn't us who called, they assumed it was! I am thinking the post man called.

The entire time I was talking to them I was thinking why are we even having this conversation. This should NOT be an issue. Common courtesy!! Simple concepts.

Anyway, back to the police thing. They said the "caller" said that the van was stolen. I am not stupid enough to call the police & FILE A FALSE report. then informed them my best guess was that their mystery caller was the postman because it is ILLEGAL to block a mailbox.
And surely the postman wouldn't say anything about the van being stolen. You know why I think the cops thought the van might be stolen .. cause when they told them to move it -- guess what!? They couldn't. Why??? Because they didn't have the keys! IDIOTS!

This is what I live next to! So they came over to tell us that "we've called our attorney about the false report" I responded "good, I hope they charge you for that because it was NOT us!"

This all stems from the fact that we share a driveway (which is primarily on our property by the way) that they can't quite grasp the concept of "sharing". Parking willy nilly, blocking people in or out, and generally just parking like jerks, is not my idea of sharing!

So the rant went on. "the first thing we heard from you was 'move your car' not 'welcome to the neighborhood' etc. I responded, well that would be because the DAY you moved in you blocked our entire driveway. What exactly would you do if you came home and found a semi truck (I am NOT kidding, I could not make this up!) blocking the entire driveway? Bring over cookies????

Then they say, "as a matter of fact every time you knock on our door its to tell us to move our car!" DING DING DING EXACTLY, we have a winner!!! We aren't just harassing them about every little thing, we are repeatedly and quite politely asking that they kindly remove their car from our property. We have never, in fact, asked anything else of them. Seems like they'd catch on.

And these people are the pastor and his wife of the gospel church of christ or whatever!
Very Christian like eh? There is NOTHING I hate more than when someone is rude and unreasonable but they try to make it seem as if you are the bad guy. Sorry, but wanting you off my property and to show a little common courtesy is not too much to ask.

/rant. Man I feel better now.

So today I am home with the little one - she was sick. Well last night anyway. Woke up and I think faked me out this morning. "Mama, my tummy hurts." Well, no evidence of said tummy ache for the entire day today. I've been had by a 4 year old! Good thing she's so cute.

Quote of the day:
"mama, the front of the boat is called the bow"