My comments policy: My blog is my little nation and I am the government. Currently, there are no rules or regulations that tell me how to administer my blog’s nation. I am in charge and I set the rules.
Comment moderation is turned on. If you don't like what I have to say and intend to post comments that are rude, childish, or vulgar, your post will not be approved! There are probably hundreds of blogs and sites where you can play with others that will coddle you and say whatever you want to hear.
Hat tip to Kimberly Spencer, CPM, for this information!
I can honestly say I have only two regrets in my experiences as a mother. I regret weaning (from breastfeeding) any of my children before the age of at least two years old; and I regret ever wasting the gas to drive to a worthless hospital to have my babies. Granted, I managed to have intervention-free natural childbirths, but it’s simply not the same. And paying someone $5,000 for the use of a room and a set of sheets for a whopping four hours is ridiculous.
If God were, by some glorious wonderful miracle, grant me baby #5 (which hubby says won’t happen, and I’m having a very hard time dealing with that!), there is no way, no how I will leave the safety of my home. I will have an unassisted homebirth or there may be a slight chance of having a midwife here. I really really regret not experiencing a lovely, calm, beautiful birth safe and sound in my own environment with my family beside me.
We love BFD (Breakfast For Dinner) in our house, and one of our favs is Breakfast Pizza.
I gather and cook up meats like bacon and sausage, vegetables like onions and peppers, and cheeses like American and Cheddar.
Scramble some eggs…
Fry up some flour tortillas in just a touch of olive oil…
Then add whatever you like! We make them one at a time so that each person can decide what they want to put on top… we add the toppings while the tortilla is still browning in the skillet so the cheese melts:
I was blessed this past weekend with the opportunity to photograph a wonderful African Drum band, “Urban Vibes“, out of Indianapolis, Indiana. If you’re near there, I strongly suggest you look them up and see them live. It’s uplifting, it’s poetic, it’s beautiful. I was able to capture some lovely images of their beautiful faces and instruments, and with their permission I’m reproducing them here for your enjoyment. I hope you get a chance to hear them, it is always a joy when I get to watch them.
If you’re interested in their contact information, please let me know and I’d be glad to forward your request.
One reason Americans are so extremely terrified about child abductions is that whenever we turn on the TV or computer, there’s another one. As if these horrific crimes are happening 24/7, when actually the media is only too happy to fly across the country — or world — to set up camp wherever a cute, white girl has disappeared. Tight news budgets get thrown out the window for a story like this. But because that story then shows up on our screen at home, it feels like it’s happening right around the corner. All the time.
What happens when there is NOT a new story like this for the media to feast upon? Instead of traveling to another state, or country, they’ll travel back in time. The show 20/20 just did an hour-long look at the Etan Patz kidnapping from 30 years ago. And here’s CNN’s Nancy Grace page , from a few days ago: “Third Grader Stepped Off School Bus, Disappeared.”
Start reading it: ” With the weekend arriving and a long day finally over, 8-year-old Cherrie Mahan stepped off her yellow school bus on a chilly Friday around 4 p.m….”
Oh, by the way, CNN finally adds at the end of paragraph three: This was in 1985.
I’m not saying that it doesn’t make sense to sometimes revisit a cold case in hopes of solving it. I do hope someone solves this one. But it begins to look suspiciously self-serving when networks desperate for viewers keep coming up with the exact same kind of story, served up any which way they can. How about the cold case of an African-American teenager gone missing? Or a schitzophrenic adult? Or someone who isn’t winsome, white and under five feet tall?
A newly Free-Range mom dropped me a little note this morning trying to help all of us (herself included) put our fears in perspective: The chance of a child being kidnapped and murdered? 1 in 1.5 million. The chance of a child ending up at some point with some form of depression? 1 in 4.
(emphasis mine! – Sandra)
It is extremely depressing, disheartening, lose-your-faith-in-humity-izing, to keep being presented with the most vile crimes on earth as if that’s what life is all about. As if that’s just what you can expect if you’re bringing up a kid these days.
So what’s the alternative?
One of the chapters in my book is called, “Turn Off the News.” At the end it has some suggestions for how to get started going Free-Range, including, “Get up and go out. Spend that hour you were going to watch ‘Law and Order’ on a walk with the kids instead. Look around at all the unspeakable crimes not being committed. This is called the Real World. (Not to be confused with MTV’s version, which is a crime all its own.)”
When we depend on the media to shape our world view, we’re going to get a world view that looks a whole lot like the view from a harried, ratings-obsessed assignment desk: If it bleeds, it leads. If it’s sad, we’re glad! If it’s an abduction, ramp up production!
Which they sure do.
But if a network thinks its job is to terrify us, maybe it’s time to turn the tables and terrify them: Let them watch their viewers mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again.
Someday, they may even do a cold case special on us. – Lenore
To Alton Brown’s tomato sauce. His recipe is on his site, I play around with recipes to make them my own. But you simply must try this!
Take 8 or 10 tomatos, any kind, and cut them in half. Use your pinky to scoop out some of the seeds and goop, place on a cookie sheet like cups. Dice up an onion or two, and some garlic, and sprinkle on top. Add some salt and pepper and some basil, then drizzle liberally with olive oil.
Bake at 325 for an hour, then turn up the heat to 400 for about 30 minutes. Remove and let cool a little bit, then puree in the food processor or blender.
Best base EVAH for pasta sauce, salsa, chili, or anything you use a tomato sauce for. Smoky, rich, dark, flavorful.
I decided to start making it in batches and freezing, to use as a base for my meals. LOVELY!
I remember watching this episode of Alton Brown on the Food Network and forgot about it – but recently I was frying up some ravioli and remembered it, so I thought I would find it out there in Internet-land and share it with my friends!
Fried food really does get a bad rap. We may begin frying a few more things here, because frankly, you just can’t get the same taste and texture from a baked french fry… or fish stick… or mmm… I have a great Bloomin’ Onion recipe.
In case you missed it… in an entire two to three person portion of fish sticks and french fries – deep fried PROPERLY - only about 1.5 teaspoons of oil that got absorbed by the foods. Mmm… I smell some homemade french fries in our future!
The MSG Myth
Even my own step father thinks he gets ill from MSG. I still read today, on message boards and blogs, that people avoid it. The Food Detectives did a show about this too – long after I already know there was no evidence of any harm from this monosodium glutamate. One guy plus a headache in 1968 started this myth. Ironically, the people that think they get headaches or nausea after eating foods with MSG don’t get the same effects from eating, say, a STEAK – which has it naturally. MSG is nothing but an amino acid with a little sodium. That’s it. No secrets, no chemical creations, no big agenda to poison you, nothing. And guess what? It’s natural.
(Part 1):
(Part 2):
(I get a kick out of all the people that, upon believing they ate it, “felt the effects of” the MSG, even though they didn’t get any!)
I’ve always cooked with it – it really brings out the flavors of meats and other foods wonderfully. You can pick up a shaker full at your local grocery store in the spice aisle - my cupboard would be empty without it. And studies have CLEARLY SHOWN it does not cause headaches or other ill effects. Period. Isn’t that great news?
MSG Causes Headaches (aka Chinese Restaurant Syndrome): “Jeffery Steingarten, food editor of the Vogue in New York, debunked this myth pretty comprehensively. Given the widespread use of MSG in China, he asked why weren’t there a billion Chinese people with headaches? He then went around relentlessly researching the theory in his characteristically thorough way, and came to the conclusion that MSG, taken in normal quantities, was perfectly safe.” (I know many people who swear they get headaches after eating MSG, so I’m reluctant to accept this as an urban legend. But some quick research reveals that a controlled study at Harvard University also concluded that MSG in food doesn’t cause headaches.)
These are just two of the hundreds (maybe thousands!) of documents debunking MSG. And I’ll bet, if you really think about it, WHY do you think MSG is bad? Probably because someone told you it was. You’ve never seen “proof”. You’ve just “heard it was”.
You must be aware that MSG, a compound of sodium and glutamic acid, an amino acid, is also found in many natural foods, including peas, tomatoes, mushrooms, and cheese. In fact, every time you eat a food containing protein you are certain to ingest glutamate, according to the Tufts University Diet & Nutritional Letter, Vol. 9, No. 12.
Now, I don’t want regaled with everyone’s personal stories of getting a headache after eating at Dim Yong Song’s restaurant. You probably ate a spice or drank a cocktail… but really, if your mind is going to create a pain, there’s not much that anyone can do to dispel it. Just don’t come to my house to eat dinner… I probably added MSG to the meal!
What you eat and what you feed your family is always a very personal choice. Just like I don’t buy into the whole organic “hype” (the tomatos I buy at half the price, rinsed off in my sink, are just as good!), I also know some things get so exaggerated in the media and among internet chat rooms; so my family chooses to LIVE, enjoy good foods while still eating healthy, and have a great time doing it!
The helicopter parents, that is. Do they wear earplugs or does the WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH of the blades not disturb them?
Do their children not have to wear sunscreen because of the shadow of their mothers?
My kids have no idea how lucky they are. I think I will remind them tonight when they come home – oh, from wherever they are playing at, which is – um, dunno. But they’re safe, and they’ll be home in one piece later.
Well, it’s really more of a punctuation vent. Almost as annoying as my Grammar Vent #1 pertaining to the use of “I” (She went to the store with Bill and I – *shivers * – it’s Bill and ME!)…
Apostrophe “s”.
It is not: How many pencil’s do I need? The three cat’s were standing at the door. I’m an idiot five time’s over because I make plural words possessive.
STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!
Just what does the pencil own in the above sentence? The word “do”? No. NO. The pencils own nothing. If you said “the pencil’s color was blue”, then you can apostrophe until you’re, well, blue. But not when it’s PLURAL!!!
Augh. Okay, I feel better now. At least in speech I can’t hear people add apostrophe’s every time word’s are just plural’s.
I forgot to post this on the 1st… but we’re still going strong!
Let’s see… I haven’t talked about Ayla’s achievements this year, now that I think about it. Some of Ayla’s milestones over the past few months… she can now get up on the trampoline by herself! She can get on the counter to get snacks like her big sister, too. She has almost mastered her tricycle – she needs just a little more encouragement to keep her feet on the pedals. She can scale the ladder to her slide, navigate the stairs almost the whole way, standing up; she of course has mastered the spoon and fork and eats anything and everything like a champ. She is “behind” Autumn in talking, but “ahead” of where Autumn was in regards to her physical abilities. No worries, it all will balance out in the end!
Autumn’s now writing all of her numbers and letters beautifully, writing her name easily and quite legibly, without help. She will start Kindergarten in the fall of 2010, and I think she’ll be right on track with her skills. She’s going to do great, I just know it.
Justus’ new medication dose has changed his life. He is now a social butterfly! He’s rarely here anymore, the phone rings until all hours of the night, and he has a girlfriend, Sarah! Compared to last year, when he only had one friend (who is a carbon copy of him!), this is a welcome change. I think he may be busier than Brett is! Now he’s hounding me for a cell phone, which, depending on how often he’s gone, he may just get. He sometimes leaves in the morning and I won’t see him for 5 or 6 hours or more, as he visits and travels the neighborhood and the neighborhood next to us. I’m so happy for him, so proud of him, and so thrilled that he’s making so many good friends. This will make the transition to the new 6th grade school so much easier – and there will be more new friends there to make too!
Brett finished the year on the honor roll – he was on it for every grading period. I couldn’t be more proud. He’s enrolled in some college prep courses next year to prepare him for medical school. He still thinks he wants to be a GP – I hope he keeps that dream alive. He has been hesitant to study for his temporary license though – I think he’s more nervous than he originally let on. I’m glad – he SHOULD be nervous, taking control of a 4,000 piece of metal! The insurance to add him is nominal, I told him I’d meet him halfway on that and he would have to pay for his own gas. He’s cool with it. He’ll be driving my van until he saves enough money to go in on a car. I think he’ll do fine.
And that’s a brief summary of the kids. All healthy, all happy, all doing well. Have a great day!
Autumn got her “big girl bike” last week, and after only an hour on it, she was a pro. And we can’t get her off of it!
She could’ve gotten it last summer, but she was so attached to her Dora Bike (okay, it’s a regular tricycle that she put Dora stickers allllllllll over) that she didn’t want a big bike… but we had an opportunity to get a great hand-me-down from a friend and convinced her that she’d love it. And we were right. We “girlied” it up with a Princess basket and tassles and a pink bell, and Autumn is going to hunt for Princess stickers to put on it. She’s growing up too fast!
Showing her little sister how it works:
And really, what’s more fun than chasing your friends through the neighbor’s sprinkler??
And Ayla was enjoying the “rain” too… but she stopped to take a break:
I found this heartwrenching and heartwarming at the same time. I love those seven words, they hold more meaning than any words I’ve read in a very long time.
The Motherwear Breastfeeding blog recently featured a fantastic guest post by a woman whose son was born 3 months early and weighed less than 3 pounds. She writes about how breastfeeding was her and her son’s lifeline. Here is an excerpt from her post, My whole heart is in that incubator:
I was 37 years old. I thought I knew what love was. I thought I knew. But I have never loved anyone, anything, so fiercely, so terribly, so wonderfully, so achingly, as I did my little son, my only child, struggling in that incubator….
I loved and still love that boy with all I have. Because I couldn’t hold him much, and felt terrible guilt for not being able to ‘hold him in’ for the entire 9 months he deserved, I was determined to breastfeed. I pumped every 3 hours for weeks on end. That pump and the milk that came out of me was my lifeline. It was somehow the way I was going to make it up to him for giving him such a lousy start in this world. So when I read stuff like “The Case against Breastfeeding” I get so angry. I believe that my breastmilk, and the good care we got at BC Children’s, saved my child’s life. It saved my life. If there is anything in this crazy, crazy world that is really is a gift from God it is the babies we can create and the milk that comes from our bodies.
If anything is pure and natural, and real and true, it’s breastmilk. It made me feel like a mother when my baby was all alone inside a machine when he should have been inside me.
Anyone who dismisses breastfeeding so casually, or by their attitude or indifference creates an environment that doesn’t hold up and encourage and cheerlead a new mom into a successful breastfeeding relationship, has lost touch with something. They’ve lost touch with a sense of what it means to be a mother, what feeding a baby is all about, what it means to nurture, how significant that breastfeeding can be to both mother and child.
Posted by Rixaat Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thank you, Rixa, for sharing this story; and thank you to the original author for sharing her heart.
All of our letters and prayers were answered. Thanks to all the concerned parents and physicians that rallied to have these shots available again!!
Our alternative vax schedule is here. When Merck decided not to make the separate MMR shots, we decided to wait until Ayla is four to get her the big one – she will be almost four when these vaxes are reintroduced, and that’s okay with me.
WARNING – RANT AHEAD RANT AHEAD RANT AHEAD RANT AHEAD. I mean a BIG RANT ahead!
Okay, you were very warned.
So a gentleman came by to purchase some baby items we had for sale. He had a new 7 week old baby at home, a precious little girl. His first. New parents are just the cutest things, aren’t they??
As this very nice gentleman started regaling us with the stories of his wife’s pregnancy, childbirth, and the baby’s first few weeks of life, as well as his observations of other parents and their children now that he is a daddy, I glanced over and watched my husband prepare… waiting for me to start correcting and educating this poor unsuspecting man. I found it funny – my hubby knows me all too well. And I behaved and didn’t say a word. Rather proud of myself, and if I could, I would pat my own back.
The point of this story is that I am increasingly shocked at the poor information out there. This man said his wife was a doctor. Now, he didn’t say what KIND of doctor, and I didn’t ask. So she could’ve been a veterinarian for all I know. But he began by saying that when her water broke, she knew, as a doctor and based on her doctor’s instructions, they must Immediately Rush, Without Hesitation, Without Finishing Packing The Bag, To The Hospital… because it’s absolutely urgent that she lay down in bed right that second and start being monitored. Just because her water broke.
I hate this myth. But I hate it more because this is coming from a doctor. This was her first baby, she probably could’ve labored at home for hours and hours and hours before she went to the hospital and started letting doctors interfere with nature.
But I forget – she IS a doctor, so she is going to believe 100% of everything her doctors tell her, no questions asked.
And I didn’t utter a word. I’m still beaming with pride that I didn’t let a rant go right then and there. Of course, I didn’t have his money in my hands yet, I wasn’t about to blow a $100.00 sale because I wanted to scream that his wife and her lousy doctors were WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!
I didn’t even rant at the woman who called me and asked if I had a child leash for sale. Well, lady, I have some for my dogs, because dogs belong on leashes… but that’s another blog altogether, isn’t it???
But then he made a comment about driving through a neighborhood and seeing children playing in their front yards alone. ALONE??? GASP!! THE HORROR, I was thinking! He just couldn’t understand how any responsible parent could possibly let their children play outside without being within 32 inches of them At All Times! I mean, if it happens on CSI Every Single Week, it must happen in your suburban neighborhood every single week too!!!
People really need to quit living in the land of make believe when it comes to their children and their safety. I asked my husband how many scaremongering news stories we’ve heard in the past year or so about a child abduction that wasn’t committed by a mom or dad or their Uncle Bob. We could only think of one off the top of our heads (and I’m not interested in being corrected – there hasn’t been hundreds or even dozens or even tens) and one we weren’t sure of the result of. And the one we could think of was actually the child’s teacher or someone she knew, so still not a real stranger abduction. But since two or three happen Every Night in prime time, people really get the lines blurred between reality and complete fiction.
I was even getting well-meaning but very ill-informed advice in another blog post about letting my children eat raw cookie and cake dough. The chance of my kids killing themselves in a bathtub is about 60 times higher than dying from raw eggs. More people die from venomous spider bites than eating cookie dough. Licking the beaters is a rite of childhood, in my opinion. Since walking across the floor and falling to their death has about a 1 in 6,000 risk, I’m not going to fret a 1 in 50,000,000 risk. Yes, 50 million. You’ve not even looked into the stats, or really researched the odds, have you? Even without looking it up, I knew the odds were pathetically low and I was always a-okay with my choice.
But the naysayers are shaking their heads and shrugging “no no no – kids get killed daily by strangers and men in vans take girls from the schools weekly and it’s a bad dangerous terrible world out there”. They look at their neighborhood map online with the sexual predators – so many then-18 year olds having sex with their 17 year old girlfriends and being on the list forever, to name a few things that totally discredit that list, IMO. And of course, if it’s an old man, he’s waiting on his front porch with a bowl of candy, waiting to lure your children into the bowels of his vinyl siding home to do God-Knows-What to. NO HE’S NOT! It’s NOT a bad world! You’re doing a horrible disservice to your kids sheltering them so. They won’t know how to prepare for the world, because you won’t be there hovering over them.
You have to let them go. You have to let them have their childhoods. It’s not fair to them or you, it’s not beneficial, and it’s sad when I hear about a friend of my 11 year old son that doesn’t know how to navigate the neighborhood on his bike – he should’ve been riding in that neighborhood for years by now! I’m so glad our kids are so safe in today’s world.
I warned you it was a rant. I feel much better now!
So Autumn was doing something (I don’t even remember now – dragging dog food from the bowls to feed the dogs, right after I swept? I dunno) that I asked her not to do, please. She did it again a few minutes later.
So I asked her, rhetorically, in my familiar slightly-gritted-teeth style that lets her know I mean business, “HOW many times am I going to have to ask you to stop??“
To which she replied, after giving it quite a bit of thought, “Two?”
I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com Blurb book photo contest. If chosen, I grant I ♥ Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ♥ Faces web sites.
Our neighborhood sale was this past weekend; clear signs and clear times were posted in many places. We do this every year, and every year without fail I meet:
The Vultures: The women who are waiting outside 30 minutes before the sale begins. If I have to move tables to the driveway or lay out additional clothes, I have to try to do it without opening the garage door, or these Vultures come racing in to try to get to stuff before I’m ready. Even being told we’re not set up, the sale is not for an hour (or a day – yes, I was trying to prepare the day before, with the garage door only HALFWAY open, and had Vultures peering in to see my wares), the Vultures will not be deterred from their task of finding the bargain first.
The Ones with the Kids: Don’t get me wrong, my kids aren’t always angels, but it seems to me there’s always a half a dozen parents that bring their 5 to 10 year old kids that feel they have the right to rifle through everything willy-nilly. Or worse, there never fails to be eight children that ignore the fact that I have the garage clearly blocked off, and will squeeze around tables or climb under them to peruse my tools and photography props and equipment. I’ve even had them circumvent yellow police-type tape. Parents, reign in your kids or leave them at home. My power tools and children’s toys stored neatly on shelves in the garage are not for your children’s pleasure.
The Late Ones: The ones that show up 30 minutes after the sale is done while we’re trying to put everything back in the garage. They have no concept of time, nor do they care that we are exhausted, have put the money away, and things are now being stored back in boxes that they have no business looking through. I won’t discount a price for you, Late One – I will double it.
The Treasure Hunters: I can see them coming from a long way away. They almost march, with a purpose. Do you have Jewelry? How about Guns? Antiques? Okay, buh bye. Sir, if I had these, I sure as tootin’ wouldn’t be selling them at the neighborhood garage sale.
The Old Bitties: The ladies that come with their nickles and dimes and try to get me to sell them a $10.00 item for 50 cents. You may sucker some with your cute blue hair, but not me. That suit is worth more than two quarters.
The Pack: The group of 12 people that come at once. They all poured out of the same vehicle, bringing grandma, Aunt Hilda, and Cousin Five-Fingers. You pounce on my tables and everyone talks at once. You’re shouting out offers, and I think it’s a ploy to distract me so that – yes – things are removed without that quarter being paid (you need it more than me if you have to steal something priced at twenty-five cents) and make me accept offers I never would if you were an Old Bittie.
The Normal Ones: Ah, you are few and far between, I assure you. I like you. You come over, carefully look through piles of baby clothes, gently lift glass candles, ask about a price break that isn’t ridiculous, and pay me in dollars instead of twenties that I have to try to break. You may even come back later to get something else you saw. I love you, and wish there were more of you.
about making homemade chocolate cake, is sharing the batter-covered beaters and barely-scraped bowl with my girls! Ah, I actually DO love rainy day fun!
That “The Business of Being Born” is required to be viewed by every single pregant woman, every woman thinking about being pregnant, every woman that can become pregnant, and every single doctor/OB/midwife/nurse that ever comes in contact with someone that is, will be, or can be pregnant.
I hope everyone picks up Ricki’s new book, too: Your Best Birth.
Hope all my mommy friends had a great Mother’s Day. I was blessed with flowers on Friday, a special meal at my favorite restaurant on Saturday, and a gift from the Diamond Cellar on Sunday. All that, and hubby did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and took care of the kids for me. I must’ve done something right sometime, somewhere! Here’s a (not so good) picture of my gift, it made me cry… a charm necklace for each of my children with their birth stones:
Let’s see… other random musings for today…
Wanda Sykes needs moved to a deserted island and put out of our misery.
Thank GAWD Joan won the Celebrity Apprentice. When your boss asks you what you’ve done to earn a job, you DON’T start pointing fingers at someone else and blaming them for your failures.
I have decided I will never beat my carb addiction. Why are carbs so wonderful??? And isn’t it a gift for my grandkids to snuggle into a grandma with some meat on her bones? Yeah, I think so.
Ayla has a new trick. If you say, “Ayla, MEAN FACE!” she drops what she’s doing and does this:
But then she thinks she’s hysterical and falls out, cracking herself up:
Hm. I think that’s all I have today. We had a wonderful weekend, and I hope everyone else did too! Have a great week!
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