The Shark has Officially Been Jumped (Alternately: How I almost killed myself at Barnes and Noble)

I'm going to share a secret with you guys: I've kind of always wanted to be a writer.  Like, for reals.  I even had a one time shining star moment in my single digit educational years when I pulled off some trophies and such for my "writing".  My creativity.  My unique je ne sais quoi - if you will.  Those days have clearly passed as my brain has been plundered by too much nonsense and filled with too many quotes from The Simpsons.  The only things I've managed to pull off in the realm of published work has been the world's most boring Master's Thesis (only quoted by a few poor students in China and likely an obligatory mention by the NPS), some articles for Jacksonville's Folio Weekly (thanks John for the opportunity! wave) and a rejection from Jane magazine (but only because they were closing their mag, holla! it's almost like I got published! They said they really liked my article... right?).  Even though I've had a rather blah writing existence, I still harbored hope that one day I'd have the fortitude and enough Vodka to pull off something that a few kindered spirits would read, come to love... and maybe purchase on their Kindle or something - or even just borrow from the library.  I harbor no delusions of NYTimes bestseller lists or any of that, really.  So I clung to my tiny hopes until an innocent trip to Barnes and Noble brought me to this:

What. The. Fuck.

Really?  REALLY?!  Hillary "songbird/actress/tween sensation" Freaking DUFF?!  Is now a published author?  Hello world?  Um, how is this fair?  Possible?  ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!  Now, don't get me wrong, I harbor no ill will towards the Duff.  I'm sure she's a very nice person, I mean that.  She's never made it onto my specific list of scorn or anything, but come on!   And the kicker?  The kicker is that it's apparent that Ms. Duff has found herself so inspired by the current (and hopefully flagging - because really?  if Hilary Duff is publishing in this theme, it's time for the literary world to MOVE ON.  Maybe compelling tales about secret Repbulican/Democrat lovers?  That's just about as likely as vampires, right?) paranormal/vampire/werewolf/things that go bump in the night - zeitgeist that she was so compelled to ink out her own tale.  I, of course, gathered this information from reading the cover only.  Now, not being a huge fan of the Twilight series (although I openly admit to having read them quickly while very pregnant and yearning for trashy escapism) I do not know this for sure, and do not want to risk infiltrating my computer and FBI traced cookie system to any websites that may likely contain what is probably thousands upon thousands of wannabe fanfiction excerpts - but a LOT of crap is getting penned.  There are THOUSANDS of people out there writing their little hearts out without a fly's chance in a honey factory of getting published.  I feel for them, and even though I have no interest in writing anything using somebody else's creations, I do give them credit for being inspired enough to actually put pixels to screen and write something.  Anything.  Even if it's crap.  Even if it's crap based on mind-boggling bad writing that somehow captured the imagination of much of the World's (mostly female) population.  *sigh.  Once again, I'm off an a tangent (hence the reason I am not a published author - although, James Joyce is the biggest tangential writer I've ever read, and yet somehow he continues to be considered brilliant... perhaps my deep loathing of his work is really a nefarious connection.  I am Joyce reincarnated! Or likely not).

So anyway, where am I going with all this.  Well, seeing the well meaning and likely hopeful budding author, Ms. Duff, with a stand at Barnes and Noble caused me great pause.  What the hell am I doing?  The thing is, I don't even know what kind of writing I'm even interested in putting out there.  I've got relative tomes on my laptop filled with craptastic prose.  At least Hilary actually DID something.  (I'm assuming she wrote this all by her self, of course, benefit of the doubt here...).  And, of course, being a celebrity, had no trouble finding someone to represent her.  Because, if you're a peon like moi, you will NEVER GET AN AGENT.  Just sayin'.  Even if you're Hemmingway.  But, I just like to whine about how I don't have time to get anything done, am too exhausted to finish the laundry and before I know it, it's ten o'clock and time for night night.

I read, A LOT.  Tons.  I'm really good at reading.  I should be a professional reader, I think.  I can speed read, retain a lot of information, and pass reading comprehension exams like I was the one who wrote it. I'm that good.  I'm a huge fan of Margaret Atwood, whose own brand of science fiction is chilling, disturbing, and highly engaging and thought provoking.  I love essayists like David Sedaris and I love me some trashy romance novels as well, (hellooooo Kindle!)  I love to read biographies about famous politicians wives.  I scour parenting books hoping for light bulbs to flash over my head with brilliant suggestions for not screwing up my kids.  I devour the Times and WSJ online, and I enjoy a good perusal through Tattler now and again, just to keep my hand in.  But how would I write?

Part of me has such a short attention span that I'm sure essays and short stories are the way to go.  But, the last thing I want to become is the poor man's David Sedaris.  You know, like Chelsea Handler (who, to be fair, can be pee your pants hilarious at times, but really, there's only so many tales of one woman's oft used vagina that I can take, you know?).  I've brewed up a few novellas, dabbling in weird Asimovian themes (much to my father's delight, I am sure), but they suck.  So, DELETE.  I've never been into poetry, so don't even suggest it.  Except for the occasional humorous Haiku, I'm pretty much the anti-poet.  I've considered children's books, but I use "like" and "fuck" too much.  I might accidentally slip something inappropriate in, and that would be tragic.  (Remember Carri Bradshaw suggesting her magic cigarette children's book to Big's ex wife?!  LMAO!)  I've considered screenplays and stage plays, but I'm too improv-oriented for that to be serious.  Plus, writing dialogue is a pain in the ass.

Where does this leave me?  Well, back where I am currently.  Sitting at my kitchen counter clacking away on my aging Macbook, sipping on some wine and squinting at the screen while thinking, "Jeez, I need to get some new glasses".  The Duffster's foray into tree murdering publications might have inspired this post, but really, this kind of thing is always on my mind.  What I'm not doing.  What I'm not doing that I wish I was doing.  And that, my four dear readers, is what this post is about.

So, well, I guess it just comes down to me, once again, doing what I do best.  Bitching about the world and not doing a damn thing to change it.

What are your rights?

So, let's say you are pregs.  You're going to have a baby.  YOU are going to have a baby.  A baby who will become YOUR child that YOU are going to take care of, feed, clothe, respect, love, cherish, coo over, mistily gaze upon from time to time in story circle at the library because, "omigosh, I can't believe that is my precious peanut clapping and laughing with the other kids.  Mine. Thankyousomuchforgivingmethisgift!" - uh, I digress...  Where was I?  Okay, yeah, you're going to get to the point where said babums is going to exit the womb.  Now.  Is the HOW your child exits your choice?  Or not.  Well, I recently stumbled upon, then tweeted the shit out of, this nugget o' outrage, regarding a woman who gave birth to her daughter at home (homebirth!! OMG!), then had her removed from her custody and placed into foster care (and eventually her mother's care) because she refused to have the recommended c-section due to her daughter's breech presentation.  (just like me!!! except I rolled over and signed the consent forms in my "I can't believe this is what is happening ativan-infused haze").  So, this family has their daughter taken away from them when they took her into the emergency room a few hours after birth because she seemed particularly fussy.  Apparently during the birth, her shoulder's became stuck for a bit causing a mild shoulder distocia and some nerve damage that now seems to have completely healed according to medical tests.  So.  Okay, I'm not going to go into specifics about breech birth, is it safe to do at home, or vaginally, or not, whatever.  I know of some people who have successfully and without issue homebirthed, and hospital birthed breech babies, as well as several who have, like me!, had a scheduled cesarean for breech.  I also have a friend of a family member who recently lost her baby trying to deliver breech at home.  But I also know of some people who have lost a baby trying to deliver normally, in the hospital, with no idea why things went wrong.  Everyone has a story and everyone knows someone (or knows someone who knows someone) to whom the worst imaginable happened.  It happens.  Is that fair?  No.  But is that life?  Yes.  Would I be so blase if it happened to me, or a family member or friend?  No.  But trust me, I'm not blase about it at all.  Being all up on this mother thing, I'm confronted with stories of pregnancy, birth and child loss on a daily basis, and trust me, I cry.  I feel it and when I was pregnant, I worried, 'would that be me, too?'...  And, like every other mother out there, I worry still... "will I lose them someday in some freak accident?  A terrible disease?  How can I make sure 100% that they will grow up, live a long life, grow old, be healthy and happy and love and laugh for years and years and years and years long after I'm gone?!" I cannot.  Nothing is 100%  No birth is 100% "safe".
What am I getting at here?  Where am I going with this?  Ah, in a nutshell, I think how you give birth should be YOUR choice.  And, if you dig even slightly, by dig, I mean, "google", you can find lots of cases where parents have had their child taken from them for refusing a c-section, only to give birth just fine to a healthy baby.  What is that?  A pissed off power play?  Taking away your choices makes a pregnant woman not much more than cattle.  What if her daughter had not been breech and she was born at home and suffered a cord accident; would that be her fault as well?  What if no one knew the baby was breech?  What if ultrasounds become mandatory?  What if you choose to give birth to a baby you know has profound physical defects and you refuse to submit the child to "possible life saving surgeries" that carry more risks than benefits?  Once you get on this slippery slope of chipping away at how and where a woman can birth, you are really opening the door to a maelstrom of problems. It seems like as women are slowly having their eyes opened to the benefits of a more natural and gentle birth experience, the medical establishment is fighting hard to counter women and beat them down to submit to their mystical and all-knowing ways.  Why this struggle?  How did we get here to where we are so easily coerced into huge decisions by virtual strangers like baa baa sheep?  And of course, this doesn't just apply to childbirth, but to many facets of our lives.  I mean, women have been able to vote for less than 100 years in this country.  Um, excuse me?  We still make less money for equal work than men.  We MAKE PEOPLE and yet, we are still considered ill equipped to decide whether or not we want to trust our bodies to bring them forth without a myriad of interventions.

Sure now, I realize there are lots and lots and lots of lifesaving technologies that have saved hundreds of thousands of women and children over the years.  It is to the incredible skill of some physicians that a sweet girl I know is alive today, with her triplets, because complete previa and placenta acreta rendered it completely impossible for her to deliver naturally.  I'm not raising the flag of "burn down the hospitals!  birth all babies at home!" (Um remember, I've got not one but TWO scheduled c-sections under my belt - literally, bwahhahahah) I am suggesting that we women aren't stupid.  Proper prenatal care should be a cooperative effort and the birth decision should ultimately be the mother's if she is of sound mind.  Vaginal breech birth is not some crazy myth that never happens.  It's just a crazy myth here.  In the USA.  And if you happen to deliver a healthy baby (breech or not!) at home with no problems, then you (are crazy! lolololol) and just got lucky.  OMG, you are SO lucky.  Like, you totally dodged the inevitable death bullet that was heading your way when you took that on!  Whew!  Are you like, totally relieved and thinking, "I'd never do THAT again!"?

But, if something DID go wrong, it's all your fault, and you should have your baby taken from you because you clearly don't love them enough to birth "the right way".  If you were in the hospital, and something did go wrong (because OH YES IT HAPPENS PEEPS) you would hear nothing but, "Oh my, I'm so sorry, there was nothing that anyone could have done, obviously".  "Tragic, so tragic".  "I'm sure that they did everything they could".  Or, "you'd better SUE THE SHIT OUT OF THEM!"

To summarize with bullet points.
- how a woman births should be decided by she and (if applicable) her partner with guidance by whomever she chooses as a health care provider (midwife, OB, Shamen - kidding)
-Unless pregnant woman is completely mentally unsound to make a decision where it is obvious that the baby is in danger (or mom is in danger) due to complications that are known, then she should be left to decide how to birth her child.
-OB's need to treat their patients like their clients.
-Sad things happen during birth sometime.  Even today in the era of the c-section and ultrasound and all the other medical marvels we have.  Nothing is 100%.
-The more we hear about women having their children taken away because they refused some kind of medical intervention or another, the more dissonance we are going to have between the medical community and patients who ask questions.  This will inevitably lead to laws being passed that completely strip away a woman's rights when it comes to what happens to her body.
-when did we stop trusting ourselves?

Don't Miss next week!  Going to Jail for Miscarrying!  and Birth Rape!

Elder Amnesia

I swear to you, at dinner tonight, and we're not talking eating at the ritz here, people - laminated booths and wildly printed backboards do not, for fine dining, make - an older woman actually yelled, "STOP IT" at my kid (or in our general direction) during a minor little meltdown he was having.  Seriously, I was like, "Did she just yell that...at us?"

Oh, I'm sorry "Miss My children NEVER acted up in public for they ALWAYS sat quietly and politely and ate all their lima beans without so much as a peep because children are not really people and should be seen and never heard, and really, the world should only cater to adults and heaven forbid my precious dinner at the local family friendly, early bird special, sangria night place have a few moments of some toddler whining" - did we disturb you?

Seriously lady, if you had children, you are clearly remembering either a very FALSE recollection of your children's behavior, or you are moron.   OR, you handily beat your children into submission, and, well, that's just not how I roll.

Guess what, life isn't ALL ABOUT YOU.  Children exist.  They have feelings and are still trying to figure out how to navigate life's little social graces.  I'm going to just put it out there and suggest that, while, yes, I think a screaming totally inconsolable child in perhaps, a, oh, fine dining establishment should perhaps be taken somewhere else with a calm and considerate parent who may calm them down and offer them a sympathetic ear and a hug - a somewhat annoying whine from a three year old for maybe two minutes in a freaking beachside, local dive with a bumper car in the middle of the room that the wait staff was encouraging my children to play in is REALLY NOT THE PLACE TO GET PISSED OFF IF THEY MAKE A LITTLE NOISE.

But lady, yelling at my child over two booths almost earned you a walk over from me who was about to deliver a very well deserved "TSK - children are human beings too".  Luckily, I was restrained by my friend.

Thank you.  That is all.

A Quiet Revolution

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead
US anthropologist & popularizer of anthropology (1901 - 1978)

I was going to write about teething today, as Miss Isla is sprouting molars right and left and has decided she can't get enough nursing to ease the discomfort..., but I decided to be pissed off instead and write about something else.

It is no surprise to me that an anthropologist (well, not just any Anthropologist, but Margaret Mead, people!) would write two of the most enduring and truthful and meaningful sentences ever written.  As an anthropologist, it is sometimes hard for me to see things small scale anymore.  I see so many big things going wrong all over the world and their complexity and the very interrelatedness of almost all events and lives is often staggering.  Often, I find myself floundering by trying to choose what to become passionate about.  There's too much to choose from!  Maybe I shouldn't fight anything, but that's not me, and I know it.  But what do I do when I'm completely turned inside out with outrage and despair when I hear about something tragic?  Usually, like most people, I don't do anything, and eventually the indignation and anger and momentum falls away quietly like a tide.  So I've decided that maybe I need to start small.  Make a list.  A lot of things piss me off, and I need to get them off my chest and out of my heart, and maybe, just maybe I'll be bold enough to try to change something, however small, because I truly do believe that one small act can be felt around the world.

So.  My list.  And I am not going to explain anything, just use these as a springboard.  Perhaps for your own discussion.

THINGS THAT PISS ME OFF 

(and maybe you, as well)

Driving on Beaches

Unsustainable lifestyles

Too many birth interventions

Rampant consumerism

Child abuse and neglect

Animal abuse

Bigotry

Homophobia

Our apparent disregard for the Earth

Reality television that exploits children

Ignorance

People who think their beliefs are "right" and others are "wrong"

And oh, there is SO very much more.  So so much.  But what to do?  Bury my head in the sand and go drop $100 bucks at Target?  That's pretty much been my MO for the last several years.  Certainly I can make all sorts of excuses such as "my children are my priority now - I don't have time to help", but that's probably bullshit.  Simply because I am amazingly fortunate and grateful and totally in love with my life as a parent doesn't mean that I don't think about how f-cked up our world is.  Perhaps it eats at me even more simply because I find myself constantly asking, "what kind of world am I leaving for my children?"  Thoughts like that make me want to bury my head in the sand.  

Anyway, one thing that has me recently outraged is the story I linked about the four year old being killed by a car driving on the beach.  CARS HAVE NO PLACE ON THE BEACH.  Damn, on Hilton Head a few years ago a person was killed by an emergency vehicle driving on the beach.  Sheesh!  Now, I understand that emergency vehicles probably need to be able to come down, but THAT IS IT!  This poor baby boy was the second child in FOUR MONTHS in THIS COUNTY to be struck and killed by a car on the beach!

Now, I'm not blaming the people who drive on the beach, after all, it's allowed; the responsibility rests with the city.  Not enough beach parking they cry.  BUILD SOME.  Rip down some piece of shit, empty high rise and dilapidated mid-century hotel with hourly rates and BUILD SOME PARKING.  Sooo many beaches in this country are protected from beach driving these days, and yet, Florida has far too many.  And I've been on lots of them.  It's a lot of redneck posturing and people driving way too fast with radios blaring WAY too loud.  Am I stereotyping?  Um, not really.  There are a lot of normal beach going folks who just want to get out there, get their towels down and build a sand castle or whatnot.  You know what, even I have driven on the beach.   In Jacksonville.  And afterwards I thought about it.  "Hmm, that kind of sucked.  And we should leave now".  This beach has no other way to get out to it except by car, so in that regard I can kind of understand, but I also think, You know?  There are plenty of beaches, maybe this small strip should just be left in peace.  Besides, that park had PLENTY of other easily accessible entrances to other beach areas.  Why must we exploit every freaking inch?!?!?!?

*sigh.  So, I am going to be a vocal opposition to beach driving.  Slowly but hopefully surely, I will fight to eliminate beach driving from Volusia County.  That's one thing I can try to do.

Skinny Baby

I have a skinny baby.  Look at that tiny child.  This is Miss I at 11 months old.  Working on her Paleontology skills.  She just went in for her 12 month "well baby visit" and everything looked great except.. dun dun dun!  Her weight.  My child is just too skinny.  Too skinny for who?  Too skinny for the freaked out nurses who asked me a bunch of questions regarding how much I feed her after they compared her weight on the weight chart of the FORMULA FED BABIES from the 70s!  Seriously?  Isn't it OBVIOUS that she's healthy?  She's been WALKING since she was just ten months old!  She was crawling at six months!  Doesn't that burn some calories, and oh, suggest that she's healthy?!  I mean, she's climbing on a dinosaur skeleton here.  CLIMBING.  Child being starved she is not.
And, of course, logical me knows that this is total BS and I need to just let it go and know in my heart that my baby is very healthy and we're doing all the right things for her as best we can.  Right?

No.

It slips into my brain.  That little voice of doubt.  Of course I'm aware she's thin.  People comment on it all. the. time.  I guess in today's America of acceptable obesity standards a skinny baby is something to worry about.  Let me be clear, I think super chunky babies are freaking adorable.  But I also think MY baby is pretty much the most adorable baby who ever sprung forth from a womb.  It's hard for me not to compare her with other babies her age and wonder why she isn't over 20 lbs.  It's a bit of a struggle not to pull out her brother's baby book and say, "Gulp, R was already 22lbs at one..." and not freak out a little wondering if I'm forgetting to feed her enough, or if my milk (oh yes, we're STILL nursing and I'm fine with that) is like diet root beer, or if she has some sort of growth problem, a faulty thyroid, freaky metabolism, whatever.  Why can't we just be happy!?  She's a little peanut of perfection and I'm damn proud of her!!  But why of why are we comparing babies these days on these archaic piece of shit FORMULA standards?!  And why does it bug me and make me worry?

Once again, I'm seeing these "standards" as being nothing but a means to put people into little groups and if you don't fit into the right peg, you are faulty.  We need to reevaluate how we look at things.  It's not like babies can be judged like Yorkies at an AKC Show.  And even Yorkies shouldn't be judged!

Anyway, fortunately our pediatrician has common sense and, well, is not just looking at dots on graphs.  She wasn't worried, but thanks a lot nurses for ruining my day.

Edible Food-Like Substances vs. Whole Foods (not the store)

I never really paid too much attention to food.  I mean, I like food, always have, but you know, growing up, I just ate when I was hungry, and pretty much ate whatever.  I wasn't too picky.  I liked fruit, I liked veggies, I liked dairy, meats (well, most, not cute meat, baby animal meat, lamb and organs), and I love Coca Cola and Filet o' Fish and Cheetos, to name a few.  Some of those things are not like the others, right?  But you know, I had an appreciation for fresh and natural, as well as the highly processed.  I never had a weight problem and so, I really never had a big issue with food, or gave it too much thought.

Not until having kids, that is.  Suddenly what I put into their bodies takes on much more significance.  Um, let me just add, though, that this does not mean that we haven't visited the Golden Arches with enough regularity that when my son alights his gaze upon said arched trademarked signage he yells, "nuggets!" from the back seat.  Just sayin', we're on no pedestal here.

NOW, with the advent of the "everything you thought you knew about nutrition is wrong" coinciding with the "food as nutrients, not nourishment or enjoyment" clashing with food insanity like, KFC putting the pink ribbon on their buckets of chicken!  (To quote Chris Rock here for a moment - "If you DON'T want to get fat, DON'T eat out of a bucket!"  Sage words, Chris, sage words)  It is no wonder America is overweight and so many people are miserable and unhealthy.  Suddenly the simplicity of food, preparing it, serving it to your family and eating it is challenged by a thousand choices.   Choice is good right?  Is anyone else overwhelmed when they go to the grocery store?  You've got to watch out that your bread is high fructose corn syrup free and that your milk isn't from cows treated with growth hormones and that the thin skinned fruits are organic and that your oatmeal will lower cholesterol!  AUGH.  Then there are the "healthy potato chips" and butter substitutes battling it out with margarine and then lowly old real butter saying, "hey remember me?  I wasn't prepared in a laboratory!".

For our family, the obsession really began when we moved to Madison, Wisconsin.  And it was here that I first gave a cold, hard look at the term "food science".  Look it up, that is one scary concept.  Food is no longer content to be something you put in your mouth that satiates you, but it is dissected into the sum of it's parts, broken down into what is best utilized by your body (as determined by the leading researchers at the time, because, as we all know, this has changed about 50 times since the notion of "food science" began).  Here in Wisconsin, there is an abundance of local, farm grown foods, both organic and not, and easy accessibility to a variety of whole foods (read, not or minimally processed) one can obtain.  In fact, I've only been to a "regular" grocery store twice in the 10 months we've lived here.  I tend to shop at either the local market a block away (when I need something quick) and I go to the Co-Op.  And to be honest, my grocery bill has gone DOWN.  (In the spirit of full disclosure here, I have gone to Super Target on occasion and bought food, but usually just to buy specific items that are not available at the aforementioned places, and plus, I just like Target, okay?).  I'm definitely not trying to be "look at me, look at me, I'm so eco-friendly", I'm just saying, I go to the closest place to my house (the Co-Op), they have lots and lots of local items you can buy (hey, who doesn't want to help the local guy, right?  Keeps the money in town, all good things!) and I've actually started to enjoy cooking!  Prior to this in my old life, I was very, "Open can, add meat to sauce, pour over rice/noodle, etc".  Now, I tend to make my own sauces.  Not that I'm this bastion of time or anything, I DO have two small children, but I have found with a bit of planning I can generally get a simple, nourishing and tasty meal on our table with about the same effort as if I had gone the pre-made route.

Mmmmm beets.  

Where is this avoidance of pre-made delights stemming from?  Well, partially from the easy access and deliciousness of all the local ingredients available to me, and also partly from learning more and more about just how corporate food and food science has become.  And not good corporate.  Like, stealing the souls of the farmers corporate.  Like, raping the land by forcing corn and soybeans corporate.  Michael Pollan and his books Food Rules, In Defense of Food, and The Omnivore's Dilemma, really opened this up for me.  Food Rules, specifically is SO easy and makes so much sense, and yet, I was barely making an effort to even notice how my grocery choices were not only affecting the health of my family, but also the planet.  As I began to become more aware of the choices I make at the grocery store, I also became more thoughtful about how our food choices might have been playing a larger and more silent role in our health.  On some parenting forums I became introduced to the Feingold Diet Program.  And not that we follow this, but it was certainly thought provoking enough for me to think, "well, heck, maybe 'red lake #20' could have an affect on my kid's brain, behavior, growth, etc.".  Just as I am a huge supporter of breastfeeding infants because I believe that human breast milk is superior to any other infant food, why wouldn't I continue to give my family what I consider to be the best I can?  Of course this doesn't mean I am churning my own butter here (remember, I did say we hit the drive through from time to time), but I think I have become a lot more conscious of how what we eat affects our lives.  Isn't it possible to imagine that with the evolution as food as a science, and foods with all sorts of health claims, and ingredient lists the length of my Master's Thesis for something as simple as pesto sauce, that we might be causing the increase of allergies, diseases, behavior problems and even some psychiatric issues?  Trust me, I am not making any claims here, I know nothing, but it kind of seems like the more complicated our lives get and the more we mess with things that turns out were just fine to begin with (hello, butter!?) that we might be causing more problems instead of fixing anything?  I mean, for example, can't nuts just be nuts?  Since when did nuts become the unknown soldiers against heart disease?

I'm clearly not the first person to question this, WAY far from it.  Do a quick google search and you'll see that there are lots of people wondering why we have to mess with everything.  Of course, the obvious answer is corporations make big bucks selling you a bucket of chicken with a pink ribbon on it telling you that they'll give some of the cash from that purchase to support breast cancer, and that oats with cholesterol fighting claims and cookies that are low fat (but crazy high in sugar) and this oil and that blend and all the added nutrients (like fish oil) to things like bread, just makes you think.  What if you just got those nutrients from eating the thing that they come in naturally?  And it's probably cheaper!  Buy a carrot rich in vitamin A instead of buying something enriched with vitamin A.  Right?

Oh, heck.  I don't know.  All I know is that it makes sense to me to scale it back a little.  I like the way my refrigerator looks with greens poking out of the veggie crisper and cheese with simple black and white labels instead of some brightly colored mass marketed eye catcher.  I realize that not everyone has a vast array of locally produced and reasonably priced organic foods (but wait!  WalMart *gasp* is actually become a forerunner of available and affordable organic foods.  My icy heart towards WalMart is beginning to thaw a bit...).  I know that when we move back to Florida this summer, it will be harder to locate the vast array of local goodies that have spoiled me this past year (which, I know, sounds ironic, helloooo prolonged growing season, but this is my third time moving back to the big peninsula folks, I know of which I speak).  BUT, you can find some things and support your local farmers (because farms are everywhere peeps- and I plan on finding ours!).  Find some place near you where you can at least get some local eggs or meat or something by going to Local Harvest and putting in your zip code.  It could be a fun place to take the kiddos and you'd be doing something good for your community as well as your family.

The times, they have a'changed!

Does anyone else think that childhood today is a teeny bit, oh, more apesh*t than it was ten-fifteen (30?) years ago? There are so many technological distractions out there these days that I cannot even IMAGINE what my children will be facing in ten years! Right now, my kids are pretty much interested in what kids have been interested in for, oh, the past history of humankind. Toys. Fun. Exploring. My children are two and almost one years old, so, I suppose they are pretty easy to entertain. But in a few years, oh man! What am I going to do?

For example. When do kids get cell phones? I am not talking about getting my kids iPhones with unlimited text messaging or anything, but I can see the value of a limited minutes simple phone they can use to call us in emergencies. I KNOW my parents would have gotten me one, but it would have been HIGHLY controlled. I remember getting my first phone in my room when I was in Junior High. Pink, plastic, and connected to my parents land line. No private number for me! But still, I felt very awesome. I didn't get a cell phone until Graduate School. That's GRADUATE SCHOOL folks. Did I miss not having a phone all prior to that? Well, no. No one had one, really, except fancy folks. I was not fancy. Am not fancy. Okay, so cell phones. Any suggestions?

Next. The internet. HOW? What? WHEN?! No longer do you worry about the bully on the playground, but the bully on Facebook, or Myspace, or whatever. Hearing about children killing themselves because of being bullied on the internet sends tremors of anger and fear through me. I suppose I can have "parental controls" and "keep conversation lines open" and "monitor" to the best of my ability, but seriously? kids can get around you! I was once a child. I understand this. I harbor no delusions that I will a) have no problems when my children become tweens and teens and that they'll always think the sun sets and rises by my dictate, or b) that they (even if we have an amazing relationship) will tell me everything. I was a pretty well rounded teen and fairly happy, I think, but embarrassing trips through some old journals (now tossed, because really, I do NOT need that stuff lurking around in some box) and rereading the inky scribblings of teen angst, proved a clear reminder that I was trying to deal with lots of emotions on my own. Not fun. Not cool. I can only imagine how much weirder and more angsty it would have been if I had been trying to prove myself not only at school, but also on the internet! Yikes. I truly feel that technology today has advanced MUCH faster than young children and teens are capable of handling.

And not only is the world of technology far more invasive than I'm currently comfortable with (mind you, spoken by someone whose own iPhone is never farther than four feet away) but I have lost pretty much all confidence in the American Education System. Not in teachers, please note, but in the system. I hate how underfunded schools are, how important curricula is phased out, how sports are overglorified and how little focus is placed on the individual. I'm not sure the school box is the way to go.

To be quite honest, I am very much thinking more and more about homeschooling, or other form of alternative education. Not so much to protect my kids from things they might run into in the school yard, but because maybe I think that this whole world is really far, far too complex. Much more than it needs to be. And I think, honestly, that I can do a better job. I have no more faith in the system. I'm no longer confident with putting my kids in school to be told later that my child is "acting out" and likely ADHD because energy and creativity are no longer appreciated as it makes it harder to ram the FCAT (or, insert your states BS standardized test here).My goal is definitely not to produce children who are obsessed with some vague notion of "success" as defined by American capitalism. What DO I want for them? I want them to be happy! I don't want them to have homework in Kindergarten and I don't want their schedules filled with so much work and sports and clubs and etc. etc. that their dayplanner is busier than Hillary Clinton's. That is not living, at least in my opinion. I'm not suggesting I hope to raise slacker waistoids, but maybe, just maybe, I want to try something else and let THEM decide who they want to be, and what they want to do. Less pressure... I'm sure that sounds so naively idealistic. But it's how I'm feeling right now. It's how I feel most days. And I think about this a lot. Especially since I'm feeling the "preschool pressure" to get my son in the "best" preschool I can find (and afford). He's not even three and I'm already getting sucked in. I can feel it. And it's freaking me out.

How do you navigate this 1000000 x more complicated world? Or am I making a big deal out of nothing?

Does anyone wonder if our priorities are skewed?

Icky? WTF?

With all the talk about breastfeeding happening on the blogs/facebook/net lately, it's hard to click a link without running into a nice friendly debate. Not that I think there's much to debate. My most favorite (because it's alarming as hell) reason NOT to breastfeed that I've read so far? Because it's icky. Which I found here. Read the delightful comments. And, once one courageous mom was bold enough to put that out there, LOTS of other mom's chimed in echoing the icky war cry and patting her on the back for being so bold. Honey girls... this is what I have to say about that. If you think BREASTFEEDING is too icky to deal with as a new mom that says to me that you have not only bought into the American cultural notion that breasts are nothing but funbags for the boys, but that you don't actually have kids. Because really? Do you have a full time nanny or something to deal with all the truly icky things? Um, see my post poo hands. I'd take a milky boob over that any day.

Oh, and yeah, I know that there are rare instances when a woman truly is unable to breastfeed and it is especially sad when she really wants to. That's hard, and those women should not be made to feel guilty or inferior. And in the spirit of mom's shouldn't be pitting themselves against one another in a sort of of modern, blogosphere cage fight, I will say that how you feed your baby is, of course, your choice.  But I'm also not going to apologize that my feelings towards this tend more towards the mind boggling "WHY? is this such a debate?" instead of the, "hey man, live and let live".  I just can't get behind the "'I just think it is icky' moms" saying "breastfeeding isn't for everyone".   Breastfeeding is for every baby, "icky" for you or not. I realize fully how bitchy this whole post sounds. And I'm really not a bitchy person, but I do have strong feelings surrounding just how insidiously our culture has perverted nature right down to the very things that kept us alive as a species throughout time.

You can take your gifted kid and ...

Warning: I am ranting here. If ranting offends you, read a different post.

So, what really is a "gifted" child? I happened to peruse a certain parenting forum that I often stop by and just for fun, landed in the "gifted" subforum. WOW.

I was expecting things like, "My two year old can play perfect Chopin while balancing a bowl of piranhas on her head". But no, these lucky parents claim their progeny can speak in complete sentences at 29 months and engage in "creative play above that of their peers". Really? That's it? Um, well, knock me down, my kid's gifted too. But, oh wait, maybe he's just developing at his own pace?! I am certainly not suggesting that there aren't people out there who may or may not be a shade more intelligent in one area or another on this journey we call life, but assigning special categories to toddlers who are likely still crapping in their pants seems like a potential house of cards just waiting to be knocked down.

In order for a child to be gifted, does it just require the parent to think their child is gifted? Do we trust the assessment of some standardized test that some gifted adult dreamt up? If a child is gifted as a toddler, will they be so special in fourth grade? What if they are "average" at that time? What then? Do you just keep it to yourself that your child was once a prodigy and now they are just sniffing glue with the rest of the pack? Do you say, "Ohh, there's my son, XX, he USED to be gifted... I suppose that last HiB vax booster stunted him! Damn you vaccines!!! " * Fellow mothers nod in agreement and shake their heads pitiably. *

Why are we always trying to label ourselves, including our children? I am interested to see how many other countries are quick to see an incident of peeing on the potty before the age of two as the machinations of a future Einstein? Why are we doing this to our children? Will proclaiming them advanced somehow improve their educational goals? Will a different label on your child and special classes put him/her in a better mindset for level appropriate learning? I believe that is what the theory behind identifying early giftedness claims. Will this label serve to support this young person? Or will it slap a big fat scarlet SMARTYPANTS on them that their peers will pick up instantly and hence shun them?

I'm really, really, really trying to be much more accepting and laissez faire regarding how people parent. AP, mainstream, natural, Montessori, Waldorf, gentle discipline, hell, as long as you aren't beating your child or shaming them continuously I am sure we can find some common ground, but sometimes I think things like this go WAY past parenting and into a deeper cultural condition.

I suppose this is all blowing my non-gifted mind, and that's okay. I'm cool with being average. I want my children to learn that flowers bloom in all different shapes, sizes, smells and colors, but that they're all still flowers.