New Year's Resolutions!

1. Get pregnant again, but not until after August.
2. Lose some of this baby weight, hopefully before August.
3. Get Tommy into his own bedroom.
4. Decorate said bedroom in one cohesive theme.
5. Paint the basement with drylock and turn the new half into a playroom.
6. Get Ryan to turn in her homework on time every day, without yelling.

more to come......

Christmas recap

Hmmm, how was my Christmas? Well, Tommy and Ryan got spoiled, as was to be expected. Gluttonous American commercialism at it's best. On Christmas morning Tommy got an exersaucer from Santa, which he LOVES, and sticking out of his stocking (on top of tons of other stuff) was his now-favorite: a Wubbzy! His first ever TV show (aside from football which is really more of a bonding with Dad thing than entertainment) and Santa got him a Wubbzy to hug and talk to and chew on. Ryan got the Sims for the laptop she uses along with just about every expansion pack they make, and her stocking held tons of candy and other little treats. This was her year of the goth so she got plenty of stuff with skulls and lots of black clothes. Tommy got lots of toys and clothes and didn't really know what to make of any of it. Tom got a new coat and some really warm gloves and a bluetooth and I got the book I'd been wanting and some kitchen toys, and a robotic vacuum that cleans by itself. I named it Rosie, because it's red and because of the cleaning robot on the Jetsons. On Christmas morning, after the presents, I made latkes in honor of the holidays and then we got ready to go up to the in-laws', which was pleasantly uneventful. And then today, Tommy and I woke up with colds. So, lots of fluids for me and lots of breast feeding for him so he'll get my antibodies.

I love Christmas. But next year, not so many gifts for the kids. Tom and I need to quit shopping without each other. We each end up doing all the shopping, which results in twice as many gifts. We need to communicate better, I think.

Well, I hope everyone had as good a holiday as I did, and Happy New Year to all.

Merry Christmas!

Aging gracefully?

I have a dilemma. For years I've dyed my hair. I'd gone exclusively red until Tom mentioned that his first wife had been a redhead, and a drug-addles bitch, so I started bouncing around between shades of red and blond. Then I got pregnant and decided not to dye my hair due to health concerns and was shocked by how much gray came in. A couple months ago I decided to try brunette for a change and now it's faded to match the non-gray portion of my natural color. It's past time to touch up my roots, and I have the dye in the bathroom waiting, but I'm hesitant. I'm considering just going natural.

I 've been teased about my gray roots before and am not looking forward to it again, but I don't have anything agianst gray hair. Tom is gray and it's sexy as hell. And if I were to go completely uniformly gray I wouldn't blink twice about it. But part of me suspects that this may be the wrong time to go gray. I'm still carrying about 20 pounds more than I can stand, 30 more than I want, and I'm afraid that gray roots will be the final straw in "letting myself go". I want to age naturally and gracefully. I'm just afraid that my natural aging process may be less than graceful.

So, what do you think? Should I go natural or pour on the color?

And what would you like for Christmas little girl, a mass spectrometer? Part II

Why the Hell didn't I find this before I'd finished my Christmas shopping?!

I have the best baby in the world

Tonight, for like the fifth night in a row, I put Tommy to bed without incident. It was around 9:00, he'd just finished eating and was now rubbing his eyes and fussing, so I changed his diaper, kissed him goodnight, and then laid him down in the pack n play. While I was still arranging the blanket over him he started chewing on his thumb and rolled over onto his side. I turned off the light and never heard a peep out of him after that. Ryan never did that. Then again, I went to bed at 8:00 with Ryan because she broke into spontaneous hour-long screaming fits in the middle of the night. But I have to say, even knowing that I don't know much about other babies out there, I have the best baby in the world.

Score One For The Hunted

I love stories like this. Hunting has never made any sense to me, and no one's really been able to explain it to me either. People say that we need to hunt to prevent overpopulation, yada yada yada. It's true, but it's not why hunters hunt. They don't do it out of some altruistic concern for crops or vehicles or anything like that. It's not the dirty job for the Department of Conservation rookies, to go out and kill hundreds of deer. and you hear a lot of hunters say they eat what they kill, as though somehow that makes it less violent. And food isn't why they hunt. Theses people could feed their families with meat from the grocery store for less money than they spend on hunting. The license, the orange and camo clothes, the non-scented soaps and shampoos and detergents, the spray bottles of dear urine, the weaponry itself, it costs more than pork chops from Safeway.

No, hunters hunt for fun. It's some sort of bloodlust thing that I can't fathom, wanting to kill something just for the thrill of killing it. I'll kill bugs, and mice, but not for pleasure. I'll kill them because they revolt me and I feel, however irrationally, that they somehow present a threat. I can't let spiders live in my house because they might crawl on my face while I sleep or bite my children, and the same goes for mice who might also eat my food and poop in my silverware drawer. Very few hunters, I believe, fear that a deer is going to poop in their silverware drawer.

It's probably best that I don't understand the thrill-killer mentality, that in fact I believe it to be horrifying and worthy of psychological treatment. If I thought that watching something twitch and writhe in pain was fun, if I thought that cutting into still-warm flesh and gutting it would bring me joy, I'd probably be a serial killer. No, I need, absolutely need, to believe that my meat originates in the grocery aisle, that before the burger was on my plate it came from a styrofoam tray and nowhere else. I can't eat anything that was hunted, only what was purchased. No deer jerky or venison steak, no rabbit meat. Tom eats it, and Ryan has at times. I don't begrudge anyone else their "game", but I can't eat it. And I get a thrill whenever I read or hear of a hunter being attacked by his prey. As long as they're going to continue to call hunting a sport, the other team should occasionally score a point too.