Well, that's tons of fun....

Just realized that my choices for the House race in my district are Boehner and this guy.  Talk about NOT being excited to vote.

I especially loved the "defense of dead baby pictures" statement from the wife of the guy he's endorsing.....maybe your kid is so blindly believing that she'll accept "people who hate Jesus hurt babies" as an answer; my six-year-old is much more inquisitive than that.

And those "big words" .....I'm a practicing Mormon, devout in my belief in God, but I still wouldn't insult my child's right to building a framework for understanding her world by saying that God magically puts a baby in mom's tummy.  She knows that we're made up of tiny pieces that we can't see called cells, and that they have stuff in them called DNA and that it takes DNA from two people to make a new baby person.

I imagine that my undertaking to explain  God as a grand architect rather than as some imaginary magical fairy-being will help her maintain an adult faith while living in a disbelieving world.

But maybe that's just me.

Free the children!

Today after I dropped J off and was on the way to my class, I saw a mom with one of those kid leashes that she had attached to her probably-if-I-had-to-guess four-year-old.

This wasn't a small child, or a crowded public place, or one woman with multiple kids.  Mom and four-year-old.  On a leash.

You know, the way you do with a disobedient dog.

I'm all for safety, and I'm all for attachment parenting.....we did a variety of co-sleeping and I used slings to carry both my kids around.

I'm also all for teaching children to listen to you, behave appropriately, and develop a sense of accountability and consequences for their own actions.

Leashes for kids undermine all of those things.....if they're tied to you a kid doesn't have any motivation to listen, they don't learn to behave but rather are physically restrained, and have no consequences for running away because, well, they can't do it.
I'm working toward our DOG being an off-leash entity even in public.  I don't know why it would be a good idea to not treat my CHILD with at least the same autonomy and respect.

Let's free the leashed children!!!

I need a nap

Over the last four days or so I've done some things I'm proud of.

I made Bee a layered ruffle skirt using things we had laying around the house (hooray for hand-me-down fabric collections!) - she had outgrown all her church dresses and we had no budget for new ones.  The modesty police were on her for not-near-enough-the-knee-for-Primary skirt lengths.  I think it's ridiculous for them to criticize her, but I'm too tired to fight that battle so I made a cute pink slashed skirt.  That hits below her 6-year-old knees.

This weekend the kids and I made "smoothie popsicles".  My aunt gave me some old rubbermaid popsicle molds and we do layer yogurt popsicles.  My kids love them....they're yogurt on the bottom, strawberry puree in the middle, blackberry puree with soy milk on top.  The different densities stay separate, and this means when they come out of the mold they're white on top, pink in the middle, and dark purple/magenta on bottom.  And they have very little added sugar - just fruit.  Always a good thing!

We camped out at Gran's and I caved and let Mollie sleep in the tent so that the (nearer than I've ever heard them at Gran's) coyotes wouldn't get her.....I was proud for being selfless.  I love my dog, a lot.  But not so much that I enjoy sleeping with her.

Yesterday I healed two vomiting children.  Ben cleaned the car seats, thank heaven.

Last night I got 6 pairs of pants and 4 button-down shirts on clearance at the thrift store for $15.  Hooray for not breaking the clothing budget while keeping my ever-growing offspring in pants that cover their ankles!

Today I overcame a pee emergency.  No big deal, right?  Kids pee, it happens.  Well today it was all about timing.  At 10:50 J decided it would be funny to pee on me out of spite when I left him at the childcare center.  My class starts at 11:15.  I ran to the university bookstore, found a parking spot, found a polo on clearance, found ANOTHER spot near my building and parked the car, changed shirts in the parking lot and made it to class with 3 minutes to spare.

And just now, about 6 minutes ago, I sent two complete chapter drafts off for review.

I'm so ready to fall into bed, I'm glad that this isn't what my life looks like all the time.  Or maybe it does and I only realize it on days that I feel like this...