Happy Dad's Day

This is the second year that my little 4 year old has a daddy to give her church sponsored father's day project to. How wonderful that is.

This year it was a candy necklace. She had a really hard time handing it over. :) My favorite little lolipopoholic did it anyway. When you think about it, that's an amazing sacrifice from a four-year-old. Don't you think?

My dad is one of the most intelligent people I know, but he's not very phone-verbal. I wish I could spend Father's day with him in person, but calling is what we're limited to at this point, as we reside in separate states. So I'll call him and make him a little embarrassed, and then when I see him in a couple of weeks for our family reuninion, I'll consent to go rock climbing with him... that's MY ultimate sacrifice, in monument to the hefty sacrifices he has made for us. Too many to list. Too many to repay. Hours of commutes, hours of overtime with only a couple of weeks of vacation, hours of careful teaching and long philosphical conversations at 2 am the night before he has to get up to teach seminary in the early morning...

And everything else. I love my dad. I'm so grateful for him.

Happy Father's Day.

new names and my woeful tale

So my husband wants me to give our family fake names so that nobody can identify us in this world-wide-web community. Which is understandable. Thus,I have renamed him Luke Skywalker because his 70's honda motorcycle reminds me of the speeder Luke flies around in the original version of Episode III. My daughter will be lolipoloholic because of our sugar-war, and my baby will be Jaws, which I think is self-explanatory. I will remain nosurfgirl.

I have to get a root canal today. (Imagine that in a plantive whine.) OK, I know I'm a wimp. And I just had a baby naturally. So I should be able to handle this. But there's something so much more scary about pain that invovles sharp implements and a tender area of one's mouth.

Sorry if that's TMI. If you want, if it will make you feel better, post any grody dental stories as comments on this post.

Anyway, Jaws just had a major diaper explosion that will definitely invovle spray'n'wash and lolipopoholic has yet to assume clean panties.

How am I going to manage life as an invalid for the next two days? OK, I did it for two weeks after Jaws was born. But I had my mother there. And Skywalker has taken care of me for four weeks already... I feel so bad trying his patience further this weekend. Not that he woudl be anything but patient... that's skywalker for you.

Which just makes me feel a little guiltier. Oh well.

I will floss religiously for the rest of my life, this much I have learned.

What to do?

I had something really devastating happen to me a few years ago, and it got a lot of media. It was not a pleasant experience. I spent several months having to avoid cameras and potential interviewers and random people calling me and sending me unwanted mail asking me to do their news shows, etc.

I did one news show, because they marketed it to me as an opportunity to raise awareness of the issue surrounding my unhappy experience, namely pornography and its tie to emotional abuse in a marriage relationship.

I lived to regret it, because they sold their footage to all of the local news stations, who used it, when the next major event in the court case surrounding my situation occurred.

I've had people from the Montel Williams show continue pursuing me over the past few years. I've hemmed and hawed with them... They have also painted it as an opportunity to raise awareness, about adversity and making it through adversity, and about pornography/emotional abuse, and what a woman should do in the situation I was in, etc. I want to raise awareness, and I think that this may be a unique experience. But you know? One burned, twice shy or whatever the correct cliche is.

This lady has called me again. She has switched over to another show, a new one, by some young psychologist guy who was made famous by Oprah. And again, I'm hemming and hawing.

I want to raise awareness. I think it would be a wonderful opportunity to express how my testimony of the Gospel and my faith has gotten me through a difficult time. Also a wonderful time to speak out against pornography to an audience who perhaps thinks of it as innocuous.

But what if they twist it? What if they make it into something sensationalized and trashy?

Or what if my ex husband is hurt by it, even though I have asked for no pictures of him to be shown and for his last name to be withheld?

Should I do it?

Skywalker's new Job

OK, he got a job offer and accepted it. Yay!!! We're so excited. But I'm also incredibly nervous. This means I no longer have starving student excuses. I have to try to prepare healthy meals and keep my home in order, and not half-neglect my kids. Which is wonderful!! I love that I have so much time with my kids... but.

This is it. I'm now a full-time mom. And for some reason, that's a little scary for me. I know it won't change ME. I'll still be fun and intelligent and capable. But will the world view me differently because I don't have a full-time job?

Probably. But it's time to start not caring about that stuff.

And oh, I am so excited to have my kids all to myself all day. Really, really.

Picky Eaters

My family is vegetarian. I'll say that up front. So we don't eat meat. Which doesn't mean we don't eat junk food--- there is plenty of vegetarian junk-food out there. Twinkies, for example.

Anyway, We're trying hard to be healthy, frugal eaters now that we're no longer students... so I've been trying out new recipies using whole grains, putting lots of veggies into what we eat, buying the organic stuff, etc.

My daughter loves peanut butter. She loves nuts. She loves salty snacks. Anything with jelly, jam, or honey, she will eat.
BUt she will not eat vegetables!!! I'm trying hard to be a good balance of firm but not overbearing... but where do you draw the line? I also want to teach my kids that we don't waste food. So I have her sit there until she finishes, or serve her what she didn't eat at the next meal, etc. And she's starting to get it and just down the stuff she doesn't like so she can move on to a new meal with stuff she possibly does like.

But every once in a while (like today) the power struggle takes on an epic nature. So she has been at the table an hour, refusing to eat dinner from last night (a grain dish with carrots and cauliflower in it, which I think tastes good but she thinks is the very devil, of course.) So I let her down from the table. But I can just sense today will be one of those days... she's going to refuse it at lunch, and maybe even go until dinner before she eats it.

Am I being too harsh? Some would say yes. But I really do believe that removing the junk food preference from one's diet takes a while... and it's only every once in a while that she has these days... mostly she's pretty OK with eating whatever and going on to what's new. So maybe she's just testing me. So I should be firm right?

Sigh.

Uber-Lactation

I don't know why, but recently my baby has not been able to keep up with me. Milk-wise, I mean. If you've ever breastfed an infant, you know what sort of logistical problem this presents. I almost feel like I ought to confine myself in my house, away from all decent society that may be embarrassed by evidence of lactation. You know. As we all know, anything having to do with the actual breast is taboo in public.

But then, is it really fair to confine us lactators to our teeny dark basement apartments? Shouldn't the dedication invovled in breastfeeding and mothering the next generation be rewarded by admiration and interest in the ongoing lactation issues that we, the lactators, are so beset with? I would think so.

The other day I had to emergency breast feed my daughter in public. I had at least half of my grocery list left, and baby was not taking pacifier for an answer. So, I sat down at a display of plastic patio furniture and just fed her right there. I got a few wierd looks. Mostly from the young, un-married sector. Ah well, who cares what they think anyway. They're still under the impression that leg-shaving and hair-blowdrying is necessary... who would want to live under that kind of social pressure? I'm sooooo glad that I'm no longer single. I was a single parent for a while, and that was the hardest place to be: lactating, with the additional social expectation of immaculate appearance.

I am so grateful for Skywalker. And for my two daughters. Being a mom of babies is my dream come true. I feel grateful that it came true for me... I know that some have not had the blessing of children. I don't know why I have been blessed... but lactation is a small price to pay for it.

electronics geeks

So last night, my husband and I went and did a tinfoil dinner with our brothers and sisters at a nearby park. It was very nice. I like tinfoil dinners better as a vegetarian.

Skywalker brought his little gas-flame lighter to light the campfire. It was well used, and by the time we brought all of our stuff back home, it no longer worked. Skywalker likes his little gadgets, and so I thought he'd be sad. He examined it and said the gas was all used up, but it was no big deal because he could just get another one from the dollar store.

And then he said that he's been waiting for it to break, anyway, because he wanted to take it apart and play with the electric sparking mechanism inside.

Girls, beware of electronics geeks. Don't let them around your electronic gadgets. They may just find a reason why to take them apart.

Anyway, when I asked him why he was interested in playing with something that produces electric sparks, he got an absolutely evil look on his face and said, "need you ask?"

This from the man who shoots broccoli rubber bands at people. And if you eat broccoli on a regular basis, you understand why this is significantly evil.

Well, he messed around with his toy and accidentally fixed it. That tends to happen to Skywalker a lot--- he accidentally figures out how to fix things.

So now it works. So he can't have the electric shock thingy after all. Ha hahahahaha.. Too bad for him.

I think I'm going to buy some broccoli today.