The bedtime routine

In an effort to keep us sane and set good sleep habits for the boy child we have begun a bedtime routine.  It seems to be working very well over all.  The last two nights he went down easily after the first 5 minutes of letting him fuss and tonight he was yawning as we started our ritual.  The biggest downside is that he wakes up far, far, far too early for my taste.

 

Part of the “get the boy to sleep and now” pattern is reading to him.  Each night it’s one of a few stories and J and I want to continue to add more.  Some nights I read to him as I feed him and others Jason will when he’s home.  The other night Jason decided he needed something a little less, well, normal and got out the Guide to the Camerilla then read it out loud to Little Guy.  Oddly enough Peanut seemed happy enough to listen to the monologue of Montrose as he spoke of Las Vegas and how he works hard to keep the Sabbat out.  Perhaps while I change him each morning I’ll start telling him about the different vampire clans. 

 

Of course I could always dig out the old copies of The Hobbit we have or Lord of the Rings.  Though I did realize that I failed as a geek mom and did not go to our local game shop and pick up his first fuzzy D20

Oh Hillary

Today Sen Clinton said

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing the idea of abandoning the race.”

Oh dear googleymoogley she did not just bring up RFK as a reason to stay in the race.  And that he was assassinated.  She did not just say that right after Sen Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor that will most likely kill him.    She did not imply that a black man with the name Obama will be shot did she?  I mean I’m really, pretty sure that’s not what she meant, but for the love of Pete that’s how it’s read.

Hillary, please.  Get out of the race.  Right now you’re so tired you think that was a good thing to say.  If you’re going to start babbling stuff that’s crazy start talking about how you wanted to grab a gun from one of the Secret Service agents and shoot Bill when you knew for sure Monica was going to be all over the news.

The great debate

Depending on the day you ask me I want to be a stay at home mother to Kyle until he’s in school at the very least.  I want to be the one who watches my son grow each day and be the one who he sees when he wakes from a nap.  Not being home with him takes a toll on him too I can tell that on Thursday’s when mommy is with him all day.

Why just yesterday he showed his glee with mommy by peeing through three outfits, once while he and mommy were napping and onto her shirt too, pooping three times, spitting up on her once and four times on himself and refusing to nap if she wasn’t holding him.  It’s the not wanting to nap in his crib that is the most telling to me, all during the week he naps just fine at my mom and dad’s but come Thursday he falls apart.

Ask me during a work day and I’ll say I want to be at home.  Ask me at 4 on a Thursday when he’s refused to nap or be alone for more than 10 seconds and I’ll beg you to take me to work but then come Friday morning I drop him off and I miss his little face all day long.

Jason and I are seeing about working to me doing just that, staying at home.  I don’t want to do it all through the next 18 years but during these first few it means a lot to both of us.  Of course depending on where I say that I get different reactions.

In an older copy of Time, the issue where they explored the 60’s, they were talking to a Feminist who said, in response to SHAM’s, “If we had free child care would we even be having this conversation.”  It seems that a good deal of people still miss the idea that some mom’s want to stay at home.  Free child care or not.  While a lot more mom’s could go to work if they choose if child care was ‘free’ (not really our taxes from our paychecks would pay for it.  Really people can’t really learn that free is never that.) not all of them stay home because they have to, they want too.  I have free child care, I want to stay home giving me more ‘free’ child care won’t help that.

Even my conservative heart is glad that the Gloria Steinhams of the world fought hard for women’s rights.  I am given a choice on where I work, I can get credit on my own, own my home, have bank accounts in just my name.  I don’t need a husband to pay the bills.  But I had thought that the whole point of all that fighting was to allow women the ability to choose their destinies.  Being a SHAM shouldn’t be seen as a failure of the women’s movement, unless she’s being forced to.  It should be seen as a victory.

Sen Ted Kennedy

I must admit other than his being a Senator from Massachusetts and the last Kennedy brother from “Camelot” alive, I know next to nothing about him.  Well that and he foolishly named his dog Splash.  Could he have chosen a worse possible name for a pet?  I’m sure he could have but other jokes would be in bad taste.

But I, like many others today, felt a pang of sadness at the news that he has a brain tumor.  I pray that he will recover, for his friends and family.

But I couldn’t help but think “What will the Dems do now with the last of the Great Kennedy Clan very ill.”  Oh surely there are other Kennedy’s who can carry the family banner but with Sen Ted Kennedy gone the last link to JFK and RFK.  Over and over again President Kennedy is held to a high spot of great people to be admired and Sen Kennedy bathed in that glow.  The Democratic party seems to really want to live in that past and to keep trying to get voters to as well.  A time when the President could diddle someone in the oval office and the press turned away.  A time when the President could take various drugs to look young and peppy and no one batted an eye.  Ah those good old days.

In complete sincerity, I hope that he obtains wonderful care and makes a speedy recovery.

Video games.

Kyle, as I’ve said, loves watching us play GHIII. I guess Holiday in Cambodia has a great beat for a two month old.  I suppose that the lights and sliding bar he can watch doesn’t hurt either.  He kicks his legs, smiles and makes noises that could be laughter but the laughter of a 80 year old asthmatic smoker.

I have no intention of nay saying him playing video games.  We’re a gaming family.  Jason and I loved to bowl on the Wii when I was hugely pregnant.  I watched with rapt attention when he played through Kingdom Hearts.  The Pooh board was a particular favorite.

Of course my family is reacting as if I’ve informed them that I want to teach Kyle how to cheat at cards.  I don’t care.  We want to balance those games with others and school work.  We can do them as a family, Wii has a good group of family friendly games.  Just so the kids can watch mommy and daddy get their butts kicked by Princess Toadstool.

Also, I’m looking forward to having a chance to beat someone for once.

The advertisment crunch

I visit a lot of websites.  Some daily others a few times a month.  Each is different with different people and topics and a different vibe.  Some I join for the lively debate or others the informational content.  One I go to through the day because I keep up with friends there who cheer each other through life.  The one thing they all have in common is the need for revenue.

There are those that charge a sub to pay the bills and keep ads off the site.  These are usually journaling type sites where you post to a journal and then can post to others.  Generally these are there for us to hang out, meet new people with common lives or goals.  We can lose weight together, get pregnant together, talk about our weddings and our daily lives.  Almost none of them are there to make money.

Then there are those that are attached to stores.  These boards are usually heavy on the content for the product being sold.  Like candle making on a candle making supply website.  Often the boards are just there to let people help each other out with their hobby/business.

But here are the ones that lose people but don’t care.  These boards are maintained by companies who use these boards to sell ads so that they can make money.  The money doesn’t come back to the posters who’s views are what generates the ad money and once they start with one small one then the blow up into bigger and more annoying ads.

Kaboose.com is about the worst I’ve seen yet.  They start off with a few banner ads.  Then they are all along the side and sometimes you get pop ups.  The ads are supposedly tailored to the link you are reading or the cookies on your computer but I’ve never really found that to be the case.  It’s almost always a mis mosh of things that people think you’ll like.  If I’m on a scrapbooking board I get ads for birthday party kits, mini vans and Disney vacations.  The reasoning is that all scrapbookers are SHAM’s who love mini vans, wear Mickey Mouse sweats and die over the chance to throw their 2.5 kids a blow out birthday bash.

Now the newest idea is to take a word, such as groceries, then link that word to an ad.  Isn’t that just lovely.  You’re making money off the fact I’m already visiting the site.  Now you get the added bonus of using my words to link to other ads so you can make even more money.  All the while all you’re doing is pissing me off to the point you make me want to leave your site.

The thing is that these companies don’t care.  There will always be someone else who’ll come along who won’t mind these things.  Who might not know that once the site didn’t have so many ads that your computer slowed down each time you opened a page.  The limits will continue to be pushed because the internet always has new people join.

Frankly I’d rather pay a fee to avoid being told I should buy Tide or Bounce and that I should have a Honda in my garage and how much happier my son would be with Grranimals clothes.  I don’t need to have almost all of my daily life be one large commercial and I’m starting to worry that I won’t be able to keep my son from these companies that scream to his mommy about how much easier life would be if she only bought Glade!

Oh, one last thing.  I notice once the ads start the moderation ramps up.  As if these brain dead troglodytes miss the whole point that they were able to get the price and the advertiser based on the amount of people who log in and view each day and that those people were coming for the train wreak threads.  No, they want to make everything happy and clean so that Huggies won’t be advertised along side a thread with a topic with boob or period or I hate *insert public person’s name*!  Well maybe not the period thing.  Then they could sell me Always.

The Democratic Nomination

I like politics. Well, most of the time anyway. I enjoy reading stories about what’s going on in Washington as well as my own state and city. I like watching election returns, I like watching the process. I can’t really give a solid answer as to why I do. Sometimes it’s the thrill of the deal. Other’s it’s seeing how we still have power in our own goverment.

Sometimes it’s makes me mad, sometimes it makes me sad. Others it makes me happy to see that as flawed as it is, it really will work most of the time. Our founding father’s gave us a good structure to govern.

The Democratic primary has made me scratch my head then get bored then scratch my head again a few times. Mostly because I don’t understand why on earth they are allowing their own candidates to pound each other senseless while the Republican candidate is just going around to places that normally Presidential candidates aren’t able to go because they have to focus on the big states.  Sen. McCain is just out there and every so often one of the Democratic candidates remembers him and says something but then they turn to each other with veiled remarks and jabs.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Pres. Bush should have lost in 04. There was just no way he should have won a second term but the Republicans didn’t do it. The Democrats beat themselves between Sen Kerry not really defining himself until far too late to Mrs Heinz-Kerry not being able to keep her comments a little more campaign friendly.   I’m afraid they are going to be doing it again this year after watching them feed on each other for a year.

Donate

This week there is no charge to sign up to be a bone marrow donor.  Sadly I won’t qualify but you might or you might know someone who will.  So please, go sign up.  Read the FAQ’s and do it if you can.

http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/index.html

To Kyle on our first Mother’s Day

You woke up this morning a little grumpy and looking like you wanted to cry but you ate your breakfast and let me get you dressed without you getting mad at me.  In fact you watched some Spongebob happily so mommy could get her hair dried without trying to juggle you or the blow dryer.  You even let daddy get you in your car seat without a struggle.

 

You slept through most of church which is a goal your daddy and I have strived for since you were born.  You were so sweet in Grammie’s arms at brunch and in grandma’s arms at her house.  And the card you picked out couldn’t have been more perfect for us. 

 

When we finally got home you were so tuckered out you let all of us nap for 3 hours.  That was almost the best Mother’s Day gift you could have given me. 

 

The best present?  Giving me a first Mother’s Day.  Today means more to me than being told how wonderful it is to be a mother.  To me it’s that I am a mother and I’m a mother to a son who is so sweet and wonderful it makes my heart hurt.  Because of you for the first time in 4 years I didn’t want to hide from the world.  I didn’t want to find a place to be by myself and cry in.  I got to be a mother on Mother’s day and to be there could be nothing more precious.

Another month

A total of two months has come and gone now since he’s been born. In the last few days I’ve seen babies that are brand new, just weeks old and I realize how far he’s come. This morning I discovered that he’s out grown his first new born outfit. Granted it was a smallish one to start with but the first outfit to be packed away is here. I’ll keep this one, after labeling it so when I get old and misty eyed I know why I saved that one.

Now he’s babbling more often and smiling when you tickle his feet, his laugh won’t be far behind. And even though I don’t do it often, I can now get a few moments to shower or eat while he watches Dora or The Wiggles. We aren’t sleeping through the night yet but we can get to almost 5 hours now. When he sees his mommy or daddy or hears our voices he smiles in anticipation of cuddle time.

Car rides to settle him are fewer and far between, he’s fallen asleep on his own in his bassinet. I’ve taken to calling him wiggle worm because he can now scoot across a bed or a crib in his sleep. Jason reports that he’s gone to pick him up two times to find he’d rolled over.

But most of all he’s becoming Kyle. Not just a little lump of pooping drooling baby.