Way to go, Joe

I am finally commenting on the VP debates:

Finally, someone to stand up for the fathers of this country. Joe Biden, whom I did not realize was a single father for a while after having lost a wife and daughter, sticks up for being counted as a PARENT in his family's life.


Sorry, Sarah, you do not get the kudos for being the "working mother" and "having it all." So many of us have been there and done that. I would rather you say something about how your husband helps out. BUT, you have never said one thing about how your husband helps raise the kids. He's just out there snowmobiling and having fun. Maybe that's why your daughter is pregnant, because he was nowhere around the kids while you were working. Not good. Both parents have to do the parenting.


I'm sorry, but more men need to stand up and say, "I am part of my children's life and I am proud of it. I don't want the long hours at the office, and heck, I might stay home with them because having a PARENT at home is important to us, my wife and I, PARTNERS in this experiment we call our family. You should not look down on me for this choice that we think is best for our family and for me."


I am so proud of Joe Biden, raising his sons well in the face of tragedy and still managing to find time to serve his country. More info go here.

A Moment In Time

My youngest daughter will turn 1 very soon, in a couple of weeks in fact my son will stop telling everyone he meets that his little sister is zero. He will no doubt announce proudly to the world that she is one!

This morning she totters a couple of steps towards me and then drops into a lob-sided crawl zooming across the remaining distance. I lift her up and she snuggles into my arms. She is still only an armful, cosied in safe and sound. I breath in her baby smell which she still has. She giggles and smiles as I kiss her soft forehead on our way up the stairs. I pop her into her bed and pull her warm blanket in close around her face. She is warm and happy as she drifts off into her sweet slumber. No worries for now.

I know as I walk out and close the door that she is almost one year old and soon will not have the baby smell and will not be able to cuddle up in an armful. Soon she will be asking questions and running off to play. Not as soon but still soon she will take a backpack and run into a classroom excited to be at school. Still further away but still not that far away she will drive her beat up car back to school after her drivers test or her minivan full of sleeping children back home after a visit for Sunday dinner. She will always be my baby, my last little one. But it is only for this heartbeat in time that she is truly a baby and I will miss it when it is gone.

Environmental question....

This is going to be a bit indelicate, topic-wise, but it has crossed my mind a few times. I am wondering if anyone will read this and have an opinion.

There's lots of talk and studies and discussion for new parents about whether to use cloth or disposable diapers and how they affect the environment. It seems most discussions point to the fact that cloth is better for the environment because they are reusable and not filling the landfills (not to mention Diaper Genies which individually wrap each diaper in plastic to "keep the smell out.").

So, I wonder, why isn't there more discussion on cloth or reusable feminine hygiene products? Mainstream media certainly has not picked up on this.

"Ewww, ick." I know. It's difficult for me to fathom. I think older women, the generation before me, may remember belts holding things in place. So, I wonder what's out there in washable products.

Lo and behold, there's a whole bunch of things. This site states that women will "throw away 10,000-15,000 disposable pads or tampons in her life." Interesting.

So I found this site with pretty pads. I wonder though, if you risk a mess with these things. There's other products, too, but I won't go into it here. Because even me, I have an indelicate limit. But you can see what they are out there. You can continue to search this topic on your own.

But, I am saying I am surprised that with the diaper debate, this one also does not come up in the same breath. It seems similar to me. And I wonder if the waste produced by women's disposables could add up to more than what came from a baby. So, ladies, why aren't we hearing anything about those products and their benefits for the environment? It has just always made me wonder.

Color, Color Everywhere

The idea that your favorite color can determined your personality is maybe not so strange. After all, your personality would affect what colors appeal to you. Well, now a company called CareerBuilder.com will actually analyze your preferences and tell you about your personality and therefore which jobs are best for you.

So I did the free trial. It is kind of like those Starsign questionnaires that I used to do as a teenager to determine who was my perfect match. A Leo born into the Monkey year or a Sagittarian Dragon? Possibly the color career choices are more likely to be useful. So here is a bit of what the program determined about me.

Apparently I am a Creator. (A nice positive introduction.) My key words are:

Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

Does this sound like me? I think anyone who reads this blog would nod affirmative. My secondary key words are:

Independent, Self-Motivated, Reserved, Introspective, Analytical, and Curious

Again pretty spot on. Well, maybe there is something in all this, but I wonder, Wild, did you get a similar response? How many descriptive words would I think support some aspect of my personality? Still it was entertaining.

Brrr.....

In an economy where we all need to watch our money, it makes for strange habits here in the WC household.


We were freezing, and no one was really admitting it to anyone else. I checked the thermostat and it was reading 65 degrees F. I knew it was cold, but it seemed wrong to start up the heater. If we could just squeeze out one more day not having to use it. It was pretty warm at the beginning of September and we used the air conditioning a little the first couple of weeks. I was hoping we'd be temperate for a few more weeks and just let the sun heat us and the air cool us.

Mr. Wild finally said to me, with his sweatshirt zipped up to his chin, "Are you cold? Because I think we should turn the heat on."

"Yes, I'm cold and I'm so glad you said that."


"Were you going to wait until I said I was cold before you turned the heat on? Do I really have that much influence over you?"


"Well, I didn't want you to think I was a wimp. I just figured I'd wait for your go ahead. I didn't want to start up the heat before you thought it was time. I know how conscientious you are about the heat costs. But it is 65 in here today."

I think Mr. Wild thought I was silly. I don't know what I thought, except I thought I should be able to stand this cold a little more. Like it should be 60 in here before I cave. I want to save on natural gas and on money.

The cold air made me finally go into the basement, drag up all the covered plastic bins and pull out the winter clothes and put away the summer ones. My daughter was a good sport about trying on footie jammies her brother used to wear and his old turtlenecks. I am hoping she will now have more long sleeved clothes to send her to school in.

Ok, I have to admit, fall is finally here.

Post Party Blues

The party is over, the ice cream stand is closing and it is raining. I am having a serious case of post-party blues and post-summer blues today. All week I've been in denial that summer is really, really over. Yes school had started and the weather was cooler but the seasonal ice cream stand was still open, the plants in the garden were still growing and we had a couples night out with some of our favourite couples to look forward to. It was a fun night, the food was great, the craic was good and the new babysiters were brilliant! But now the party is over. The ice cream stand is closing today and the weather is dull and melancholic. I need to harvest the herbs in the garden, get out the winter clothes and stock up in supplies. Who knows when we will have a good reason to go out again and probably by Tuesday I won't even mind. But today I'm sad with the blues:(

The Challenge

I've run across this challenge twice now. It tries my patience, tests my mettle, and strains my confidence. I am always at a loss as to how to deal with it when it rears its ugly head.

It is the challenge of getting your child to eat school hot lunches.

"Why don't you just make them a lunch?" I hear you saying.

Do we really want to make a lunch five days a week, 32 weeks out of the year? I'd really rather not.

On the other hand, my husband is appalled when our children admit to throwing away most of their perfectly good hot lunch at school. "It's a waste of money," he says.

Foods that we thought our child once liked are suddenly horrible nasty things. With our son, he just refused to eat them. He didn't cry, or whine, he would just come home hungry and eat a huge snack. He did eat fewer foods in kindergarten than he does now in 3rd grade. It's hard for me to remember him in kindergarten, but I think he's eating a much larger variety of foods now.

As for our dear daughter, who started all day kindergarten, the hot lunch has become a HUGE issue. And I mean HUGE. We started off by assuming she'd like stuff she ate at home. One of these was taco meat. We assumed the meat for nachos, tacos, and walking tacos would be acceptable to her. She also likes corn chips, so we thought we'd be safe. No such luck. In addition, she doesn't like gravy. She can ask for no gravy, but apparently was not fast enough or loud enough to have the lunch ladies hear her. This progressed into a small crying fit after school one day. She started out by saying she missed me while she was at school and started to cry. I was taken aback, because I've been at work even when she was a baby. Her daddy has been at home for her. I couldn't imagine how being at school would make her miss me. But that's what she stated.

It turned out the hot lunch process was fast and intimidating to her. And if she didn't get her hot lunch sorted out how she wanted it, she would get upset and cry. One side of me felt sorry for her in this new situation. She would beg for her "own lunch" and broke down crying in my arms. The other part of me worried that if we catered to her "own lunch" whim, she would never learn the hot lunch process and get confidence in herself. Then was when I saw visions of packing lunches every stinking day and that frightened me.

I backed off a bit. Instead of saying that she would "try" a new food, I will put down that she is taking cold lunch. But, if it's a food that she really likes at home, I was not going to give in. Today was one of those days. It was French Toast Sticks with syrup. She loves breakfast for dinner and waffles and pancakes and syrup! How could we go wrong? But, it took a lot of prep time. Last night we went over the menu, twice, and described in exact detail what she could expect. Then, this morning, she started crying about missing me because she had to eat hot lunch, and I got her calm and had to build up her excitement and interest in lunch again.

Today, we have reached a milestone. She didn't miss Mom at all. The sticks were good, and the tri-tater was good, she left the ham on her plate (she loves ham, so I don't know what gives), she skipped the juice, and had the doughnut. Ok, not the best nutrition, but she felt a little better about the process.

Tomorrow is cheese pizza. Wish me luck.