Yes, breastfeeding is the best thing you can do for yourself and child (don't get mad at me, I'm not the expert - it's simple fact). Should mothers feel bad about not doing it? As long as they considered it, thought twice and then 3 times about it and hopefully tried it, then NO. Ok, unless you're a crack Ho and then I would just like to say, "STOP HAVING CHILDREN CRACK HO!" Crack Hos aside, we can't judge how someone's life should be lead. Breastfeeding is hard, painful, time-involved and many of us must work full-time and can't juggle it all no matter how hard we try. The women who do persevere and succeed for as long as they can should be applauded. Should we hide it, cover it up like a dirty secret in a shameful corner? Fuck no.

Need more?

and the piece I wrote for the local paper

The other day while running out of ideas and being incredibly, very usually tired, I let the brilliant 2 1/2- yr old child that dwells here, paint on the kitchen cupboards. You may be thinking, "OK, drink a little much?" or simply "What the fuck?" But, that's how I role. I don't care - with the 10-yr remodeling plan and that fact that I can't picture myself moving until I'm forced into a nursing home, I figured "what the hell." It's not hurting anything and she'll get to do something I begged my mother a hundred times over to do when I was little.

So we set about to paint, and did so a couple times. I did start with the intention of painting over it within an acceptable amount of time and now comes my quandary, or dilemma - if you will: How the hell can I bring myself to paint over something my darling daughter painted when she was an ankle-biter?! I'm not saying she's Van Gogh or Picasso, perhaps a Polluck. Like so many drawings hanging on a fridge - how can I cover this one? It's amazing the things I can attach a part of my heart to: itty-bitty shoes, a forgotten stuffed animal, a cute dress she only wore once, next it will be boogers (I think, think, I can control myself on that one).

I started by painting both childrens' names on each door and told her she could paint the wooden fake-door that is very common on the lower sink-section of cupboards (excuse the former owners' pink knobs - I have yet to replace these hideous throwbacks of 1992). Yeah, that's asking a blind man to stay in the lines on a coloring book. I guess we may just have to finish the lot of them this way, until they're torn down. Then I'll have the doors shadow-boxed, and then . . . I'll be buried with them.

Last night, while having a drink, or drink and a half, my cute friend with the alpha boobs gets hit on by a professor from our local university. He proceeded to ask many questions of us - mostly directed at her because she has smarty glasses and bangs and I already mentioned the alpha boobs. He asked me the same questions but in an obligatory way. While answering I knew we had many things in common: 2 kids, some cats, married. But the list kept going.

We are each others' same-same: a pairing of two people with near identical backgrounds. Our differences are what we can appreciate in each other and that which is the same, is what brings us close. Everyone should be so lucky as to find their own same-same.

So I get to the gym last night - whew! 2 days in a row. I pull up and notice the lights are on.

• Sidenote: This is a 24 hr gym and as you come and go your supposed to turn the lights on and off and I usually show up at 12:30am so no one else is there.

And, there is someone on my damn machine!! There is only one "good" elipticle with the arm thingys and such that doesn't creak and I've just become accustom to it and we rock it together while watching the Colbert Report on many a weekday night. The nerve! So, I grimace, turn the car around and head home to eat cereal and watch Dresden on tape because we don't get cable at my house.

So, shout-out to Stephen Colbert: Please, please, sweet man - with the cute ear that peaks out at me and winks - buy me cable and an elipticle machine so that I may go to sleep peacefully knowing that you are out there and your truthiness is keeping it - the world - real.

My 2-yr-old girl is standing on a mini chair at the kitchen counter. She proceeds to throw a fit because I poured the water into the juice and NOT the juice into the water. While doing so the chair flips out from under her and she lands on her little butt. She's more scared than anything. I scoop her up and hug her while she whimpers.
"See, that's karma. Karma means that when you're mean to Mama you get hurt."

I've been waiting and waiting for it to happen, like some say it does. Without warning, without trying, without angst, hard work, deprivation, sweat and tears. But, here I am, NOT being the person that can say, "Well, I don't know, it just melted off (like so many glistening chocolate bars)." OK, so it did happen once - but food poisoning, though effective, is not much fun.

So, enough with denial. I've started the exercise regimen - so far, at least every other day. The diet is the tricky part.

Here is where you come in:

Accountable to the millions (ha-I can pretend) that view these postings. Let's start small - 1 pants size perhaps, by my birthday (March 9) - and then after the cake, at least I'll have those bigger sizes on hand. I'll check in time to time with progress and hope the hubby and I can figure out how to put a little progress log in the margins of this page, til then . . .

When my two-year-old daughter learns (again) how to blow her nose and sprays my forehead with green boogers. Fun.

You know when you're waiting - as a tag team parent - for the other parent to get home from work so that you may go to work?

Well, when does, "There better have been an accident."
Turn to: "Oh god, I hope there wasn't an accident!?"

Usual gym synopsis taking place at 12:30 am

I was able to watch the Colbert Report last night while on the elipticle - it was awesome. Then I broke through that 3 min. wall, finished the rest of the 20 min., then freaked myself out seeing things in the big mirrors, window reflections, etc. Plus, 1 of the 2 bathroom doors were shut and I knew, just knew, there was a dead body in there but I couldn't bring myself to open it. So I left figuring "I'm never get that visual out of my head and besides, I don't have a cell phone to call the proper authorities but if I looked and left to find a phone then that would be suspicious, so I jumped in my car, all the while knowing someone was watching and would sneak up on me at any moment.
. . . So I'll just put down 45 min. of aerobic activity.

So I've asked Hubby to start saving - I want a Dyson for my birthday.

Why? because I am the crazy who, when broke, flips out about the ugliness, impracticality and just plain boringness of my kitchen garbage can. The cat would get in it - no bags would stay up - it stunk - visually unappealing. So in a moment of insanity, which usually happens at Target, I buy a hella-spendy garbage can - more expensive than one of my betrothed's former vehicles.

So, I want the Dyson DC 14 Animal. I originally thought that "Animal" was just a cute name. Though, after reading reviews and sites I feel assured that this means it specializes in the human animal and all the mess that it leaves in its wake. I'm somewhat convinced but with the few vacuums we have gone through I've been sorely disappointed within weeks. Two humans with longish hair, two kids who eat in the living room (not because they ever see the adult role models doing such things), 3 cats who shed and rip and track and shed and shed - All pretty tough standards for a lowly mechanized SUCKING machine to meet. Thus far, all that we've had do just that - SUCK - and not in the good, friendly, pass the smokes because have I got me a clean fucking carpet Baby! - Suck.

Once flat, could do 300 shallow sit-ups a day, 65 in a minute. It has been the only restraint for so much laughter in a good life. With each scar stretches memories. A scared rabbit at about 9. A hole of a rebellious young adult for accessorizing. It was that which I starved (on occassion) to my own perfection.

Now holds the tracks of it's most important productions. This first centimeter I felt sickness, this inch I felt flutters, punches and kicks and the next I felt, pains and questioned what it could hold. What it could endure. How far could it be pressed? More - perhaps not as much as a heart. And like a mind, it holds memories, carved deep into every fading wrinkle.

Last night, Hubby, took a friend to the movies (friend drove, hubby bought tickets, friend bought refreshments - oh the love!). While walking around the mall before the movie started Hubby took notice to a strange bit of something stuck on another guy's ass. The guy with the ass hanger-on was walking ahead with his alleged girl and what appeared to be one of their's mother.

So Hubby keeps staring - totally enraptured in this man's ass and whatever land-barnackle was attached to his pants. Man finally stops abruptly, turns around and says something along the lines of, "Stare a little harder," or "Do YOU mind!" The man thinks hubby is totally checking out his girl's ass. Hubby couldn't bring himself to say, "Actually I'm checking out yours."

The hubby calls me at work and asks, "Where's the carpet cleaner?"
"I duhno, maybe the bathroom. Why?"
"He just exploded again."
"Huh?"
"Plants, curdled milk - - - all over."
"What?! Plants?! How'd he get those."
"He was just over there munching on them and then got into her bowl and finished the milk."
"Where were you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Wait, you mean Cyrus don't you."

The Cat vs. the Baby: pukathon II
now in 3D

This child of ours is not so much baby anymore. Where once was a shakey grasp of a finger, held tight by reflex alone is now the twist of a door knob and out the door she goes. Or the chubby knubby knee that kicked in the air and bent to allow good toe grabs, now supports the multitude of frog jumps, and the dances of tantrums or elation. The little voice excited in ABCs, onced chirping out "byub-beyoo"s (W) and now full sentences of, "I opened my mouth and cried a lot." or "Mommy you are sooo pretty." This sweet babe now brushes her own hair, uses a potty by herself and coos to me when I am sad, now telling me, "I will kiss it; does that make you feel better?" This sweet little girl of mine.

So I wrote this really really excited post about the lovely shoes I ordered. I had tracked them through several cities - virtually that is - many arrival scans, departure scans and knew they would arrive today. I checked the door a dozen times and every time a child made a noise I would spring up like I heard reindeer on the roof.

Well, they came

(Sidetrack: you see, the reason I buy shoes is I'm always the same size, no sucking in, holding breath, posing just right so they look 1/2-way normal and I don't curse the lighting either. I like shoes, they are my steady, I know I can walk into the store and hold my head high as I make a B-line for that section not worrying what tiny little pixies and waifs are side-glancing at me.)

and, they do NOT fit, by a long ways. WTF! How can they not fit? I even revisited the site to see if they had a fitting scale (why not? it would save mucho trougle). Perhaps the countries in which they are made have tiny little-footed people that like to FEEL BIG so they put BIG sizes on little shoes. Ack! So sadly (though credit-cardly I feel good) I'm sending them back - no replacements asked.

Sniff, sniff - Wait!! This just means I get to look some more - ooo, I do like a good hunt.

This last week I wrote a column about breastfeeding. It is such a touchy topic. I've tried bringing it up to some and with surprising results. I'm not sure how some I've talked to are so weirded out by the simple act of nursing a child. I admit I'm not comfortable whipping out my DDs in public - but a few (even mothers themself), when broached about the subject, immediately blurt out "discretion" , "embarassment", and even "eww" without batting an eye. I hope that we can all come a little further and at least acknowledge that any apprehension on the subject is indeed our OWN problem - no matter where it stems from (society or upbringing). Perhaps we can then calm down a little and grow our tolerance for something that should be passed needing it.

Some people get trolls (or are they elfs) that make them shoes in the night, leaving the shiny leather, expertly stitched creations - just because. I get a freakin' troll that steals my baby's diaper in the middle of the night while he's sleeping next to me and then I wake up to a lovely fountain of wet warmth. Ahhh - doesn't everyone want a water feature in their bedroom?

The daughter has pegged me as the hard ass. I'm putting my 2 1/2 year old girl to bed - very very begrudgingly. She sobs, "I want paaapaaa to put me to bed." I tell her that he can't because he's busy working downstairs. She calms a bit, turns her your-killing-me face to a sad-puppy one, and says, "I will ask him."

Last night I bought these shoes (the last green pair) and these boots. The shoes were just too damn cute, too damn strange, and too damn green. I had to have them. Then I thought, "I can't buy something so silly and frivolous." I made up for that by buying the very practical - waterproof leather even - boots for our soggy South Dakota weather.

Then I tried to sleep and proceeded to have a minor anxiety attack that went something like this: WTF! Why did I buy those shoes? I'm not that punk. Where would I wear them? Will they be hip in 5 years (which is my usual - I have to wear them this long in order to spend this much - time frame)? I'll be a total poser. Will they go with these pants, maybe this dress, or this skirts, what shirt would I wear, ugh, I'd have to shave then . . .
My brilliant friend informed me that this is buyer's remorse. I started young. Example: When I was about 8. I'd saved all my money ($9) to buy the Blueberry girl of Strawberry Shortcake fame, I went home and smelled her weird sweet berry smell and then cried uncontrollably because I wasted all my money on a smelly doll.

Hopefully the shoes don't smell like blueberries, nah, like sweet sweet dead cow.

So, my lovely friend decides that it is time, after 28 years, to shovel some snow. She asks her husband, "So, do I need to bag it or just leave it in the yard?"

She may go another 28 years without ever shoveling. The girl is too busy being brilliant to have paid much mind to shoveling techniques.