word vomit… no wait a minute actual vomit

somehow this feels like an appropriate subject for my first post in a while. its been that crazy student time of year…maybe you understand? (and by you I mean you Anna(s))

so yeah carsickness has been a big problem in our happy little family lately. like every couple of days jo has been tossin it in the car and for some reason I HAVE NOT YET GOTTEN IT THROUGH MY THICK SKULL THAT I NEED TO CARRY AROUND A CHANGE OF CLOTHES so i have done an emergency Goodwill run holding a baby in nothing but a diaper and maybe a blanket about 5 times in the last 2 months. finally yesterday, i made up a little puke kit to keep in the car consisting of…

-rags

-paper towels

- baby wipes

-a plastic bag full of plastic bags

-change of clothes

-hand sanitizer

(if you dont have/use a car i would imagine these are generally smart things to carry around in a diaper bag when you are out with a baby…how come jo is nearly 18 months and i am just figuring this out??)

so yesterday i packed all this stuff up and was feeling very smug when drove to town to get jo…until i realized that the sippy cup i had tossed on top of the whole bag had spilled and soaked all the extra clothes. womp womp. is that funny? i dont think thats funny. there is something about parenting that totally screws up your funny o meter… i think its the inherent sleep deprivation…

but its summer time! the semester was a big push but its DONE and i am scraping together employment for the summer but for now i am taking a minute to relax, clean the house, maybe do some gardening (because its may and what is growing in the garden? dandelions….). last night i made kale salad for the first time (little slow on the food trends?) and tonight i am making black bean soup and orange bunt cake with dark chocolate to honor her mother Susan who died seven years ago this weekend. mothers day man. i will enjoy some yummy brunch on sunday but i honestly think this holiday causes a lot more pain for those who have lost their mothers (or for some birth moms or people estranged from their mothers… the list could be long) than it does good (of course i am none of those and am only speculating… which perhaps i shouldnt be doing…)

and thats a crying baby. later days.

 

EDIT more on mothers day

Remembering How To Grieve

sometimes ya just gotta

…drop your way cool mangled essay thoughts on placing children at the center of principals of universal design to create urban spaces that acknowledge the full citizenship of younger human beings what am i even talking about homeless youth in Toronto? AND JUST ANSWER THE MEH PROMPT YOUR PROFESSOR WROTE because sometimes its more important to get it done than write your manifesto. I hear there might be time for that this summer? I don’t know what that is. 

 

A thing I do know is I have three weeks of class left?! 

A thing I do know is that Jolene wore pants with GIANT pockets to daycare today and filled them with sand and her teacher didn’t notice until she went to change her diaper and the sand poured out EVERYWHERE

Another thing I do know is that I am having a hard time focusing. I know that is the season, but I just want to lie in the sun all day and take Bean to the beach and go hiking maybe? 

Another thing I do know is that this is the funniest blog I have seen in a long time (he was just on Good Morning America? Am I late or actually living under a rock) and this is really interesting.  

Another thing is that CLPP Conference is this weekend!!! This mumma is pumped. 

Another thing is that I am building up my summer hobbit feet. Its getting real real. 

 

 

 

feels so good to get GOOD NEWS

the five best photos i took in march (of jolene, obvi)

two things i have not been doing this month… blogging and taking photographs. i had this brilliant idea to buy some film and dust off my oldmm manual camera and take pictures during spring break…. nope didn’t do that. i took a couple on my parents canon rebel… i like a few of them…

yeah and most of these pictures were taken during the same two days (is this a link am i writing a link??) 

this last one is in celebration of weaning! freedom!! cow juice!! 

some food for thought

(and no its not roast beef chopped up really fine and mixed with ricotta cheese, which Jo GOBBLED down at daycare today…. um ew)

I don’t have a whole lot new or interesting to contribute to the this week of SCOTUS madness, but someone posted this here link on FB today and its got me thinking about our emphasis on marriage as the “ the most important relation in life” in the fight against the crazy “family values” agenda ( “ that includes abstinence-only sex education, stringent divorce laws, coercive marriage promotion policies directed toward women on welfare, and attacks on reproductive freedom”). Let me be clear…I think everyone should be able to get married, but married families are not more important that unmarried families….

(below is directly quoted from BeyondMarriage.org…)

Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. A majority of people – whatever their sexual and gender identities – do not live in traditional nuclear families. They stand to gain from alternative forms of household recognition beyond one-size-fits-all marriage. For example:

·     Single parent households

·     Senior citizens living together and serving as each other’s caregivers (think Golden Girls)

·     Blended and extended families

·     Children being raised in multiple households or by unmarried parents

·     Adult children living with and caring for their parents

·     Senior citizens who are the primary caregivers to their grandchildren or other relatives

·     Close friends or siblings living in non-conjugal relationships and serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers

·     Households in which there is more than one conjugal partner

·     Care-giving relationships that provide support to those living with extended illness such as HIV/AIDS.

okay also this is hilarious…

Keagen: Mr. Cooper, could I just understand your argument. In reading the briefs, it seems as though your principal argument is that same-sex and opposite — opposite-sex couples are not similarly situated because opposite-sex couples can procreate, same-sex couples cannot, and the State’s principal interest in marriage is in regulating procreation. Is that basically correct?

Cooper: I — Your Honor, that’s the essential thrust of our — our position, yes

break out the turtlenecks

(hey i wrote this yesterday! i thought i posted it!)

 

baby-free staycation/ weaning extravaganza 2013 is drawing to a close. it has been an insanely relaxing weekend at the tail end of a very relaxing (and even somewhat productive) spring break. there has been sleeping until 8:30 (!!!) lying around, sushi, watching cable, a beer shower, yoga, and yeah, putting cold cabbage leaves on my breasts… which was soo cold!! but definately helped with the swelling, there is a lot of that going on. ow.  emotionally, i am feeling pretty great, only a little weepy  and really missing my babe (okay i did watch a slide show of every picture of jolene that i possess) but very happy and at peace with stopping nursing. okay. ecstatic. it has been wonderful but it was really time. mamababy reunion is happening in the next 15 minutes when yaya comes and gets me and we all go to the art museum!

feeling very privileged and thankful to have had this nugget of time to myself, for my own mum taking j for the weekend, for this whole week of no work/school outside the home… vacation isn’t something everyone gets, so i’m feeling very grateful today. plus i get to see my baby! and its going to be 50 on wednesday!

look what my baby can do!!!!!!

CLPP 2013

HAVE YOU REGISTERED YET??

shaming teen parents

sweet! someone is doing something about the disgusting teen pregnancy “prevention” campaign in NYC! the New York Coalition for Reproductive Justice has launched a counter campaign called “No Stigma! No Shame!” and is calling for all of the ads to be removed, an apology from the New York City Human Resource Administration AND best of all for a “Creation of a Teen Parent Council within HRA, composed of teen parents and their advocates, to approve any future messaging around teen pregnancy prevention.” it is time that the voices of teen parents and the children of teen parents are heard in the national conversation on teen pregnancy and supporting young parents… who else really would you ask? i just did a lot of linking around and found Pushback, a sweet blog run by Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy about actual lived experiences of young parents.

oh the things you can do when you’re zero exams, zero papers and just one class period away from spring break!!!