My Precious Baby

Question: Who looks like a cross between a turnip ...




and Winston Churchill ...

while still managing to be astoundingly debonair ...

and remarkably dapper?

Answer: My Precious Baby.

Many of you heard it through the grapevine that we had a terrible accident on Friday.

All is well but here's what happened: I laid Simeon on my bed for ONE SECOND & turned to grab something off my dresser. In that brief moment, Gussie said "Hi baby," and pulled Simeon off the bed by his feet. Simeon landed right on his head on the hardwood floor.

I was beyond panicked & we rode to the hospital in the ambulance. A few minutes into the ride, I began to calm down as Simeon was acting like himself. However, when we arrived a CT scan showed a hairline fracture in his skull. We stayed overnight and most the next day for observation but Simeon never displayed signs of further injury. They released us the next day with instruction to visit the pediatrician for a check up in a few days.

We've been home now since Saturday night and I'm happy to report that Simeon is perfectly well. I'm still kicking myself and covering the house and children with bubble tape and throw rugs but that's sure to pass soon as well.

We've received lots of calls from friends and family in the past week & I just want to thank you all for your prayers and for your concern & assure you that the baby is just perfect. Keep praying though; we certainly need it!

Direct Sales R.S.V.P. II

A reprise to the original since one post is obviously not enough.

Why would anyone be CRAZY enough to go to Wal Mart to buy things like candles and kitchen supplies for super cheap prices when one could go buy the same products for 5 times the amount at a "friend's" weird living room "party?"

* * *

She said: "Just come. Don't feel like you have to buy anything."

I said: "But that would be a waste of my time as well as yours."

She said: "We'll have a demonstration. It will be fun."

I said: "But it's not fun for me to sit on your sofa feeling like our possible friendship hinges on whether I'll buy expensive crap I don't need out of that catalog your holding."

She said: Nothing really. She tried to laugh but it sounded more like choking.

***

Ok, I know I was mean but could somebody please tell all the poor moms who decide to do annoying direct sales to alleviate their poorness that their target audience should not be other poor moms.

Got it Amway? Target the West Chester women, Longerberger. Cause the girls in these here parts don't have dollars for your Mary Kay and your Avon. No matter how weird and guilty you make us feel. We don't have the cotton pickin' coppers.

So here's my plan. You invite me to your stupid party and I'll invite you to mine. I've decided to sell something completely ordinary and commonly found at the Dollar Store like lotion or candles or spatulas. Only I'll find mine at Aldi.

Turkey bacon! That's the ticket. At only $1.99 a pack, I'll buy a box and sell it directly to you in my living room for $12.99 a pack and then try to get you to work for me so you can sell your bacon for $14.99 a pack while giving me a generous cut of the revenue. You can then recruit new recruiters and then maybe we could expand our product line to include something really rad like ... paper! ... or meat thermometers! ... or baby bunting or ...

Or maybe we could just have the old fashioned kind of party where you just get together to be friends. Maybe drink a beer or have some coffee together. We could watch our kids laugh and play. No one will gain or lose anything in regard to their pocketbook or candle supply.

Yes, that sounds much better. The turkey's at the Aldi farm like that idea better too. They were starting to pace and sputter the way I really do when I get a "party" invite with: "I, uh don't know ... I'm uh ... trying to uh ... hmm ... ", saving all spicy gusto for the blog.

What Looks Like a Cross Between a Potato and a Little Old German Tourist While Still Managing to Be Ridiculously Good Looking and Insanely Handsome?

My Baby.

Selah Designs

My dear friend Talitha is a painter who has a way of capturing ordinary moments of life in their simplistic beauty.

She's now selling her work at Selah Designs.

Go there. Buy art. Hang it on your walls and your world will become a more beautiful place.

Connie

I told Connie she looked beautiful this morning and asked if I could put her photo on my Website.

She struck a pose.

Connie is telling her life story through patchwork. A square for each thought. Each, a special word. A day. A memory. She said it will be her gift to the world.

I wish I could remember her words exactly:

"Some squares will be dark as night; cruel and lonely; a child stumbling upon infinite sadness that nobody should ever know. Nobody. But the patch in the center is perfect. It is light blue and soft with an ocean of pearls. The one in the center is where I hide and is my greatest gift to you. It is an oasis."

I told her I'd like her to be the patch on my quilt for today. She liked that.

"Art is everywhere; don't you think?" I asked her.

"Absolutely, " she agreed as she sliced the air with her bouquet, "Art is everywhere."

The Art of Travel

You should have been there.

My first walk with all three kids.

It was hot. The street had new black top.

8 a.m. but I was sweating, pushing my glasses up and up my nose.

I had the older two in the double, pushing with one hand while supporting the baby in a stupid sling.

We made it to the post office and picked all the flowers out of it's display pot (well, Haven and Gussie did while I weighed and stamped and sent ONE letter).

Shuffling home, my load was so heavy. I was reminded of my amazing fertility. When did I, one person, become 4? The math is remarkable, like the loaves and the fish.

I waved away a look with a pasted serene smile, relaxing my shoulders. Acting like I was enjoying the breeze that wasn't blowing.

Almost home. Almost home. My flip flops got stuck in the blacktop so I left them.

When did two blocks become cross country? When did sending a letter become the morning adventure?

Here's when: The day my paycheck entailed a hearty nap with the lingering smell of baby powder. The day I earned the admiration of 3 small men who oddly think I hang the moon. The day I scooped up this art of complicated travel and decided it's the way I will go.

Speaking of travel, let me explain the photos:

Top: The Market: "You've got your hands full," they say.

Middle: We ditched the wooden tracks in favor of painter's tape. I recommend it highly.

Bottom: MY NEW (to me) MINI VAN.

Just purchased this week after my friend's husband heard my explanation that "it sounds like squirrels are fighting with silverware under my hood." He checked it out and told me to "drive home and stay there."

Thanks be to Jim. Because of him and because it was time, I now own a mini van.

I'm lots of things (including thrilled) but I'm no longer cool. But that's another story for another day and time. For now, let's drag race and spin donuts in the parking lot.

The bumper sticker search is on ...

McCain Don't Die

America's going to hell in a handbag.

I guess I sound negative but I'm so completely dumbfounded and disgusted by the latest turn of events in the presidential race that my fingers lack the happiness to type.

Plainly speaking: Palin.

Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a day in age when credentials qualified one for the job of next-in-line to the Oval Office rather than the vomit of one too many a political think-tank?

Oh no, that would not be sexy. Nope. Because we all know that the political science/ history professor at the local state commuter college is not as hot as the breast pumping Governor of Alaska.

Yikes. I'm sorry, I heard she actually breast fed in the office -- how crazy! How wholesome! How motherly (for 5 minutes).

Do I sound intolerant? Archaic? Crazy and wickedly medieval to not be happy with the so-called "conservative" woman picked to be McCain's running mate? Guilty. So tolerate me in my dissent and I'll tolerate you in your idiocy. Sounds fair.

If I sound ruffled it's only because I've been on a handful of "Catholic" sites where woman are rallying behind Palin. I can only gander they're cheerful for a handful of reasons:

1. Radical feminism is the norm in our culture and anyone who says 'boo' to it gets roasted at the stake. So even the girls who give up their BA's and MBA's for their babies feel obliged to do a constant "this works for me and not for you / and not for you but for me / and not for you but for me" song and dance until every last child is registered for Head Start.

2. They're plain stupid and buy the lie that someone can be a good mother even if they are not ever physically present; I'm sorry but I want my Governor or VP to be putting in at least a good 60 -- 80 hours a week -- heck if my podiatrist husband has to, shouldn't my flippin' politicians?!!

3. They like to see the glossy photo's of Mrs. Fancy Pants having her cake and eating it too when really she has no cake at all because it's sitting on the counter in her Alaskan chateau being iced by her housekeeper.

Got it, McCain?! So don't try to buy my vote with the "Mother" card. Mothers wipe noses and butts and pour juice and are there to hear how your day was the second you walk in and drop your book bag on the table. Sure there are some women who manage to do so while holding certain types of jobs -- like running part time hot dog stands or selling awful, evil direct sales products but the second a mom begins to rack up the hours away from her youngin's, she becomes less and less "mom" and more and more "(Fill in the blank)" and unless you're radically blessed with days comprised with more than the typically allotted 24 hours, I've got 4 words for you:

I Don't Buy It.

So that's the main reason I'm disgusted with Palin: A mother of 5 young children has no place taking such an active role in politics. period (like I said, tolerate me in my dissent, all you promoters of "tolerance.") The other two reasons are a bit more obvious: Inexperience and Alaska.

Inexperience: At 44, Palin's only been on the political scene for 8 years. She has more experience as a beauty queen than as a Governor and, heaven forbid, a Vice President and, heaven forbid, a President.

And Alaska: She's from Alaska. I know, technically, that's in America but come on? Don't they have caribou up there? Couldn't McCain have picked someone who's rubbed elbows a bit more with main stream America?

Politics Schmolitics Bo Bolitics. I'll still take McCain over Nobama but only because I have to.

Excuse me now while I sit on my porch and pen anthems to Ron Paul, dreaming of what could have been.

Photo courtesy of Cranky Dude