Where Did I Go Right?

Yesterday, after way too many days in a row at home, I decided the kids and I needed to get out of the house without the huz. Having all four family members up in each other’s grills since before Christmas was giving everyone a bad case of cabin fever.So newly acquired toys and other shiny new distractions be damned, I gathered up the kids and off we went to the library. After accruing $12 in overdue fines last time, I’d learned my lesson and was intent on getting everything back by the due date. I mean TWELVE BUCKS! Do you know what I could have bought with twelve dollars? Okay. Not much. But still…you feel really stupid when you have to write the freaking library a twelve dollar check.

When we arrived at the library and exited the car, I noted a big plastic KFC bag filled with assorted fast food garbage spilling out of it and some other stray garbage from McDonalds littering the empty parking space next to us.

As I was getting P out of his carseat, I remarked to my daughter something along the lines of “God…people can be such pigs. Why can’t they just throw their junk in a trash can somewhere?”

I proceeded to get my books out of the car when my daughter said something that floored me:

“Mommy, I know this isn’t my stuff but I’m going to pick it all up and throw it away”

Holyshizzle!!!! I was so proud of her I could have cried. I mean this is a child who completely grosses out when I have her empty the bathroom trash can. She is repulsed by anything like that and yet she opts to pick up this nasty, disgusting fast food garbage that some douche left in a parking lot.

So we both pick pick up the trash which, I might add, is covered with ants. Both of her hands are full I’ve got trash in one hand and I’m holding P’s hand with the other while carrying about 10 lbs of books in bag on my shoulder. We gingerly carry it all to the trash can by the entrance to the library and dispose of it. Then we make a mad dash for the bathroom and wash our hands with LOTS of soap.

I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal but to me? This is evidence that I’ve done something right. Yay me! Yay her!

And TQ, darling? Just so you know how proud you’ve made me with your good deed — I’ve almost completely forgotten that you fibbed to me again the other day or that you had to have a time out at the park for being a turd to your friends. Love you, baby. Rock on with your good bad self :)

Home for the Holidays

Well, it’s Christmas eve and I’m completely done with everything I needed to do. All the presents are wrapped, cookies baked, scooters and trikes assembled and not a damn thing planned for tomorrow.

We usually travel the weekend before Christmas to see my sister-in-law’s family and all my husband’s siblings come and it’s a big, hectic gathering where I generally spend the whole 2-3 days chasing my toddler around and making sure he doesn’t fall in the unsecured pool or break something or many things. Oh, and listening to my daughter complain that her cousin (2 yrs older) won’t play with her, which always pisses me off because it’s so rude and bratty of him. Not exactly my definition of fun but we still do it just about every year.

This year, however, we didn’t do it because our only car (since the vacation fiasco of early December that resulted in the untimely death of my momvan) is a Camry and it’s just not conducive to family trips. We don’t travel light and at Christmas time we have presents and stuff to bring with us. Ugh… So we bailed this year.

And we usually spend Christmas day at my in-laws house which is always preceded by a fashion tantrum from me because I don’t want to wear the same thing I wore last year or at Thanksgiving the month before but I can’t dress down because they all dress so nice and I don’t want to be the shlub.

So I hem and haw and curse my lack of non-casual clothing and I curse the fact that I’m 15 lbs heavier than I was before I had kids and had to give away all my nice clothes and then I throw together something Christmas-y that I hate and we show up late.

Then I spend the whole time making sure my son doesn’t wreck the place or injure himself and I spend the entire meal trying to coax him to eat something instead of doing what he normally does when left to his own devices which is really messy and pretty unsavory for those who aren’t accustomed to his antics.

Good times, indeed. But alas, we will not be having those good times this year as my mother-in-law has decided to go out of state for Christmas.

Which means? We get to open presents and then lounge around the house all day. No fashion crises, no toddler-wrangling, no small talk, no formal dinner. In fact, I think we’re just going to order out tomorrow evening and not even attempt cooking a meal, which is good seeing as I don’t actually HAVE the stuff required for a holiday dinner.

Either way, it’s going to be our first no-commitment Christmas in thirteen years. Can you feel me exhaling a huge sigh of relief (and joy)?

So I went to the mall today because I’m a masochist and I had a yen for some real pain and suffering. I just had a couple last minute things I needed to get which I think is pretty impressive considering I haven’t had a car at my disposal for two weeks now.

Did you know that if you try to buy one of those moisture-wicking, stretchy running shirts for a man, on Christmas eve, that the only sizes left in every single store will be XXL and XXXL? That’s great if your guy wears one of those sizes. If he wears a medium? You’re shit out of luck.

Also, I had a mall-bangs sighting. At the mall. Ha ha! but seriously, who does that anymore? WHO?

Okay, time to try and go to sleep. I’m notorious for being tired and cranky on Christmas morning.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas. May your day have no family arguments, hurt feelings, obnoxious in-laws or weird gifts – like the chocolate fountain we got last year.

I was all for it until my BFF told me you had to add oil to the chocolate to make it flow, which totally grossed me out. But I know, ultimately, that I’m much better off not having oily chocolate in my life.

I’ve tried to think of someone who might like it so I could regift it to them but I seriously don’t know a single person who would welcome an oily chocolate fountain into their home. It might be time to rejoin that freakshow known as Freecycle.

Enjoy your Christmas :)

The Day I Killed My Cool

First let me confess that I sometimes listen to Radio Disney. I know, I know. I can feel your disdain from way over here.

But see I have a really, really good excuse for having Radio Disney programmed into the car stereo (well, actually my husband’s car stereo since I DON’T HAVE A CAR ANYMORE).

My daughter. She’s seven. She likes a couple Hannah Montana songs and well, they play the holy hell out of them on that station so she will usually ask me to put it on because there’s a 97.4% chance that she will hear one or both of those songs in the 7 minutes it takes us to get home from school.

Sometimes when she’s not in the car I forget to change the station and uh…I just listen to it. Yeah. And sometimes I even hear songs I like a little. Oh okay fine — a lot. There are a few songs I like a lot and if I’m alone in the car, I’ll turn them up really loud and dork out hard.

So the other day I have to stop and get gas and I’m listening to this song that I really like and I turn up the stereo so I can hear it while I’m filling up.

While I’m pumping my gas, the place starts blowing up and suddenly there are people all around me also getting gas but you know, it’s all good. I’m bobbing my head to the music, having a swell time.

And then the song ends. *insert loud needle scratch sound effect here*

Immediately I hear, as does everyone else at the gas station, the DJ saying “You’re listening to RADIOOOOOO DISNEYYYYYYYY!

Trust me, there’s NO way the all the yuppie hipsters around me didn’t catch that I, a grown woman, was ROCKING OUT to Radio Effing Disney.

I know it probably doesn’t compare to the time you walked through a nice restaurant with your skirt tucked into your hose but still… Really embarrassing. I could literally FEEL whatever shred of coolness I may have possessed shrivel up and die right there on the spot.

If there’s a lesson to be learned here, I guess it’s to hurry and pump your gas before the song ends. Or use an iPod.

Here it is… The song that I killed my cool over. I can’t help myself. It’s just so catchy. *hangs head in shame*

It’s For Your Own Good?

In New Jersey, children who attend preschool or daycare will soon be required to have annual flu vaccinations (most of which DO contain mercury), despite protests from many parents who don’t think the government should be able to tell them what substances, toxic or otherwise, they must inject into their children.

Of course, I find this reprehensible because while it is in the public interest for all people to be vaccinated and I did choose to have my kids receive the normal childhood vaccines, having the government tell you can’t refuse something you feel could be irreversibly dangerous to your child is actually pretty scary.

I wonder how many people will object when they mandate that we must all be microchipped because it’s in the public interest?

But I digress, because what I really wanted to touch on besides the forced flu shots is water fluoridation.

If you want to talk about having something dangerous forced upon you without your consent, you need only turn to you kitchen faucet. In most counties, townships etc. in the US, water is fluoridated without the consent or permission of those who have no choice but to drink it.

So what’s wrong with fluoride? For one thing, it’s not medical grade fluoride. It’s actually a by-product of the phosphate industry that is considered toxic waste until they put it in your drinking water.

Additionally, fluoride is a cumulative poison. On average, only 50% of the fluoride we ingest each day is excreted through the kidneys. The remainder accumulates in our bones, pineal gland, and other tissues.

Is this bad?

Well, considering that fluoride is directly linked to thyroid disease, damage to the male reproductive system (and we wonder why male sperm counts are down 50% in the last half century?) and a whole host of other potentially dangerous health problems, I’d have to say yes. It’s bad.

Shockingly, the US Public Health Service first endorsed fluoridation in 1950, before one single trial had ever been completed.

Have you ever read your toothpaste tube? The directions state that you should NOT swallow toothpaste. Why? Because it’s NOT meant to be ingested — and yet we drink it in our water everyday.

The dental community acknowledges that fluoridated water does little or nothing to stop pit and fissure cavities, the most common kind of tooth decay and too much will actually cause dental fluorosis where the enamel of the tooth is eroded.

Both of my children’s baby teeth came in with enamel hypoplasia where the enamel was already damaged or missing. The dentist speculates that it’s actually dental fluorosis from drinking so much fluoridated water when they were in utero. Nice. Think my county water department will pay our dental bills?

Oh, and it’s totally in your breastmilk, moms. Your babies are being fluoridated whether you like it or not.

FLUORIDE WARNING FOR INFANTS

Does your drinking water contain added fluoride? If so, keep it away from infants under the age of one. This directive was issued recently by an unlikely source: the American Dental Association (ADA). Read the whole thing and see why fluoride is also now being considered a neurotoxin that’s dangerous to developing infant brains. It’s horrible.

I could go on and on and on about water fluoridation because the facts are really, REALLY jaw-dropping but in the interest of brevity, you can read about it at the Fluoride Action Network if you want more information.

Cross-posted at Moms Speak Up

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