Normally, I wouldn’t devote a blog post to my birthday but dudes — it’s the big 4-0!

I feel almost obligated to note the day even though I don’t feel any older than I did last week or even last year (and in some ways, I actually feel better).

“WHAT??? How can that be?” you say! Has she lost her mind?

It’s true, though.

Recent unpleasant circumstances notwithstanding, I feel more confident in who I am now than I did when I was thirty.

I feel more free to speak my mind and I also find it easier to not sweat the small stuff and I feel like I have a much better grasp on what’s truly important in life.

And? I don’t care about cellulite so much anymore. I know…total bonus, right?

Also, please correct me if if I’m wrong, all you forty plus ladies out there, but isn’t this supposed to be about the time we start hitting our sexual peak?

DO TELL

Inquiring forty and almost forty year old minds want to know!

A great big thank you to my friend Shannon of Believer in Balance for giving me a Perfect Post Award for “How I wish.” This is turning out to be a pretty good day after all :)

I’ve mostly kept my politics to myself on this blog because I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to alienate others or cause strife over things that are basically personal choices but this is it. This is where I cross that line, where I come right out and say that I hate the man as well as his corrupt, self-serving administration.

Why? Geez…where to start? There are just SO MANY reasons but for the sake of brevity, I’ll limit my focus to just one issue.

First, though, let me ask you all a question.

How many of you are paying so much for health insurance that you could actually almost pay a mortgage payment with the monthly premium? How many of you find your standard of living compromised in some way because of your health insurance premiums? I raise my hand to both of those.

We pay $800 a month (a mere $200 less than our mortgage payment) for a not particularly stellar group plan that covers my children and myself. After the first dependent, the amount doesn’t increase so when we added our son at birth it didn’t cost any more and thus, prior to his birth we were paying $800 for JUST TWO PEOPLE. My husband’s share is paid for by his employer which means that it’s actually MORE than $800 without that benefit. Have I lost you yet?

In a nutshell, our mediocre health insurance is obscenely expensive and goes up about 15% per year. Every time my husband, who has a GOOD job, gets his annual raise, it’s eaten up by a premium increase. How can people ever get ahead, save for retirement, send their kids to college or anything else in a situation like that? You can’t.

So today, I’m reading the news online as I occasionally do and I come across this article in the NY Times wherein I learn that the Bush Administration is seeking to limit access to the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It’s already impossible for middle class people like us to qualify for this program that helps give children insurance coverage when their parents don’t have access to private insurance or can’t afford what’s available.

I KNOW people who are NOT living below the poverty line that do not have access to any sort of affordable health insurance for their children. They are not indigent, homeless or even what one might consider poor. They are getting by but if were they to purchase health insurance for their children, they would NOT be getting by.

They would have to forgo things like food, gas in their cars and other non-luxuries to be able to have health coverage for the kids. And yet, they don’t qualify because they’re not a family of four living on $20,650 per year. That in itself illustrates the direness of our country’s healthcare crisis. Now Bush and Co. want to make it even harder for children to qualify while people like the aforementioned cross their fingers and pray nothing awful befalls their children.

I think Georgie needs consult that faith-based inner compass of his and ask himself “What would Jesus do?” Heh. I kid. Sort of.

But seriously, this president is COMPLETELY out of touch with what’s happening in his own country. I know 28% of you may not agree with me and really do approve of the job Bush is doing and that’s fine. In fact, you’re more than welcome to disagree with me but I can assure you that you won’t change my mind.

Regardless of your political leanings, I still urge everyone to read the full article because you or someone you know may be affected.

(I’m also going to copy/paste it at the end of this post because the NY Times may not have it available to read for free down the road.)

Click here to tell Congress to make kid’s health care a priority. It’s super easy and will only take a moment of your time.

Did you like or agree with this post? Sk*rt it so more people can learn about this abomination!

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Rules May Limit Health Program Aiding Children

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

Read more »

I’m feeling so melancholic this weekend and I don’t know why it is exactly (although I hope it means my period is coming) but I’ve been thinking about my children a lot. I mean, of course I think about them all the time but I’ve been thinking about them in a different way.

I get this way from time to time and it’s always epiphany-like, as I suddenly see them so clearly, as these pure little beings that practically emanate light. But I also see them as distinct and unique and absolutely perfect just as they are. It’s almost like I’m seeing them the way God (insert divine creator of your choice) sees them.

It’s truly a gift and for this brief period in time, I feel no frustrations, no impatience. Rather, I feel myself trying to soak up the essence of who they are RIGHT NOW and trying in vain to commit it to some kind of sense memory because I know that it’s something that can’t be recorded on videotape or captured in a still photograph.

My husband surely thinks I’m a sucker because when my son, who isn’t tired because he took a late nap, calls me into his room for the umpteenth time, I get him out of his crib and he jumps from my arms onto the big bed and gets under the covers, giggling. I join him and simply enjoy being in this moment where nothing else matters but us having a few minutes of illegal post-bedtime fun grabbing each other’s noses and playing with a flashlight.

When my daughter, who went to an evening birthday party and came home well past her bedtime gets out of bed to tell us she’s too excited about school on Monday (amongst other things) to go to sleep, I feel nothing but understanding. I’m not compelled to usher her back to her bed right away but instead I engage her for a few minutes as she tells me what’s on her mind, treasuring this moment instead of wishing for silence.

As I listen to her, I study her profile and I’m struck by how big she suddenly is and subsequently, how beautiful she is in an untamed, lust-for-life kind of way.

My heart melts in bursts of pride and pain. She’s all mine. For now. In a few years she will think I’m stupid and hopelessly uncool and that I couldn’t possibly understand the complexities of her tween/pre-teen life. Then high school, college and beyond. *shiver*

At least once a month, I playfully implore her not to get any older and she playfully agrees, though I know she loves every second of being newly seven. She’s suddenly so mature and it scares me because I don’t even know when it happened. I also remind her not to try and grow up too fast because being a grown up is a drag and again she promises me she won’t because she loves being a kid so much.

Oh, how I wish that could really be. How I wish I could keep them little forever. How I wish I could freeze moments in time and revisit them whenever I wanted. How I wish I could always see my children the way I do today.

For the past eight years I have bought organic foods whenever possible, I’ve stopped dry-cleaning my clothes, resisted killing bugs with petrochemical-based pesticides, painted with zero-VOC house paints and avoided cleaning products made of dangerous chemicals that out-gas into the air in our home (that would pretty much be ALL of the standard well-known brands).

It’s not all that hard to do these things and after so many years, the extra cost of living with less chemicals is pretty much built into our bottom line, though it is, admittedly, more expensive

I do find it ironic, however, that many of the chemicals that were supposed to be our salvation are now found to be slow, silent killers and where we used to pay for the privilege of “easier, better and faster”, we now have to pay extra to get away from that stuff.

(Don’t even get me started on cosmetics, shampoos, soaps and other personal care items. They’re pretty much unregulated and could probably be made with arsenic and lye and still be within the confines of our pathetically weak laws. Grrr…)

Last night, as I was cleaning up the kitchen and gathering all our recycling stuff to take outside, I was struck by how much plastic stuff there is and it occurred to me that manufacturers give us very little choice in terms of packaging. I’d love to have less toxic plastic in our lives but so much of that stuff we use comes ONLY in plastic, regardless of the brand. And while makers claim this plastic or that plastic is safe, I’ve heard that too many times only to find out later that it’s not safe at all.

So I don’t trust any plastics and I don’t cook in them and almost never store food in them, opting instead for these awesome retro “refrigerator box” glass storage containers (microwave & freezer safe) from Anchor-Hocking and they’re very reasonably priced.

Screw Tupperware and Rubbermaid and the cheap plastic containers that house wonton soup when you order Chinese. I actually long for the days when everything came in glass containers. Yes, it was breakable but what is some broken glass compared to the host of cancers and diseases that have proven links to our chemical lifestyles? It’s nothing but a minor inconvenience when compared to going through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Or dying.

I read this post yesterday by Cristina (it’s an absolute MUST READ) with whom I share many things in common, including a burning desire to shield our children from the toxic chemical soup that is modern life on planet Earth. While some of what was in Cristina’s post was not news to me, it was still disturbing to see all those ugly realities gathered up in one place. It riled up my deep, dark motherly fury at the fact that my kids live in a poisoned world and nobody, least of all our government, gives a sh!t.

As I noted in my comment to Cristina, in the US, you can go to jail for years (as in many) for marijuana but corporations can carelessly poison our kids and the planet and the government does nothing. In this respect, Europe is eons ahead of us. The EU often puts public and environmental safety ahead of corporate profits. Governing bodies that actually care about their citizens…what a novel concept.

I urge you to check out Healthy Child Healthy World and Environmental Working Group and become pro-active (if you’re not already) about staying informed and also letting our leaders know that we’re smarter than they think and we want better for our kids.

And finally, something I’ve been meaning to post about… You may want to stop using those lavender scented lotions and soaps on your kids, especially boys, as they have been linked to prepubertal gynomastia, meaning your boys can possibly grow breasts.

I know, it sounds crazy, but like many of the chemicals in everyday products that stimulate estrogen receptors (male sperm counts are down sharply in the past 50 years mostly likely due in some part to this), lavender, as well as tea tree oil, can suppress male hormones (androgens) and stimulate estrogen receptors which can feminize boys and I presume cause what’s known as precocious puberty (very, very early puberty) in girls.

You can read the news article here and check out a summary of the published study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Thanks for staying with me through my morning ventiness. You, my friend, are a Rockstar Reader™ and at some point when I have more time, I intend to show you my gratitude for your being so awesomely awesome :)

Note to Self #1:

The next time you think of trying on your pre-preggers jeans to see if you’ve made any progress (because while you have not lost ONE SINGLE POUND, they ARE getting looser) you might want to check the calendar and make sure it’s not the day before your period.

It will save you vast amounts of frustration and perhaps a little brain damage via headbanging, as well, and NOT the recreational “I heart Metallica” kind either, but more of the “WHY THE EVER LOVING HELL CAN I NOT LOSE ONE MOTHERFARKING POUND? while your forehead bleeds profusely” kind.

You’ll get a pass this time because the ruiner-of-all-underwear and bringer-of-many zits DID come a few days early but please, pay attention next month.

And lucky you, this year you won’t have your period at BlogHer and have to hit up the maids for some super plus tampons from their private stash because you didn’t want to leave a quarter mile trail of blood to and from those crazy ass vending machines where you could buy cell phones and ENTIRE BAGS of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies.

Now thank the baby Jesus one more time for nice maids with heavy periods.

Note to Self #2:

The next time you’re goofing off on your computer when you should be doing something educational or horizon-broadening with your toddler, look at him very closely when he climbs up on your desk for the seventh time in 15 minutes.

Had you done that today, you might have noticed that he had removed his diaper (because you were too lazy to put shorts on him after changing him) and you might have been better prepared for him to pee ALL OVER YOUR DESK, mouse, mouspad, camera USB cable and God knows what else.

And right after you finished cleaning the first massive pee tsunami, it was really awesome the way you caught shower number two with a Guinness glass full of ice. Pee. On the rocks!

But the point is that even though you caught it the second time, you should have been diapering him instead of skimming yet another forwarded email extolling the virtues of George Bush from you know who. She knows you’re not a fan but she still sends them which is really just obnoxious and maybe even a little passive-aggressive?

Next time just hit delete because it’s only going to be more of the same anyway and put a damn diaper on your son instead.

Note to Self #3:

The next time you think it might be fun and kind of a special treat to take the kids out solo to eat dinner (because you’re still mad at your huz from this morning) and decide Pizza Hut will be a good kid-friendly choice, stop thinking that thought immediately because it will NOT be a good choice.

Sure, it was nearly empty in Pizza Hut but they have one of those stupid ass crane machines where it costs $100 in quarters to win one crappy stuffed animal that was probably made in some Chinese sweat shop by a four year old and is probably filled with lead shavings and little balls of mercury instead of little white balls of polystyrene and of course, it’s like a ginormous and totally irresistible magnet to both of your kids.

So while you stand around watching them molest this machine in every conceivable way and listen to a medley of eighties gems by New Order, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and OMD while waiting for your food, you spy a girl playing air guitar to a song that clearly and rather curiously has no guitars in it and it occurs to you that for one brief moment this feels like a G-rated David Lynch film and you halfway believe that at any moment a midget in a pink tutu sporting a ZZ-Top-like beard will come rollerskating out with your food.

Then you snap out of it because your son, age 25 months and way cuter than a speckled pup, decides he’d rather go behind the counter of Pizza Hut and then kicks it up one more notch and runs into the little alcove where the drive through window is. And then he’s laying on the floor laughing at you. And then he decides to run from you into the bathroom except he can’t open the door.

On and on the circus continues and suddenly, being at home with your husband doesn’t seem so bad and you might even accept his previously offered apology after all. You tell the nice lady your order is now “TO GO!!!” and she nods in total appreciation of this capitol idea!

The point? Eating out with the kids during the witching hour (5-8pm), even at Pizza Hut, is a bad, bad idea.

NEVER, EVER have that idea again.

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Once again, there’s booty to be scored over at Props and Pans. We’re giving away one of those ultra-cool SATees for a baby, toddler or child — YOUR CHOICE!

All you have to do is leave a comment telling us which one you want if you’re the winner. It’s a total no-brainer and even if you don’t have kids, they make a great gift!

I don’t usually fret too much about my “style” (if I can even call it that since having kids) and I’m generally pretty comfortable choosing outfits for the few times I escape the loony bin and get to be a regular person instead of “Mommy”.

I am, however, having a bit of a shoe dilemma and God knows the interwebs are loaded with shoe fiends that can advise me on what actually is or isn’t fashionable because let’s face it…just because something is popular doesn’t necessarily make it a good fashion choice *cough Crocs cough*

My inquiry is about ballet flats.

See, during a brief lapse of judgment, I wore them in tenth grade (in WHITE, no less). Since then I’ve seen the error of my ways and have sworn off the flats because…I have big feet. Not huge but big enough that I feel a bit like I have canoes on my feet when I wear flats.

Okay! Geez! I wear a nine. You can STOP imagining me shopping for size twelves at the drag queen store now.

In defense of my dogs, though, I’m 5′9. I’d look ridiculous with those petite little size sixes I longed for as a teenager. And I’d also fall forward a lot.

So my question, because I tried on an insanely comfortable pair of ballet flats and I think I almost don’t hate them anymore, is are they cool? Cool-ish? Or will l look like a mom-dork in comfortable shoes at BlogHer?

The alternative are my old standby of sandals; most likely unheeled.

Please, shoe freaks. Guide me. Teach me your ways.

Edited to add: Thank you shoe lovers, fashion mavens and women of taste for your gentle guidance. I’ve decided to take the leap and buy some flats. Rest assured, however, that I WILL be foregoing the skinny jeans :)

I recently read a post by Elizabeth about these disaster dreams she was having and it reminded me about a dream I had last week about a big jet falling from the sky on fire. Don’t be alarmed, though. My dreams don’t appear to be psychic or anything.

But what IS disturbing is that I have been dreaming about planes falling from the sky for years now. They’re always similar in that I will be outside and I look up for whatever reason and see this big fireball of an airplane literally falling through the air and they always land somewhere in my neighborhood, in someone’s backyard.

Sometimes, I wake up before I get to the crash site but sometimes I walk to it and see injured, bleeding, sooty people walking away from the crash which is so weird because you know that would never happen.

Before I started having the plane crash dreams, I used to dream about my teeth falling out in all different ways and the goal of the dream would be to get to a dentist, which was always impossible for a variety of reasons.

And before the teeth dreams, because I know you so totally care, I used to dream a lot about

1) losing my fake ID, which is actually kind of funny because you can see where my priorities were when I was under twenty one

2) wrecking my car into bodies of water such as lakes and canals, which isn’t as funny because it’s terrifying and is actually something I fear in real life. Driving over bridges is very uncomfortable for me, particularly if they have a steep ascent.

Kinda makes me long for those hot sex dreams you have during pregnancy. Minus the pregnant part, of course.

So am I crazy? Anyone out there know what the burning plane dreams mean? Does anyone else have these dreams?

(Wait, wait, wait! Before you reply, for the love of all that is good and decent, pleeeeeaaaase don’t suggest that it’s some kind of prophecy and that I shouldn’t fly. I really need my vacation next month!)

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Don’t forget! We’re giving stuff away again over at Props and Pans. Yep! Pop over there to see how you can win yourself a copy of The Rolling Stones ~ The Biggest Bang 4 DVD Box Set. It’s a very special release featuring over 55 awesome songs performed live in five different countries, tour documentary, exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and much more!

It seems that once or twice a year, my daughter is seized by an obsession with something that she just HAS to have. The year before last it was an American Girl doll. You know, the one’s that cost eighty-seven dollars?

Yes, they’re really wholesome and not even remotely skeevy like, you know..those other skank ass dolls that we all (well, almost all) love to hate. However, at $87 a pop they’re out of reach for a lot of kids and thus, dare I say, a bit elitist? But apparently stinking elitists we are, because we DO have one, now don’t we?

Yes, Grandma was more than willing to plunk down nearly a hundred bucks for a doll. I have my theories as to why, but we shan’t delve into extended family politics right now. The point is…TQ got the ridiculously overpriced doll she so desperately wanted.

Between then and now, many more mini-obsessions have developed and most likely been quelled either by time or occasionally by acquisition of the object of said obsession.

But now, it seems the mother of ALL obsessions has descended upon our house like a pox. A plush, secret code-bearing pox. Yes. I’m talking about Webkinz.

It seems that every girl in her group at camp has a Webkinz plush toy and thus, the secret code that allows you the privilege of accessing the Webkinz web site to care for a virtual version of your particular toy. I think that’s how it works but I wouldn’t really know for sure because you have to have the stupid, frackin’ secret code to get in there and check it out.

Luckily (NOT), her friend (the same one who sparked the American Girl doll fixation) has numerous Webkinz and let TQ use her password to access the site from camp. But when her friend isn’t there or when TQ is at home, she can’t play on the Webkinz site . Of course, TQ’s her goal all along has been for her to have her OWN Webkinz plush toy, which would solve ALL her problems and maybe even world hunger, too, to hear her tell it.

Thus far (two weeks) I haven’t given in because part of me wants her to not follow the crowd, to be her own person, to not always crave what all the spoiled rich girls have. But the other part of me remembers how important it is to fit in with your peers when you’re little.

In fact, my BFF, who I’ve known since second grade (and who STILL doesn’t have a blog!) were talking about all the must-have things we remembered from elementary school and so I’m not completely unsympathetic to TQ’s plight, if I can call it that, but I just hate giving in to every trend that comes along, every craze that sweeps the nation.

Today it’s a $20 plush toy but down the road it will be triple digit jeans and useless, micro-teeny designer handbags or whatever.

Where we’re at right now…

TQ refused to take the swim test at camp because it’s a competition pool with no shallow end. Never mind that she KNOWS how to swim and had three months of DAILY swim lessons a few years ago, paid for by my dearly departed dad. She just doesn’t like that she can’t touch the bottom and thus, she has to wear a life vest.

You have no idea how much this irritates me. I know I should just let her be but this is Florida. You HAVE to know how to swim and swim well and it drives me nuts that her little phobia, which is characteristically irrational, has her swimming with a life jacket. Grrrrr… If my father were actually in a grave, he’s be turning in it; spinning and whirring and spinning and whirring!

So…I told her that if she would swim in the deep end at the pool this weekend and then take another swim test on Monday, I would buy her a Webkinz. If she doesn’t, she’ll have to save for one with her own money. I hate to even allow this silly gotta-have-a-special-code nonsense into our lives but this opportunity for bribery was too perfect to pass up. How do you think I potty trained her? That’s right. I bribed her with milkshakes and french fries.

Anyway, we’re supposed to be at the pool right now but she back-talked to me this afternoon in a major way so I called it off and it’s been a big, dramatic sobfest ever since and I’m actually blogging to keep myself from going in to her room and yelling at her. In case you didn’t know, my tolerance for drama and sobbing is about as high as my tolerance for incessant whining…which is to say practically NON-EXISTENT.

I’l let you know how it goes. IF it goes.

Oh, and the next obsession on the horizon?

God help us… It’s Crocs.

I don’t really care for them but one time I made the mistake of mentioning that the Mary Jane-style crocs were somewhat less ugly than the clog ones, and maybe even kind of cute for little girls, and she’s been on about them ever since.

So like a dumbass, I let her try them on at the mall but she’s between sizes so the guy said to come back in a few months to see if she’s at the next size and now she’s bugging me to go back and try them on. But I can assure you I’m not paying $33 for plastic shoes.

NOT. DOING. IT.

Well, for now anyway…

Because who knows when I may need to resort to bribery again???

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I wanted to give a little link love to four mighty nice ladies that both bestowed up me the Rockin’ Girl Blogger designation. Thanks, ya’ll :)