Warning! Concentric Circles in the Large Blue Area

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

Can I Be Your Kitty?

I read this article this morning about a British girl who wasn't allowed on the bus because her boyfriend was leading her around with a leash. I must admit that my first thought was "What a freak!" What kind of self-respecting 21st century woman would consent to being treated as an animal? Where are the feminists when somebody really needs them? This poor girl is being degraded!

Then I got to the end of the article and realized that she's not a freak; she's crazy like a fox! She said, "I generally act animal-like and I lead a really easy life. I don't cook or clean .." Hold the phone! You get to pretend to be an animal all day (are there costumes involved?) like my dog who does nothing but sleep and eat, and you never have to cook or clean? All that's required is that you wear a leash in public? I'm pretty sure that I could be okay with that. I don't see how that is embarrassing after I've been seen in public with baby food in my hair and cookie slime on my shirt. Compared to that what's a leash? Could it come in a cool color?

After cooking and cleaning for myself, my dear husband and all five little kids for what seems like a century I could use a vacation as a cat. So anyone interested? I'm working on my "Meow" as you read.

A Good Reminder

We had some friends over tonight who are engaged and have no children. I was struck by the amusement and delight they showed in our children. That which made us cringe the most at the obnoxiousness of our children seemed to delight them the most. The cacophony of little voices is something we are blessed with hearing daily and so we tend to either tune it out or beg for silence. Not so our dinner guests. The more raucous it was the better they liked it.

It is something for me to keep in mind on those days when I have the orphanage on speed dial. (Does anyone know how quickly they can get here and pick them up?) The din in which we live is not a noise of anger and irritation. It is the sound of joy and happiness. It is the sound of childhood undiluted by the cares and worries of the world. The raw energy of those who have never had to worry about day to day living. It is a wonderful, lovely sound.

Too often, I take this gift for granted and try to shush little voices so that I can live in my own little world. It was a nice reminder this evening of the gift my husband and I have been given, the gift of laughter.

So, thank you to my dinner guests. For the price of a ham and potato dinner, I got way more in return. May we all live tomorrow with the sense of appreciation for our children that I saw on my guests' faces tonight.

Resolution

Back at the beginning of the year, I resolved to crack down on the kids and make them clean up their acts and my house. Then the stomach bug hit us and threw us off track, but we are going strong again.

One of the best things we have instituted has been the morning to-do list. Every child gets one, and it changes from day to day. Even the three year old walks around with hers every morning. How do you make a list for someone who can't read yet? You draw pictures. Here it is so you can see and admire my artistic abilities:



In case you don't read pictograph, they are:
Get dressed
wash face
brush teeth
make bed
water plants
put toy dishes in their box

The kicker is that the first one done gets dessert after lunch and the others don't. I like a little competition first thing in the morning. They must also be done by 9:00 when we start school or no one gets anything. The children must have the list with them at all times until it is completed and I have signed off on all items.

I love it when a plan comes together. (Cue evil laughter)

Happy Birthday

Perhaps we are approaching the whole pro-life message in the wrong way. Don't change the laws and expect hearts to follow. Change society and the laws will change.

H/t to Paul at Thoughts of a Regular Guy

Whom to vote for

I took the quiz and was a bit surprised that Fred was my top match.
80% Fred Thompson
79% Tom Tancredo
77% Mitt Romney
72% John McCain
68% Ron Paul
68% Mike Huckabee
58% Rudy Giuliani
34% Bill Richardson
34% Hillary Clinton
33% Barack Obama
33% Chris Dodd
32% John Edwards
29% Joe Biden
23% Mike Gravel
16% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Welcome Baby M!

As I write this, a member of our Catholic homeschool group is having a c-section to bring baby "M" into the world (or would that be further into the world?). So congratulations to their family, especially baby M's sister who is no longer the only girl in the family.

Welcome baby M, and to her joyful parents, I wish you many happy sniffs of the baby head.

Itchy Sweaters/Hair Shirts

Once upon a time, people would atone for sins by donning their hair shirts. I'm not really sure what they looked like or how they were made, but I'll bet they were pretty itchy. Hair shirt just sounds itchy. The whole point was to wear it under your regular clothes and endure the itchiness so that no one would know about the penance you were making.

I have lots of questions about them, because I'm a girl and am fascinated with clothes. I think that must come with the second "X" chromosome. I want to know where they bought them...did they make them themselves? Whose hair were they made from? When did people stop wearing hair shirts, and why?

I wish they would make a comeback. I like the idea of personal mortification which requires cheerfulness and self-control. No more wimpy pseudo-fasting during Lent, no sir, not for us. Bring it on! We can take it!

The only problem with my Catholic religious revival is where to lay my hands on a billion hair shirts. (That's how many Catholics are in the world, and I'm sure they all want to participate.) So, I'm proposing an alternative called "Itchy Sweaters for Everyone!"

I think the itchy sweater could be the modern take on the hair shirt. So, this Ash Wednesday, put on the scratchiest you have, go to Mass, get the ashes on your forehead, be cheerful, and offer it up. It could be the beginning of great things for us. Just remember it all started in Oklahoma with a mom, a scratchy sweater, and a dream of what could be....

Share the Love

Thanks to Therese at the Aussie Coffee Shop for the Share the Love Award.

I tag Annie at Gimme Some of Your Tots
Cris at June Cleaver After a Six Pack
Gem of the Ocean
and anyone else who wants to play

Prayers for Them, Please

Every day, I have people who end up at my website after googling RU-486 because of a post I wrote last year telling of my own experience with it. I can see what they searched for through my site-meter. It is often obvious from the search criteria that the hit is either from someone in the midst of an RU-486 abortion and looking to find out if what she is experiencing is normal (isn't it strange that they don't call the clinic that gave them the drug) or that it is someone contemplating a drug-induced abortion. Please pray for these distraught women, those fearing for their life and health as they go through it, and that those contemplating it will choose to give life to their sweet babies.

He Speaks!

Our moose of a boy has said his first word! No surprise, it's about eating. At lunchtime today, I got distracted talking to his sister. When the food supply was interrupted, he hit his tray and demanded "bite!"

Not Mama or Dada...Bite!

What do you do with a kid like that other than feed him?

How to Fold a T-Shirt

I opened my big mouth over on June Cleaver after a 6 pack and said I knew the best way to fold t-shirts and that I would share with the class. It's been a week. I hate doing laundry.

Get a clean t-shirt. If you hate doing laundry like me, wait until your husband gets tired of the pile and washes it himself. Then come in like a hero and offer to fold it for him.
SO, anyway....get a shirt.

Lay the shirt out flat on a clean surface. Oh, yeah I forgot, you need a clean flat surface.

Wipe off the table, do the dishes, put the food away, then lay your shirt flat on a clean, dry surface.

Pinch and grab in the middle, an inch or two in from the side.

Grab the top, a little in from the shoulder seam.

Grab the bottom.

Pull it through.

Flip it over one last time.

And You're done. Wasn't that easy?

We Have a Volunteer!

Last week, I kicked our 8 year old out of the family. I'd had enough of his whining and complaining. I was done arguing with him, so he was out.

He said: "I hate doing schoolwork. I wish school didn't exist. I don't want to work. I just want to play, and I hate this family."

So, I picked him up and carried him out onto the front porch and locked the door behind him. We have other children, what's one more or less?

I opened the door and handed him his shoes. I thought he might need them on his way to his new life. He wasn't mine anymore, but that was no reason for him to be barefoot in the cold.

He sat on the curb and wailed and cried at the top of his lungs. I'm not sure he was really that heart-broken, he was mad, and when he gets mad he wails. He's always been a wailer, but it has gotten better as he has gotten older. Maybe by the time he's 50, he won't do it anymore.

My next door neighbor called me and said, "Why is #2 sitting on the curb and crying?"

"Because I kicked him out of our family."

"Oh, alright."

Have I mentioned that I love my neighbor? She thinks my parenting style is amusing rather than abusive.

A bit later, he came and knocked on the door and said, "I'm ready to be part of our family again."

I brought him in and announced to his siblings, "We have our very first voluntary family member. The rest of you got stuck with us, but #2 chose us out of all the families in the world." The other children, sharing their mother's sense of humor, cheered, whistled, and clapped. They welcomed him to the fold.

Just as I was patting myself on the back for my good parenting skills, he looked up at me and said, "Don't get too excited, Mom. I just couldn't figure out how to get to anyone else's house."

Sounds like love to me!

Change is Good

We all know, at least intellectually, that change can be a good thing. In the case of the baby's diapers, change can be a very good thing. Unless you are my in-laws whose personal motto is "Commutationem Timemus", also known as "We fear change." My darling husband agreed with them until today. Today, I have him whistling a different tune.

He went to McDonald's last week for a highly nutritious low-cal meal and got a buck somethin' in change. When he looked at it, he saw that the printing was a little askew. So, at his brilliant wife's suggestion, he listed it on ebay to see if anyone would like to own his imperfect dollar. Surprise! They would! As of this moment in time, the bid is at $31.00 with 10 hours left to go. Check it out for yourself. He's already made the cost of lunch plus a bit. He's converted I'm sure. No need to fear change (at least the monetary kind).... embrace it, love it, sell it if it looks weird ....then go out to eat on the profit.

Forget the lotto, the McDonald's drive-thru is my game of choice.

*Update: It sold for $52.15. Which just proves that people will buy anything.

How Hard is PETA Laughing?

http://news.yahoo.com

Bird dog steps on gun, kills hunter

Wed Jan 9, 8:59 AM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Houston-area man was killed in a hunting accident after his dog stepped on a loaded shotgun in the back of a pick-up truck, triggering a blast that pierced the vehicle and the hunter's leg, a local sheriff said.

Perry Price, a 46-year-old math teacher, shot a goose on Saturday then put his gun in the back of the truck where the dog was waiting to retrieve the bird.

"I've been in law enforcement 20 years and this is probably the strangest one I've had," said Chambers County Sheriff Joe LaRive.

Investigators found paw prints and mud from the dog, a chocolate Labrador retriever named Arthur, on the shotgun, LaRive said.

Price was taken to a local hospital, but died from a loss of blood after doctors were unable to revive him.

(Reporting by Anna Driver in Houston, editing by Todd Eastham)

What do you say to that?

A dear friend of mine is a psychologist who works with abused children. She wrote me this morning and asked what I would say to a boy who was abused/molested by his father about if there is a God, why did He let this happen to me. Below is my response to her. She liked it, so I thought you might, too.

P.S. Please pray for her patient as he struggles through his pain.

This is just off the top of my head, so if I think of
more later, I will let you know.

What is he really asking here is the key. There seem
to be two questions, the spoken and the unspoken. The
unspoken is the more interesting of the two. It is " I
have two fathers, an earthly one and a Heavenly One.
If the earthly one is crap, how can I trust the other?
And I so desperately want to trust the other."

The only way to answer that question is to answer the
spoken one. Why would a loving God allow bad things
to happen? The short answer is "because He gave us the
gift of Free-Will". Somehow I suspect that the short
answer will not work for him. I think there are two
answers:

God created all of us with, and gave us the gift of,
intelligence and the freedom of choice. Sometimes,
unfortunately, people misuse these gifts and use their
brains, their will, and their freedom to hurt others.
Does it suck sometimes, yes. So how does God work
then ? What would you have Him do? Would you have
Him strike your father dead on the spot for hurting
you? Is that the answer? You see, He is not just
your Father, but your dad's too. What He wants for
your dad is to see what he has done wrong and change.
Will it happen? We don't know. If your dad wants to
change, then God can give him the strength of will and
brain and heart which is necessary to make that
change. God gives your father the whole of his life
to ask for help, because God loves him. Great for
your dad, but sucks for anyone who comes near him.

Here comes the second part. There is a purpose to
pain. It is one of the most important lessons we can
learn in this life. Pain is not without purpose or
reason. We are meant to learn something from it and
then carry that lesson forward. Did God cause your
father to hurt you? No, but he chose you to be his
son. So, what is the lesson? That's the hard part,
learning the lesson. Have you ever heard of metal
which has been tested in fire? When people make
things, like swords, out of metal, they heat the metal
to glowing hot and then work it then cool it and then
heat it up again. The fire and the heat actually
change the chemical and physical properties of the
metal, making it stronger than it originally was.
There is no other way to strengthen it other than to
put it into the fire. If it is not heated, then the
first blow will cause it to break. What good is a
sword that breaks the first time it is used? You are
like that sword, and you have been tested in the fire
to make you stronger and better than you were
originally. Was it horrible and painful? Yes. Will
it make you stronger and better in the end? Only if
you let it.

Women know your limits

A word of warning for us all.

The Puke Expert

I know that I've written about vomit for the last 4 days, and you may be tired of reading about it. The thing is..my life has BEEN vomit for the last four days. There's no pretty way around that. It just is what it is.

Now that I consider it, my life the last few years (11 or so) have seen a significant amount of time on my knees....umm....worshiping the great white porcelain god in the bathroom. I spend at least 3 months of every pregnancy in there. I've been pregnant 7 times....you do the math.

I've become a self-proclaimed expert on being nauseous. There are ways to make it more pleasant if you can't make it go away. Why should my family be the only group to benefit from this knowledge?

Some helpful tips:

1. If smells are making you queasy, try carrying a lemon with you. When you start to lose it, scratch the rind and sniff. For some reason, it overpowers your gag reflex and blocks out the offending smell. Strap one under your nose and never gag again.

2. Feeling constantly nauseated? Find a comfy chair and put a heating pad on your stomach, a hot water bottle is better if you happen to have one as the pressure helps, too. The heat will relax your cramping muscles and let you rest and restore energy for your next sprint to the loo.

3. DO NOT eat saltines to battle all day nausea. They are good in the short-term, but, as they convert to sugar, they will make you sicker in the long run. You want protein. Lots of protein. You may have to gag it down at first, but trust me, it works. Some of the easiest to take is Robertson's beef jerky. I'm not kidding here folks. You want the real thing, not the make believe that they sell at the supermarket. You can get Robertson's on-line here.

4. Preggie pops work. Order them if you have the time. If you don't, call your local medical supply store and stock up on sugar free suckers.

5.If you can tolerate nothing else, try a wedge of sour citrus. Start small like a lemon or a lime. Somehow your stomach won't recognize the acid as an outsider and will let it stay. Take it slow and easy with this. An orange will not work, it's too much sugar.

6. If you are going to be in there a lot, get a chair or stool to sit on that's about 6-9 inches tall. A kid's step stool works fine. It saves your back, and the low height will cut down on disgusting splash-backs.

7. If you absolutely can't avoid the puke, then leave a glass of lemon juice and water en route to the bathroom. Chug it as you run. It won't keep you from hurling, but the acid of the lemon will mask the stomach acid flavor and make it more palatable.

It's a tried-and-true list. I've spent almost two years of my life battling morning sickness. That kind of time is bound to teach you something. It's just not an area of knowledge that I get to share very often. It's like knowing about child-birth and baby poop, it's valuable knowledge, but you can't discuss it at dinner parties. I wish that I was an expert about things which could be discussed at dinner parties, things like hang-gliding.

The Best Diet Ever

My secret New Year's resolution was to lose 5 pounds. I didn't want to tell anyone, because I didn't need the pressure. Now here It is January 4th and I just want to say "Mission Accomplished!"

All it took was 2 1/2 days of a nasty stomach bug and I'm down 5 1/2. Woo-hoo! It hasn't been pleasant, but it's been real.

I'd like to thank my boss, Linda, from my part-time holiday job for making this possible. You see, she came to work sick, running to the toilet every 20 minutes with "the poops", and passed it on to me. I gave it to my family....and presto! Nearly instant weight loss.

My husband came in this morning and asked if our scale was right because he weighed less than he had since I got pregnant with Little Kid #5. It would seem that I am not the only one to benefit from Linda's "gift".

What have I learned? If you have somewhere to go, and can't get into that dress...don't bother with the spanx....find someone with the stomach flu.*




*DISCLAIMER-this post is to no way be construed as endorsing bulemia or any other eating disorder. Don't write me about that. Thanks.

I love..

I love that my three readers all want for me to succeed with my bitchy New Year's resolution. I find it freakin' hilarious that people think I need bitch lessons.

I guess there is a little of the "B" in all of us just looking for a way to escape.

Resolution Update: It's not going too well today. Two of the Little Kids and their father have a stomach bug and I have been cleaning vomit off the bathroom floor since last night. Every time I think that I'm almost done, another of my little darlings pukes all over the shiny floor. Why is it that they can get it everywhere except in the toilet? And can someone explain the physics of how a three year old pukes on the ceiling?

New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year to the two or three people who read this humble blog.

I have been thinking all week about New Year's resolutions. They are kind of silly, and people hardly ever stick to them, so why bother? First of all, because it is a tradition. People ask what is your resolution, and we feel as if we need to have an answer. Second, and more importantly, is the deep desire in all of us to better ourselves, our lives, and our situations. I think that deep down we all realize that changing just one little thing in our own lives will effect everyone around us and how they respond to the things we do and say.

So, my resolution this year is to be a bitch. I know, normally I'm G-rated, but there's no nice way to say that.

I am a pretty laid-back, go with the flow Mama, and it has affected my whole household. Clutter reigns supreme. Disorganization eats up huge amounts of time. Children move at their own snail's pace when told to do something if they do it at all.

No more. I resolve for one month to be a yelling, screaming, toy-throwing-away, you will do it NOW!!!!, my way or the highway bitch. I think my children need the shock to their systems.

I am a pretty disorganized person, and most of the time, it works for me. Occasionally, it eats up huge amounts of time as I have to dig and sort for the things I want. My little ones have learned how to be a slob from me. I will admit it. But I want better for them. I want them to have orderly lives. I want them to want things to be put away and not be content to step over things to get where they are going. Pick them up! Put them away! Then you'll know where they are next time.

So, I resolve to be the enforcer of all rules. A hard-ass, if you will. I'll let you know how it's going. If you hear loud yelling, and the wail of "but you threw away my toy"...there is no need for alarm. It's just me, and my New Year's Resolution.

Happy New Year, y'all! Now go put your shoes away!