A little view

Been a little while,

Alrighty, who is going to buy me this shirt? Things are getting a little tense around here since Rowan's had a fever and has been sick all week, and Milo has a cough. Neither of them have been terrible, except for when Rowan was awake all of the time that Milo was not... at night that is.

Milo is doing the army crawl, he is fully able to find all dog hair/fuzz and paper which of course goes immediately into his mouth. AND, in the best news, he finally is accepting something in his mouth. After our intial successes with cereal in January (for about 2 days) Milo has vehemently refused all food. He wanted nothing of it. I tried pears, rice cereal, oatmeal, homemade, boxed, and in the end the thing he finally wants to eat is avocado! Apparently that was Rowan's first food too, and G says, now that i'm getting all edjumicated I was trying to do things differently.

This video is from a few weeks ago when I was trying to feed Milo cereal, and this is what happened instead. I sound shrill and horrible, warning in advance. I can't stand Rowan grabbing at Milo so much. George says it's not always going to be like that, that M will start standing up for himself, so i am waiting for that day.




Notice how loud our house is? jeez.

Wake up and smell the rebate

My favorite online resource sent this out:

Don't Buy It



simpleliving.net is the place, I guess it may be the antithesis of the American Economy :) But not anti-american in the least, just hopeful.

Hopeless at Petsmart

I carried Milo and my canvas bag into Petsmart. I bought a box of dog treats and a collar for the cat. The lady double bagged the two items while I was signing, and I said, "I brought a bag." She took the double bagged box, lifted it up to put it into the canvas bag. I said "I brought a bag so I wouldn't use the plastic." feeling helpless. She shrugs, says, "alright, if you want"lifts the stuff out of the bag, I set Milo on the floor and put it into my bag and she bends over crumples the two bags up and throws them in the trash. Then she starts ringing up the stuff for the next customer, visibly annoyed with me.

*sigh*. I know that I'm not alone in my craziness about bags, although my family thinks that I am ridiculous and unreasonable, since an entire city has banned them. But seriously folks. My intentions were smashed between ignorance and spite, and in the end, I took the bags out of the trash and brought them home, because I couldn't bear to talk with her about it (she wasn't about to talk with me about it, I mean). blech.

It's pretty clear to me that in most of the US, offering a bag is a sign of kindness, sincerity and helpfulness. And I have witnessed the "not offering" or "withholding" of bags be interpreted as a direct affront and insult to the person.

This I think is the bigger issue, that rejection of the person's normal way of dealing with people, especially since they think it's a positive thing they're doing. It complicates an interaction to have a person not follow the "rules" of the bagging. That is what the people in San Fran have overcome, the expectation that a bag is expected.

It's just so much damn plastic everywhere. Half of our car is plastic. Most of everyone's carpets, almost all toys, all electronics, most of our clothes... its all oil-drenched, making it, packaging it, shipping it, carrying it to the car (more oil), then throwing it away (in a different plastic bag!). Then carting it off to our landfills.

I wish that some massive shift would happen in our lives where buying wasn't almost everything that Americans did. What would this place be if we weren't constantly churning out more things to consume and then throw away?

Political process

Had a great experience tonight at our local Caucus. I am a relatively literate person (and still amazingly clueless about many things) yet I had no idea what you actually did at a caucus. It was a ruckus event at our local place, wow, so many many people and such a useful way to see that you are a person living with other persons, doing something together. I saw at least ten neighbors, and Milo attended his first political event. We spent an hour looking for Cabot in our neighborhood prior to me going and that was stressful. He was having a blast in the park, with no collar on of course--because he shakes and wakes the baby up from his precious little sleep. (uh oh, that again)
George and I are no longer really adults, we're more like badly trained warriors trying to survive another night. We don't even really get to talk to each other any more, he or I head go to bed by 8:30 each in a separate room, and try and get as much sleep before all hell breaks loose and our baby brings us to our knees begging him to just sleep. For those of you who have children who sleep/slept all night long, I think we are having a different experience of parenting. I'm being a fool and am up at ten to ten. I will pay big for this judgement call. I will have even less shut-eye.

We need a babysitter, anyone got one who they love with a flexible schedule in NWDenver? I did have three hours on wed. where both boys were being watched. That didn't work out, so now I'm back on craigslist, scouring the posts, looking for someone to help.

Putting on my riot gear and going to bed. I wish it was already tomorrow morning.

well, it's february

What can I say here? I previously vowed to not blather on about my sleep woes with our youngest darling son. I guess I'll stick to that, because nothing I have to say warrants reading or repeating. I will say that I am an emotionally unstable person in the night hours, when I am not sleeping.

I think Milo has a cold. he's got boogers, and he's not sleeping. Ha, if that were the reason, how lucky would we be?That would mean after said cold is gone, that we could look forward to some shut eye. Ha. Monday is our day without scheduled plans, although I have been trying to see my friend Gina's baby for the last four mondays, with no success. And here is another one, snowy and glum, that I won't see her.

I made scones this morning to try and help me feel better, but that didn't work. I gave up on doing school work, and that hasn't helped either. Rowan has been a champ, doing the dishes and working with legos and I've been carrying Milo in the Ergo for about four hours, and it's only 2 pm. He is sleeping, but only when I'm standing, so that's getting a bit tiring. He's got a stuffy nose that fills up every time I lay him down. So no rest for the wicked like I always say.

My friend Megan's dog got mauled by a dog last week, horrifying for me even though I wasn't there. I think there are many kinds of sickness in our crazy world, but denial about aggressive dogs is a very dangerous kind. We know from experience, and I wish that there were some better ways to learn than by encountering that kind of violence. The owner doesn't feel she's responsible and you know, that's really messed up.(To put it in a family friendly sort of way.)

I think February is my least favorite month. It is the month that dismisses all justifications about living small and making do with what we've got. It makes me a person I don't like to be around, and bothers me by being flanked by at least one more solid month of winter. It just showed up and already I'm having issues with it, and this year it's a whole day longer than usual.

We were so ambitious this year, thinking that we could ski with the two boys. What a joke. The effort and time it takes to get up there and the effort and time it takes to get ready and the effort and time to get in 45 measly minutes of skiing before we have to sit tortured in the car by our two year old and baby in traffic is just heart breaking. I think I've just given up.

Not to mention the damn school work I've got. *sigh* Okay, the scones are helping a little.