Halloween!

Ah yes... Halloween... an interesting holiday in El Paso. Our neighborhood always has a huge influx of trick-or-treaters from other parts of the city because it's safe here, we have clear sidewalks, and there are tons of houses, most of which participate. We're a popular destination for apartment-dwellers, and those who live in bad neighborhoods.

It does make it interesting. As we were leaving our house to take Erin and Orren trick-or-treating, we were practically pushed out of the way by crowds of high schoolers who mobbed our door, totally ignoring me saying "We're leaving. We're not home. No candy here yet. Come back in half an hour." repeatedly. It was nuts. I also really don't like how old a lot of the kids are who are trick-or-treating. If a crowd comes up where all the boys are taller than me and all the girls have giant boobs, I'm thinking they're too old to be trick-or-treating. I just don't like it. It's for the kids. High schoolers have no business trick-or-treating. We even had a group drive up in a car, park at the curb, jump out, walk up and collect candy from us, and then drive to the next house. We can't really NOT give them candy because the only person I know who has ever done that also got her windshield smashed that night. Granted, she lives in off post Army housing, which is in a totally disgusting part of town, but when you consider that most of the kids who trick-or-treat our neighborhood aren't FROM our neighborhood, and a lot are from bad parts of town, it's better safe than sorry. Candy is cheaper than a new windshield.

Erin and Orren had fun, though. We only trick-or-treated one street, both sides. Orren was pretty spent after that, and while Erin would have continued, she was just as happy to go home and hand out candy to other people who came by. It's like I told Thak, it's not about getting ten tons of candy. It's just about letting the kids dress up and have a good time. They did have a good time, and they were totally adorable, and then they got totally sugar buzzed when we got home and they ate candy until they went to bed, and now they've both crashed, and are asleep.

Anyhow, without further ado, here are some pictures:

Erin southern belle, and Orren Spiderman, ready to go trick-or-treating. This is the only pic I could get of them. They were all over the place!

Thak did our jack-o-lanterns this year. These are the pumpkins we got in La Union, NM. They're so big!

Are we trying to prove something?

There is one thing I don't understand at all. Why is it that when someone is planning a non-hospital birth, whether home or free-standing birth center, they are so often accused of having something to prove? I've been accused of this a lot over the course of the past couple years, and it seems to be coming up again with the announcement this week of our plans for a homebirth for baby #3, so I'd like to explore it a little bit here.

First of all, I do wonder what exactly I'd be trying to prove. Some who know me, know that I was a hospital transfer for Erin's birth. I have never had a hospital birth by choice, but I did unfortunately end up with one due to state law that time. I'm not talking out my ass when I tell you what I think of hospital birth. I am speaking from personal experience, and with the knowledge that my unintentional hospital birth was really about the best case scenario when it comes to hospital birth today. Let me just tell you, it was awful.

First they took my clothes and made me wear some stupid gown. Then they stuck an IV in my hand, and at that point, I really just wanted to die. I hate needles, and having one stuck in my hand for a solid 20 hours was pretty much my idea of hell. Then they told me I couldn't eat or drink. Then they hooked me to some monitors. Then some nurse I'd never met in my life did an internal exam. Then that happened again another time before our midwife got there. In the morning, we found that I wasn't progressing fast enough for some arbitrary policy, so they gave me some pitocin... one bag, then two, then finally a third. Have you ever experienced three bags of pitocin coursing through your veins? Mind you, I had no pain medication because I knew it was horrible for the baby and not great for me either, so I felt every twinge of it. It was bad... REALLY bad. The IV being in my hand the whole time made it even worse. 17 hours in, and stuck at 7 cm for four of those hours, my midwife said, "You're exhausted. You have to rest, and the only way I see that happening is with an epidural. If you don't rest, you will not be able to relax enough to dilate, and you will end up with a c-section." A c-section is ten times as evil as an epidural, so I took the epidural. Awful barely begins to describe what that thing was. I was groggy, and numb, and out of control. Erin was born drugged after two hours of the epidural, and never nursed very well. The recovery for me was a nightmare. I felt like I'd been run over by a bus for at least a week.

Orren's birth was completely natural. I labored unassisted, literally alone because I let Thak sleep through almost the whole thing, at home until it was time to push. It was not nearly as painful as my first labor, and probably less than 1/3 the length of time. I didn't have a painful IV in my hand (I was supposed to because I was Group B Strep positive, but we didn't get to the birth center in time to get it.) I could do whatever I wanted, get up and walk around, eat, drink, take a million baths, cook chicken and dumplings... When we finally did go to the birth center, Orren was born an hour later, totally alert (huge difference from Erin), nursed like a champ (Thak does regret making us quit. He said I was just in too much pain and he thought it was the right choice at the time.), and my recovery? What recovery?! I wanted to get up and dance the minute after the birth was over! It was perfect, and I felt amazing from day one! In addition, I even looked better. Pre-pregnancy, I was a size 2. I gained 40 pounds with the pregnancy. 4 weeks postpartum, I was wearing a size 6. 4 months postpartum, I was a size 2 again. I think the natural birth helped my body heal faster, and that the drugs the first time harmed me and Erin.

Taking these experiences both into account, does it look like I have something to prove by going the non-hospital route again? It doesn't to me. In fact, it looks like quite the opposite. My non-hospital birth was easy because I did it the way nature designed me to do it. My hospital birth was absolutely the most difficult thing ever because I did not do it the way nature designed me to do it. If I had something to prove, wouldn't I plan a hospital birth, and try one last time to beat the intervention monsters? It doesn't make sense that I have something to prove if I'm doing what has come easy to me in the past. If I did, I would do what had been difficult. Right?

Although I will say, in the process of Orren's birth, I was surprised at how much I proved to myself. A huge reason my kids are 5 1/2 years apart in age is because after Erin's awful birth, I carried a lot of fear and doubt. I couldn't do it myself. I was poked and prodded, injected with the entire pharmacy, and finally by some miracle, I avoided a c-section by half a hair. That's not a confidence-building experience, and experiences like that are exactly why so many women think our bodies are lemons, ineffective at the most basic task of existence. It takes a while after something like that, when you know it's wrong, to jump back into the ring again. With Orren's birth, I proved to myself that I am able. The minute Nancy handed him to me, and said, "Take your son! You did it!" all the fear and doubt that I had carried with me for over half a decade flew out the open window, and disappeared somewhere into the grasses and the oyster beds of the coastal salt flats, never to be seen or heard from again. Do you have any idea what a weight that is to NOT carry around anymore?

On a related note, I do think that a lot of American women are carrying that baggage that I carried for so long, and that only Orren's birth freed me from. I sense it in them when they tell me that I'm crazy for having a baby with no doctor present, or that I don't care about my baby if I don't have him/her in a hospital. They are so fearful because they believe they actually needed all the things that were done to them in whatever hospital their babies were born in, and they believe doctors who profit from every intervention they order. I'm not trying to have a right and wrong discussion, but these are my observations. 99% of the time someone tells me her "I'm so glad I was in a hospital because..." story, her big scary bugaboo really isn't so emergent. American women at large have a lot of fear in them when it comes to birth. It seems like that's what they're speaking from when they tell me I'm crazy for sparing myself and my babies from the medicalization of it all.

Are we trying to prove something? No, we never set out to prove anything to anyone, even ourselves. We just did what we knew was right. In the process, we proved a lot to ourselves and each other, many things that I haven't even touched on here, and while that was a nice outcome, it was not the main goal. The main goal was to bring our son into the world in the healthiest, kindest, most peaceful way. That is the main goal this time as well. Anything we prove to ourselves in the process is just an added bonus.

Why I have cast off my due date.

I'm 10 weeks pregnant today. From there, you can probably figure out my due date. In fact, I may have mentioned it here before. I can't remember, though. Either way, though, when people ask when I'm due, I say "Sometime in May or June" because that's the truth. In my previous two pregnancies, it was a rigid due date. July 14, and December 14, in that order. Of course, my kids were born on July 29 and December 25. Due dates are for nothing. The window of opportunity for Orren to be born safely and out of hospital stretched from Thanksgiving almost to New Year's Eve. Now why would anyone ever pick one date within that big window to focus on? There is almost no chance the baby would ever be born on that day anyhow. I think I know exactly one person who's ever had a baby on the due date, and she was induced, so it doesn't even count.

This time, I am not focusing on one date because I've found that mentality to be absolutely useless, and a major source of stress, especially toward the end. I am having a baby in the summer of 2011, and that is what I say. I am less stressed already because I do not have to worry about being a hospital transfer for staying pregnant too long. This baby can stay as long as he or she needs to in order to get good and ready to come join us on the outside. No pressure. Alyson won't pressure me, and I won't pressure me either. Nor will I allow society and random people to pressure me by saying things like, "Haven't you had the baby yet?" or "Aren't they ever going to induce you?" like people said constantly the minute December 14 came and went, and I was still pregnant with Orren. No, this baby will come in his/her own time, just like the other two did. If that goes into the 43rd week like Erin, that's ok. If that goes into the 42nd week like Orren, that's ok. If this baby decides to be a lot different, and join us after 39 or 40 weeks, that's also totally fine with us. I don't know when the baby will be ready, so I am not assigning an end date. What's the use anyway? What's a due date ever done for anybody besides pressure them to go into labor in x-amount of time, or face the hospital, and a whole cart of nasty interventions?

My due date: Summer.

That's the truth.

Here is a preview of the cuteness.

I had to get up early today to get Erin ready for her Literary Fair at school. Of course she is playing the role of Aphrodite in her class' living wax museum role play. I think I used enough hairspray and pins to make her hair 7-year-old-proof. It just has to last until 12:30. I think she looks adorable. She is so excited about it!

I bought the Valco!

After talking with Thak, we decided we absolutely could not pass up the awesome deal on the Valco Tri-Mode EX Twin stroller listed on Craigslist, so I emailed the seller. She told me it had only been used once, that after they moved to Ft. Bliss they just didn't need it anymore (I knew it. Officer's wife. They always have the best stuff.) so this thing is pretty much brand new, and for that price. Wow. Valco at Graco prices. Freaking amazing. I cannot believe we lucked into an $800 stroller for more than 50% off retail.

It seems early to be buying stuff like this, but we have so few things to buy for this baby in the first place. The issue is that most of it is big ticket stuff. A double stroller was one thing, then also a new crib since the one we used with Erin and Orren broke (that's one reason Orren went into a big bed at 13 months), and of course one more Radian carseat (we can use our spare Britax in the truck, but for the car, we need to use another Radian in order for 3-across to fit best.)

We got the stroller out of the way already, and the crib, we plan to buy in January or February when Babies r Us has their twice-a-year trade-in event. Basically, we can trade in our old broken crib for a voucher for 25% off a new one. When we're talking about something that costs a few hundred bucks, 25% off is significant savings, so we're going to wait for the trade-in event and get our crib then.

The carseat, we'll probably wait until spring 2011 to buy because carseats expire, and buying them long before you need them, only serves to waste that portion of their usable life. The Radian has 8 years before expiration (the longest of any convertible carseat on the US market) but I still don't want to waste it by buying too early.

Other than that, we're pretty much good. I want to get a few more diaper covers. I've always gone really minimalist on covers (minimum of 6 in each size is recommended. I have 4 in each size, but no Mediums because Orren skipped that size.) but really, I would like to have a few more than what I do have, and I definitely want some Mediums. What I decided was to get Thirsties Duo Wraps. We like Thirsties sized covers, and the Duo wraps size up with the baby, just like our beloved Bum Genius pocket diapers do, so we'll get a lot for our money that way. Plus, the Duos come in snap closure, which is great for longevity. I also love the prints they have. I think I'm going to wait and find out if this baby is a boy or a girl, and then buy gender-specific stuff rather than getting all pretty much gender-neutral the way I did with Orren. I want to get two Duos in each size (so four total). That's not bad. I also need a few new Snappis because the ones we have are stretched out after almost two years of daily use. Snappis are cheap, though. I can get all I will ever need for under $10. In a perfect world, we'd have some organic bamboo velour wipes, too, but that's definitely not a necessity, especially when I have a ton of flannel I can make wipes out of, just sitting here.

A friend asked me for my registry information yesterday, and that made me think. I may just register with an online cloth diapering retailer since really the only small ticket items we need are diapering related (and there is no way in hell I'm going to ask my friends for my big ticket items. I hate when people do that.) I don't really need anything else.

It's good to have one of the major purchases out of the way, though. I pick up the Valco on Monday. I'm really happy about it. I wasn't sure about buying an all black stroller at first, but really, for a deal like that, color is unimportant. I do think it's funny, though, because it seems like with each baby, I like gear from a certain part of the world! With Orren, it was all European, mostly Italian, Dutch, and Danish. This time, I fell in love with a stroller from New Zealand (the Phil & Teds) and in the end, bought an Australian one instead (the Valco). They make good stuff Down Under, apparently!

Big Craigslist/Stroller Dilemma!!

I've been a Craigslist junkie ever since I was pregnant with Orren. I found our rocking chair dirt cheap on there, and also a front pack carrier in new condition (used once) for 1/3 of retail value. The only real bust I ever had from Savannah Craigslist was when Thak found an ad that said "GORGEOUS maternity clothes, sizes S and XS!" and when we got there, we found that not only were these clothes definitely not gorgeous, but the lady had forgotten to mention that she was extremely short. Literally, the top of her head fell at about my chest level. Needless to say, the clothes, even if they had been in good condition or nice, would not have fit 5'6" me. (Seriously, people. If you're selling clothes you don't use anymore, you should mention it if you're really short. Pet peeve of mine... everything in my size was made for midgets.) Anyhow, that was the only total bust we had from Savannah Craigslist. Everything else was great. There was always a good selection on there, and it ran the gamut from stuff bought at Target, to high-end stuff from Punch and Judy's (the local baby boutique that sold the most amazing stuff in the entire world).

In El Paso, it's different. Craigslist is always junk. I don't know why I ever look on there anymore, but I do. I guess I'm just always hoping to find that rare gem, because when the deals on Craigslist are good, they're GOOD!

Today, I found it. OK, so it wasn't today. It was about a month and a half ago when it first appeared. Today, it appeared again, and had gone down in price substantially from first listing. Click here and see the ad. It's a Valco Baby Twin stroller. In previous ads, they've mentioned that they'll throw in the Peg Perego carseat adapter (we have a Peg Perego carseat!!), the sun cover, and two snack trays. With all those accessories, this stroller package would retail for $800. $350 is a crazy deal for it. $350's only about $70 more than you'd pay for a mid-grade double stroller at Sears, and a Valco is NOT mid-grade, it's VERY high-end. This is like buying a Porsche for the price of a Kia. Needless to say, I have one hell of a dilemma on my hands right now, because I want to buy this Valco. I'm never going to find a deal like this ever again.

Here are my reservations:

1) I don't love the color.

2) I'm completely in love with the Phil & Teds Explorer.

I like the Valco a lot. I've actually considered getting one before. I like that the Phil & Teds can be a single or a double (the back seat is detachable), and despite the $580 price tag, we believe we'd get our money's worth since it will hold up forever. I also like how compact the Phil & Teds is, but at the same time, the Valco isn't bad as far as side-by-sides go. It's only 29" wide. Also, side-by-side strollers are better than tandems for doing things like going to the zoo or the museum because both kids can see equally. There are benefits to both forms of double stroller.

I think I'll probably buy the Valco and try to forget about the Phil & Teds. I'm going to ask Thak about it when he gets home. We discussed it last time it was listed, and he was favorable about it. (That time, it was listed for $400. They've come down on the price in just the past week, even.) Since they say it's negotiable, we could probably offer them $300 and get it. That's really about half what the Phil & Teds costs. I didn't plan on buying a stroller this early on, but we are never going to find a deal that good again. I just don't think we can pass it up.

My phone is on the fritz

Well, not really my phone, but the Vonage device that makes our phone work, is being a total idiot lately. I've been telling Thak to fix it, but when does he ever have time anyhow? So basically, what that means is that the house phone doesn't work right now. If you have tried calling the house and not gotten an answer, that's why. Try the cell instead.

This is why the majority of American women will never breastfeed.

As mentioned in a previous post, I went to my LAST EVER visit at the OB's today. Since I got my labs drawn, I won't have to go back and can just transfer my care entirely to Alyson, our awesome midwife.

What I did not tell you is that as I was leaving the OB's office today, they gave me two things, a folder and a box. They said the box was for breastfeeding moms. (They had asked if this baby would be breastfed or formula fed. Of course I told them I will be breastfeeding. I always try... I think I'm going to succeed long term this time, too!!) I didn't open the box until a lot later because I was busy running around for the kids, blogging, cooking, and talking for over an hour on the phone with a friend who is going through some very hard times. Anyhow, when I finally did get around to opening the box, I was puzzled by the contents of it. I thought if it was for nursing moms, it would have Lansinoh (lanolin cream for cracked nipples, aka the best stuff ever), nursing pads, and probably a coupon for a discount on one of the popular brands of nursing covers, possibly some milk storage bags, and ads for different types of pumps, or something like that... That's NOT what it was, though. It was FORMULA!!!! Several of those small bottles you sometimes see moms who never ever breastfeed giving to their babies while in he hospital, and a bunch of other formula-related stuff that I barely paid a glance to before packing it back up. It was newborn formula, too, specifically for the brand newest babies of all, babies who probably should still have nothing but colostrum.

Talk about a cheap sneaky way to get into my house and capitalize on difficult times. It's like a drug dealer. "Here's your destructive crutch at 2 am when you're nursing for the 5th time that night and your nipples are cracked in half." Having been in that very situation before on multiple occasions, I know that when you're that tired, and that sore, there's not much you won't do for a few continuous hours of sleep, including having the not half as tired husband give the baby a bottle. It's not ok, though, not in those early days especially. The more you nurse, the better your milk comes in. I know. I barely nursed Erin (she just wasn't good at latching) and had next to no milk. I nursed Orren constantly and had enough milk for a small village in just a couple days. Supplementing with bottles right from the start will hurt your supply, and probably make a lot of people give up. It is a harmful thing to give a mom who's wanting to succeed at breastfeeding, a box of formula. That is half a step toward failure if she keeps it. I'm not keeping it, though. I'll be giving it away by listing it for free on Craigslist. Thak wanted to throw it in the trash, but I thought giving it away would be better just in case some other baby actually needs it. I just don't want it in my house.

Again, since other than these two OB visits I've had, I have absolutely no experience with the mainstream obstetrical practices. The midwives I've received my care from with both prior pregnancies, have really emphasized breastfeeding from day one, and absolutely never had anything with a formula company logo, or formula samples in office, or anything like that. I'd never seen this type of thing before. I was really floored. I'm only 9 weeks along, and they're already pushing formula. Get me the hell out of there.

I mentioned this to some other moms I know, mostly friends from previous duty stations, but a few civvie types, and they were all shocked that I had never experienced the formula pushing before, despite the fact that I have two kids. All had experienced this in the past, except one. She did a homebirth when she had her only son, 15 years ago. She did know about this stuff, though because she's a Lactation Consultant and sometimes fills in at the hospital, so she sees that they give out bags with this shit to a lot of breastfeeding moms there. I was a hospital transfer for post-dates with Erin, but was not given formula or pushed to bottle feed. I guess our midwife protected us from that, and gave us half a fighting chance even though I didn't end up being able to breastfeed Erin for long. Then again, Gainesville is a very breastfeeding-friendly city, so maybe they don't give that stuff out there because almost nobody would want it anyhow. It seems like it's rampant in most of the rest of the nation, though. People told me about receiving CASES of formula to take home from the hospital, despite being clear that they were breastfeeding.

I guess it's just something I was removed from due to the people I chose to trust with my care. I feel lucky about that. It felt weird to receive formula. I'm always saying how society likes to tell women, "You can't!", as in, "You can't birth the baby you grew!" "You can't do that without anesthesia!" "You can't be trusted to know what's best for your child!" and today, I felt like they subtly hinted to me, "You won't be able to nurse this one either."

Fuck you, society, and your formula samples, too. It goes out the door tomorrow. I CAN.

The dirt on baby #3.

Since the word is out now, here is the dirt on baby #3. Baby #3 is due in late May (May 27, says our midwife. May 28, says the OB I saw before that. June, says me.) We were a bit surprised that we are expecting right now, which is why we sat on the information for about 6 weeks. We hadn't even intended to tell Erin until we got everything sorted out and digested the information ourselves, but she found some ultrasound pictures in my purse, and Erin isn't stupid.

Basically, we really had to get to an arrangement we were comfortable with, because that's not what we started out with. I basically fell into this OB situation, and I'll say, the OB is very nice. I just really do not enjoy the obstetrical approach to pregnancy. There is a lot that was done that was very unnecessary, not to mention costly. (While I enjoy seeing the baby, the copays on those ultrasounds every single visit really plunder the paycheck.) Plus, I don't enjoy the OB's attitude that this is a precarious situation. It's like each time, she would say, "It all looks good." and then she'd pause for a minute, and say, "...well, for an early pregnancy anyhow." almost as if she was expecting me to lose the baby or something. While that can absolutely happen to anyone, our odds of a healthy pregnancy are good. I like to think positively about these things. "It all looks good" would be sufficient. I also did not like how I always felt like I was fighting her off on giving me drugs. She asked if I had any complications and I said no, and she said "no nausea?" (Nausea is a complication? I thought it was a normal part of early pregnancy for most people.) I said, "Yeah, I'm kinda pukey, but-" and before I could finish my sentence, she had a prescription for me for some drug that's really pretty questionable, not to mention with some crazy side-effects. I never filled it. (Frankly, I'd rather spend the first half hour of my day hugging the bowl than take that stuff.) That's happened with EVERYTHING. I have a purse full of prescriptions I will never fill, just from two visits. It's just weird to me. I'd only ever been seen by midwives before that, and there is not this focus on medication.

So anyhow, I was sticking with the insurance-approved OB until I got all my labs done because they are really expensive, and insurance will pick up 100% of them if it's through an in-network provider. They would pick up 0% if referred by a homebirth midwife, or done through any of our local birth centers, so I wanted to get my labs done before completely transferring out. It's been hard to stick with it for so long, though. I can only lie so many times, and say which hospital I want to have the baby at. Every time they ask, I want to yell "ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THEM!!!" and run away (because the hospitals have such a high c-section rate, it's scary) but I had to BS my way through it in order to get what I needed. I went to the final OB appointment I will ever go to this morning, and they were taking my history, asking about Erin and Orren's births. It is amazing the things they consider complications. A nuchal cord (cord wrapped around the neck), and posterior presentation (sunny side up baby) are both considered complications. These things happen every day, and are absolutely not complicated. Ask any midwife on the planet how many times a week she delivers babies with both of those factors, and if she considers them complications. I guarantee you she deals with them all the time, and considers it a non-issue. I was shocked at the things the mainstream OB profession considers complications. It was really scary. Although this OB is very nice indeed, I do not feel safe in that setting, especially when it comes to the baby. (I did not admit to anything which would possibly get me a high risk designation.)

Anyhow, during this whole OB debacle, I kept myself sane by interviewing homebirth midwives, and checking out birth centers. I found that El Paso has three homebirth midwives and two birth centers. I really wanted to do a homebirth this time, so I only checked into the birth centers as a formality just in case none of the midwives worked out for me. The birth centers were good. The midwifery school, while so cheap to give birth at, wasn't really my style (too busy and almost all the patients are from Juarez, so it's almost exclusively Spanish-speaking, which would make Thak uncomfortable), but Casa, the other birth center, was nice. If my first choice was another birth center birth, I'd have been very happy delivering at Casa.

As for the homebirth midwives, the first two I spoke with were definitely good, but not the perfect fit I was looking for. If they had been my only options, I'd have chosen one and been fine, but I interviewed the third and final one to see how I liked her. Thak and I met her last Friday for the first time, and from the first moment, we knew that she was the one for us, no question. Of course we loved the answers she had for all our questions, but more than that, we just really feel like we can trust her. She has 20 years of experience, over 2000 births (mostly home, some at Casa), and only a 1% hospital transfer rate. I thought her low transfer rate would mean she would be extremely picky about who she would assist, but in talking with her, we found that she is actually not at all picky about her clients (she does not call us patients). She takes moms with things most would consider risk factors, delivers babies that are breech at home, even delivers twins at home. She isn't picky. She's GOOD. I was impressed. Anyone who can take such a broad slice of the population, and come up with the kind of success rate she has, is definitely a person I want on my side. I was so happy and relieved after we met with her and she agreed to take us on as clients.

In the week and a half since then, I've mostly been agonizing about how to bring this whole OB debacle to an end. I've heard so many horror stories about OB offices being really nasty to women who transfer out to a non-hospital practitioner, or not transferring records, or something else crazy like that. I think I'm just going to tell them to transfer our records to Casa. (Our midwife is at Casa 3 days a week, so it would be easiest to send them there.) If I have them transferred there, hopefully the OB's office won't be mean to me about it. ACOG even says birth centers are ok. They just vilify homebirth (which makes no sense because the only way a birth center birth and a homebirth differ is in location). I just have felt trapped by this OB thing, and will feel a lot better when I get out of that situation completely. I had the blood drawn for my labs today, so as soon as the results come back, I'll call and get the records transferred, and be much better.

On the good side, paycheck plundering aside, it was nice to see the baby both times we have. We got to see the heartbeat, and all that. Today we got to see the baby moving all over the place, flailing and kicking. It's a very active baby, just like Erin and Orren were, with a super strong heartbeat of 167 beats per minute! (A fast heartbeat is good this early.) The baby is also measuring about a week ahead of gestational age in size, so this is probably going to be another big one, but that's no surprise. My guess right now is that it is going to be a boy, 10 pounds, June 4.

Yes, I will show ultrasound pictures very soon. They are not scanned in yet. You really couldn't see much on the 6-week ones that we got before (the baby was just so small then) but you can distinguish a little bit on these 9-week ones, so I'll post them soon.

Right now, we're just looking forward to our first appointment at Casa with our outstanding midwife, and that is one week from tomorrow. Oh, and a super cool thing about her is that she does evening appointments one night a week! That way, Thak can actually go to all my appointments this time, and not have to worry about the people at his work harassing him about wanting to be involved with the whole thing. Sure, he'll miss an hour or so of school for the appointments, but his instructor is flexible enough about time that he'll almost certainly work with him when it comes to that. This will become especially important when he's interning at a shop while on terminal leave from the Army. He won't be able to take time off during his internship, and he won't have night classes anymore then, so we'll be really set with evening appointments at that point in time.

Don't blame the south. We're far smarter than you think.

It offends me when people say, "Oh, of course you had a hard time finding Erin a good school. You've only lived in Georgia and Texas since she's been school age." That is so not cool. I actually had one person tell me I should move anywhere north of the Mason Dixon Line because the schools are bound to be better. It was really about all I could do to maintain some tiny shred of composure at that.

I'll tell you, people still think southerners are bound to be dumb, for some crazy reason. How on earth can people assume that we're idiots when Georgia Tech was rated the #1 engineering school in the nation this year? Yeah, it was not MIT, not Harvard, not Princeton, not NYU, not Carnegie Melon. Although all those were rated very highly, GEORGIA Tech beat them all handily to be #1. While we're on the subject of universities, how about the entire SEC? There's not a bad school in it, and some of them (ahem... UF, I'm looking at you) are real standouts on a national and international level. How can people still say southerners are dumb when we have had so many of our own become President of the United States, and had the majority of high ranking military officers hail from our part of the country? (Yeah, West Point may be up north, but The Citadel, Vanderbilt, Virginia Military Institute, and many other great military colleges are well below the Mason-Dixon!) Why does this stereotype still exist when practically every southern state is home to so many major metropolitan modern cities which are practically trend setters for the world? Hardly any of us wear overalls and camo anymore.

I may be from the country, and like things like grits and collards, and enjoy country music, and think Jeff Foxworthy is the funniest person ever to come down the pike, but even so I received a far superior education in a rural southern school, when compared with what my husband received in a rural northern school. There are things I grew up knowing since I was Erin's age which never even occurred to him even in his 30's. This is nothing against Thak, of course. He couldn't help it that his dad chose to move to the middle of nowhere when he retired from the Air Force. The fact is, though, if southern education was so dumbed down and insufficient, then Thak would run circles around me intellectually, and he doesn't.

In fact, when I was a student at Georgia Tech (yeah, I'm pulling that card out. It applies here.) we had students from all over the nation, and all over the world. In my lab group, Junior year, we had one guy from Georgia, one from Kentucky, another from New Jersey, and then me, from Florida. I'll tell you, we were all about on a par with one another. The New Jersey guy didn't overshadow any of us southerners in the least. Let's be frank, Georgia Tech doesn't accept any idiots, and most of the people who go there, or did at one time, are southerners.

I will tell anyone who acts like Georgia, and the south as a whole, does not have it going on educationally and intellectually, exactly what's wrong with their theory, and in my mind, I may just think they are the insufficiently educated one for believing this stuff. I don't go saying that about their schools. In case I wasn't clear enough when referring to my husband's cut-rate Otter Tail County education, I think there are good and bad schools in any state, and no widespread statements can be made about what state is good or bad concerning education standards as a whole (individual districts, yes. A whole state, no.) If you look at the facts on it, that's absolutely true, too.

As a final thought, yes, I live in Texas now. I love Texas. I served in the Army here. I met Thak here... I love this state. Maybe I don't love the farthest west part of it as much as other parts, but I do love Texas just as much as I love Georgia, and while people will always make Bush jokes and talk about how we're such a red state and everything like that, the ones who take it very seriously irritate me. Yes, this state was run by Bush for a long time, but it was a decade ago! Yes, on the outside, me and Thak may seem like any other gun-toting Texans (if you lived where we live, you'd carry, too), but this again comes with the dumb stereotype. It's not cool. Our daughter goes to a good school, not a regular public school, to be sure, but a good school, right here in Texas. If we were in Dallas or Austin, she might even go to the public school we were zoned for because even Texas, Bush and all, has some good schools in it.

To borrow a quote from a good movie:

"Honey, just because I talk slow doesn't mean I'm stupid."

That's the damned truth of the matter, too. Southerners aren't dumb, but some of these uppity yankees who act like we are, surely make me wonder about them! (Said in jest, of course.)

Monster boots!!

Orren is going to get something else great for Christmas this year. He loves shoes and is always wanting to put them on (or try on everyone else's), so it's perfect for him.

Behold!

Monster Boots

How freaking cool are those? They would be perfect for my little monster!!

I can't wait until December!

Orren's birthday present came today!!! It's his Early Rider balance bike. I can't wait to give it to him! He's going to love it! I'm holding off on it by not buying his helmet until mid-December. That way I don't just give it to him early. He's going to be so cute on his new bike!

A Public Service Announcement from Orren:

You know how you get really excited when your mommy says you're gonna eat oatmeal for breakfast? You know how it's so hard to wait while she puts the brown sugar and the cinnamon in it, or maybe the pieces of fruit? Well, when mommy says it's hot, and you don't need to dig in right away, she means it's HOT! No matter how excited you are about the oatmeal, do not stick both hands in right away when it's too hot to eat from the spoon, because it will hurt, and you will cry, and breakfast will take twice as long as usual. You'll probably miss Curious George in the process, and I don't know about you, but that really messes up my day.


Yeah, the poor guy couldn't contain himself and got burned on oatmeal. He's fine, though.






On an entirely unrelated note, we found out we were accepted for Heroes at Home this year! That's the program from Sears that gives gift cards (in undetermined amounts) to the first 20,000 military personnel to register. Like I said, I have no idea how much we will get. Last year, most people got in the $300 range, so who knows for this year. It's all dependent upon donations, and they haven't even begun taking donations yet, so we have no idea if they will be as high this year as they were last. Only time will tell.

In some ways, I almost wish we didn't register for it, though... It kind of feels like we just stepped in a hornets' nest since this program is so controversial within the military community. Everyone thinks they have the inside scoop on how it works (They are all wrong. A quick google and a call to customer service will easily tell you that.) and some people think that you'd have to be a massive freeloader to ever sign up for it. While I leaned that way in the past, just seeing how some people (whom I otherwise like quite well) get extremely greedy around the holidays, tapping every "gimme free goodies" program available to the military, to the point that they don't even bother to save up for their kids' presents because they count on the handouts constantly, I don't think it really has to be that way. Guilt by association is real, but at least we know we're not freeloaders. That's why when we thought about it this year, we decided to fill out an application. For one thing, there are other families of our rank doing this ever since they lifted the rank restriction last year, so obviously it's not noble or anything to "step aside and let the lower-enlisteds get it". Nobody else is doing that. For another, we need to save every penny we can for when Thak gets out, so having a chance at some extra holiday cash that didn't come from our account, is definitely going to help us put that much more away for later. We were really surprised that we were one of the first 20k applications received! (It's first come, first served. The only qualification is that the person whose name the application is in must be Active Duty.)

The Privilege of Avoiding the Beaten Path

A friend of mine from college mentioned as a guess for why there are relatively few birthing options in El Paso considering the size of the city, that it could be due to the poverty of this place. For a metro area of two million, for there to be only two birth centers (one of them a midwifery school, an outstanding, extremely low-cost option) and three midwives who do home births (most of them actually out of New Mexico), those are low numbers. I would expect to find something more similar to the Seattle metro area, which has over half a dozen birth centers, and at least a couple dozen midwives in private practice for home births. The low numbers here are staggering. My friend astutely pointed out that pursuing any of these options requires a pretty serious deviation from the beaten path, and that poor people who have always been poor, are very used to just being, as she accurately put it, "herded through the system". She has one hell of a good point, and it even shed light on a lot that has boggled my mind for years.

In my limited understanding of systems for the poor (I received WIC when Erin was a baby) it is very much "Toe the line; Do this; Now do that; We know what is best for you." If you say, "I think this is better." that idea is completely poo-pooed. Now someone like me, or anyone else who's had a baby whilst otherwise filling the role of a starving college student, can take that sort of thing with a grain of salt, and realize that these people are just going by the book, and using arbitrary guidelines which apply to most people, but if they don't apply to us, it's really not that big a deal to go in a different direction as long as it's substantiated by real facts (or guidance from other reputable sources). For people who are not just temporarily poor, who have always been poor, and even have been poor for generations, it's different. They seem to internalize this concept that they have to do what the system says or something bad will happen. Therefore, they end up herded through the system in a lot of ways that are of far more consequence than being issued the right number of vouchers for milk, cheese, grits, and pinto beans.

Maybe this "poor mentality" along with our city's population's widespread poverty, combine to make the wonderful alternative birthing options we have here, quite underused. It's crazy. Coming from a state like Georgia, where birthing options are so few (homebirth is illegal, and there is only one independent, non-hospital-owned birth center in the entire state. We were lucky enough to live only an hour from it, so Orren could be born there) to come to a state like Texas, where birthing options are limitless from a legal standpoint, it's just weird to find that everyone still thinks doctor, hospital, and all that comes along with it. Nationally, about 1% of women give birth in non-hospital settings each year. In this city, I'd estimate that it's less than .1%. Maybe it's because they don't know that they can.

Another thing that occurs to me is that there seems to be this rich/poor dichotomy when it comes to birthing. Since Texas Medicaid will not pay for scheduled c-sections (how awesome is that?!) the public hospital here in town has roughly a 12% c-section rate, which is pretty close to what the World Health Organization thinks is the true necessary rate. Of course, the public hospital is NAS-TAY, too. It's in a great part of town to go if you want to get shot, and the whole place is dirty and smelly. You don't want to have a baby there. Funny enough, you'll probably come out of it better than you would birthing at any of the private hospitals, most of which have c-section rates hovering right around 40% (is that not staggering?). Taking this into account, if you had a c-section, it means you're well off enough to have insurance. Natural birth, with few interventions if any (because they're stingy about those at the public hospital, too... as they should be) is what the poor do. This may be another local cultural factor for why the options we have legally available to us, are so underused. It's like how a lot of people think breastfeeding and cloth diapering are for poor people, even though celebrities are doing both in droves.

OK, but back to the poor mentality. It explains a lot about why so many military dependents just accept the crappy Army health system's dole, and won't go out and change it. What demographic in the US population is very disproportionately represented in the ranks of our military? The poor, of course. To these wives, the Army's medical system is just another system to get in line for, and when confronted with the option to change it, they wouldn't even know where to begin. Therefore, when someone like me, says, "Hey, I haven't dealt with that BS you're complaining about in years. Go on Standard like me. It's great. I have at least 10x the choices available to me as anyone on Prime has." they RAIL at the possibility, tell me I'm the stupid one.

This also applies to schools. When I sit in the parent pickup line at Erin's school in the afternoons, I've often joked that it's "the big obnoxious SUV show". I'm amid Hummers, Cadillacs, Lexuses, and others, but all the most gas guzzling ones made. My little red Chevy sticks out like a sore thumb (but I'm cool with that. I drive a small car on principle. I can't rationalize consuming enough resources to transport an entire platoon when I have a family of 5 or fewer.) The people who seek out any route aside from the standard public school, seem to tend toward being rather well off, or at least solidly middle class. Remember, the poor are disproportionately represented in the military, so when I say, "If your kid's school is that bad, take them out of it and find a new one!" there's a pretty good shot I'm talking to someone who has never even considered that there is any option accessible to them aside from whatever crappy public school they might be zoned for (and in this city at least 90% of the public schools are total crap) so when they tell me I'm crazy, it's because it really does sound like a crazy idea to them.

Living far from the beaten path is something I've always taken for granted. It's just the way things have always been for me. It is a privilege, though. Only people who have never been poor, at least in the theoretical sense (which has nothing to do with being poor in the financial sense) ever seem to know it's an option. The others, they continue along their well worn path, which is full of potholes and booby-traps that they never see, but the rest of us do, and that path looks just fine to them at the end of the day. It seems sad from where I sit, but it doesn't seem that most of those who are stuck on the beaten path really see it that way. It is an interesting difference in perspective.

We will soon be a violin-free household.

Erin told me today that she wants to quit violin. She said her teacher yelled at her for nearly dropping her violin because she was trying to get her bow in her hand right. Um, that's a pretty honest mistake there. Why you yelling at my kid, lady?

We've paid through February, and just received the official contract for the year, so I'm pretty sure we can get out of doing it after February by just not signing the contract. I'm going to call the school tomorrow, though, and be sure. I REALLY want her out of that class. That teacher is foul.

What is it with violin teachers, really? I can think of several I've met whom I would not even think of putting out if I saw them on fire, and far more I'd probably put out, but with something like sewage. In general, I really do not like violin teachers.

It's a bit of a relief to me that Erin doesn't want to continue with this. I knew this teacher was a bitch from the day she sent home a note, after being told by Erin that we had been around to every music store in town, and had not yet found a violin in her size, saying simply, "Erin needs a 1/4 size violin for class." Really? No shit, Sherlock. Why else do you think I've been running around all afternoon for weeks trying to find one? Not my fault that they're apparently nonexistent in this city. Anyhow, an exorbitant amount of overnight shipping charges later, we had Erin's violin, and teacherzilla played nice until today, minus bringing the kids out late to pick-up every class day, despite Mr. M telling her repeatedly what time they needed to be out there. (He told me that today as I was waiting, that he'd reminded her several times to get them out there on time, and that he didn't know why they were still late.)

So yeah, I told Erin she has to stick with it until February since we already paid for that, but after that, there will be no more violin in this house unless she changes her mind between here and there, and teacherzilla decides to behave.

UFO's in El Paso last night??

I didn't see this, but several people I know did. It was over my part of the city. Here's the video:

Dude, just stop it now.

How long until we're done with this Army crap? I'm really sick of the BS, just the human side of it really... It's just like, every time anything happens, if I say something about it to a peer, whether via social media or at a coffee, or anything, there's always some lower-enlisted wife who has to weigh in with her two cents. They can't ever just say, "Oh, I heard this" either. They have to say, "NO! YOU'RE WRONG!" and then state the latest lower-enlisted rumor, which is absolutely never true. It's so annoying. I always say, Officers run on ideas, NCO's run on facts, and lower-enlisted soldiers run on rumors. It really is true if you think about it. The Officers think of the stuff (usually with their senior NCO's to advise), then the information is given to the NCO's to implement. The lower-enlisted role is to follow. They have no need for much information. They only need to know where to be, what time, the appropriate uniform, and what to bring. Their wives don't get that, though. They think the rumor they heard from their husband, who heard it from PVT Smith, who heard it from PFC Jones, who heard it from SPC Snuffy, is just as good as what my husband was told by a Colonel in the Command and Staff meeting last week. It's just very annoying. Let's just say, I don't go trying to contradict the Major's wife, because she has a direct link to a higher source of information than I do. This isn't offensive. It is a fact.

It reminds me of when I was at Ft. Stewart and some idiot lower-enlisted wife called me almost every single day, and in addition to trying to advise me on what baby gear I'd need for Orren (guess she forgot I already had a kid??) she liked to say things like, "Hate to break it to you, but unless Thak goes to a new brigade, he'll be leaving for Afghanistan next month." Mind you, at this point, he'd been home from Iraq for about 3 months, and there were no orders to be found anywhere, and he'd just been promoted out of every slot for his field on that post, so we knew we were leaving anyhow, and at that point, really did not care who deployed where, or when, from that division since we were on our way out. Even so, it was super annoying to always have this lower-enlisted wife, like a barking dog, saying shit like, "I hate to break it to you..." and following it up with the latest barracks rumor. It was not cool.

Next time one does that, I'm going to look her straight in the eye (or pretend to if it's virtual), and say, "How the hell would you know??" and then wait for an answer. I swear common sense is just about dead when we have lower-enlisted wives constantly trying to tell NCO wives what's up. It's not at all cool. We don't do that to them... although we legitimately could. What the hell makes them think they have the right? I've just had enough of it. They're everywhere, and they're so obnoxious.

VDF School Does Halloween

So I thought I was really slick this year. I got out of making costumes by buying them for the first time in my entire life. Nope. Not so. Mr. M sent a note home yesterday that the school will be doing a living wax museum role play on the 29th (the last school day before Halloween) and that the theme is Greek Mythology. Erin, of course, has been cast as Aphrodite. Therefore, I get to make an Aphrodite costume this weekend.

That is what I get for thinking I got out of making costumes this year. But hey, at least they're letting the kids dress up and do something fun on the last day before Halloween. Erin will be bringing her lines home soon, which she will have to memorize. It's kind of cute the way they're doing it. The kids will all be set up, just posed, like figures in a wax museum, and they'll have a "button" (a sticker, basically) on their hand that people can push, and then they say their lines. It's a cute idea for a living visual art project for kids. I know they'll have fun with it.

Trying my hand at free shit.

So there's something called the Heroes at Home program. It's given through Sears, and it's one of the most misunderstood yet anticipated programs that pertain to the military. It's been going on for about three years now, but we have never applied before. The first year, we didn't know about it (and I was too pregnant to care anyhow), and the second year, we were under the impression that it was restricted to lower ranking families than us, and even upon finding that it wasn't, saw it as somewhat our obligation to step aside and let those who need it more go ahead and get it (Even if we hadn't thought that, it wouldn't have mattered. When we found out that it is not rank restricted, it was past the deadline to apply anyhow.)

This year, someone mentioned it to me yesterday, and I figured, why not. Our friend Diaz got like $300 from this program last year, and so did a lot of other people we know. It's pretty much a scramble for one of 20,000 slots, among which the donations collected from private individuals will be distributed equitably. Every year so far, it's come to around $300 that each family has gotten. This is distributed in the form of gift cards that are redeemable at Sears or any Sears affiliate (I know K Mart and Land's End are two other stores besides Sears that take them. I'm not sure what others do.) Since you can get most anything at these stores, that's a pretty good deal.

I asked Thak about applying for it, and he was hesitant at first, but I said that literally nobody else was thinking like we were, like letting the people who needed it more get it. Everyone else was just going for their share of the free shit, so what do we gain by sitting back and not even trying to get a slot? He saw it my way, and thank goodness he did because seriously, we have two kids, one of whom has a birthday on Christmas. You cannot tell me an extra few hundred wouldn't come in handy. Hell, if the amounts given are the same as they were last year, that would entirely pay for our kids' holidays and birthdays if we spent the same as we did last year. That would be insane! Can you imagine? Free Christmas?? In what universe does that exist?!

So anyhow, I did what every other wife of an Active Duty soldier anywhere on the planet did, and stalked the webpage last night, waiting for the registration form to go live. It went live last night at about 10 pm, which was midnight Eastern time. I filled it out, and then realized it said that registrations open at 9 am Central Time today. Hmmm... I called the 1-800 number, and got no answer. I would have to wait until after I dropped Erin off at school today to find out.

I got back from dropping Erin off, called again, and was told that I had to resubmit the form. By this time, the site was bogged down with so much traffic (it was about 9:30 am Central by then, 8:30 am Mountain, my local time) that it took me twelve attempts to get the page to load in the first place. Then when I filled the form out and submitted it, I got a blank screen. I tried it again, ended up filling the thing out three times, hitting submit, it taking five minutes for the page to load, and then getting a blank screen rather than any confirmation that it had gone through, so I don't know if it did or not.

I then decided to see what the webizens of military wife land were saying about this (because seriously, every time there's free shit, you know the boards are buzzing!) and I found that what the operator who I talked to, who told me to fill the thing out again, may or may not be right. Some people filled it out when it first went live, like I did, and were told they were fine, and would hear by email if they got in or not. Others, like me, were told to resubmit, so the bottom line is that they have absolutely no idea what is going on with it, and it's anyone's guess whether or not we got in. I don't know if the form we sent in which definitely went through, counted, and I'm not sure if the forms we sent in when it definitely would have counted, went through. We'll find out on the 27th.

Anyhow, I happened to mention this to D, and he told me about even MORE programs to get free shit at the holidays. Now, I will say people like him need these programs. He is a Sergeant with four children. Big families need this stuff. I've got no beef with that at all. It's all funded by private contributions anyhow, so it's not like it's coming out of anyone's pocket who didn't give it of their own free will. Even so, I don't think I'd feel right taking even more, so I think I'll leave it at this. I hope we got our registration in on time, and that it went through, that we are one of the first 20,000 to get through. If we're not, though, it's ok. We won't stress about it. I hope we're chosen, though. It would be cool.

Pumpkin patch and corn maze!

This weekend, we took the monkeys (er, Erin and Orren) to the cornfield maze in La Union, NM. It was a lot of fun. There was a lot to do there, and the kids just loved it. The clear favorite was the cow train, a train made up of barrels made to look like cows, and pulled by a tractor. It was a very dusty ride, but Erin and Orren both loved it. Orren had a hard time waiting his turn, and cried when his turn was over. Poor thing. He would have ridden the cow train all day long!

We also went through the maze, and miraculously found our way out. Of course we went out to the pumpkin patch, too, and picked out two enormous pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns, and two smaller pumpkins, probably for pies. Of course, we had to have the requisite border fair food, like roasted corn with cayenne pepper and ribbon cut potatoes with hot sauce. (You know you've been living on the border a while when you order everything "con jalapeno"... or in this case other types, but same idea!)

It was a fun day. Everyone had a great time. Oh, but people are talking. They're saying my baby is more like a little boy. Stop that right now. He is a baby. He is not allowed to be a little boy yet. He is still new.

OK, so yeah, pictures:

The maze was right across the road from an alpaca farm! How cute is this?? Erin loved it. We pulled up and she screamed, "LLAMAS!!! Can I go pet them?!!!" and I told her that they were alpacas, which are a lot like llamas, but not quite, and that yes, we could go see them. They were really tame, and came right up to her.



Here's Erin on the big jumping balloon thing. She loved this!


Here is a series of images of Orren impatiently waiting for his turn on the cow train. He was not happy to have to wait. He wanted to get on the cow train NOW!

See his mad face? He says, "Let me on that cow train! I don't need no stinkin' line!"


Trying to keep him from completely losing it. This worked for exactly two seconds.


Still waiting:


Still waiting! Luckily, the cow train came up right then, and he was first in line so he got a seat!


Finally on the cow train!!



Then there were duck races!


Then there was the corn maze. Erin did not know the way, contrary to her belief. She got us so lost, but we found our way out eventually!


After the maze, we got some food. It was good!



Erin loved the corn. (In case anyone wondered, yes, one can still effectively eat corn while missing one's two front teeth.)



Then there were pumpkins! Erin wanted them all!



Orren has found his.


OK, maybe we'll go with daddy's choice instead:


Still looking for the right one!



Found it!


We got two BIG pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns this year!


Our total haul. The two big ones, plus Erin and Orren's picks.

We're going to the ballet!

We ordered our tickets today for the Moscow Ballet's Great Russian Nutcracker! It is coming to El Paso on December 23 for two shows only! We are going to the early one. We just found out that one of the girls from Erin's dance school was cast in two roles (apparently they use some local dancers for smaller roles in the production) so that is also very cool. She is not in Erin's class, as she's a couple years older and has been dancing for longer, but it's still exciting that someone from Elite is going to be on stage with the Moscow Ballet. (Also tells me that we've got our kid at the right dance school! Who says that won't be Erin up there in a few years?)

So yeah, it will be Thak's first time ever going to the ballet. Of course, it will be Erin's and Orren's, too. I'm pretty sure Thak figured he'd wear his usual jeans and t-shirt, but I told him otherwise. He and Orren will definitely require new clothes. I've already got a nice red dress for Erin, and I've surely got something for myself, so that will be easy. It'll be fun. Our daughter is a ballerina. We can't NOT take her to see this. It will be something she never forgets. She was so excited when I told her we got tickets!

It's not as big a deal as you're making it.

I was just talking with a long time friend of mine who is an Asian Men's Activist. I will say, he does good work. It was because of a campaign that he originated, that Daniel Dae Kim was one of People Magazine's sexiest men of the year a few years ago (and Daniel Dae Kim is VERY sexy, so that was a good pick!), and this friend has also raised awareness of the unbalanced representations of Asian men in the media at large. He does great, worthwhile, and difficult work. I appreciate what he is doing.

Sometimes things are taken a bit far and out of context, though. Today, he was talking about how he was really put off by a friend's recent vacation photos. This friend is an Asian woman who has a daughter, also 100% Asian. They had gone to Disney World, and the pictures, of course, included the daughter, who's probably a few years younger than Erin, posing with all the Disney Princesses. I mean, what else do little girls do at Disney World, right?

Of course, he saw something sinister in this. All the princesses are white. OK, first off, that's not true. Some of Erin's favorite princesses are Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, Mulan from Mulan (of course), and Jasmine from Aladdin. She likes a lot of other princesses, too, but if you ask her for her favorites, one of those three will always make the list. Now, for anyone who doesn't know, the ones I named are black, middle-eastern, and Chinese, respectively. Erin, of course, is white. She looks like Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty, or Belle. They are not her favorites, though.

Based on this, I really don't think little kids internalize this stuff on the level that some adults seem to think that they do. I'm sorry, but it is not harmful for a little Chinese girl to pose with Cinderella if that's her favorite princess any more than it would be for Erin to pose with Jasmine. Let's just say, not harmful at all. It's good childhood fun. People are taking this WAY too far if they think there's damage being done by that.

Here's the thing. A lot has changed for our kids. Back when I was a kid, it was definitely not all that acceptable in society at large to hang out with people of other races. It's different for Erin, though. She rarely hangs out with white kids! Of course, we've always lived in places where we are the minority, so that is really the law of probability in action. If you're in a place with a 55% black population like our old home in Georgia, then you will probably make more black friends than anything else. If you live here, where the population is 95% Hispanic, your friends will just about all be Hispanic. Pretty simple. Even so, Erin's friends of other races outnumber her white friends, no matter how it came about. If this were the 80's, she would hang with the two white kids in her school, and leave it at that. That's not the way it is anymore, though. The world has changed.

It's adults who are stuck in the past. It's adults who still see race first, and people second, and who carry the baggage of how crappy race relations really were when we were younger. Our job is not to make sure our kids are posing with the right color of Disney Princess, but to not pass our baggage along to them. Welcome friends of every race. Be positive. Show positive role models of your race and others. BE a positive role model. Don't let your daughter see you looking in the mirror at your fat with a disgusted face (Shut up. You know you've done it. We all have.) This will do more for long term identity and confidence than trying to keep the influence of the white washed media out.

For the record, I do believe the media is white washed and totally imbalanced. It's changing slowly. Remember, the media is run by adults, not our kids who are without the baggage. Still, look at all that has happened in the past 20 years. For every Long Duk Dong and incidence of "Yellowface" (think of Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's), there is a John Cho, a Daniel Dae Kim, a Chow Yun Fat. We adults are making progress, but slowly. Our kids are already there. Don't put our shit off on them. That's the important part.

It's very real, and you can't say otherwise.

I can't even count how many times I've been told by someone I know, who's never even set foot in a border state, far less a border town, that the problems we have in our twin cities are not so bad, that "at least it's not a real war". It may not be a declared war, nor involve any country's military, but believe me, it's real. Las Muertas de Juarez are real. The bullets that cross the Rio Grande into the city of El Paso on a regular basis are real. The Ft. Hancock violence of a few months ago, was real. The car bombs are real. The drugs are real. The guns are real. The deaths are real.

Tonight, we found out that one of Thak's classmates was killed in Juarez, I think today. He was 20 years old, and left behind two daughters. He was murdered by the cartel because they thought he was someone else. This guy had nothing to do with the drug trade, nothing at all. There are many who have been killed in the same manner. The cartel shoots first and asks questions never. They also own the police force and have their hands in the government, so justice will never be served in this, or any similar, killing. Someone got away with murder, and will go on to do it again, no doubt. If this is not a war, and these people who go this way are not casualties, then I have never known one.

It's really easy for outsiders to say, "It's too easy. Just don't go to Juarez!" OK, that's a great solution for people like me and Thak who aren't from around here. I can't imagine either of us will ever set foot in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico as long as we live. We have no reason to. We can live in our safe little neighborhood where people can afford to be so petty that they call the cops about 7-year-olds riding bikes, and never actually see Juarez any closer than maybe 20 yards away when we go downtown near the crossings, or drive through the mountain pass which overlooks the slums. That's a gringo's solution, though. We don't have family there. A lot of these other people do. In fact, most people in El Paso have family on both sides of the fence. That's just the way it is. People would never ask someone who lives in Dallas never to go to Ft. Worth and think that was reasonable, nor would they do the same of Minneapolis and St. Paul, yet that's the gringo's solution for El Paso-Juarez. I'll tell you right now, it doesn't work. Americans are dying for going to see their families and their friends on the other side of our metro area. Really, the only difference between El Paso-Juarez and Minneapolis-St. Paul or Dallas-Ft. Worth is that there's a fence that runs through our metro area, and border guards who get to tell you if you're allowed to cross it or not. Otherwise, we are just another pair of twin cities. It's not realistic to expect people to just shut themselves in on one side and never go to the other. We are not East and West Berlin, nor will we ever be. Nobody would ever stand for that.

Something has to be done. Mexico needs to get their shit together, and stop with the corruption, and just wanting the US to give them money that they'll just feed right back into the cartels via their corrupt government which the cartel has its hands in hardcore. The US needs to offer military support for an operation to clean out the border towns. Our Special Forces are used to fighting drug wars. We have an entire Special Forces Group consisting of Spanish-speaking Green Berets, who have years, sometimes decades, of experience working in Colombia on anti-cartel missions. If we send them in, plus a few battalions of grunts to support them, this will be over in a matter of months. Then maybe we can stop hearing about all this dying. Every time we turn around, someone else has died. Yes, it was their choice to go to Juarez, but it is not reasonable to ask them not to under the circumstances. The Mexican government has dropped the ball, and failed its people, whether they live on that side of the border or this one (and I'm even referring to those who are naturalized US citizens. If they have family on the Mexico side but they live here, they are of Mexico AND the US.) It's time to do something about this. How many thousands of people have to die before someone will think this is worth their time to fix?

I ordered Orren's birthday present!

Yeah, yeah, I know, the boy's birthday isn't until Christmas (poor kid...), but since it's important for him to have distinct birthday presents and distinct Christmas presents, we are starting early, because it's an expensive venture!

So what did Mr. Orren Kiet get for his birthday? It is an Early Rider balance bike!! I am so happy about this. I have wanted to get him one of these, but they are so expensive. They retail for $160, but I got his for $99 on sale at Zulilly (that's a site that has deal-a-day type of stuff for kids). I'm thrilled. The Early Rider is far and away the best balance bike ever. It's constructed out of sustainably produced birch wood, manufactured in England by well paid employees, and absolutely gorgeous quality. It's got the most beautiful detailing, and a sweet California style. Not to mention, you can change the way it steers, depending on the child's ability level. (You want to restrict it for new riders, and let it go free for experienced riders.)

I'm so psyched about this. I wanted this for him, and I KNEW I wanted an Early Rider because the quality is just so much better than anything else out there, but was having a hard time justifying the cost. I ended up getting it for hardly any more than it would be for any of the others we were considering (other decent ones will go for $80 or so, and have not nearly the great features that the Early Rider has). I hope Orren LOVES it!!

Now I have to find him a helmet.

The Vikings did WHAT??

Randy Moss is going to be back in purple... hmmm... How strange is this? The Vikings acquired him from the Patriots in exchange for a 3rd round pick in next year's draft. That's a cheap price for someone who's basically the star player of his current (er, former?) team. I don't know, but I think there's a lot they're not telling us about this deal. I can see a 3rd round pick being a suitable price for a mediocre long snapper, or possibly a second string lineman with a history of injuries and drug use, but for a star receiver? That's dirt cheap.

This brings me to my next point. Why the hell are the Vikings taking this crazy ego monster back?? He was AWFUL the last time he was in Minnesota. The entire reason his contract wasn't renewed was because he brought down the morale of the entire team with his horrible attitude, and even mooned the crowd at the Metrodome once! Why on earth is Zygi, and the rest of the Wilf clan, even willing to entertain the thought of bringing this walking disaster back to MN?? I seriously can't believe it. Thak can't believe it. Most of the Vikings fans I know (Granted, I'm related to about 99% of them) are in disbelief. We don't WANT Randy Moss back! Sure, he scores points, and we may win a few more games, but at what price? The Vikings have always been such a classy team, which is why every Vikings fan can still hold our head high even after the heartbreaking loss to the Saints in last year's NFC Championship game. Our guys are classy, and they play right, and they're like brothers out there on the field. We don't need someone as divisive and egotistical as Randy Moss to get in the way of that. We know he can absolutely rip apart the cohesion of even the best Vikings team because he's done it before. Why would we ever want him to do it again? Of course, we have always known that the front office is notorious for dumb decisions (Tavaris Jackson, anyone???), so I guess even something as out of left field as this, should not come as a complete surprise.

I have a lot of friends who are Patriots fans, and they are absolutely reeling over this. He was their best player, and he was traded for a 3rd round pick. I say, if someone is so horrible to work with that the organization is willing to give him up that cheaply, why would you wan him in the first place? Everywhere Randy Moss goes, he brings a truck load of baggage and bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, they can keep him. We're stuck with him for at least a season now, though... I hope that this is only a temporary arrangement to tide us over until Sidney Rice comes back from rehabbing an injury. He has two more weeks before he'll be able to play again, and probably a few more before he is 100%, so maybe we're just using Moss until our REAL star player comes back. I hope that's all this is... I don't think anyone within the Vikings Nation can stand another few years of Randy Moss showing us his ass (literally).

Crazy other parents, part 2

You know, yesterday's events made me think of several other things that have happened over the course of the past few years. I think, in general, a lot of parents seriously need a reality check. There is a vast difference between doing something illegal, and doing something that's different than what you'd do.

You know, in my old neighborhood, we had roving bands of children. The only time any of us called the police on them was when they became a nuisance, like when one little girl wouldn't stop looking in the windows of my house, or pounding on the windows when newborn Orren was sleeping, despite repeated warnings. Others called the police when the older kids would steal things from the younger ones, despite repeated warnings. This is justified.

The following things are not justified:

-Calling the police because a 7-year-old is riding her bike in front of her house.
-Telling someone they need to keep a better eye on their kid when their 7-year-old is playing with other kids on a playground at a military unit function, and the parent is standing about 20' away, talking with other adults, looking in on the big kid periodically, and minding the toddler.
-Accusing someone of being a neglectful parent because they had a drink at a party in front of their kid.
-Accusing someone of reckless endangerment because they let their kid run around with the other kids at a party, within a fenced yard, checking on them only periodically, not constantly within a few feet of them.

All of the above have happened to me within the past three years. Anyone who actually bothers to know me, knows that I am not a negligent parent. My kids are better behaved than most (and I'm definitely not the only one who thinks that. We get compliments on this from random people such as store employees and restaurant managers all the time.) and that is not a mistake. They are parented, and I think I do pretty well.

I didn't really think my style of parenting was much different than most people's, aside from superficial things like the fact that my kids eat better, stay in carseats longer, and have a more rigid schedule than a lot of people's, but I guess I was wrong. It seems like the majority of people who consider themselves "good moms" (this does not apply to dads at all!) these days, are total helicopter parents. If you don't know what a helicopter parent is, it's someone who hovers over their child 24/7. It seems like this is what's expected, and anyone who doesn't parent like that will be harshly judged, and considered woefully negligent. In the military community, a call to Child Protective Services and/or the police, is not uncommon.

I just think it's wrong that I have to live in fear of the next knock on my door just because I am not a helicopter parent. I am not endangering my kids because my 7-year-old is allowed to be out from under my thumb periodically. It is not right that if my kid wants to play with other kids or on her own, and have a little independence from her parents, that someone will feel justified to take it into their own hands to question my parenting abilities for that decision. I have done absolutely nothing to harm either of my kids. They are extremely well cared for. Anyone who really knows us, knows that. Often, someone else will stand up for us. Sometimes we stand alone. It's just sad that it's come to this. I think it's this way everywhere, too. A friend of mine from a previous duty station said that she saw an episode of Cops not long ago where some lady called the cops on some boys about Erin's age, who were playing basketball. The cop who came out there said, "Would you rather they play basketball, or get really bored and vandalize things?" Right on. I mean, it's gotten ridiculous. We're all parenting under a microscope. I don't know why this is, but I do know that I would never do to another parent, the things that have been done to me.

Let's review. If a kid is vandalizing things, being violent, stealing, trespassing, or out past local curfew hours, then by all means, call the police. If a kid is being a nuisance, and you have warned them multiple times to stop, then that is a justified reason to call the police. If you see REAL evidence of abuse or neglect (kids not bathed, kids being slapped around, kids coming to your house begging for food because their parents don't feed them) then PLEASE call Child Protective Services. If you see a TODDLER out by themself, then yes, call the police.

However, if you see a school age child playing outside, realize that is normal. If you see a school age child whose parents are a little ways away from them, letting the child play with other kids on his/her own, realize that this kid is old enough for a little independence. If someone is not a complete teetotaler around their children, and you think that's wrong, then please dislodge the pole from whatever orifice it's jammed in, because seriously, there's never been a kid who's been harmed by watching their parents drink a cocktail or a beer at a party or with dinner. These things all differ by leaps and bounds from real abuse or neglect, and these people who want to equate them to that, REALLY need to hop off it.

It seems like nobody can win these days. I've been accused of "trying to keep my kids in a bubble" AND of being neglectful. It's mind boggling. I've never really felt the need to comment on other people's parenting style to their faces, outside of practices a lot of people do which are extremely dangerous (improper carseat use is what comes to mind. I mean, the laws of physics have my back on that one, and so do the seat manufacturer's instructions, as well as the laws in this state, so it's not just my opinion. It's a clear cut right and wrong.) I know plenty of people who have wild kids who act like crap, and I don't think they're the best parents. You KNOW I've met plenty of crappy parents in my life. I just don't hang out with those people. It's that easy. I don't go calling the police on them, or telling them how to raise their kids. Geez, I knew these people at Ft. Stewart who had two daughters who were holy terrors. The one time I made the mistake of having them over to my house, they tore it apart from wall to wall, and half of Erin's stuff had to be replaced. No kid who is parented acts like that. You know what I did? I cleaned up after them, comforted Erin who had lost a lot of her favorite things to the two tornadoes, and made a mental note NEVER to let them inside my house again. Problem solved. I seriously don't understand why people don't just worry about THEIR families more. Remember back in Kindergarten, when someone would tattle, and the teacher would tell them, "Worry about you. Don't worry about what others are doing."? I think a lot of these people just seriously didn't get the memo.

So how do we fix it? Thak's ready to move to the boonies so we don't have to deal with this anymore. It's not like a daily thing or anything like that, but it really does ruin your week every time it does happen, because it's just so misguided and wrong. I mean, being told repeatedly that you're a really crappy mom is not a warm fuzzy for anyone... I can tell you this.

It also occurs to me that there's some irony here. A lot of people say they feel judged when they have a baby young. I never felt that. I was 21 when Erin was born, but I don't think anyone ever judged me for that. Everyone just loved Erin, and it seemed like we were very accepted. It could also be because I cannot read subtlety, and do not generally pick up on the meaning behind people's facial expressions unless it's really obvious, but I really never felt judged for being a young mom. Now I'm not a young mom anymore. I'm in my late 20's. I'm an average age mom, I guess. Yet now, I feel very judged, and it's because that baby everyone accepted so well when I was 21, dared to grow up, and I dared to let her. Ironic...