All brought on by Ben Folds...

As I was growing up, my mom cleaned houses. Even though I was a working class kid, I knew many of the upper middle class kids in my hometown because my mom would bring me along as she cleaned houses on 'snob hill' (aka Ridgeroad). My first paycheck came from when I substituted for my mom and cleaned a dentist office. My first steady job was when I cleaned hotel rooms where my mom was the Assistant Manager of Housekeeping. I cleaned hotel rooms throughout high school and college.

I hated every single minute of cleaning rooms. Perhaps hated is too light a word for what I felt-- despised? Loathed?

Whatever. My goal in life was to be able to afford to pay someone to clean my house. Weird benchmark of success, perhaps. But as I kick back with my glass of wine, I consider myself to be rockin' the suburbs (okay, exurbs) as I sit in my house that is freshly cleaned by someone other than myself.

Life is good.

Cute I am

Mark's Halloween costume arrived. He does the ears when the white robe is on, but doesn't care for the ears by themselves.

Mark seems to be a happy sage, so we thought Yoda was appropriate.

Edited to add: Mark enjoyed all of the attention he received on Halloween night. The costume was quite a hit!

Food photographer vs. Working mom

There are times that I'm jealous of stay-at-home moms. Why? Time. Yes, time, time, time. I went to this blog the other day and turned all green with jealousy. It must be juicily glorious to have the time to take gorgeous pictures of wonderful home-cooked food. Me? I spend my time waking up, rushing around to get the four bags together (school bag, lunch bag, purse, and diaper bag), getting Mark bathed/fed/changed, load it all in the car, get to daycare and unload Mark and the diaper bag, rush to school, run around to get papers copied, teach the 28 kids while they all ask to go to the bathroom/media center/printer to get their Accelerated Reader paper while the instructional resource teacher/special ed paraprofessional/Behavior Center Monitor ask me about the missing writing tests/if student X needs support during the math test/the reading intervention group is one student low, then I get 30 minutes to walk to and from the lunch room/eat/pee, monitor students playing at recess/the car moving slowly alongside the kids standing at the playground fence/the parent without a check-in badge coming onto the playground, teach the kids some more while student X tries to rifle through the backpacks, student Y camps out in the bathroom for 20 minutes, and student Z chucks a crayon across the room but tells me that he didn't do it, then I load all of the papers that I didn't have time to touch during the day into my school bag, load my dirty dish bag/school bag/oops forgot the purse into the car, rush back to daycare, load Mark and the diaper bag, get home and unload the four bags, make dinner, feed Mark, try to eat while he cries because I'm not holding him, and then perhaps I have some time to pop off a quick email/blog post/watch the episode of Ugly Betty I've had tivo-ed for two weeks.

I'd love to be able to take pretty pictures of food.

Dove film

Yesterday, one of my co-workers asked me if I had seen the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty film. I tried to view it on my school computer and the hamsters on their wheels, powering our server, laughed their cheeky heads off at my audacity. Sooo.... didn't see it until tonight. I do think it succinctly sums up what it is like to grow up as a girl. Craziness.

What do you think?

Autism and Television

Last week, I was sent a link to a slate.com article that discussed a statistical connection between rates of television viewing and rates of autism. Being the aunt of an austistic boy (most autistic children are boys-- 4 to 1 boys to girls) and the parent of an infant son, my interest was piqued. I went to the actual Cornell University website to read the research. I was fascinated that: 1) the authors were economists, 2) that the TV-autism connection (and the TV-ADD/ADHD connection) was not drawn before, and 3) that I didn't hear about this on the news. (In fact, I still haven't heard about this on the news which just BLOWS MY MIND. Perhaps because most Media outlets are, ahem, on television?)

I don't get it-- we should be putting our children's needs first, but only when their needs fit with our television viewing habits? Hmm... I think this might be another sign of the apocalypse. (Yes, I'm being tongue-in-cheek!)

Edited to add:
Yesterday morning, I finally heard the report discussed in the Media. It was a 20-30 second radio spot on a major news radio station. They got a sound bite quote from one of the Economist authors of the study and the reporter stated that autism researchers were dismissing the study. Still haven't heard word about it on TV.

Eight months old and already talented!

My boy now has a new talent! My son has learned how to: knock over some sort of toy/bucket/etc. in his playpen, stand on top of his toy/bucket/etc., put his chin over the rail, and spit his pacifier about 4 to 5 feet away. If one decides that the pacifier accidentally made its way onto the middle of the living room floor, washes the pacifier, and returns it to the playpen, my son has the solution. The pacifier offends with its mere presence, so he calmly and patiently repeats the process again. ("Away, damned binky!")

As an educator, I understand that children are egocentric. However, I think my son takes it to a new high. When I go out for any reason, my son gives me the look that says, "Oh yeah, it's time for you to take me out so my fans can adore me." Then what happens? Every other person decides they should stop and admire Mark. I can't even stereotype and say that it is mostly grandmas, because they aren't. It's the huge bodybuilder that stops me to coo at Mark on my way to the gym daycare, the little kid in the grocery line, and the Naval officer behind me at the library. Don't get me wrong-- I'm happy that Mark is interacting with a variety of people in our community. What gives me pause is that in public, he turns on 'the perfect baby' persona. (He doesn't feel the need to use that persona at home. Every night, we get the red-faced, teary baby that immediately calms once we pick him up.)

As my friend says, Mark is rotten. As in spoiled rotten.

Another reason I won't be voting for Republicans this fall...

Commenting on the Foley scandal this morning, Pat Buchanan commented that the Democrats are hypocrites. What was his reasoning? That Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Clinton have marched in Gay Pride parades that 'reportedly' included a floats of the Man-Boy Love group and they failed to denounce that group. Sooo.... because Pelosi and Clinton support gays, they support Man-Boy love? This is what I commented about on another blog-- it really pisses me off that Republicans are spinning the fact that they covered up behavior that would get men arrested on Dateline NBC and swept Foley's behavior under the rug. Republicans are making it sound that gays are pedophiles. The Republican, Foley, was a pedophile, and the party covered it up to save their own butts. I plan to vote for every Democrat on the ticket next month...

Benign!!!

My mom had her appointment at Mayo today-- benign, benign, benign!!! Happy, happy, happy! From what she told me, they were very thorough and looked at many different possibilities of what the lumps could be. (Tumors or dermatological...) Cancer has been ruled out. I'm so happy for her. Yay!

The House of the Cranky Baby

Yesterday, the boy went to the doctor and got some medicine. He woke up this morning and was pretty darn cranky. I figured he was still waking up-- until we were in the car, I handed him a bottle, he took it by the nipple, and flung it across the backseat. That pretty much set the tone for the day.

Tonight, he's been pretty happy, considering how the day began. We're hoping that by putting him to bed early, he'll wake up in a better mood tomorrow. Does anyone have the happy baby serum out there?

What a weekend!

My husband and I went to a lodge in a national park this past weekend for our anniversary. We were so excited-- we had the hiking clothes/boots, the baby and all necessary accessories. When Mark began screaming an hour from the lodge, we didn't realize it was a sign. That night, he woke up, miserable-- every. two. hours. We tried to push through it and went for an amazing hike on Saturday morning, only to have an exponentially more miserable baby on our hands. He screamed, we bounced, he screamed, we sang, he screamed, we soothed, and he screamed. Repeat. Not the way I expected to spend our well-planned anniversary weekend. I have to say that people were right-- having a baby changed our lives!

So, my husband stayed home today and Mark got a day of Daddy TLC. He's feeling much better now.

My only request is that you send out your prayers, chants, vibes, etc., out for my mom on Wednesday. That's booby check day at the Mayo Clinic's breast center. We're hoping to hear negative, negative, negative, after someone thoroughly checks the scary boobies.