I'm crazy. I just know it.

So we are going to the beach this weekend.
No biggie, just a 2 hour drive to a beach, an overnight hotel stay and home on the second day. Really no big issue.
But its highlighted a very sick and twisted part of my mind.

See...I like to take pictures. LOTS of pictures. And in my minds eye I am mentally reviewing all of the outfits the children have and what will be best at the beach, etc.

For instance, should the boy wear his plain shirts without graphics or his Hawaiian shirt and his gymboree thing with the pineapple?
Should the baby wear HIS Hawaiian shirts or maybe his one with the monkey on it.
And of course being the good mommy of a girl I am, the girls wardrobe is causing me the most uncertainty. I have a Jamaican dress for her and another sun dress thats darling. These would both be awesome to photograph against the pale beachy colors.
BUT I also have a cute white skirt and a tye dye shirt she looks frickin adorable in. Plus theres another skirt/shirt combo she could wear that would be awesome.

You see...this is not stuff to worry me. It shouldn't be, but it does. I am thinking about THIS and not important things.

I MUST be crazy. MUST be.

My little ones at VBS

The boy waiting to be a perch to a parrot in VBS


And here he is with his bandanna slipping while concentrating on another craft.


The girl posing in her bandanna, the only time she wore it :P


And playing in game time.


The toddler terror of the open seas Arrrggghh


And playing with his CARRRSSSS in the nursery at VBS

I don't wanna study

I am WANTING a natural birth.
I've been induced 3 times. No 'big deal' except I am POSITIVE the last time it was unnecessary. With my first he was out of fluid at 1 week past due the lying 'due date' they give you. With my second she was a week past due and I had Symphis Pubis Dysfunction and welcomed the induction.

With my third I WANTED to go 'natural' I didn't want interventions but status quo here is a week, I got 9 days and then was induced. Even though I was having sporadic (very sporadic) contractions on my own.

This time I'm going 2 weeks if I have to. I don't mind after 2 weeks, thats where medical journals start disagreeing about placental degradation. I KNOW when I am 'due' because I was very carefully charting my cycle, etc.

This all being said.

I want to go natural. I really, really do.

I don't want to read, I don't want to listen to cds, I don't want to do much of anything to prepare. I've got my game plan in mind and I'm feeling very manish about it and "i don't need to stop for directions, I can do this on my own" (insert tim the toolman taylors grunt)

I don't know if I will eventually succumb and pick up a book. I just don't know. But this is my fourth, I've read tons on the internets, and I just feel...I dunno. Like I know what I'm doing and I'm not scared, worried, or unsure of things.

I just want to have a baby. Thats all :)

I am the King of the Mountain.

I read once in a book that children will start games fighting to be the 'king' of the mountain. the one calling the shots and directing everyone. But they quickly realize that when they do so they don't get to have a part in the action, so they set up a straw man to be the king and then they all play and make up the directions.

I am so that straw man. My kids will set up games, today its mission space. They have all sorts of things thrown around put together as a rocket and they are flying around crashing into meteorites and Saturns gassy surface. But the directions come from me. Space Base Commander Mommy. Every 5 or so minutes I get a 'space base commander mommy can we have a status update.'

This is not the only time. most of them involve missions and such that they play at for 5-15 minutes and then return to me for a new 'mission' of sorts. Whether they are explorers, soldiers, astronaughts, police men/women.

They don't want me playing WITH them, even if I TRY to have another role I get stuck with 2 and the commander role comes first for them.

Sigh. Just call me straw man mommy.

The Liberal In Me

I don't really make it a secret, i'm a big ole bleeding heart.

So here's one that struck me as unnecessarily something to concern oneself today:

Transgender bathrooms. I dunno, don't ask me where the interpeople come up with this crap, but the backstory is that SUPPOSEDLY there is legislation in Pennsylvania to mandate Transgender people so that they have protection to go where they want.

Its been translated (if it exists...the only source I've heard of it from is a conservative who listens to Hannity...very well could have this way overblown...I could find neither hide nor hair of it on the web searchin) to mean that businesses will have to have transgender bathrooms.

UM.

Yeah.

My first thought was 'why don't we go unisex' how many problems would THAT solve for everyone. Stall up the urinals and have at it. We are adults or children who should be supervised by adults so why the heck not!!

But of course that is CRAZY talk and transgendered people are ucky and not deserving of care and SHOULD be treated like second class citizens and how oh how will we answer our childrens queries on why that woman has a *gasp* penis.
First: I doubt any child would see a womans penis (the argument is that it extends to locker rooms) and the parent should be with them in locker rooms to prevent rude staring at naked bodies anyway.
Second: Kids only know something is wrong once you tell them its wrong. If instead of making a disgusted face you just matter of factly explain that there are all sorts of different people in the world and thats what makes it so interesting, 10:1 the kid is going to drop it. Just drop it and move on to talk of other things.

Seriously...not that difficult of a concept people, really not.

The decision to go to church has its rewards :)

Its the south. Its hot. My van sits under a carport or I'd never leave the house.

Yesterday I sat for a bit arguing with myself over whether or not I would go to church. The car gets murderously hot in the parking lot there. It was a tough decision for me.

BUT my dad was spending his last sunday there for a while. And I really wanted out of the house. So despite hating the heat, we went.

I have never been so happy with my choice.

My dad picked up the toddler and held him for the 15 minutes before childrens sermon (toddler goes to the nursery after that) and the toddler didn't fight it, didn't squirm, didn't complain one bit, just sat there holding him. I KNOW that meant something to my dad, how often does a 2 year old let you just hold him, and it meant a lot to me to not have to fight with the toddler while listening to the lessons and psalmody.

Then we sang hymns. And the boy (who is too old for the nursery) sang them with me! read them and sang them along in time. It was fabulous.

The Pastors sermon was about giving to God, and it was something I had been thinking about. And I appreciated it. Not his best. But good.

And then we had a reception for New Members and it was a good time, good food, etc.

I was well rewarded for braving the heat of the day to attend church :)

Facebook and 'friendships'

So. I like facebook, love it sometimes. I'm a fan of simple games and that they have. I like seeing the status update 'checks' on people. So thats nice.

But I don't view it as a place for real discussion. Its not a blog or a conversation in real life or even a message board community. Its something different, something shallower.

That doesn't help much when my 'liberal uppitiness' is offended. Its not 'normally' by my friends. More often its from THEIR friends and the responses they make to more thoughtful/normal comments that they start out with.

At times it makes me want to defriend the original friend! Just so I don't have to see their 'friends' comments.

That is how much I hate ignorance.