LOOK AT MY BABY!

First, if for some reason you didn't see the billions of photos in the entry before this due to website problems, it seems to be fixed now so you can view those images now by going [ one entry back ].


My computer has been out of commission for a while due to having yet another Macbook cord split. I don't know why this is such a problem, but apparently it isn't just me because you can find thousands of people online complaining about the same issue… and not just regarding the old "t-style" cords that have since been taken off the market. The newer "L-shaped" design seems to be of absolutely no improvement over the former, and constantly splits just underneath the magnetized part due to the fact that there's no easy way to remove the cord without pulling on it. Also, due to the "L-shape", it often bends sharply when you move the computer around on your lap, or bed, or whatever, without unplugging it first. I feel like all of these problems could be easily avoided by reinforcing the first 3-5 inches of cord, and providing a little plastic or metal attachment to the magnet that allows you to grab and pull it out. THIS IS NOT THAT HARD, APPLE. JESUS.

I've had MacBooks since 2007, I love Mac and I won't' ever go back to a PC now that I've made the switch, but fuck these cords. Seriously fuck these cords.
Since 2007 I haven't had a cord last longer than 9-10 months at the absolute most. This time it was six months to the day before fiddling with it was no longer able to produce some sort of temporary solution.

I bought this Macbook on a payment plan at Futureshop, and shelled out the extra money (or rather, put the extra money on credit…) for their 3 year extended warranty plan that I specifically got for the cord problem. I asked the guy about the cords and they all swore to me I could just walk in and be handed cords, over and over, without issue, as a result of this warranty. I double and triple and quadruple checked this, because there's no way in hell I'm paying for the warranty if it isn't going to get me some goddamn cords.
So after this cord crapped out - again - I brought all my documents in and spoke to the guy at the counter, who took me to another counter, who told me they can't replace it because it's,
1. Scorched (which it wasn't. I haven't a clue what he's talking about).
2. Still covered under Applecare for a year and therefore not their problem, it's Apple's.
But, he said, if I really want to give it to them they'll take my entire computer/cord/everything and ship it off to Apple for 1-2 weeks during which time I can't work or answer my emails or do anything at all, and then they'll send it back with a repaired cord and nothing else changed. I don't understand why they can't just hand me over a new fucking cord rather than bringing the whole thing in, but clearly they have ego make this as stupid as possible, so whatever.

I go home and run a new back-up, burn the CDs that I'm supposed to burn, and pack everything up and get ready to go back out again, but I end up side-tracked with the baby and the my night is shot. The next day Curtis is the one that goes in with everything while I stay home with Z.
He walks up to the counter and explains the situation, quoting the last guy, who then tells him they could pack it up and send it off, but it'll take weeks to get back and we could actually save a tonne of time and expense by just going to the local Apple distributor and getting them to deal with the Applecare bullshit and they will just hand me a cord the way it's supposed to be. Curtis decides that sounds much easier, so he comes back home with everything and tells me. Unfortunately, the Apple place is closed so we'll have to do it the next day.
SO THE NEXT DAY we go out and figure out - surprise! - it's actually not like that at all. As soon as I get in I'm reminded that Applecare doesn't cover cords. For any fucking reason whatsoever. I mean, they say they do, but they don't. Seriously, don't even fucking try that shit. The only cord-related thing they'll cover is if it doesn't work at all, right out of the box. Everything else is considered "your fault" and the best you'll get is a smug lecture about how this is why you can't have nice things.

I'm getting pretty frustrated now; it's hard enough finding time to drive all over the goddamn city with this shit on a daily basis, and I've already lost a week's worth of work and email access that I need during a time with a shitload of deadlines coming up. I'm no longer feeling very patient and am about to lose my shit at someone. Just as I leave the Apple place one of the managers stops me and asks where I originally bought the laptop. I tell him it was Futureshop, and he nods knowingly.
"I used to work there, for years," he says. "They will cover this repair, but the guys at the counter have one job to do, and it's to turn you away so they will not have to help you and spend money. Go up and ask for the 'operations manager' and tell them this is unacceptable and needs to be replaced… now. The OM is actually there for you, unlike the counter people, and will try to make it better."
It sounded legit but at this point I have little faith this is ever going to get resolved. Regardless, I thanked him and left. At this point we were coming up on 2:15pm, which is dangerously close to the time we have to get home and pick up Xan from school so I tell Curtis to forget it and just go home. He insists we have the time, so we get back in the car and drive all the way the fuck back to Futureshop, for the fifth time in the last 7 days, prepared to do what the other guy said to.

I get up to the counter, again, and am all riled up and pissed off so by the time someone sees me I'm in no mood to be nicey-nice and just straight up demand to see their operations manager.
"Oh, Anna's not here 'til four," mutters one of the employees as he walks off. A few others nod vacantly in agreement, but do not say a word to me about the matter. They appear to be ignoring me. When I start after another employee to get more information, they all scatter in different directions.
So furious.
I imagine I was beginning to look a little like a bomb about to go off when a nice young man approaches me and asks if speaking to the operations guy second-in-command would work. I explained the situation, he apologized profusely, and left to fetch me the second-in-command person. Initially that guy was just as helpful as the others - by that I mean not at all - but when I started to lose my shit he got his act together and miraculously 'just remembered' that they do in fact cover cord damage! Amazing! He ran off to get me a replacement. The helper guy sat next to me the entire time, apologizing over and over, and swearing that as long as I come to him personally he'll make things easier for me forever and ever amen. A few minutes later the second-in-command guy came with a new cord, saying that they had to keep the box for some strange reason, and then just handed it to me and ran off.

Holy fuck was all that bullshit totally necessary?! Jesus. I shelled out for the warranty and the care programs that go on for years for the SOLE PURPOSE of avoiding this kind of crap. Apparently the extended warranties are only as good as the attitude of the salesperson that day. Fuck.

I'm having a similar issue with my domain, if you haven't noticed, which many of you guys have because I keep getting comments and emails from people saying all my photos aren't working. And then they are. And then they aren't again. This is because I'm in the grace period of my domain renewal and even though I have something like 90 days to pay the bill, GoDaddy is a fucking asshole and keeps randomly changing my name servers to their advertiser without any warning or reason. I go in about once every 2-3 days and change them back, but they just keep doing it.
I didn't realize I was still with GoDaddy for one of my domains, I thought I'd switched everything to Dreamhost ages ago, so this came as a surprise. As soon as I got the expiration warning notice, I tried to transfer my domain over. I paid the fees, I did all the "paperwork" and 24 hours later GoDaddy halted the transfer without warning or reason. I'm sensing a pattern here. All attempts to find out why they did this were met with form letters about unlocking my domain, which I'd already done. I combed through their FAQ and couldn't find any answers, so I kept trying to reach their customer service. It took almost two weeks to get a formal answer, which is that way back in the day when I first registered with them (in 2005) I checked the box for privatization. So even though you do that through GoDaddy, THEY don't do it, and set up my privatization through some other company that I have never heard of and never signed up with. I have no records of ever doing anything with them, because it's all automatic on GoDaddy's side (or it was at that time).
So, they say, I have to go over to that company and just log in and shut off the privatization, THEN I can transfer my domain! Like magic! Naturally it's not that easy because apparently I have no account with them even though my website privatization is controlled by them. They've proven to have just as wonderful customer service as GoDaddy.
So, they say, in order for them to find my records I have to scan a whole bunch of ridiculous documents like my social insurance number, my driver's license (???) even though I NEVER PROVIDED ANY OF THIS SHIT, so they can retrieve my information. The whole process will take weeks.

I end up having no choice but to renew with GoDaddy for another year while I wait. I feel like it's all a convoluted plan to ensure I continue paying them money.
Take a lesson from my pain: don't ever sign up with this company, go with Dreamhost instead. I wish I'd never signed up with GoDaddy.


All of this is to say I have just a bit of catching up to do. It feels like I'm facing a thousand deadlines for a thousand projects: a wedding album I'm designing, several children's albums, two regular sessions and two NILMDTS sessions that were taken on the same night… plus I'm getting ready to go to Ontario to shoot a wedding in less than a month.
That last one is scaring the bejeezus out of me not because I'm worried about the ceremony, but because I'm bringing my baby with me to be sit by a friend in the area. She's far too little to be left without her mom for multiple nights (we have no childcare for her while Curtis works so that's a moot point anyway). My worry is because she's so ridiculously fussy when being watched by anyone that isn't me, and I'm completely terrified that the whole day will go up in flames as a result of her screaming her head off for so long that the friend/sitter loses her shit and drops her at my feet two hours in.
I'm trying to help her get used to the idea by having Curtis wear her to sleep every night, which is sort of going okay, but she still won't comfortably eat a meal out of a bottle. She bottle-feeds like she breastfeeds, which is in short little nibbles in the midst of long play sessions. Everyone assures me it will be perfectly fine but that really isn't helping. I'm going to be freaking out on the inside until the whole thing is over.
On the plus side, I'm going to Ontario in a month! Once again there will be zero time for socializing or personal side-trips, as I'll be working and/or feeding myself, sleeping or arranging child-care 100% of the time, so no begging for meet-ups. Baby nightmares aside I am psyched to be going back out there for another wedding shoot. Though this will probably be my last wedding. I think there would be very few exceptions to this, as I'm going to be cutting all events and large-scale jobs out of my repertoire in an attempt to focus the few leads of photography I get onto portraiture. Kids and babies are sessions I can handle while studying, or while dealing with a small child, and the next few years will hopefully bring about more positive changes as a result of that.

Speaking of epic fails, I've been attempting to bake lately. It's pretty amusing, seeing as I'm the kind of person who can burn water. I gained too much confidence with the rainbow cookie venture, which was followed by the unicorn poop venture.

I felt invincible with my rainbow wings…

I became a little over-excited about my newfound mad skills and went out and found those super nice gel food colourings. If you haven't heard of them, look them up : they're amazing. You use no more than a dip of a toothpick worth of gel and it changes your batter, or icing, or whatever into gorgeous deep colours. It's pretty awesome, and it makes you want to make all sorts of interesting things. So being all inspired I decided I wanted to make my mother a pink ombre cake. If you don't know what an ombre cake is, it looks like this :

It's a gradual colour change from light to dark via layers of white cake. It's pretty cool looking, and if you succeed it'll make you feel like you're God's gift to baking just to be in its presence.

The layers came out beautifully and it was really exciting to see them change so easily into gorgeous shades of pink. I was so impressed with myself when it all stacked up so well. I've never really iced anything before, so that was a challenge. It took about an hour to cover it in little rosettes that shift from dark pink to light pink on the top. I didn't take any proper photos, but I got a few snaps with my camera. When all was said and done it looked like this:



… and it tasted amazing. It's bigger than it appears, so we took half and mom took half and she fed most of it to her friends. She said everyone kept knocking on her door over the next three days looking for more. I am a motherfucking baking God now, bitches.

With that confidence boost I was willing to try something more difficult, so I went to the library and got a few books on cake decorating basics. I studied the basic flower section and thought to myself, "That doesn't look too hard"



Two hours later, I totally nailed it.


Yeah, so after that I decided I'm done with this cake thing. At least for now, because fuck cakes. I gave up and shoved everything in the fridge. In the morning Tempest opened it up to get a yogurt and announced, "Oh my god mom those are BEAUTIFUL!"
She's too young for sarcasm so I was left rather stunned by her sincerity.


Xanism of the Day:
Xan was a horrible child the other night and I ended up sending him to his room for a time out. He has this awful thing he does now where he'll sit on the floor and make this hideous whine/scream thing that sounds like he's holding his nose and going, "EEEHHHHHHH" at the top of his lungs. It's an obvious fake cry, and he knows it drives us nuts, he'll just do it over and over again to express his distaste of the situation until it's over.
After repeated attempts to shut him up were unsuccessful, I called him out for a lecture. As soon as he left his room he asked for treats, which was infuriating, and only served to feed into the pissiness I was feeling over his behaviour already. Frustrated and desperate, I finally yelled, "What would you do if someone acted this way to you? How would you punish someone for this behaviour?"
Without a second thought he answers, "Give me a wedgie."
I'm completely caught off guard by this response, and my anger evaporates instantaneously. "A… wedgie?"
"Yes," he confirms. "A wedgie."
He's totally serious. His face is stoic and emotionless as he gives me this suggestion, as though he's preparing himself for the inevitability of this horrific punishment.
"Xan do you even know what a wedgie is?"
"Yes I do. It's when you take my underwear and pull it up over my head." He gestures wildly as he explains.
I'm almost too stunned to respond, and it takes me a moment before I reply. "I'm not going to give you a wedgie, Xan."
He looks visibly relieved. "Oh thank god".


Links of the Day: Time magazine edition! I've been asked about my thoughts on this, and I'm disappointed. I haven't read the article but I feel like it's goading, manipulative and paints APers as judgemental, arrogant, self-righteous martyrs who do it for the points. This is a stereotype that most of the community fights against pretty hard, but the few who fit it seem to always be loudest and most obnoxious and ruin it for everyone else. These articles on the subject can say it a lot better than I can.
Time Magazine cover makes big fuss over a little bosom - "The constant media goading of unsettled vengeful readers to attack women for every maternal decision they make is fuelled not just by individual economic insecurity or the ease of hating online. It’s profitable."
Are you MOM ENOUGH? Yes, you probably are - "We’re all doing our best. We’re all “mom enough,” TIME. How about next year you do a celebration of all types of mothers for Mother’s Day (or any day of the year), instead of throwing them under the bus before they’ve even opened their handmade cards and eaten their breakfast in bed?"
No, I am not mom enough - "Women who breastfeed their children for three years are outliers, but they are not spectacles, and we shouldn't hold them up as either Madonnas or freaks. Women who do not breastfeed are not monsters, and we should not condemn them, or really have any opinion about their decision at all. "
Celebrities who breastfed past a year - A nice little list for the rest of us.

There's some weird error on Dreamhost account right now where my webhosting freaked out after 5 days instead of 60 and stopped access to my account, it's been fixed now but will take like another 6-12 hours before it resets so until then all my photos are broken. :( I've had a few emails complaining about it so you'll have to be patient and check again tomorrow afternoon/evening.



The other night I cried while talking to my best friend about my relationship with my brother. This probably isn't a big deal to most people, but it is for me… it feels like it has been a very long time since I've been able to let go of that kind of emotion in front of someone that isn't my spouse (at least, not without significant effort). Crying for a legitimate reason is a big deal for me. And by legitimate I mean not YouTube cry bait or foreign films.
Point being, this is good progress for a cold-hearted bitch like me.

I'm at a very transitional point right now where things feel very excited and temporary. My baby is ten months old (!) nearly eleven now… and that means I'm almost at a point where I can start returning to normal work. In the time I've spent off I've given up on the idea of ever having photography as a real career and looked more toward the IBCLC path I started just before I got pregnant with her. It's not like I can't do both, as schooling and part-time pseudo-photography is easier to balance that most "two job" ideas… but still, it's pretty obvious that I have to pick a major one to follow and mostly abandon the other.
Or do nothing, that's good too. I could just sleep all day like a college student and make the best of it.

Shit is feeling very temporary right now. I started work on an older session by way of an album and looking back on it I feel nothing but distain: how did I ever think this was good? What the fuck was wrong with me? It's hard not to feel like wasted space when I see everyone I was once giving advice to succeeding far beyond anything I'd ever hoped for. That sucks like nobody's business. They say money and success doesn't make you happy but I beg to differ; it would certainly make my life a helluva lot easier if I was wildly successful in my business ventures and paying off my goddamn bills. The people that say that shit have simply have never been poor, that's the problem.
All the images I look through look like crap compared to today, and today looks like crap compared to tomorrow. I think I've officially failed this trial. I don't know, I wish this shit came easier to me.

For the last year and a half I've been thinking about starting a personal project of self-portraits to help my self-esteem… it sounds silly to even say it out loud, like it's a sly attempt at self-indulgent vanity, but I wanted some way to try and photograph myself that didn't end up making me depressed. Every time I see images of myself I cringe. I want to rip them up and delete them. I have a friend who takes regular self-portraits and I admire her more than I'd like to admit: she isn't filled with cartoonish vanity, and she isn't a covergirl supermodel, but she's pretty and she's confident in ways I don't think I could ever be. My pregnancy photos (while pregnant with Zephyra) were the first images of myself I didn't really fucking hate, and that's saying a lot. I even kept a set of nudes that I intended to anonymously submit to [ The Shape of a Mother ], but in the end I closed my eyes and ripped the band-aid off and submitted them with my name (and face) attached. It was… liberating. And it made me feel better about myself and the way I look.
And that made me think even more about the idea. I've been wanting to do it for a long time; I've seen other people create similar projects with self-portraits and it helped them, too. I've even talked about it before, I just keep not having the guts to do it. Every time I think seriously about it, I feel like it's mindless narcissism and I chicken out because I convince myself it's worthless and stupid and it will accomplish nothing but furthering the endless amount of self-loathing I've accumulated over the years, and I really don't need any more of that bullshit.
In spite of all the negative voices, I have been trying… and it's been sort of successful. Maybe. I've taken a small variety of self-portraits over the last few weeks. At first I thought I'd challenge myself to one a day, but that failed immediately as I never, ever have the time for that kind of shit. I mean seriously if I can't even sit down and write a few lines every day there's no way in hell I can take, cull, choose, edit and post self-portraits every day. That's some goddamn insanity right there. Instead I told myself I'd do it once a week, which is working out a little better. By keeping myself to that schedule I've managed to get up to three or four at this point, and I have ideas for more… but I keep second-guessing myself every time I think up something else. I'm trying to go for flattering, or interesting, or subjective or something that expresses something about myself that I'm feeling at that moment; but it's difficult to fight back against the screaming voices that say everything is going to end up ugly and stupid because that's the way I'm always going to see 99% of the images of myself. The whole point of this is to see myself and my body in a different light, I'm just not entirely convinced its going to work that well because I don't know that this headspace can be fixed. Maybe I should just keep running until its over… but that's a really frightening concept. I've liked one of the images that came out it, so that's a start. Perhaps I can work up from there..?

---

For totally unrelated crafty personal projects, I suck. I've been trying to find the time to work on a sweater/jacket thing for myself, the first project I have ever made solely for me, and after weeks and weeks of attempted work I've made it about three inches into the back piece. I went out and spent a fortune buying hand-painted yarn from a local store I'd never seen before, and I'm so excited to use it, but it ended up being too small for the project… when I knit it up the stitches are spaced just a little too far apart. I did a bunch of tension swatches and even more math and figured that if I used the appropriate sized needles, and went up four sizes in the pattern, things would probably end up just about the same measurements. So this remains a test… because I really really do not want to NOT use this beautiful yarn.
When I'm done it should look like this :

Except in a really lovely green.
But at the rate I'm going that won't be until 2015.

A few weeks back I also attempted to make these amazing-looking rainbow cookies, found on YouTube.


It took me more than five hours of work due to the constant freezing in-between steps, but they were totally worth it. The result was incredible. This is the most effort I have ever put into baking cookies… ever. The batch also made A METRIC TONNE of them. I had so many cookies, but they're also very small and light and delicious so you want to eat like 12 at a time. I ended up gifting several dozen away and we still had enough to consume about 35 each over the course of the next few days.
I took a few photos of the end as I was doing it up so I could demonstrate something I found helpful (in case anyone else would like to try them later). Once you've done all the dough making/colouring/mixing/freezing/rolling parts you end up with a big rainbow log that looks like this :

I'd already cut it in half to make it easier to deal with by this point.
From there you start cutting it into thinner slices for the cookies, you want to bake them round - NOT cut into halves - and cut them after they're fresh and soft from the oven instead. If you cut them before baking, you end up with rounded rainbows and they look much less 'rainbow-y'.

However, after I cut the circles and placed them on the tray I noted a problem.

They look sort of oblongish and it's not very rainbow-y either. :(

What I ended up doing was putting each piece in my thumb and shaping it with my forefinger into a little circle. I did this without holding it more than a few seconds, otherwise it gets too soft and sticky.


The result looks much better.


After baking and cutting, they looked like this.

And tasted just as good. So amazing.

---

I have backlogs of pictures and quotes of the day and all sorts of things… I just keep forgetting to post them. I don't know, I've been lacking in the memory department lately and even though I write them down I keep not writing AN ENTRY down so they get lost in the day to day fizzle of crap that goes on.
Xan and Tempest refuse to let me take their pictures lately, either because they're "too silly" or too self-conscious. I'll let you guess who is who. So instead I have a huge amount of pictures of Zephyra. I promise its not because I only pay attention to her, I've just carefully crafted this to make it appear that way.

Picture backlog from the little camera and the iPhone:


This one's really old.


Tempest during her last performance in the junior choir. She looks so big here. :-/


Found on the camera: Xan's Myspace self-portrait.


Also found on the camera: Xan's rather incredible series of flower photography.


Kitties:




The only sunbeam of the day.


This is how D'Argo forces Ziyal to play with him. If she won't respond to his initial battings, he just walks up to her and sits on her face until she's forced to kick him off. Then he starts rolling around with her as if it was her idea from the start, like, "Oh you want to play!? You read my mind!" while she's just trying to nap peacefully without an butt on her.


So regal.


This is how Ziyal drinks: she sticks her neck and chest as far into the dish as she possibly can, thereby ensuring she's half-soaked by the time she finishes.


My mom has now set up enough in her place that she's been able to unpack a bunch of her knick-knacks. I've always wanted to do up a video diary of her stuff, because it's so awesome… I really need to devote the time to that one afternoon.
I took a few photos of two of her perfume bottles in her collection a few days ago, because they're so lovely.
This one was the very first perfume my grandmother ever received. It was a gift her friend bought for her in Paris when she was 12 years old (1924). Her mother said perfume was too old for her, so she never got to wear it.


This one my mother got from an herbal medicine place in the early 70's, but we have no idea what it says. Can anyone translate? I think it's Japanese?


This one is lavender smelling salts.


The kids' favourite treat place has been this awesome froyo spot downtown, and we love going there when the kids earn it. We don't usually sit down and eat there, but when we do Tempest tends to do this

Like she's too cool to sit with us or something.





Xan at my dad's the other day after he finished a bowl of ice cream.










BUTT!


Fries are her favourite thing in the world right now.


Playdate with Dash. He was fucking terrified of her at first, it was actually really funny.



Picture backlog from the proper camera
Firstly, it appears I forgot to post these? Zephyra's nine month portraits.


And two out-takes. D'Argo would not leave us alone.






During my first attempt at the aforementioned self portrait project, baby was awake and very happy. It was 2-3:30am in the morning and I ended up taking a bunch of photos of her instead.






Her 10 month photos.


Also, the dress I'm wearing in those? Fucking awesome, that's what. I found it at a thrift store for SIX DOLLARS. Yeah, that's right. Six dollars. My tits don't fit in it, but it doesn't matter, because it's awesome and I will make them fit.


You know you want it.

These were from earlier this week, when I was letting Zephyra have some naked time after a horrible poop left her bum quite red. She's generally pretty good in her naked time, and by good I mean "never poops" so I trusted that history and went to to the bathroom for 45 seconds. This was a mistake. When I came out she was seated next to the bed and munching on something. I'd had some apple slices with peanut butter a night or two ago, so initially I thought maybe I'd left something upstairs that she'd managed to get into and asked her, "Where did you get that peanut butter?"
Alas, it was not peanut butter…
It was baby shit.
And it was ground deeply into the carpet, our down comforter, the bed, and her body… it was horrible.
I picked her up by her armpits because that was the only part of her that was not covered in baby poop, and I dropped her in the shower. I turned it on and left her there for a moment while I dug the poop out of the carpet fibers, and then went to work on her body and mouth. All the while she was screamingly happy, doing that thrilled baby thing that they do when they're outrageously gleeful. It was so cute I had to take a picture, but it will forever be known as the "happy poop picture".

Regardless it's my favourite image of her to date.

PRAISE HIM!


And finally a collage of images taken yesterday when Zephyra was sucking noodles off her mat. The faces she makes while she eats are ridiculous, and this was no exception.


Opal said that hair ages a baby, and I think she's right… Z looks crazy old in this image and I feel like I'm looking at her as a toddler.



Quotes of the Day:
Every day when I pick up Xan from Kindergarten, his face is absolutely caked in dirt. It's really fucking disgusting and becoming an issue. I seriously do not understand how he gets this filthy every damn day. I've started bringing wet wipes with me so I can clean him off.
On one particular afternoon of filthiness, I commented on it while wiping his face.
"Xan how do you get so filthy? Are you rolling naked in the dirt during lunch hour, or something?"
"No!" he protests, clearly offended, then mutters with a little disappointment, "You can't be naked at school…"

Inspirational quote of the day:
"'Friendzoning' is bullshit because girls are not machines that you put Kindness Coins into until sex falls out."
- Twitter user Aeryn Walker.

Links of the Day:
What happens when a Quiverful dad becomes a woman? - This is a summary, and then a link to the start of an amazing set of blog posts by a gay woman from an evangelical Christian upbringing who created a beautiful and happy life with her wife Dee, after marrying her as a deeply closeted (and deeply unhappy) man. The transformation she describes is incredible and inspiring, and it makes me really happy to read things like this where love and caring and acceptance can change lives for the better.
The criminalization of bad mothers - "Critics of Alabama’s chemical-endangerment law argue that drug use by pregnant women is best treated as a health issue, not a criminal one. Addiction, they say, can be treated, but drug users have to be willing to seek help, which they might be less likely to do if they fear arrest. “To simplify a complex medical and psychosocial issue into a criminal issue is really just like using a hammer to play the piano,” says Dr. Deborah Frank, a paediatrician and director of Boston Medical Center’s Grow Clinic for Children. “The whole definition of addiction is compulsive behaviour in spite of adverse consequences — like the person who keeps eating doughnuts even though their doctor tells them they’re morbidly obese and going to die of a heart attack.” Deterrents, experts like Frank say, don’t work well when it comes to addicts and may even be counterproductive. "
Low amniotic fluid? I don't think so - A post by Gloria LeMay over at her birth blog about the problems with current methods for diagnosing and treating low amniotic fluid during late pregnancy. It's good reading, and food for thought about how this is handled.
"Polkadot ___" - This is a link to the (successful!) Kickstarter page about this project, but from here you can learn more and watch the video. This is a collaboration between trans*/genderqueer and sex-positive therapists, illustrators and writers to create a series of children's books about the experience of young children who have identities outside the "traditional" gender binary. The idea is for the series to grow with the character of Polkadot as they learn to understand and express themselves.
Lady, you aren't really crazy - “What men mean when they talk about their “crazy” ex-girlfriend is often that she was someone who cried a lot, or texted too often, or had an eating disorder, or wanted too much/too little sex, or generally felt anything beyond the realm of emotionally undemanding agreement. That does not make these women crazy. That makes those women human beings, who have flaws, and emotional weak spots. However, deciding that any behavior that he does not like must be insane– well, that does make a man a jerk.
And when men do this on a regular basis, remember that, if you are a woman, you are not the exception. You are not so cool and fabulous and levelheaded that they will totally get where you are coming from when you show emotions other than “pleasant agreement.”
When men say “most women are crazy, but not you, you’re so cool” the subtext is not, “I love you, be the mother to my children.” The subtext is “do not step out of line, here.” If you get close enough to the men who say things like this, eventually, you will do something that they do not find pleasant. They will decide you are crazy, because this is something they have already decided about women in general.”

This is a quick share because I have no time to write anything big right now.

Baby has five teeth and is almost walking. We are exhausted. We've taken to sending dirty texts to each other while Curtis is coming home from work (he bikes, and texts while pulled over or shopping) or when I go out for a walk at night to the grocery store. This exchange was two nights ago while I went out for cereal, and is the closest we've come to foreplay in a week and a half.



I walked in the house almost immediately after sending the last text, and Curtis told me "This is what iPhone's were made for".

So much for the "write more" promise. I'm distracted and caught up. My head feels very full of fluff and I can't pick anything out of it long enough to write it down. I feel like I've gone through an unbelievable amount of emotional weirdness over the last month, and I have yet to catch up with myself.

I'm not very good at talking shit out when I need to, even with Curtis. As a result of this I generally find that I start feeling depressed and angry and finally burst in some dramatic way like I did a week ago. I spent a good hour just crying and snotting all over myself over nothing and everything. I'm feeling angry and betrayed about my sister, and I can't figure out how I'm supposed to deal with it.
She's exceptional at being passive aggressive, and this is passive aggressive silent treatment number 5'436 out of god knows how many more… I should be used to them, but this time is different. Generally she bails out after a week or so and finds a way to try and make it better, but this time she hasn't. I expected her to start her attempts by the time her next midwife appointment came up (I got her in to see my old midwife), but the date came and went and I still haven't heard from her.
That day pushed me beyond angry and into devastated. I hate this feeling, because she's still a child and I can't be this angry and hurt due to the actions of a child… and yet here I am. I never seem to know where I stand with her. I've been a mother figure in her life for what seems like a very long time, and I don't quite know how to let that go; being on equal ground with her seems completely impossible given the way she acts with me, and having a relationship like that just isn't in the cards at this point in her life. I don't know if that's because the age gap is far too great at this time, or if it's because it's just fundamentally wrong for us to ever exist like that.
I can't be babysitting her emotional well-being 24 hours a day, but if I don't, she shuns me. I don't like being manipulated either, but being angry and hurt by her actions seems to also mean not communicating with her at all because she has refused to speak to me since I made the mistake of voicing my hurt. I don't have the time and emotional reserves to chase her down and force her to talk to me me against her will… and I don't think I should have to anyway. I'm just starting to think that's the only way this will get resolved.
Maybe I have to wait until she grows up past the need for me to be her surrogate mother in order for us to have a real, relatively normal relationship.

Though if I'm perfectly honest with myself, I can't help but look at this situation and wonder what would be if she'd never left to be with this guy. Things were a lot better when she was living here with us, and her life would be completely and totally different if she was still here. She wouldn't be stuck in a horrible relationship with an alcoholic narcissist, she wouldn't be pregnant at 17 and completely unprepared, she wouldn't be shunning literally every member of her entire family - both sides - in lieu of being controlled her asshole boyfriend, she would have graduated and have a job and friends that she actually communicates with… It's hard to see any of that as a bad thing, even though I'm not supposed to think like that. I'd settle for her simply being able to be slightly more responsible about owning up to her mistakes.

---

Tempest is freaking me out. I took her out to buy new shoes last week because she suddenly and inexplicably outgrew every single pair of shoes she owns and has been wearing one beat up shoe from a summer pair and one beat up shoe from a fall pair. I told her that was simply unacceptable and dragged her into the consignment shop down the road. She picked out a pair of sneakers and a pair of galoshes that were funky colours. The galoshes looked obscenely large, so I peeked inside to check the size before I had her try them on. It said they were size three.
"Oh hon there's no way these will fit you," I told her. "They're huge. You only just outgrew your 12's, I think."
"Let me just try them on." She took them from my hands.
"Okay, but we can't buy them if they're flopping arou--"
"They fit!" she stood up and showed me.
"They can't fit."
"They do."
She gestured to her feet, and I got down on my hands and knees and checked. There was space for 1.5 fingers between her heel and the back of the shoe if she pushed her toes to the front, but the rest of the shoe was snug enough to stay on comfortably regardless. They were only just barely too big, and at this rate she'll probably outgrow them by fall.
Holy shit my child can wear size 3 shoes.
The other pair, a set of purple sneakers, were a size 2 and fit her perfectly. Jesus christ. I also realized she outgrew her booster a while ago and I hadn't bothered to check it because we so rarely use the car. I wanted to measure her after that, so we broke out the growth chart we have folded away and it turns out Tempest has grown just shy of three entire inches in the last seven months. Xan has grown a more modest inch and a half, while I appear to have shrunk 1/8 of an inch.

For some reason it is really freaking me out that Tempest is becoming a pre-pubescent pre-teen. Everything about her suddenly seems crazy and nothing makes sense. :( Even other people are starting to notice it and it seems so… sudden.

Xan has mixed feelings on this because Tempest has become moody and fickle around him. She either torments him and lords her superior knowledge and ability over him, or she ignores him and constantly makes a show of asking for privacy or wanting her own room. She'll do things like grab a bunch of books she knows he can't read or enjoy, sit down right next to him on the couch and then have a fit about how he's smelling up her space because she really needs PRIVATE TIME with her books because she's all big and mature now.
She'll still play with him about 25% of the time, but she's definitely cut back and often cops an attitude with him about it. He has developed a habit of plodding around the house in the afternoons talking about how bored he is. All attempts to alleviate this are unsuccessful: I think he just likes to hear himself whine. The fake whining thing makes my eyeballs spin in my head, and no amount of begging, pleading, asking or bribing will stop it. It's become such a problem that we've instituted a rule that says anyone who complains about having nothing to do will hereby have to do the next two chores on their own.
A similar rule also applies to leaving the dinner table before you're finished, if you haven't asked permission to be excused (this is more of a Tempest problem, to be fair). It only took one night of this for Tempest to stop leaving the table 40 times during dinner.

One major plus about Tempest's new obsession with maturity and independence is that she's become really amazing with Zephyra. She was always good with her but now she's awesome. At least twice a day she'll follow Z up the stairs and then just sit and play with her, often while tidying up, and keep her amused and happy for over a half hour without any interference from us. If Zephyra starts getting fussy or upset she'll bring her downstairs for a break, and then take her back up again for more playtime. It's actually really awesome. Zephyra is now head over heels for Tempest and has definitely chosen her as her favourite person in the house next to my breasts.

---

I randomed in on the strangest conversation the other day while picking up my medication from the pharmacy. My whole family goes to this really, really amazing family-owned pharmacy place that is super nice. They're unlike any pharmacy I've ever been with, and I know it might sound totally stupid to say that about a pharmacy of all places… but really. It's incredible.
Anyway, this is to say that you meet some pretty cool people in the waiting room who generally were equally attracted to that feeling of awesomeness and acceptance for their own reasons.

While I'm standing there waiting a middle-aged man comes in and makes googly eyes at Zephyra and says very loudly, "Wow, you're cute!". This immediately attracts the attention of the other people in the room who were sitting around waiting for their meds. They all glance up and look at him, then look at me.
The guy immediately adds. "Uh, I was talking about the baby. I'm not creepy."
Followed by. "But you're cute too. I mean, I don't mean you're not."
And then, "I like babies. Babies are cute! I didn't mean you're not cute. You're very good looking."
And there's practically no pause at all before, "But I wasn't saying that. I was just noticing the baby. I like babies! But not in a creepy way."
There's a short silence. "I'm going to go over here now."

"It's okay I knew what you meant," I offered. It didn't seem to help, though. I think he'd already talked himself into a hole.

A few more minutes went by and the man was joined by a few other men similar in age. They got to talking, but I wasn't really listening as I was engrossed in the informational posters about the sugar content of drinks I don't consume, or the risks of consuming illegal drugs. I'm pretty sure one of the owners has a tween-age child that enjoys having their schoolwork displayed.
I was pulled out of my boredom-induced trance by the words, "America's most wanted". My ears pricked up so I could eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation. Because c'mon, wouldn't you?

Turns out the three men, including the one who had made such a fool of himself earlier, were ex-cons. They were discussing how the world had changed since they'd served time, and one was talking about how long he'd spent in prison (hint: a long time) and how the internet was so awesome. Because porn.
They were all apparently waiting for their methadone, as they were also ex-addicts, and were bragging about their exploits. None had committed violent crime, but all were former thieves. They very animatedly and unabashedly discussed the details of former heists with banks and stores.
"But never people," said one.
"Oh no, never people!" agreed another emphatically. "You only ever want to go after the places with insurance, you know? You don't want to hurt someone's family and put them in the same place that you are."
"I couldn't live with myself."
"Banks were good for that."
"Oh yeah. Bank institutions are crooks already."
"I just felt bad about those old lady tellers. You know they were so scared."
"So scared!"
"I just wanted to tell them I was really sorry, and I didn't really mean it. I know it just ruined their day."
"At least they had insurance so they wouldn't be affected once we left."
"Thank god for that. … You know I was on America's Most Wanted once?"
"Oh yeah? I've been straight eleven years and never made it. I got off scott free every damn time."
"Figures."

At first I thought they were being sarcastic, because it was absolutely unbelievable. But no, there were really three ex-cons sitting behind me, freely discussing their former exploits, expressing remorse about scaring the old women that worked in the banks they used to rob…

Canadians.

---

Quotes of the Day:

Me: "Apparently March 14th was 'Steak and Blowjob Day'."
Curtis: "What? Where's my steak and blowjob?"
Me: "Well, we didn't know so we missed it. However, I did hear that today is sushi and cunnilingus day…"
Curtis: "Oh no, I refuse. Plus, we can't afford sushi."
Me: "We can't afford steak!"
Curtis: "I have a cheap steak in the freezer. I can make cheap steak good."
Me: "Well, I could get cheap sushi."
Curtis: "Yes but cheap sushi won't ever be good. I can fuck around with a cheap steak and make it good."
Me: "This is true."
Curtis: "Plus, we never went out for my birthday dinner in December. That counts as ANY great food and blow job day! So you owe me two at least."
Me: "You've missed every sushi and cunnilingus day until today, but I will allow you the chance to make it up to me and then we'll discuss your insert-good-food-here and blowjob day."
Curtis: "Possibly over said cunnilingus."
Me: "Only if I do all the talking."


Links of the Day
Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up (feat. Eminem) - Quite possibly the best use of video editing I have seen since the AMV version of 'A little less conversation'.
Is rear facing safe when you're rear-ended? - To quote a commenter: "Rachel's crash demonstrates SO well one of the lesser-touted benefits of rear-facing- it places the child's head, the most vulnerable part, toward the centre of the vehicle, inside it's protective cage, during the initial impact, the most severe part of the crash- no matter where that impact is, to the front, the rear, or the side- allowing the vehicle to protect the rear-facing occupant."

Last night was the first in a week that I slept... though I don't know that I can call it a good rest. I had a long series of dreams that were disconnected and emotional. I think there were at least nine or ten, but most were made up of short bursts of images and feelings that I can't work through. They don't make sense, and I don't even have enough information to write down. I could only remember two of the dreams by the time I woke up.

The first had only Curtis and me in it. We were alone in a house that wasn't ours, and he was sleeping. The who or why wasn't important, it was just necessary to know that this place did not belong to us. It was the middle of the night and I couldn't sleep, so I carefully crept out of bed and started to walk around the house, exploring the seemingly endless labyrinth of rooms and halls.
I came into a room filled with drawers that were stacked from floor to ceiling, there was a ladder in the centre that I could climb to reach the higher levels. I opened a few, and was surprised to recognize what was inside. Each one contained something I loved from my life, and the higher I climbed the further back I went.
Toward the middle there were CDs: Lenny Kravitz, TLC and Michael Jackson. Above that were some clothes: a purple shirt I cut in half and sewed into an outfit when I was 13. There were some photos of me and my old friends, too. I closed those drawers and climbed higher. Above me I could see a cubby with a closet bar and some clothes hanging on it. They were the dresses my grandmother made me as a child. I took them off the hangars and draped them over my arm, thinking that I should save them and show my kids. The highest cubby I could see contained a doll in a long white dress. At first I did not recognize it, but as I stared I realized that it was a crying baby doll that I received at Christmas when I was five years old. I loved that doll. I can't believe I forgot about it. I picked it up and hugged it.
In that moment I hear a low rumbling, and suddenly the door bursts open and waves upon waves of sea water flow in. The water fills the room, breaks open the drawers and steals my memories. I can see them floating away, through shattered windows and out to sea. I jump into the water and try and save what I can. In the commotion, I let go of the doll, and it floats away. I'll never remember it now.


In the second dream I am walking through a dark, wide room with my sister in my arms. She's a toddler, sleeping with her head on my shoulder. I remain the age I am now. She's heavy in my arms, I can barely carry her anymore and I am thinking that she is almost too big to be carried to bed. She takes a deep and ragged breath in her sleep, and I reach up and run my fingers through the soft brown curls that fall over her cheeks.
In the centre of the room there is a compact fluorescent bulb hanging from a crooked wire. It gives off just enough light to illuminate a bare patch of floor beneath it, but I can see nothing else in this room but darkness. There is a beaded metal pull hanging from the wire; a switch. I reach out to turn it off. I can feel each bead in my fingers, and the way they link together. The sensation is so crisp; everything in this dream is razor sharp and humming.
I give the switch a tug, and the wire holding the light gives way… the light crashes to the floor and shatters. I can see the mercury dust rising up from the broken coils, and I am struck with the fear that it will poison my sister, and she will die before I put her to bed. I fall to my knees and begin scraping up the broken pieces with my bare hands. As I fall, her body disappears from my arms. She is gone, but I do not notice right away… I am too concerned with the threat of the smoke. Pieces of glass cut my fingers as I scrape them across the floor, and I start to bleed. The broken coils are still glowing with an eerie, toxic light but it is fading fast. In my desperation I grasp at the smoke curling in the air as though I could catch it.
It's too much - I can't do it - and I start to slow down as my eyes well with tears. At that moment I realize my sister has disappeared. I can't see or hear her anywhere. I scream for her, but all that returns is the echo of my voice against an endless, empty room. As the last of the light disappears from the coils, I sit in a mess of broken glass and cry.

Now that I have [ all that bullshit ] written out…

Related to shit, baby popped another two teeth and immediately broke out in a horrible teething rash all over her vulva and butt crack. This is the first time she's ever had a legitimate diaper rash. The first poop she had after developing the rash resulted in the rash breaking open and bleeding even though we changed her within moments. She was left rather traumatized by the experience, and ever since that one horrible diaper change she starts crying as soon as we lay her down on the bed and get the wipes ready. This evening Curtis had to warm up the wipes, play with her feet, sing to her and drag out the change for almost fifteen minutes so she would remain calm enough to lay relatively still.
I let her have nearly two hours naked in the sunshine (through the window; it's cold outside) this afternoon, just playing around in the den area of the upstairs. The kids got up there with her, started batting toys around, and Z was absolutely bursting with joy as she crawled back and forth from wall to wall, all giggly and nude. It was awesome. I pulled out my camera for the second day in a row and took photos. I'm proud of myself for this, as it's been months and months and months since I've taken photos around the house without forcing it.

( Huge dump of photos )

I'm putting this in another entry because I can't find a good segue between this, and everything with it, into like… stuff about my kids. It just doesn't sound right all together and I want to vent some of this publicly anyway.

( Marika )

This week is a week if finallys.

Z finally broke a tooth, and has been much happier since then. A few days ago now she woke up in the morning with her face bright green from the tip of her nose to her neckline covered in a wall of gelatinous snot. It was like she'd had a visit from The Toad from the X-Men movie.
And… AND! Z signed and spoke a word - meaningfully - for the first time this week. For the last little while she's been saying "A-dah" when Curtis is around but we weren't entirely sure if this was just random mimicry or legitimate, "This man is daddy and this is my attempt to call him that word" communication. We've been really pushing the ASL more in the last month, and every time Curtis gets home from work we have a few moments of, "Daddy! Dad-dy" with accompanying signs. The last time he came home she was sitting with me upstairs and immediately perked up upon hearing him come in. She lifted her head and called out, "A-dah? A-dah!". Curtis called back to her and she did her happy hyperventilation thing in glee. When he came upstairs she squealed and did another, "A-dah!", this time without that questioning lilt. I asked, "Is that daddy?" while using [ the sign for father ]. She looked at Curtis, and back to me.
"Where's daddy?" I asked, again signing for father.
She looked at Curtis and lifted a hand to her forehead, waving it forward and back in a sort of floppy version of what I'd done. "A-dah! A-dah!". Naturally we were all squealing in joy, but passed it off as a fluke until she did it again the next day, and several more times before bed that night when we prompted her.

Zephyra has this crazy ability to pick this stuff up much faster than the other kids ever did, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that Tempest and Xan are in her face 20 hours a day practicing words and signs with her while I'm doing my important mom stuff like surfing Tumblr.

She's good at non-verbal communication too, like how earlier this evening she was crawling in the kitchen and started choking for the 47th time that day. I then fished this out of her throat.



Marika is finally here, or rather floating between dad's house and our house at least. This time she's done for good, but this is about the 10th, 'this time' I've heard in the last three months. I don't know, this time does seem more permanent, but after everything I've gone through with this I'm hesitant to lend too much of myself just yet. I want to believe it's over, and there's a big part of me that is just waiting to leap up and down for fucking joy but I can't let that out just yet. Or like, at all, because I don't want to be an asshole to someone who finally left an abusive relationship.
We set her up in the kids old room with a futon and some furniture, we're planning when to arrange to go over and get her stuff out of the apartment, and she's spent the last two days handing out resumes, applying to local jobs and getting in touch with various youth organizations… and all of that seems much more permanent. I really want it to stick. I want to believe the hardest part for her is now over, and she can focus on what she needs to be focusing on.

I had this weird moment as we were taking a walk the other day, when I gave her a hug and realized that this person is my baby sister. That may sound ridiculous, but my brain has this disconnect from her childhood and now, as they seem like two completely separate realities. This young woman in front of me is the same little tiny curly-haired baby I absolutely believed to be perfection personified. For a while I acted as though she'd been plopped into my horrible teenage life to make everything brighter, and she really did. And then she was torn back out of it as suddenly as she came in, and the next time I was able to spend any time with her… she was this person. It's not a bad thing, it's just a weird thing. It's the same kind of thing that happens as a mother when you realize your 8 year old is no longer an infant.

Speaking of my 8 year old… when I went to visit my mother today in her building, Tempest started getting bored within a few moments of listening to my mom and I prattle on about orchids and asked if she could explore.
"We're going to go home in about ten minutes so I don't want you wandering off where I can't find you."
"I'll be fast," she replied.
"But when I'm finished, you'll be on some floor and I don't know where, and it may take ages to find you because you're moving around."
"I'll start on this floor and gradually go down one floor at a time until I end up on the bottom floor, then I'll stay there!"
I paused to consider, and she rocked her weight from her heels to the balls of her feet.
"Okay."
"YES." And off she went. She was gone for 20 minutes, and at the end she poked her head back in the room and asked why I was taking so long. When we finally left she ran ahead so she'd reach the elevator first, and asked to ride down alone and meet me outside.
She's always been more independent than Xan, but not quite like this. Her personality is slowly beginning to change, or take shape, as I suppose that's more accurate. She's changing physically and mentally as she gets close to preteenagehood and stuff like that makes me pause and realize that I'll soon reach a point where most of her life takes place outside my direct supervision. That's a weird realization.

On the other hand she's still in this point of transition where she requires me to guide, or drag, her through some of it. Like bathing. She went from loving baths and begging for them, to avoiding them at all costs and using some pretty low down tactics to ensure it stays that way. Like this last month she avoided bathing for over 3 weeks. And no, I really didn't notice. I was sure she'd bathed at least twice during that time, but through careful avoidance, a few lies and distraction she'd managed to escape it all the times I set it up. I finally realized what had happened when I was brushing her hair and saw that what I'd presumed was winter dandruff (the last two years she's had extremely mild winter dandruff in the worst of the season - Curtis gets it too) was actually more like cradle cap. I flipped out and literally dragged her kicking and screaming into the bathroom. After a throw down fight ensued we compromised with me hanging her head over the side of the tub and washing her hair for a good 20 minutes, including five white vinegar rinses to break up all the fucking crud.
After that was over I turned on the shower, handed her a soaped up bath puff and gave her a graphic description of how to wash every part of her body and told her she couldn't come out of the bathroom until she she'd soaped up so thoroughly she was peeing pistachio soap for a week.
"BUT MOM--" she screamed.
"Look," I told her, "If you don't bathe right now, I'm going to have to strip you, get in there with you, hold you down and bathe you. And that is going to seriously traumatize you for the rest of your life. Neither of us want to live with that memory. Just do it."
She was quiet for a good ten seconds, then nodded and told me to leave so she could take off her clothes. She did indeed scrub from head to toe, and refused to come out until all the doors to the back of the house were shut and I'd left some clothes outside the door for her to grab so she could don all her clothing inside the bathroom and not have to take the three steps into her room while naked.

I'm no longer allowed to see her in the nude, she is uncomfortable seeing me in the nude and often walks away if I'm dressing, she won't sleep in the same bed as Xan, she suddenly finds his body and his nudity offensive, she stinks when she runs around a lot, she complains about certain materials hurting her nipples, she's moody, she's secretive, she gets embarrassed to cry in front of me (when her pill is active, at least) and tries to hide it, she eavesdrops on private conversations and is sneaky about it, she's obsessed with Selena Gomez, she gossips with her friends and refuses to stay next to me on walks… I know what's going on here.

It's finally starting to warm up, which means I'm beginning to crawl out of my bitter old cow suit that I don every winter. My SAD is more like SABD - seasonal affective bitchy disorder.
The weather is still bitterly cold about 20% of the time but it's nice enough that I'm noticing the city planting flowers for the new tourist season, and that makes me want to garden. Every year I say I want to grow things successfully, and every year we manage to fail in miraculous new ways. It's really quite something. I have more faith in this year than the last because this year I'm not massively pregnant and walking with a cane; hopefully this means I'll have an easier time at it. This year I also want to try planting vegetables in sequence rather than all at once. We totally fucked ourselves over with the lettuce that one time, and I don't want to make that mistake again, so I think I'll do 5-7 at a time separated by two week intervals. I really want to succeed with tomatoes. And I really want to try and get squash up past a few leaves. It'd be nice to get better at this.

---

Random picture backlog!

I never got around to doing Z's proper 8 month portraits, so this will have to do.




( Lots of pictures! )


Xanism of the day:
Xan and Tempest each got old Furby toys from the Whovian booth at our local gaming convention last month. Xan has become one with his, and carries it around with him everywhere telling stories about her (and it's definitely a her, he says).
While I was cooking one afternoon he approached me and asked if I'd like to hear about how his Furby came to live with him, and of course I said yes. He began telling me a story about how the Furby lived in the booth for years, traveling around at gaming conventions but never being loved, held or touched by kids even though it wanted to very badly. It was very hungry but every time it went to the concession after the convention closed, they would be sold out of food! So one day, it ran away. As it walked in the rain one night it saw our home and peeked in the window. Inside it watched as our family was eating dinner, laughing and playing, and thought about how it would love to have a family too. So, it went around to the back of our house and saw that Xan had put out a sign that said, "We never run out of food" and came in to snuggle in Xan's bed and never be lonely or hungry ever again.

I teared up.

Links of the Day:
Apologies to the parents I judged four years ago - A link I think most of us could see ourselves in.
You are not a failure - A fantastic piece for everyone who ever felt, thought, or was told they "failed" at breastfeeding. This also works as a piece about how to choose formula and still be a breastfeeding advocate.
Instructions for a bad day - A short, student-made film about surviving bullying set to a poem by Canadian writer Shane Koyczan. This was created and produced entirely by high school students, and it's really good.
Who is not a lactation consultant? - A good piece to pass on to new or pregnant moms.
The 10 most important things they don't teach you in school - this should be required for all high schools.
Trailer for "Bully" - A movie I want to see.
In the wake of controversy about Kony2012 and Invisible Children being a shady charity, to say the least, I figured I'd promote a good one. [ Kiva.org ] is a charity that allows you to connect to hard-working people in developing nations and contribute to micro-loans to create jobs, improve lives and build community. Right now they're offering a $25 credit for new members, which means you can join and contribute to a project right now FOR FREE. The money you contribute is paid back to you as the loans are repaid (meaning, the businesses you helped build were successful) and you can turn that money back around and loan it again. [ So if you want to make a difference in a good way, join up! ] :)
* for honesty's sake there was criticism about Kiva's lending, and their transparency, back in 2009 that is addressed [ here ], but if you follow up with that bloggers posts on the subject it appears Kiva took this to heart and changed their practices rather quickly, and that he thought better of them (while not perfect) since then. I also addressed this question to someone I respect very much as an educated individual in regards to issues like these, and he was kind enough to give me a very thorough answer [ here ], so make sure you read up and ensure you understand and are comfortable with what they do!

Related: If you haven't read the criticisms about the Kony2012, their response, or the opinions of many Ugandan people, you may want to [ go back one entry ] and check out some of the links I've put up.