Thank God for Laughter

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. I encourage anyone who really needs a laugh to check out the post on One Good Thing. The stories are absolutely pee in your pants hysterical. I have to thank Bitch PhD for sending me there.

working mamma blues part2

Arg-after a long week end off I am back to work 12-8pm. Tomorrow I have to be out the door before the kids wake up. So that makes 1 1/2 days without seeing them. I am really sad.


Sometimes work just wears you down....but at least we had a fun filled weekend outside. Zoo on Friday with the entire E. Coast kid clan. Sat a day in the park bike riding, stroller walking and kite flying. Sat. afternoon-snapper turtle siting, mud jumping and frog hunting. Sun. relax and bbq!

Monday am-got rid of some toys clutter cleanup always feels good. But I miss my kids (already!) and I wished I got to kiss them goodbye a bit more. It will be see you later, but not for a few days. Makes me think of all the moms who have to kiss their kids goodbye and go to another country to find work. Maybe to not see their children for years. That really makes me cry! I meet these courageous moms every day. If I had the words in Spanish I would ask them is it really worth it? All the sadness missing their children to come here to this crazy country, live in poverty and work so hard? But I guess they have to do it. All I can say to them, is I am so sorry I know how hard this must be for you.

Dana Gioia, Commencement address at Stanford

I thought that this was a pretty amazing speech given in the name of art. I urge everyone to read and think about what the Poet Dana Gioia has to say.

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts:

(this is part of the whole commencement see link below)

Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world—equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being—simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.

Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, "It is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget." Art awakens, enlarges, refines, and restores our humanity. You don't outgrow art. The same work can mean something different at each stage of your life. A good book changes as you change.

Read the whole speech here
Provided by Jill Dybka at the Poetry Hut

Stanford Report, June 17, 2007

Drowning in Puke and Poop Version 2.0

Oh my god, let me say that the virus in its second wave has hit the household. First, Crusher (almost 2 years old) at 4:30 am Monday morning-day of my 11 hour shift. Second, Steamroller(almost 4 years old) hit hard at 10 pm. By that time the baby is awake and bouncing off the walls yelling: "Look puke, puke! Throw up! Puke!" and pointing to all the pukey places on the couch. I hope to upload the video of this to you tube, because damn if my kid isn't hysterical!

The baby stayed home with my husband on Monday. By the time I was getting ready to go to work, he was done puking. After my shift was over I arrived home around 9pm, both kids asleep, plenty of downtime to discuss my anxiety dreams from watching the Sopranos season finale the night before. (I couldn't sleep I kept tossing and turning about Janice...) When all of a sudden, 10pm rolls around and Steamroller gets bit by the bug. At this point I am running on very little sleep and I realize that I will be getting even less sleep now, especially when my son says to me "Mommy, when I need you, I need you" after his third or fourth episode of projectile vomiting.

Let me just say that hearing the big guy puke up bile at 1 am was terrible. He and I slept on the couch together. Anytime he stirred I woke up fast, bucket in hand to catch the B rated monster movie bleck. It was like a horror movie including his moans and gags.

good god! what was this vomit virus creator thinking?
Version 2.0 is mad fast, furious and basically gone in 4 hrs. That is, four hours of vomit. The next day getting the kids to eat anything has been difficult. The baby just wants to drink. Hence the drowning in poop part, or rather....diarrhea that spills OUT OF THE DIAPER...GAG!!!

On this very same day the dryer repair man arrived (gracia a dios!) and fixes our dryer-in time for poop round 2, 3 and 4. I run a load of towels and we all nap (not the dryer guy he left....) I wake up 2 hours later. A nap well appreciated, and go downstairs to check on the towels. And what is that? My olfactory senses are exploding: GAS LEAK! Great. I call the gas company, they arrive and 3 citations later I learn we did indeed have a gas leak from the dryer repair man who messed up the hose. The new repair guy turns off the gas to the dryer so that the leak would be temporarily fixed. We will be lacking a dryer until the next repair person arrives tomorrow to fix the hose. (But at least we still have hot water.)

I am just hoping that tomorrow this doesn't turn out to be a huge problem. So I can finish the wash. I also hope that the kids have some solid poop tomorrow. Because daycare has the 3 strikes your out policy on diarrhea. Please please please let the cheerios work!

A years worth of blogger

The baby fell asleep singing his favorite night time song. I don't know how to sing it in French, but it is the same song as brother john is sleeping. He was pretty funny singing it. The baby is usually very funny. When he is just about ready to fall asleep, but is fighting it, he will say "poop poop" it took us a while to realize that this was just a ruse. We used to get up and look. Now he says it, we ignore him and he goes right to bed. He also loves to wake up at around five and sing: Nookie nookie nookie, nookie nookie nookie! at the top of his lungs until we get up and get him milk. I guess I can't call him the baby anymore, he will be two soon. I still gotta come up with hip blogger names for them. Oh The Crusher is the baby and Steam Roller is his big brother. I forgot.....this comes from how they wake us up in the morning

Well that is it for tonight, I just realized that I have been writing here for about 1 year now! I can't believe it. A years worth of blogging....crazy. I can't say that I have had time to check out new blogs, I love the Crazy Hip Blog Mamas random blog pick. It is fun, but I haven't seen anything fabulous lately-I guess because I have been too busy to really get a chance to read them. I miss Blogher That was a very informative site, but I found that a lot of the women there link only to their friends, and very rarely will add a new person onto their site. In fact I found it very cliquish in that sense. Which is kind of sad really. I am rambling now, I guess it is time for bed. Oh and I just checked out the True Dad Confessions, I think I will stick to True Mom Confessions It is way more interesting. Plus I don't have to read about shaving balls and blowjobs. One guy did say, another guy would get more bj's if he washed and shaved his balls more often and....hung out at the Y.

That is it for now!

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Astronomy Picture of the Day is a fun site. I enjoy checking it out and think today's picture is pretty amazing. It looks a lot cooler at their site, because it is larger.

Crawfish Fest 2007

Another fab year at Crawfish fest. Ok so the last time we went was before the second kid was born, but whatever. We made it to the Sunday afternoon show to see living legend Dr. John. He was amazing! Totally fun and lots of great music-including some from his super voodoo CD Gris Gris-one of my favorite Dr. John cds. He also sang the Leadbelly song Goodnight Irene. The kids had a blast even thought the show ended with us getting rained on-it was all worth it.

thank you Dr. John!