Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Things

Mmm today was a long day... we met A & E (LOL at those intials, I must be dog tired) and walked from their house to the University, had lunch, rode the lrt, and then walked back again. That took 5 hours. Yeh. She is a house pervert as well so when the kids all fell asleep in the strollers we had fun walking back and meandering all over the place looking at older houses and making our comments LOL.

Then I went in to work for an hour...I think that is the record for my shortest time there....

Kade and I planted my Calla Lilly bulbs yesterday, now the only ones left are my glads. Then I will buy my bedding plants and see what I can do with everything, My Asters in peat pellets are about 2-3 inches tall already, the Foxglove and Canterbury Bell are about an inch. They need to get outside pretty damn quick here. Kade is so fascinated with the planting and dirt and it goes beyond the normal boy interest in all things mucky, the kid was WEEDING my flowerbed at the back...and enjoying it....making sure he pulled up the roots too...knocking off the dirt...like mother like son I tell you.

The wonder hydrangea is still budding, I found some bulb that I have NO clue what it was growing (dug it up by accident) guess we will see what grows. My irises are being watched impatiently ....bloom dammit bloom! My clematis are green at the base, but I think I am going to have to move my flowerbeds. Mikes gonna love hearing that. That south side looks pretty, but the north gets allll the sun. I am going to put my ferns etc in the shade and then move my clematis to the sunny side. The whole yard will be toys and flowers. Cool..

I dug out my bday present from my sister. The kids LOVE it and won't leave it alone. Ten million toys and a climber in the backyard, and they both want this garden ornament.

I think its hilarious that it has a bird on its middle finger....hidden meaning or am I just really overtired.... so here's Kade's "frog butterfly"


Off to soak in a scalding hot tub....my aching legs.

Outsourcing Breast Milk

They say breast milk is the perfect food for baby's mind and body. Studies
show that children who nurse may be healthier and happier and, if they
breast-feed for longer than seven months, have a higher IQ. Equally important,
many believe, is the intense bond that develops between mother and
child.
Which is one reason most American moms don't want to share the
experience with anyone else. Yet wet-nursing (hiring a woman to breast-feed your
baby), which most of the Western world abandoned in the 19th century, is making
a minor comeback among young moms. So is cross-nursing, in which mothers
breast-feed one another's babies. Both reflect several cultural trends: more
U.S. babies--upwards of 70%--are breast-fed than at any time in at least 50
years, more women work outside the home, and more young women undergo breast
surgery. Advocates argue that milk sharing lets women be good moms while
fulfilling other goals. Says Natalia Chang, 29, who has cross-nursed with her
San Jose, Calif., neighbor: Breast milk is "a communal commodity around
here."
Not everyone is comfortable with this freewheeling baby feeding. Milk
banks, which sell bottled breast milk, already make some people squirm; the idea
of physically breast-feeding a child not your own evokes even deeper taboos.
Rhonda Shaw, a sociologist who studies shared nursing in New Zealand, where the
trend is also up, says many confuse "adult meanings of eroticism with breast
feeding ... Sometimes people associate a woman breast-feeding another woman's
baby with pedophilia." Even the pro-nursing group La Leche League has concerns
about milk sharing because, in addition to helpful immunities and antibodies,
viruses can be passed through breast milk.
But women who share milk say it's
good for babies and moms. Lorna Medina, 30, who stayed home in Tucson, Ariz.,
after the birth of her child, also nursed the infant of her working sister for a
year. Medina says it created a unique bond with her niece, a preemie who needed
breast milk to grow. Chang says cross-nursing brought her closer to her
neighbor. "It takes female friendship to another level. You're trusting another
person to nurture your child," she says. And she adds that since she and her
husband don't live near family, "it's also a way of building that village or
community that a lot of us crave."
Even if you accept that cross-nursing is
for the collective good, wet nurses magnify the discomfort that many people
already feel about the wealthy employing less advantaged women to do domestic
duties. That's why the few women who hire wet nurses--mostly because they have
adopted, have had breast implants or reductions or have high-powered
careers--keep it a secret, for fear of being judged bad mothers. Still, Robert
Feinstock, who owns CertifiedHouseholdStaffing.com a Los Angeles--based agency that
supplies wet nurses nationwide, says demand has steadily risen in the past four
years, even though the standard fee of $1,000 a week is more than the average
nanny gets.
Brenda (whose last name is withheld to protect her clients'
privacy), 42, has wet-nursed 10 babies in the past seven years partly to help
send her own two kids to college. She has mulled over the social implications of
her work--because she's black and eight of the families she has worked for are
white. "A friend asked me, Don't you feel like you're the mammy?" she recalls.
But she finds her job fulfilling, and sometimes amusing. "If you're someplace
with the family and the baby starts to pull at your blouse or put his hand in
your bra, that can be embarrassing," she says, laughing.


Uhhh a $1000 US a week? Sign me up! I found the whole article really interesting.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Addicted To Facebook

Well, finally pulled myself away from that damn thing to blog, (ok I lied, its open in another window. whatever. its worse than crack )Well, for those of you who haven't joined, get yer asses over there www.facebook.com, and join. Come on, you'll be sooo kewl.

Its actually pretty interesting to see the pics of people that I went to highschool with, especially pics of their kids. Many of them I have seen in the past few years, and a few I haven't seen in forever. Its really cool and it pisses me off that I didn't invent it.

Then there's those few people where you see them and think "well shit, you aren't dead after all!" (D that's for you if you're reading this)

A few I had pegged as being gunned down in a barrage of drug dealing gunfire, maybe one or two drinking themselves into soft, dough-like visages of their former jock selves....the school geek becoming the next Bill Gates, the weirdo finally, just finally, stopping his mumbling about authority and doing something postal about it.

But the mediocrity of just everyone on there kinda stunned me....its babies and kids and spouses and houses and bears, oh my..... and god damned if I didn't just describe myself and my own life.

Not that mediocrity is bad. It just seems that, its just,well, all the SAME. Its just the sameness that gets me....2 children, a car and a house. Decent jobs, vacation once a year. Work and kids and work and kids and.... I always get this way when I think of highschool tho, I suppose. I was like this around our reuion. Where am I and what am I doing and how did I get so freaking Gen X middle classish. Sigh.

By the way, there's more of you on Facebook than came to the reunion! What the shit is up with THAT!

Alright I am rambling. I am off to see if anyone I know from highschool is posting on Facebook from jail.