"Bitch is the New Black!"

I almost couldn't believe my ears. I turned to my husband and said, "I can't believe Tina Fey just said that!!" She was the guest host on SNL this weekend and did a monologue during the Weekend Update, chiding women voters for not supporting Hillary . You can check it out here.

Hearing her say that made me think about a conversation I had with my mom, mother-in-law, and two sisters-in-law last summer at a barbeque/pool party. Somehow the issue of Hillary running for president came up and I said at the time that I would break with my party and vote for her soley based on the fact that she is a woman. My mom then said that she doesn't believe that a woman should be president--that men are supposed to be the leaders. My mother-in-law agreed with her and said that it wouldn't be biblical.

What?!! What?!! I nearly choked on my hot dog. "Don't you know the bible was written by men?" I asked. I sort of cringed after saying that, thinking that my mother-in-law surely believes I am going to hell now. One of my sister-in-laws got really upset and said, "Then do you think that I shouldn't have a career?" Needless to say it was a very tense conversation and I think we all just dropped it before things got ugly.

This was back before Obama had really come on the scene with his inspirational speeches and promises of change. I have to say he has swooned me a little. I really believe this country is ready for change and I don't know if having the same two families take turns running the country is really my idea of change, even if one of them is a woman. I know Obama has been criticized for his lack of exerpience, but frankly, I like the idea of having a president that has not been so jaded by a lifetime in politics. My husband and I did not caucus on February 9th because to participate in the primary process in Washington you have to pledge allegiance to a certain party. We are frustrated by our country's two-party system and now consider ourselves independents. We are pulling for Obama though and hope we can cast our vote for him come November. Sorry Ms. Fey!

5555 Book Meme

I was tagged for a book meme by Jennifer over at Dust Bunny Hostage. I am supposed to choose my favorite book, turn to page 55, copy the first 5 lines on that page and then tag 5 more people. I have two problems with this, first Jennifer already used my all-time favorite book, Daisy Faye and the Miracle Man. I have read that book every few years since I was 12-years-old whenever I really needed cheering up. Second, since I usually go to the library, I don't have a huge selection of books at home to choose from. So, this isn't neccessarily from my favorite book, but it is from one I really enjoyed and have read more than once.

Every parent watched through the lens of a videocamera. Weary shoppers trudged along, lugging shopping bags, bumping into others, fighting with their children.

Luther had never felt prouder.

Across the way, he saw a new sporting goods store. He strolled over, noticing through the window that there was a crowd inside and certainly not enough cashiers.

Okay, now leave your guess as to what book it is in the comments. I will put the answer in the comments on Wednesday. Hint: The author is southern and this is not his usual genre.

Lastly, if you like to read, consider yourself tagged. Leave a comment on this post when you have posted your meme, so I can visit and make a guess of my own.

Boy Art

Sometimes I find it challenging to get my son excited about doing art projects. This has been somewhat disappointing to me since I consider doing an art project with him the perfect way to spend an afternoon at home. Recently I realized that maybe it isn't that he isn't interested in art, just not the type of projects I was suggesting. So I have tried to be more creative and find projects that appeal to the sensibilities of a 4-year-old boy. Here are the results:

This project started because my son was taking pom-poms and cutting them up. I said that it looked like fur and maybe we could use it to make an animal or something. I think he came up with the idea to make a monster. I drew the outline of the body and colored the face. My son added the foam horns, claws and googly eyes.

The next project we did was painting with unusual objects. Cousin N was here for this one. We bought the plastic cars at Target for $1.00 each. Most of the other objects are from our kitchen.

The first two paintings are done with just the cars and the second two are done with all the tools.

I think they had just as much fun cleaning up as they did painting!

I have also found that my son considers some of his building projects to be art. His preschool teacher said that she always took pictures of her son's creations to make it easier for him to take them apart, so I have adopted the habit as well.

Give Me Some Wood...Hey! Don't Cut Off My Rock Supply!

Okay, the title of this post may sound a little shady, but I'm really referring to a great game called Settlers of Catan. My husband and I were first introduced to this game back in the summer of 2005 by our good friends that we met when we lived in California. Everytime we get together we play this game and I have to say that the level of competition gets pretty intense. The only way I know how to explain Settlers of Catan is to say it is sort of like Monopoly on steroids and with a lot more strategy involved. Anyway, we don't get together with our friends very often since they now live in Ohio and we live in Washington, so we recently got our own copy of the game. At first we couldn't get my husband's family (our local game-playing gang) interested, but this last weekend we finally convinced them to play, and now they are all hooked! We have played the game about 5 times in the last three days (it takes about 2 hours/game). We are trying to find an expansion pack now so that more of us can play at once. With the original game you can only have up to 4 players and the expansion pack allows up to 6 players. You probably wouldn't want more than 6 players because then it would take too long. If anyone else has played it I would like to hear what you think of it, plus any tips you want to give me for winning. I am going to call it beginners luck because I have not won any of the games I have played in recently, even with all my experience!

"Einstein Didn't Speak Until He Was Three"

My 18-month-old daughter has developmental delays in gross motor skills and expressive language. This is still not easy for me to say (or write), but it would be infinitely harder to deal with if not for my husband's attitude about the whole issue. He says things like "Einstein didn't speak until he was three," and "we already know she's different from other kids, the question is how much do we really want to worry about it." He says that society is telling us that there is something wrong with our child, but that she is going to develop just fine in her own time. She is just our little late bloomer he reassures me.

For a long time I avoided doing much research into what causes developmental delays. I think that I was overwhelmed enough just trying to process the results of her tests and then jumping all the hurdles that were necessary to get her into physical therapy. Recently I worked up the nerve to ask my daughter's therapist what causes these types of delays. The therapist said that there really isn't an explanation, some babies are just that way. So, I looked to the Internet. Surprisingly I didn't find a lot of info there either. What I did find didn't apply to my daughter, she doesn't have a genetic disorder and she wasn't born premature. I'm also pretty certain that she doesn't have autism either, given her social, emotional and receptive language abilities. I did find one article that said 8% of children from birth to six years have some type of developmental delays. For some reason I found that comforting, maybe she is not that different--8% seems like a pretty big number to me.

Before I had children and even after my first, I wondered how I would feel if I had a child that was somehow not "normal." I would see parents with children that had some type of disability or disorder and wonder if that changed how they felt about that child, and also if they felt closer or more bonded to their other children. Of course no one ever thinks that they will end up being in that situation themselves. But being on the other side of it now, I can honestly say that my daughter's differences don't change how I feel about her at all, and I don't feel any less bonded to her than I do to her brother. Sometimes it is difficult to be around other babies that are about the same age or even considerably younger than her, and see them doing and saying things that she can't yet. However when she does make progress or achieve a goal, it is so sweet.

My husband and I watched a lecture on PBS by the author of Go Put Your Strengths to Work the other night. The jist of it was that instead of focusing on your weaknesses and trying to improve in those areas, you should really be trying to find ways to play up your strengths and use them to your advantage. It made me think of our daughter and how we spend so much time worrying about what she can't do. I think instead we really need to celebrate her strengths and focus more on what a wonderful little girl she is.

Book Review: A Thousand Spledid Suns by Kahled Hosseini

This was a book that I simply could not put down, even though through most of it I was sick to my stomach. Sick because while this is a fictional story, I know from other sources that it is an accurate portrayal of what life has really been like for many Afghan women and Muslim women in other countries. I have a real problem with a culture that treats women like caged animals--unable to even leave their houses without being escorted by a male relative. Hosseini also brings to life the horrors of war and political turmoil and the choices they force people to make.

Beyond the cultural and historical context Hosseini creates, the stories of the two heroines and how their lives become intertwined are heartbreaking as well. I found it very interesting that while the early lives of both Mariam and Laila were very different, they shared having mothers that seemed to not want them. I wonder if Hosseini's intention in creating this parallel was to make it more believable to the reader that they could bond relatively quickly and become one another's confidants.

I also found it interesting that while Laila was educated and Mariam was not, they both became dependant on a man for their survival. Of course in Laila's situation it was mainly due to a raging war and an oppresive atmosphere for women, but I think that even in America this still happens to a degree. Often educated women, women who once had good jobs, give all that up to become professional mothers. Suddenly, they find themselves completely dependant on their husbands or partners for financial security. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, I am one of these women myself, I am just saying it can sometimes make you feel a little bit like a second-class citizen. Other times in this country we see women use their talents and education to back up their man. I happened to be listening to AM radio this morning and caught a little bit of Rush Limbaugh's show. He was saying that the only reason Hillary Clinton backed up Bill during all his scandals was so she could eventually have her turn to run (he was also using all kinds of adjectives to describe her which I guess are supposed to be bad in a women, but would probably be seen as evoking power in men). I don't know how fair of a statement that is about the Clintons, but maybe it says something about our country--that a woman can't even get the chance to run for president unless her husband has already held the office and everyone knows he will be in the White House right alongside her. But I digress and in all fairness, it really isn't fair to make such comparisons between the plights of Afghan and American women as we have so many more choices and opportunities, but I like to try to relate the books I read to my life and what is on my mind.

I really loved this book, especially the ending and the message it gave of how the human spirit can endure almost anything and still keep shining. I would love to get comments from anyone else who has read it and see what you found interesting or how it related to your life.

I Don't Think I'm a Republican Anymore...

...but I'm not ready to call myself a Democrat, either. My dad has always been very conservative--he specifically believes in the right to bear arms and less government controls (interesting since he works for a branch of the USDA), and I think that I modeled a lot of my political beliefs after his from a young age. My mom also taught me when I was a preteen that abortion is murder. The first time I was old enough to participate in a presidential election I cast my vote for George W. Bush and again in 2004. But was I voting for the canidate that most represented my values or was I voting for who best represented my parent values? And I have to say that I am not happy with the direction our country is going in many areas.

Just recently I was reading an article in Mothering Magazine on whether or not we should try and instill our political beliefs into our children from a young age. The author of the article said that if we do so, we are running the risk of raising children that don't know how to think for themselves. I don't think that my parents were trying to brainwash me or anything like that, but I do think that children see things in black and white, instead of evaluating them and considering all the different viewpoints.

Then today when I got this week's issue of TIME, I discovered it has a handy little fold-out Voter's Guide that tells what each party basically believes on six of the key issues (education, immigration, trade, environment, Iraq and healthcare). According to TIME, I line up with the Republicans on 2 of the six issues and the Democrats on 4 of the six. But the issues I line up with the Republicans on are big ones for me: education and healthcare. In both of those cases, the Democrats want to create more government, while the Republicans want to return to more local controls in education and decrease bureaucracy in healthcare. Maybe I am not either, maybe I'm a libertarian or an independent, but regardless I still feel like I will need to choose either an R or a D or I will be wasing my vote. I need to do more investigating...to be continued....