Politically Correct Potty Training

Introducing the Anatomically Correct Potty Training Doll designed to help you potty train your child in a gender specific and culturally sensitive way.

Not only can you get this doll in boy or girl model, but is also comes in different ethnicities. The above photo is the caucasian version.

African American

Asian

Latin

According to the website that is selling them:(http://www.mindfultoys.com/potrto.html)

"A potty training doll that has the same genitals and skin color as your child can assist you with this developmental stage. Kids love playing 'pretend potty-time' with their potty buddy."

Somehow I seriously doubt that either of those claims are true, but let us give them the benefit of the doubt and explore why this anatomically correct doll in the appropriate ethnic version might help your child potty train:

1) Boys stand and girls sit? True, boys eventually stand, but most moms I know teach boys just learning to sit in order to not have to scrub the walls on a daily basis. (And all these boy dolls are sitting.)

2) Different ethinicities go potty in different ways? While we might have different preferences for the way it goes in (different ethnic foods), it all comes out the same way!

3) All of us who were potty trained WITHOUT the aid of this doll frequently wet or soil ourselves? Sorry, I can't say I feel at a loss for not having had this doll way back when.

Any other ideas?

Peas & Poop

So today I decided to try feeding her something other than formula. Ped said to wait til she was hungry and lead off with a veggie (apparently fruits are too sweet and if they taste them first, they won't eat veggies. Not sure I buy that but in true first-time-mom fashion, I follow doc's orders rather than strike out on my own.)

So I open a tiny jar of Earth's Best Organic Peas. And she spit them out. I tried 5 spoonfuls, all of which ended up on the bib, but that's fine, I was prepared for that. So I made a bottle and gave her the much beloved Similac. Suck, suck suck. Then I smelled it. Poop. So stop feeding to change diaper. And there they were, in the diaper, the same peas I had just been feeding her? Same color, texture, consistency. Different smell.

I wonder if Earth's Best knows their peas look like poop?

The Epileptic Cow

I just have to marvel that someone actually gets paid to think these things up. According to the box, your child is supposed to giggle and laugh with delight. Mine seemed unimpressed. But it comes in an elephant model and a pig model; maybe she would like them better.

The HairClub for Babies

Babies,

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BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

* Results not typical and may vary by customer

"Ooooh, I have a Cool Book!"

So I asked B if he might clean up the floor area in front of his bookcase as it was 3 layers deep in books, magazines and other literary materials. He graciously complied with my request and somewhere through the second layer he exclaims, "Ooooh, I have a cool book!" I laughed out loud, but unfortunately was not quick-witted enough to come back with, "Well, if that is the one you really like, does that mean we can get rid of all the others?" Alas, I fear I am doomed to only see the floor 4 times a year. (Good thing he has so many other wonderful qualities.)

Baby Personals

Do you feel your inner saliva running down your chin? Do you desire to spend half the day with your fist in your mouth? Do you cry when they both won't fit at the same time?

Then text, email, or IM me at dooling4u@teething.com!

Baby Einstein???

So here she is reading a book...

Or so it would appear...

I think what she is really doing is studying the plaid pattern on seat fabric!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a nice dinner out with B Monday night and a good cookie/ cake thing with some friends tonight, so it was kinda a birthday week. That's the end of the celebrations, so now its official. I'm 32. Wow.

Are we more holy if we choose the suffering?

It was a loaded issue that ignited my internal debate, which I do not wish to make the subject of this post, so I won't. I will put it in these terms:

If something that is, in general, good, and that the Church reinforces as good and a blessing, causes an individual person struggle and strife, is that individual supposed to choose it despite the strife? Are we commanded to choose the suffering/ hardship for the sake of the refinement that will happen to us as a result?

Some suffering will come to us by circumstance, despite our choices. It is more or less outside of our control. No one chooses to be stricken with cancer, but if someone is injured while racing motorcycles, we might argue they chose to engage in activities that increased their risk for suffering. (I am NOT arguing that they therefore deserved it; just that their choices played a role in that instance/ experience of suffering.)

Suffering can be a vehicle of redemption. Christ is imaged as the suffering servant, as are many of the OT prophets. But in these instances, it is the suffering of one (Christ, prophets) that leads to the salvation of others (followers of Christ, people of Israel).

But are you saved by your own suffering? In the "working out of our salvation," are we commanded to choose the suffering because of it's redemptive potential? Or are we merely charged with embracing the suffering that comes to us, despite our best efforts to avoid it? Truly, I do not think I can bring myself to choose the suffering.

I'd be interested in your thoughts, via comment or email.

Where the Wild Things Are

Lest anyone (ok, really you, S, I think you are the only one who reads this...) think that I never have anything nice to say and stop reading, I wanted to post this picture of Mine (on the left) and her cousin Elizabeth (right) from B's animal dress-up b-day party. It was a lot of fun. Kudos to B for having the idea!

This is Crass...

but so am I.











Found this T-shirt design on line, here. http://www.onehorseshy.com/

Today is Shit

Today is Shit and I am SO sick of poop and spit up and dirty laundry that is stained and doesn't come clean and dirty carpets and dirty sinks and dirty counters and dirty bathrooms. And layers of dust and grime. I feel like everything around me is filthy. I hate it.

I hate having no space and having to move 5 things just to do basic chores like sort/ fold laundry or load/ empty the dishwasher. (Thank you God for my dishwasher!! Note that I am not complaining about my dirty dishes.)

I want a house, a maid, a babysitter, a Mazda 3 and a JOB!!!!

My Baby Has B.O.!!!

I didn't think it was possible, but, *sniff sniff* YUP! She stinks! (And not poopy smell emanating from the diaper region; no, this is ripe, sweaty smell from the upper body regions!) Bath Time for Bonzo!!!

Small Goals

I found this poem/ prose by a woman named Maya Stein posted on her blog,
"One Paragraph at a Time." She seems to have a blog full of prose,
but this was by far my favorite. Hope you enjoy.

Small Goals
by Maya Stein

a cup of tea with cream & sugar, quietly,
because it is just morning and no one
is demanding anything of you, and you don't
yet need to demand anything of yourself.

pillows behind your back, at the desk,
because it shouldn't be so hard to sit still.

pet the dog, put your cheek to his cheek, say hello
in a higher, sing-song register, because even this
brief touch brings you back to a place absent of toughness,
and because when he is being held close and cooed at,
the dog will lie at your feet for hours, calm and near-sleeping.

moisturize, have lunch, put on a clean shirt, empty
and refill the dishwasher, because you need to take care,
because the body needs to be restored,
because it is good to make time for tasks that force
an alignment with order, and because there is no easier purpose
than a clearing off of the dusty messes, the small eruptions of mail,
whatever gnatty distraction is in the way of getting somewhere else.

let go of the argument, its bruising remainder, its strangeness
and alarm, because when you keep it flattened to your chest
for too long you can't breathe, and because there is a whole
day outside just waiting to be plunged into,
ripe and forgiving and opulent with love.

ice water.
as little driving as possible.
the guitar for even five minutes.
sunscreen on that place on your shoulders you never get to.
a walk somewhere close. easy, even steps.
the smell of late summer. that hum of bees.
a view that stretches to another zip code.
close your eyes.
close your eyes.
close your eyes.
now open.

http://papayamaya.blogspot.com/

Who's Your Daddy?!?!

Today (ok, actually yesterday because it is after midnight) was a really rough day for me. I have a cold and feel lousy... And so does baby! So she was happy for about 2 hours this morning (when I took those pics of her with toys) and after that, when she was awake, she was screaming her head off! She actually reached a new level in upset-ness; she made kind of a wheezing sound at the end of some of her wales, I think because she hadn't breathed and was running out of air. But anyway. when B came home, I handed over HIS baby and said, "You're turn!" He is so good with her that after about a half an hour, this is was the scene:

A Little Competition Never Hurt Anyone...

So yesterday B's sister came over with her mom and 3 of the 4 kids to go swimming. The baby of their family (named Elizabeth) is exactly 1 month and 2 days older than mine. I was impressed by all the "interesting" things that this 4 month old can do (that mine can't) such as roll over (back ---> front) and lay on her stomach, reach for toys, chew on them, etc. To date, mine has shown little to no interest in toys and cries whenever placed on her stomach. "No 'tummy time' for me," she says. I was asking when Elizabeth started doing this stuff, because I think it would make life with mine a lot more interesting. So today, I put her in her walker and put toys in front of her, like I did yesterday and the day before and the day before, but TODAY, she actually reached for them, and succeeded!

See...

The Sometimes Reluctant Mother

So I have been really struggling with my new status of SAHM (stay at home mom). This is the end of B's second week back at work, and while it was much better than the misery of last week, I still did not take a lot of joy in the care of my charge. I have been feeling rather desperate to get back to work, that is, a job. Then last night I had a rather jarring conversation that made me realize what a privilege it is not to HAVE to work. A friend's situation (see previous post) basically made me realize how good I have it. Despite the fact that I don't rejoice at changing diapers and warming bottles and going for hours with no adult conversation (I am an extrovert), I have the privilege (?!?) of being able to take care of my own baby. I don't HAVE TO turn her over to someone else. This is probably not a newsflash to anyone else but me. It reminded me that there is NO feeling worse than feeling like you have no choices, and I have choices. I should be grateful for that.

Houston, We Have a Problem...

There is something seriously wrong when mothers are forced to leave their babies at daycare to go to work, and the job they will be doing requires less skill (and is way less important to the heath of our society) than taking care of a baby. Leaving your baby to do something productive I can understand- there are days it appeals to me- You are going to school to better yourself, you are a doctor or a teacher or a nurse and your job helps people and contributes good things to society, or maybe you are even a lowly government worker, but you believe that you make a difference in the functioning of society by trying to bring integrity and intelligence to government (that would be me)-- I can understand choosing to put your kid in daycare to work these jobs, especially if you need the money. But for a job like fry cook or dog walker, which have little societal value (This is my blog, so I get to have that opinion and publish it) I cannot understand WHY that is acceptable just so we can check off a box on a form that so-and-so has fulfilled their welfare-to-work requirement. And lets not get started discussing how it is actually costing the government MORE to pay the for the daycare AND the welfare benefits than it would cost to just pay the welfare benefits and let the woman take care of her own baby! Mr. Obama, can we fix this?

Why I like Barack:

These are some paragraphs from the “Faith” chapter of Obama's book, __The Audacity of Hope__. I think his argument it is the best answer to the question: "How can you be a Christian and a Moral Liberal at the same time?" This is a question I have never been able to explain to my own satisfaction despite my convictions that abortion must remain legal so that women are not forced to seek them in back alleys and that gay "marriage"/ civil unions are not an abomination before God; they are a way to extend health insurance benefits and next-of-kin privileges to important people in the lives of gay people. Anyway, this is the answer I wish I had given when having this discussion in the past.

"Surely, secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square; Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr.-- indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history-- not only were motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue their causes. To say that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

"What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to argument and amenable to reason. If I am opposed to abortion for religious reasons and seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or invoke God’s will and expect that argument to carry the day. If I want others to listen to me, then I must explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths including those of no faith at all.

"At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. ...God does not reveal Himself or his angels to all of us in a single moment. [We do not all hear and see the same things, true as those things may be.] So the best we can do is to act in accordance with those things that are possible for all of us to know, understanding that a part of what we know to be true-- as individuals or as communities of faith-- will be true for us alone.

Visceral Reminders

Coffee flowers: I like espresso with steamed milk in the AM. Beniy draws a flower in it because I like it. It is a viseral reminder that he loves me.







Crying baby: My baby cries A LOT some days and it really grates on me. I find it hard to act loving to a screaming, squirming blob. It is a visceral reminder that I have no patience and an overblown sense of entitlement not to be screamed at, even by someone who has no other way to communicate.