Dear China,

I know you guys invented fireworks like eleventy thousand years ago and I also understand that you are WAYYYY excited that October 1st is 60 years of communism and still going strong... *bones on that one, guys*

But really. Fireworks and firecrackers as exciting as they might be don't need to be waved around and brought out every time someone manages to hit the toilet when they squat to pee.


kthnxbai

Wow. Amazingly well put together information.

We all know I am a dirty hippie and like it.

I try NOT to debate the whole circumcision/intact thing because it always gets ugly and it is hard to debate a topic that is as emotionally charged as altering a newborn's genitals.

If you're interested, though. This lady is a Dr and has posted an amazingly informative essay on the benefits/necessity of a foreskin (pupus).

Functions of the Foreskin: Purposes of the Prepuce

I never want to be that person who runs around ranting and raving about people mutilating their sons. I know it is a personal subject, I only hope that people will at least educate themselves and not make an ignorant decision or one based solely on fear from the inaccurate information the medical community provides to most new and expecting parents.

All I ever ask is educate yourself.

I think I forgot to blog this...

but we are not TTC. No big dramatic reason other than Donnie thought about it and decided he was just not ready to share me and my time with another little one.

And at first it upset me, but I respected his decision.


Now, the baby itch has subsided. I've been spending more time cherishing time with Quinlon and it hit me one day that I don't want to have to divide my attention off him now. He is quite high maintenance and more than enough for me right now. So, sorry blog followers there won't be a BFP post in the near future nor another cute little Allen to ooh and aah over.

But I promise to keep posting cuteness from the little Allen we have now.


And in the time being I'll just live vicariously through all the pregnant lady blogs I stalk... er follow.

It's fine, really.

I only had to step over around and on you while juggling hot pans, sharp knives and various diced food ingredients. It's fine, really.

You decided that dinner was not good enough for you and threw the entire bowl on the couch cushions while I was in the bathroom peeing. It's fine, really.

You then threw several EPIC tantrums when I refused to give you candy, potato chips and "nuh nuhs" It's fine, really.

I've been mistaken by you as a jungle gym, target to be run into at full speed, safety net, chair and punching bag to the point that you putting your hand on my leg has me cringing. Mommy is touched out, but it's fine, really.

Donnie will be home in an hour. I can do this. Then I am having a few shots and a chocolate bar.

Half... not bad.

BBC believes most people have read less than 6 books in this list.
How many have you read?
Copy the list and put and mark your reads.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Total: 8

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faul
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

Total: 4

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Total: 7

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

Total: 4

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

Total: 3

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Total: 4

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Total: 4

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

Total: 5

80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton


Total: 4

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Total: 7

50 out of 100 ain't so bad. Take that you contemptuous hoity toity British creeps.

Marriage.

Such a loaded word.

Nothing prepares you for how much your limits will be pushed and how your heart will be tested.


But the reward... ah the fullness of your heart when things are smooth and happy. The happiness that overruns to the point you wake up smiling just because you are with the one you love more than anything on the planet.

I rarely share details of my married life on here (or anywhere on the interweb, actually) because it is so easy to paint an inaccurate picture good or bad and words can't be taken back. I have a wonderful husband who is truly my equal in all things and compliments me well. We fight. We argue. We cry. But most importantly, we love and it has always brought us through even the most harrowing of conflict. Even on the brink, our love for each other has pulled us back many times and when the dust settles, I am so incredibly grateful to have someone so passionate about me that no odds so bad that he doesn't at least try.

The Beatles were wrong, you need more than love to make a marriage work, but love will go a damn long way to making you succeed.

because I definitely needed...

the pleasure of bathroom scrambling cramps with explosive consequences should my scrambling be the slightest too slow while battling the clothing-phobic, must wear shoes at all times bottomless pit that happens to be named Quinlon.

Lest you think I had no fun at all today, here is a list of the things I did:
-Hung up laundry to dry only to be followed by a curiously counterproductive small person who managed to pull down any low-hanging item and toss it on the dirty patio floor.

-Writhe around in bed for about an hour while whining about the nausea and listening to Donnie get more and more frustrated with that small person who is insatiable in all ways when mommy is sick.

- Practiced repeatedly for the 100m dash and, at times, 100m hurdles when aforementioned small human managed to lay out an obstacle course that most Ironmen would shudder in fear at the sight of.

- Played VJ for a bemusingly demanding audience of one who screams with a gusto not seen since 1980s style flasher flicks if you happen to guess wrong on the translation of toddlerisms which movie he is requesting.

- Cooked lunch for the endless pit person who decided it was more fun to make modern art on the couch and floor with slightly chewed up couscous and carrots. Points for creativity were awarded when he successfully achieved accuracy over a 2 foot space into my cleavage.

- Doubled as a jungle gym for a monkey-like creature and learned that the colorful (and tender arm) is the most fun to grab when balance is lost and a fall is imminent.


So... how was your day?