Why 2012 kicks ass

Shit I already suck at this blog writing business. In typical Raegan form I got all gung ho about having the best blog in the world, wrote 11 entries in 9 days (cause I have soooooooo much important shit to say) and then forgot all about it. Well my loyal followers, do not fret, I'm baaaacckkk.

Everyone complains about the present, saying it is too technological, too out of touch, too perverse...blah blah blah. But I think it pretty much rules. Here is why:
Today L and I went to the Clintonville Farmers Market to get the veggies and fruit that I don't grow in the garden. Walking around the throng of folks I felt a rush of pride in the diversity surrounding me. In the space of 20 minutes I saw such a variety of people. I truly feel our sense of community is growing these days. Public venues where like minded (or maybe not) people gather are growing rapidly. Although technology can be a curse if it becomes more important or a substitute for social interaction, it is also an amazing tool to bring people together.  I even saw a support group online for adult lactation fetishes. I am not kidding.

Also, we have a black president. 40 years ago the thought was laughable. Gay people are getting married and having children with other gay people! Amazing! Who would have thought. Of course if Mitt Romney gets elected, black people and gays probably won't even be allowed to vote. Along with women that have abortions. Or maybe just women in general.

Being an attachment parent can leave a lady feeling pretty isolated. Having your boob in a babies mouth all day can make it difficult to find time for play dates after all. Luckily I have found an AMAZING community of women through mothering.com. They all have babes the same age as H and I am pretty much in love with all of them. Having a community of women that share my parenting philosophies, my general adoration for all things tie dye, and utter distaste for exercise has been so crucial this first year of having 2 children. How on earth did moms do it before the internet? Who did they talk to at 3AM when up nursing AGAIN? Who could they confess desires to get pregnant 23 days after giving birth? I love my internet friends, I only wish I could get totally drunk with them like I do with my IRL friends. (For those that are not as cool as me, that means: In Real Life.)

My last super awesome 2012 thing is pictures. Dude I take sooooo many pictures with my camera phone it is re-dick. Everyone told me that I wouldn't take as many pictures of my 2nd baby but I think I take more of H then I did of L simply because I have a better camera! Check out the cuteness I captured:

Are you just peeing yourself with warm fuzzies?  Chuckling heartily at my funny kid?  Say thanks to my knock-off Iphone.


Reading through this post, I realize that it is incredibly ADD. Sorry.

Tomorrow I will be on my way to looking like a super model

I am lying in bed nursing Harrison like I do 1000 times a day. Really, 1000. I counted.  This is pretty much what we look 456 of those times.....

What does this have to do with being skinny by the end of this week? Well, plenty. See in those 10 minutes every couple of hours I lay there and think about how incredibly thin I will be soon because tomorrow I am starting a real diet. A skinny by the end of the week diet....
 Oh shit (I think to myself) we are going out to El Portal for lunch (my favorite Mexican restaurant) how am I ever going to diet there?
 It's ok I can just eat 1 enchilada and split my beans with Harrison. That is practically diet food right there. I can feel the pounds melting away. Soon, I will look like this:







Shit, wrong picture, this is how I feel when I have 3 glasses of wine instead of the 2 I usually consume on a Saturday night. I literally see this face when I look in the mirror.

I will look like this:

   Einstein shirt and all..........


After a light lunch I will enjoy a refreshing salad for dinner and finish it off with a slice of watermelon. I will do this every day for the rest of my life and never struggle to button my jeans again. I will never poke my muffin top and then try to tuck it INTO the top of my jeans again. I will be skinny and it will all start tomorrow when I make good choices at El Portal. "1 enchilada and share the beans, 1 enchilada and share the beans" I repeat to myself over and over as I fall asleep.

The morning arrives (after being woken up 6000 times, seriously with all the night nursing I do I should be 100 pounds) and as I drink my coffee I repeat my mantra "1 enchilada and share the beans..." I confidently walk into El Portal, sit down with my fam and BAM. I black out...............

When I come to this is in front me:



7 empty plates of deep-friend mexican food. Damn it. My diet is ruined, I will never lose 13 pounds in one day after eating all that crap! My waistband is tight, I am feeling nauseous. I just want to lie down and take a nap. Wait.......
 I can totally eat those brownies at home. I will sooooo start my diet tomorrow.  I will be skinny by Friday. Everything is going to be ok!!!!

Shit, we are going out for sushi. It's ok I will just eat one roll, that is super healthy it is practically diet food. I got this!!!  String bikini here I come!!

Space shit

Get my hilarious play on words? Space ship= space shit. I know I know, you are jealous of my wit and creativity.
It is space week in this house, now I am not exactly an expert on all these space. Neither is Chels, she just found out that Pluto is now just a lonely little planetoid and I have no real clue what a planetoid is. So...... who better to teach our 4 year old about space?! We can learn together!! I will be a planet expert by Friday!! More coffee! This is where I go totally spastic and come with 1000 different ideas to teach L about every Planet, moon, and Planetoid...... I have pretty much decided I am going to make a child sized plantetarium in his room. It is going to be epic. Think gallons of paper mache and glitter..........
When searching "glitter planetarium" I found..wait for it......... glitter porn..................are you ready for this?

Turned on yet?

I digress


Space....Here are few cool crafts I found to try out this week.

1. http://www.busybeekidscrafts.com/Chalk-Solar-System.html

Here's how you make it...

1. From your construction paper cut different sized circles to trace. 

2. Place a circle on top of your black paper and trace the circle with chalk. 

3. Smudge the chalk outwards and repeat with different sized circles and different colors of chalk.

If you want to put little stars in your solar system try brushing on glitter glue or stick on little star stickers.

If you doing this craft with young children it may be easier to trace if you secure the circles with masking tape and then remove them after they have smeared the chalk. 

Easy peasy squeezy. Even I can't screw this one up.  Although I am thinking of just doing it outside on our sidewalk. 

How about this little diddy.......

Supplies

A nylon sock or a foot from tights or a stocking.
Grass seed
Sawdust                                                       
Elastic band
Old yogurt pot
Googly eyes
Paper, buttons, ribbon etc to decorate

Click here for printables, patterns and Templates 

Instructions

Fill the toe of your sock with grass seed. Top up with sawdust until you have a ball shape. Fasten tightly with the elastic band.

Decorate the yogurt pot as the body using, paper, ribbon, and whatever else you can find in your craft box!

Stand the stocking ball in the pot with the grass seed at the top. Add some eyes and any other decorative bits you like.

Keep the yogurt pot topped up with water. After a few weeks your head should grow hair!

This craft reprinted courtesy of ActivityVillage.co.uk.

Tell me this isn't super cute? Maybe a little creepy but still super cute.

Annnnnnd..... just to leave you with something good.....

GLITTER PORN!!!!

A little background

I have a follower! I have a follower! This means I am popular and people like me. Well at least one person likes me. Sold! I will so take it, and Liz. I love you too. :)
Today has been a rough day, the kind of day that drinking wine while the kids take a nap sounds like a grand idea. My friend Jeanne and I were talking about how amazing it will be when we can send all 4 boys down in the basement to play while we enjoy some adult time. Basically we will look like this:


I digress.

I am a self- proclaimed "attached parent". Attachment parenting is EVERYWHERE these days, partly because it is awesome and partly because it freaks everybody out. I am sure my AP story is familiar to a lot of you reading (cause I have soooo many followers) but I feel the need to share the beginning part of my story with you. Consider this our 3rd date, I have had a bit too much to drink and I am just feeling so close to you right now. I want you to know EVERYTHING about me because I like you that much.

When I first learned about the different attachment styles of parenting it was in a Developmental Psychology Class in college. I was studying psychology and childhood development to further myself in the field of ABA. The thought of having children was definitely not in the forefront of my mind and I remember thinking that I couldn’t imagine why people wouldn’t naturally parent the “attached way”. Why wouldn’t you want your child to be secure, loving, and well..normal?! Little did I know how CONFUSING it is when you are actually pregnant and you crack open What to Expect When You Are Expecting, read the entire thing in 2 nights and find out that not only should your baby be sleeping through the night by week 6, but self soothing by 3 months, and eating every 3 hours from birth on. I read probably 12 different pregnancy and parenting book within the first 6 months of my pregnancy, all touting ways to not let your baby take over your life when they are born. It honestly made perfect sense to me, why should I let this baby change who I am? I bought a fancy crib, set up a sweet little nursery all for him, bought the most expensive swing on the market, and fully planned to breastfeed for 6 months and switch to formula. I had it all worked out. My water broke at 39 weeks and 23 hours later my first born entered the world.  That $300 crib quickly became a laundry basket.

And a cat bed.

The moment he was born, all my intentions of conventional parenting went flying out of the hospital room. Attachment parenting just happened. I didn’t do it on purpose, it wasn’t a choice I made, I just couldn’t help myself. I was embarrassed that I slept with him from day 1, when people asked I would promise furtively that by 6 months he would be sleeping in a crib but that right now he was “just so little and helpless, I want him near me.” That 6 months turned into 12 and then 18 and now my 4 year old sleeps with me every 3^rd night. They are my favorite nights.  I read several parenting books the first 6 months and although I could see the value in “training” your child to sleep through the night at 3 months (I was exhausted!) I just couldn’t imagine denying my little angel comfort just because I was tired.  Most of my friends made fun of the way I never wanted to leave him, wouldn’t put him down even when he was asleep, and always had a boob in his mouth but it just felt right to me. And that is what attachment parenting is to me, a feeling of closeness to your child, a connection to their needs.

At some point in the first couple of months I went to my local Half Price Books and picked up an old (clearance rack) copy of Dr. William Sears “The Baby Book”. I wasn’t expecting much, I had already read several parenting books and all they did was make me feel a little stupid for not feeling ok with putting my babe in a crib with a binky in his mouth to “self soothe”. Within the first 20 pages I was hooked. I stayed up late reading and learning the name for the parenting that came so naturally to me. As I read I realized that it all referred back to the secure attachment parenting styles that I had learned years ago in my developemental psychology class.  Ding Ding Ding. $40,000 dollars I paid for that stupid degree and I got the same information in a $1 clearance rack book from the 70s!

If you haven't read it, get it. Dr. Sears knows his shit.

I tell you all of this because being an attachment parent to my 2nd child is draining the life out of me. He nurses all night long, every single night. He is literally attached to my body almost every waking second. Sometimes when he cries and starts coming towards me I just want to run and hide. I am the cleanest I have ever been because showering is the only alone time I have. I don't even like to bathe! I am a hippie remember?! We are supposed to stink!

But just when I am at my wits end, ready to stick a bottle in his mouth, kick him out of my bed, and throw him out of a moving vehicle (kidding....ish) I remember that one day I will be begging him to call me more, crying over pictures of him in my arms, and stalking him on the internet to see how he is doing in his life. These days are short, he will need me less and less with every passing day, and I will yearn for the days of him only wanting his mama to soothe him.

Why you never let a 9 year old put sunscreen on your kid

L's pristine baby 4 year old skin is sunburnt! I feel  so terrible, bad mom of the year award goes to this lady right here. Frick.
I decided to turn this lemon into a learning opportunity so we learned about the sun today. We sang "Mr. Sun", talked about solar and lunar eclipses, and even how people's skin colors vary based on how much sun their region receives. L thought it was pretty cool that the sun is "SO POWERFUL."
We were supposed to make this super cute craft today but we ran out of time. We will totally make it tomorrow. If I am not too busy roasting his baby skin out in the sun.
 I am never leaving the house again.

http://spoonful.com/crafts/pierced-sun-catcher

A protest filled weekend

Normally my weekends consist of working a few hours, eating out too much, and pretending that I am NOT going to delve into a bottle of wine as soon as the kids are asleep. (Hilarious)
Not this weekend. This weekend, I am going to dive deep into my crunchiness, find my inner hippie and attend 2, not 1, but 2 protests. "Shut up" you say, "You are my hippie idol" you are totally thinking in your head.

 This is totally what the protests look like in my head:

So cool right?

Here is what they will probably really be like:

That is right, me and my bored kids.

What are you protesting you might ask? Well I will tell you. 2 of the things I feel the most strongly about. Gay rights and breastfeeding rights. 

Tomorrow begins The Big Latch On which is basically women all over the world (23 countries are in on this shit!) joining together to breastfeed at the same time. Makes you non lactating women a little jealous right? Sounds super cool huh? 

Don't worry, pick a random kid and stick a boob in their mouth, that isn't creepy at all. Anyone seen "The Hand that Rocked the Cradle"- horribly cheesy 90s movie that convinced me that I would never breastfeed because it is some creepy shit. 

I digress. 

Basically it is less of a protest and more of a community of bad ass breastfeeders supporting other bad ass breast feeders and coming together  to lactate AT THE SAME TIME. Is your mind blown?

Saturday (after work) I am lugging my kids down to good ole Chik-Fil-A to show off my gayness and watch people eat chicken. My poor son is going to be PISSED that he is missing out on those waffle fries.  I know all of you with an internet connection is up and running on the wretched groups that Chik-fil-a supports so I won't rant on here. But do you research if you haven't. The hate saddens me and I love a good protest. So I will be attending my local "rally for queers at Chik-fil-a."

I think Gandhi said it best when he stated "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

True that Yo.

Top 5 Wednesday

I am going to attempt to be organized enough to make a top 5 list every Wednesday. Today's list comes from L. I asked him the top 5 things we likes to look at with his eyes (we are learning about different body parts this week, can you guess what we talked about today?)
Here is the list:
1. Dinosaurs
2. Diggers
3. Cranes
4. My mama (tear)
5. Fingerprints

I am going to also include a list of top 5 things I would like to do in "circle time" next week.
1. This just looks like fun, perhaps I can add sand and observe what water does to sediment as it rushes down the "river"

 http://pinterest.com/pin/55591376619978665/

2. Super cool science experiment/art project. Think we can use the leftovers to clean the counters, or you do you think the food coloring will stain? Can you tell I don't clean much?
http://pinterest.com/pin/89579480058949472/

3. Our preschool room really needs organized. This would help separate craft crap so L could locate it without me having to detach H from the boob to find it.

http://pinterest.com/pin/23784704252680467/

4. An even COOLER science experiment, I so need to get E (L's dad) in on this one!


http://pinterest.com/pin/250231323016662371/

5. I think I will make this next weekend. Dude, just joking but can you imagine??!!! You could drink wine WHILE YOUR KIDS WERE AWAKE if you had one of these beauties!

http://pinterest.com/pin/258464466084576196/