W00T! "No, that is just how I smell."

I'm hoping for Yes x 6. I think it's funky myself.

Man, what an asshole. The world doesn't need another blog.

No. I don't co-op at our co-op-optional preschool.

No. I don't volunteer for every school event.

No. I have never been a room parent.

No. I don't go to weekend work days.

No. I have never organized a field trip.

Why?

Well, my kids are in school from about 8 - noon and when they're there I need to be at work. My husband works more than full time, and when he's home we like to be together as a family.

I'm sure that the seemingly hundreds of potlucks, festivals, hoedowns, fairs, library nights, coffee get-togethers, PTA debates, and math nights are awesome and enriching and life-affirming, but they cut sharply into the time that we spend together as a family. So we skip many of them.

I look at my kids and the deep connection they have to each other, and I know we're doing the right thing. The right thing for us. Our number one priority is family, and community comes second. A close second, but second for sure.

Yes

Just this morning, Mike hurt himself when he was getting down from the kitchen table. Robbie started to help him run into the living room to see me when Mike turned to him and said "But I want you"

Robbie gently put his arms around him, Mike put his head on his shoulder, and Robbie patted his back saying "Oh, I am so sorry this happened to you" over and over until he stopped crying. Then he got him some ice from the freezer. All of this happened in front of me, but with no intervention or prompting. To say it moved me would be an understatement.

That's love. And that's the connection I'm working on building right now. Spreading our connection deeper into the community will have to come later.

SNORT!

And Wendy has gone Hollywood :) Congrats woman — you deserve it!

Oh fuck. I've been there and it is awful.

Sigh.

I love lolcats best of all. But lolcats with nuts? Even better.

(Lately I've gotten more than the usual number of requests to be included in a GRIT post. Step one: read this. If you don't publish a full feed, I am probably not reading what you write. Tough love, dudes. I'm just saying…)

[I don't normally give disclaimers in my posts because y'all are grownups, but please note that child mortality is mentioned below.]

The title of this post is one of the first things I got to hear as we spent the morning dealing with all things depressing like "making a will." True, we should have done this years ago, but we're doing it now. So yay us.

But I was reminded of the day about 6 years ago when Craig and I took an infant CPR class. Lots of new parents were there and most had brought their newborns along. Craig and I were killing time waiting to adopt a baby, but this turned out to be the one and only time I was grateful not to have children yet.

The class was chugging along, and most folks seemed to be doing an OK job mentally separating what they were doing from the thought of the horror of having to do it for real some day. But then the instructor helpfully chimed in with: "At this point, your child is technically dead."

That got everyone's attention real fast, and I was instantly horrified for the people whose newborns were sleeping in infant car seats scattered about the room. It was one thing for us, not yet parents, to hear such a startling (but true) statement, but I watched in wonder as the other parents were able to soldier on in the class, albeit a little shaken and pale.

Find me! Wow, I thought I went to a conservative high school.

Mmmm, comfort clothes… Do you know toes? Go so advise. Don't know toes, but you know nannies? Stop by here.

Man, the language police are out in full force these days!

Poo gods? Why was I never told about them? Neighbors suck.

Check it out! Any Diva Cup users want to go give some advice?

Oh please people, just get over it already. Yes, language is important, but lighten up!

Because I fucking can, that's why.

I don't curse in front of my kids. I don't swear in front of other parents at school. I don't whip out the naughty words (very often) at work.

But I have it in me, and just like the release valve on a pressure cooker, sometimes I have to let out a little steam. So hello lovely blog-readers, here it comes.

Slut-bag-ho-motherfucker.

And now I can go another day without stroking out. Danny gets it, and I suspect some of the rest of you do too.

But then I get emails from folks like the lovely Susan who emailed me last week commenting on a post where I referred to my husband as a fucker:

Susan: I can't believe a mom of three young boys would use such language on a website. I found you by looking for a recipe for bisquick. You ought to be ashamed!

Me: Oh lighten up Susan — I don't swear in front of my kids. Hope you enjoy the Bisquick.

Susan: Lighten up? Come on! You are swearing on a public forum. You are calling your husband a foul name!!! and you don't swear in front of your children? Then why do you feel the need to do that on the internet? I was totally offended by your remark! I may be of another generation, but good taste is good taste!

I do find it hilarious that somehow the part about Bisquick is relevant to her argument. And I also laughed at the thought that somehow my blog is not supposed to offend her. And the "good taste is good taste" closing is a classic example of narrow-thinking. But then I googled her email address and just got sad.

Are all the grandmotherly Methodists in Georgia out picking fights with strangers, or is it just her?

Go be motivating! Whoa, I never would have guessed Pecan.

Oh man, ick. That's all I got.

Words of wisdom from a 14 year old.

You may recall that last May I had my eyes lasered into occular perfection. It was a great experience, and the left side of my life has been radically changed for the better.

The right side, however, has been driving me batty. The vision in my left eye is so amazing and cyborgy that anything less than perfect is very noticable. And irritating. And must be fixed.

So off I went this morning to the eye doctor to have him puzzle out what can be done to fix the situation. Turns out that I still have some astigmatism left, so on Wednesday afternoon I'll have my right eye done again. I'm glad to hear that they can probably make it better, but I'm not really looking forward to doing the whole thing again. But whatever, there are a million worse problems to have.

So then I went to work. Looking like this:

Dilated eye: do not want.

Wow, I would be pissed off too.

Argh, this sounds awful.

Yay! I'm in! I am so hungry. Urgh, not any more.