The Most Depressing Story Ever

Little Match Girl. Very short. Very beautiful. Super depressing. It's considered a children's story but I don't know if children would get it. For those of you not able to read it or have not heard of it, it's about a little girl who's father beats her and sends her out on the street so sell matches. She's barefoot and shabbily clothed in the dead of winter. She doesn't want to go home because she hasn't sold any matches so she stays out. She lights a match and sees a turkey dinner in a well lit room on a table with food packed around it. She lights another and sees her grandmother who has been kind to her but passed on some time ago. She keeps lighting the matches to keep her grandmother there because she is being held and loved by her. Then people walk by in the morning and find the little match girl dead in the street with a box of burned matches by her side. That's it. The whole story is like two pages long and it's sad for the rest of eternity. I don't know why out of all the things I could have blogged about, I blogged about this one......

Mirrored Images

This is a fractal. I have been facinated by them since Advanced Math in 7th grade. A fractal is a fragmented geometric shape which is a copy of a whole, indefinetly. Meaning, you look into each of these designs inside and it's an exact copy of the large that goes on forever. Like Pi (3.14159.......etc), it's neverending.

I stayed "up late" with my husband last night and was pondering on the universe and everything it encompasses and the main focus was, "what would my thought process look like if every possible outcome was branched off into another? What kind of fractal would it be?"

I have this theory that everything goes in cycles. Circles persay. Everything breaks down to the same point you started at. The best example I can think of without too much detail is fashions. They cycle through and keep coming back to each other. The infinity symbol is a continuous circle. So when pondering this idea I think ultimately my branched thought processes would be circular but I'm super curious as to what the inside would look like.

The human brain intrigues me as well. It's limitless and freightening. If I could put onto paper everything I thought in the order I thought it, the papers would be endless. To think the majority of adults only use a small portion of their brain matter at any given time. (And some people you can tell only use a small portion....) That's pretty amazing.

Think about things on a larger scale. Can you? Think about past, present and future simultaniously. Is it possible?

Look how far civilization and technology has come in the last 100 years. Look where we are now. What will it be like in the next 100 years? just our generation alone has seen leaps and bounds. For instance cell phones. We were pretty young when they came out and they were the sizes of suitcases and now you can fit a whole computer, telephone, and camera set up in something the size of a watch. Amazing. I'm truely curiously terrified of what the human mind can think of, invent and execute and what that holds for us in the future. Leaps and bounds mankind. Leaps and bounds.

High five humankind! Right on!

Thought of the Day

How much wood could a woodchuch chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Bathtime, Storytime, Bedtime

These have become my favorite things to do throughout the whole entire day. I think reading to your children is one of the most important things you can do for them. Mia takes a bath, winds down for the evening, we make her a bottle for dinner, and we snuggle in for storytime. And boy do we snuggle. We've fit five people on the bed before just to have a snugglepuddle and reading circle. We read sometimes multiple stories until Mia falls asleep or finishes her dinner. It's a wonderful way for us to fit in family time and makes ME yawn and become sleepy.

I found if I end up skipping storytime for some reason, both Mia and I sleep on edge and wake up more times in the night. It may sound silly, but I find comfort in the routine and I know my daughter does as well. Lately she will reach out and try to help mommy turn the pages or point and pat things on the page. We cycle through stories but sometimes I cheat and re-read my favorites before their turn comes back up. The ones I love are the books that move me and are really fun. We are Dr. Suess fans. And Shel Silverstein. Here are some of my favorite books you might enjoy with your children as well....

I Love You So by Marianne Richmond
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories by Dr. Suess
I Am Really a Princess by Carrol Diggory Shields
Fox In Socks by Dr. Suess
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
My Treasury of Five Minute Tales published by Hinkler Books

One of the things I like most about reading to children is that I relive the wonder and specialness of the books I used to love and experience with them theirs for the first time or more. So take your little one and five minutes a day to read some of your favorites and enjoy that much more time with them.

You Spin Me Right Round Baby

Out of the mouth of babes....

Last night I was visiting Sister and she had told her 3 year old to pick up his toys from the livingroom to the bedroom. He picks one up, takes it in. Picks one up, takes it in. Comes back out and empties a whole drawer of toys onto the floor one at a time while looking at me like," what are you gonna do?" I give him my "mommy" eyes and voice and say, "What is your mom gonna say when she comes out here and sees this mess?".........pause.......... to which he retorts in a mommy voice, "PICK THIS STUFF UP!"...... Quite true my dear, quite true.

My nephew Michael was visiting Christian and loves playing in costumes. He saw the Darth Vader costume he had in his room, put it on, and went around to all of the children claiming, "Now you're my son!"........ "Now you're my son!"

I remember when my nephew Brandon was almost three I was watching him and he was drawing a pretty picture of people. He comes up to me and says, "Look Auntie DD! I drew a picture!" Pointing to the people on the picture, " That's my daddy and that's my mommy!" And me being sarcastic I told him," I can tell that's your mommy! She has a BIG head...." He looks at me sternly, puts his hands on his hips and says," No, Auntie DD. That's you" "Ahhh, that makes me saaaaad," I pouted, as I can dish it out rather than take it. Slapping his hands to the sides of his face and squishing it forward he quickly added, "It's because you have a BIG BRAAAAIIIIIIINNNN!!!!!!!!!" Good save kiddo. Good save....

Michael in the car at Dairy Depot," I wish I had some kneecaps. I would put them on my knees..."

Ghetto Booty

I cloth diaper. Say it loud, say it proud! I cloth diaper! Best invention ever! Although, I have to add, I wouldn't love it so much if I had to pay for water. On that account, I am thankful to live in an apartment complex.

Man, cloth diapers. They get alot of hack and mostly when I tell others I cloth diaper my child in this day and age I get a bunch of dirty looks and disgusted scoffs. So let me set the record straight. People have been doing it for probably thousands of years and it makes it much easier with modern day appliances and it is not disgusting.

I had no idea it was going to be so awesome. I was so hesitant to try because I thought it would be extremely time consuming and odorous. Boy, I was wrong. With so much encouragement from my mother in law and sister in law (who cloth diapers her child as well) I tried it, and I would never go back. We have a storage container on the side of the diaper changing station. It has a filter in the lid and deodorizes when you put the dirty diapers in. If you stepped into my room you would never guess it was there. On the diaper changing station we keep all the diapers and liners folded and separated so it's easy access and disposal.

Right now because my daughter is only eating minimal amounts of solids i just have to plop the diaper in the disposal bin until washing which is on average every three days. When I wash, I rinse cycle first, wash with detergent, then rinse cycle a third time. Yes the poop goes in the wash but it's not like it stays in there. It washes to the sewer and I don't end up washing my clothes in poop as to what most people believe. Clothes are washed separately from diapers.

We don't cloth diaper all the time. I am respectful of when other people watch her, and I have disposables for when they do. Or if we go to Cda or Spokane for the day we disposable. I have completely disposable diapered when she first came home and once recently to see how much we have saved with cloth diapering. a crapton. Between diapering and using formula I really don't see how parents can afford children. It's super expensive and only becomes more so when they age.

I was talking with Dr. Deland on Mia's six month well child check about cloth diapering with potty training and he was telling me in the 60's the average age for toilet trained children was less than 12 months. 70's,as disposables caught on the average age was moved to 16months80's- 18 months and 90's- 24 months. It's easier to feel if cloth diapers were wet so they would be changed more frequently. Even now, with plastic or waterproof covers children don't want to have that wet feeling so it's easier to tell when a diaper change is necessary. Disposables have a soaking chemical called Dioxin that is known to lead to damaged organs and nerves. It is harmful to animals and is associated with TSS. It pulls away the wetness and witness to some, children can sit in it for hours and hours. Sad. To each their own. I just prefer cloth. I have seen with Mia recently how when I go to change her she will pee in between diapers. Frustrating for me sometimes cause that leads to another clothing change and usually a perfectly good diaper to clean it up, but I think it will make it super easy to potty train.

And with all parents, I am excited to not have to diaper my child any longer, and I say the sooner the better! But if I do have any more children you can bet your sweet bottom I will cloth diaper again.

Sister asked me the other day about restrictions with cloth diapers with milestones like walking or crawling, etc. This is a toss up because there are positives and negatives really with everything. As I have seen with Mia and the other children all born around the same time, each child develops at a different rate. Mia hasn't started really crawling yet as one other child has(although she is inchworming).And she definetly has more activity when she doesn't have her diaper on, but not by much. She was the first in the group to roll over and I think for babies that is a harder one, specially with cloth because of the extra bulk. I think with the cloth, it is making her legs and muscles stronger because she has more to work on and manuver around. I really don't think it is hindering her enough to really make a difference though.

It is a little spendy to start. The diaper covers I like are Econobum and grow with your child with snaps for sizing. Each diaper cover costs about $10. I have about six and I am set until my child is toilet trained. Then there is the diapers. I have close to thirty and they run from $2-5approx each. You can buy in bulk for cheaper and if you look on ebay even cheaper. You don't always have to change out the liner. It depends on how wet your child is. With poop, I sure do. Then I wash more diaper loads as well. But after that you are free of spending on diapers until they are completed. It is alot cheaper than spending more than $150 a month or more on disposables that's for sure.

Like I said before, to each their own but my preference and loyalty lies with cloth. I love it like a fat kid loves cake. Like I love cake. That much. (and that's ALOT)