I know I need to finish the last blog, which is the big reason why I haven’t blogged. But, I have this question on my mind. 

When do we stop being precious?

Everyone loves a baby. They’re so precious and innocent. Babies, as we know, grow up to be adults. 

At what point during the life span does their life no longer become precious? At what point does the death of an “adult” mean less than the death of a “child”? Read “adult” or “child” in any way or context that you want to. In my schism, I am specifically referring to a child as a person under the age of 18 and an adult is any person over the age of 18, but really over the age of 25. It’s arbitrary, anyway. It really does not matter how you differentiate this. 

And I’m serious. I am interested in feedback on this topic. 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/opinion/the-case-for-free-range-parenting.html?referrer=

This article was posted by my husband on Facebook. I am parenting a 3 year and 15 month old, so for now, me leaving the kids alone for any length of time isn’t appropriate. But not too far in the near future, it will be. And, yup, my husband and I will be making the kids go outside and play. It’s healthy.  

My hubby and I are GenXers parenting (what’s this generation called again?) iGen? Post millennials? kids. So, yeah we’re older parents. We still remember when we were outside pretty much all the time, sun or snow. We remember a life outside the living room. Where our time wasn’t spent being carted to this activity or the next. Oh sure, we had extra curriculars. I rode my bike about a mile and a half nearly every day to go to the swimming pool when I was a kid. All by myself. My brother used to ride his bike everyday to little league practice that was easily a mile or more away. We walked to school and we made friends outside with the other kids in the neighborhood. 

Yet, now, I live in fear that CPS could come knocking on my door, if I chose to let my kids live similarly to how we were raised. My parents weren’t outside watching me or my brother when we played. Maybe they were watching from the window, but I don’t think so. 

Statistically, the world is a safer place than it was when I was a kid. Stranger abductions for all of last year were 115. Child death by car accidents from 2009 kids 12 and under more than 9,000! The true risk is driving!! What is going on here?

I’m going to have to pause for a moment: my phone battery is dying and get my thoughts cohesive. I’ll edit this soon!



My kids and I drove to a st. paddys day story time and bounce house activity. It was nice. There were far too many kids at least at first for them to have much fun. It is never a good idea to host a community activity where every kid is dressed basically the same. Makes it very hard for parents to keep an eye on their children. It was a bit ackward for me, since I had no mommy friends to talk to. At least at first. 

V1 built a tower taller than she is, wore a traffic cone on her head and made easy friends with several boys. She practiced basketball hoops, which I’m sure would make Gpa very proud! She only managed to get the ball into the hoop once, but she was over the moon about it! She was silly about it. Boy, she’s so small, most 2 year olds are bigger than she is!  We met a little girl named Matilda today! She was adorbs!

V2 feigned shyness, in a flirty kind of way. It was very cute. She practiced her walking by pushing a shopping cart around the gym, but you could see that it was ackward for her to do. Her ankles don’t support her big body very well. I think I’m going to make the call to the PT place. With the girls starting Montessori school soon, I’d like to see V2 walking by then…of course, it is 2.5 months away…so there is time…

DH is going to get Irish beer tonight to celebrate SPD tonight. No corned beef and cabbage…hum, what shall we have for supper tonight??

Well, I was sent an email requesting that I blog about things like “Breastfeeding”, tid-bits and recipes, photographs, crafting, patriotism, military life and travel adventures.  Which I would love to blog about these things.

So, look out in the future for some of these topics.

As for now, I am decluttering baby toys.  I moved a whole box of toys out of the living room and kept about 1/2 box full and few other toys that are too big to be left in the toybox.  I’m actually thinking about taking out one of the big toys and reintroducing it to her in the future…to rotate the toys around, learn new skills and practice old ones.

Anyway, I’m kinda feeling blah right now.  I’m just gonna chill out  for a bit.  Going to decide what to do for dinner.  I kinda want to go out to eat…

My kryptonite would be the lack of coffee!  Or at least that’s how I’m feeling now.  So exhausted.  I had a friend come over today and of course, I had to clean the house…but if I didn’t have my coffee before hand, I’d be dragging butt right now…Gotta have that quick pick me up in the morning.  Super-mom or not…haha!

Okay, I am not going to do NaBloPoMo today.  I’m going to write about my experience at baby school today.  Baby school is basically an organized playgroup, with sing-songs and adult education.  A bunch of parents with kids in the same age range.  It’s really good.  I love going.  It’s my favorite day of the week.

Today was no exception.  I woke up, as I usually do.  Grabbed my cuppa and watched the baby explore.  I got her dressed and ready to go and I did the same for myself.  Quarter after, we left.  DH left at the same time as us to go to work.  I took a different way today.  Gotta vary that routine a bit…we got to class and all was well.  Baby was sleeping, so I just left her in her carseat.  The other children were playing on the floor and baby woke up.  I rescued her from the carseat and placed her on the floor with the other children while I chatted away with the other mommys.  I went to grab the baby from something and as I picked her up, an announcement came over the loud speakers and said, “The school is on lockdown.  Teachers.  Lock the doors and shut the blinds.  This is not a drill.”  Some people didn’t hear the “not” part, but most of us did.  Panic settled into my core as I watched and waited to see what would happen next.  The teacher told us to go into the utility closet since the door to our room didn’t lock (and she did not have a key for it).  So we all filed into the closet.  Another teacher from the classroom next to ours opened the door to the closet on the other side to find us standing there.  She invited us into her room and found a key to lock our classroom from the outside.  So the two classes melded together for what felt like an hour…but all told, the time from start to finish was roughly 30-45 mins.  I’m not sure that it was even 45 minutes.  They validated our feelings of panic and scared.  Acknowledging the children are feeling things, too.  I was on the verge of tears during that whole time and with being given no information, it only made my heart to hurt more…was someone going to come in and try to hurt me or my baby?  If you have never been in that kind of situation, you will never know.  I would have laid my life down for my baby right then and there.  I remained calm, if not for my own baby’s sake, but also for the other parents and children there today.

I sent my hubby a text message to let him know what was going on and he overreacted a bit, too, asking if I needed him to come get us.  It’s that protective instinct–you know, the man must protect his family deal.  I’m glad that, if it had been something worse, he would have been there.  No question about that.

But, in the wake of Sandy Hook and another school shooting in California, my mind couldn’t help but wander…thinking that I wish I could pack some heat.  I wish I could get a Carry and Conceal Weapons permit.  The very thought that someone could have been so close to hurting me or my daughter or our friends and me not being able to defend ourselves made me very uneasy.  I am just supposed to “trust” a crazy random stranger who may or may not be armed not to hurt me or others.  This makes me feel even MORE adamant about wanting to pack some heat in my purse.  I HATE HATE HATE this feeling of helplessness.  I felt pretty ridiculous (and helpless) in Kuwait when my NCOs put me on guard duty in the middle of the desert…with an M16…without ammo…it’s like, “what am I gonna do if I see a guy who wants to hurt us?  Give him a hug?”  This conversation actually took place…because someone asked me what I was doing sitting there reading a book.  I said, “I’m on guard duty.”  “Well, then you probably shouldn’t be reading.”  Really.  I just have the same kind of feelings now…

Here is the news story on it… http://www.kionrightnow.com/story/20594740/pg-school-placed-on-lockdown-after-suspicious-person-showed-up-on-campus

What is your take?

Sorry that I didn’t post for the last 3 days.  I was in Georgia at my aunt’s husband’s funeral and I was away from the computer and I used my phone a very limited amount.  Now, I’m back.  I had my 10 month old in tow, so life was interesting…traveling across the country twice (to and from) in 3 days.  It was a good visit though and the baby did great!  Better than I expected.  She woke up at 6 am this morning, after going to bed well after midnight last night.  She has been napping for over 2 hours now.  I am just going to let her sleep as much as she wants today and hope that she will sleep tonight, too.  She has a lot of sleep to catch up on.  That’s the only disadvantage of traveling 3 time zones…her sleep patterns get all screwed up…and not to mention the fact that we had only been back from Ohio for a week before I disrupted her again.  Such is life and we’re doing well.  So glad that she’s catching up on her Zzzz’s, though.

So, to answer today’s question, If you were a superhero, what would be your hidden superpower?

I have a superpower…I make milk…haha!  Well, it’s true.  Not everyone does! 🙂  I love that I can nourish my baby with my own body.  She’s a happy and healthy lil thing and I am so grateful for that!

The act of blogging, in and of itself.  I WANT to blog more.  Just remembering to do so it a struggle…I did fine the last few days, but I am finding myself struggling to do more.  Just keep going, as they say…