Take action now!

Maryland recently passed a law that you can only use your cell phone while driving if you have a hands free device.  It's a second tier sort of offense - you can't be stopped for doing it, you can only be ticketed if you're breaking the law in some other way also.  This is an important safety measure for drivers, but I think there is a greater menace to our safety on the roads:

Children.

Think about it - have you ever seen the woman driving the car in front of you suddenly disappear for a few seconds before bobbing back up into place?  Have you seen some pyscho swerving the mini-van all over the road?  It's because her kid just dropped her Bouncin' Babbles on the floor and won't stop screaming about it.  Or maybe it's because everybody's clamoring for a snack that has to be handed back.  Or their sister won't stop touching them so Mom has to reach back with a karate chop to separate them.  Or the damn Red Robin balloon won't stop attaching itself to the back of Mom's head.

Measures need to be taken.  Since it isn't really practical to ban children from cars, I think mini-vans and other family-oriented cars should come standard with soundproof plexi-glass between the front and back seats.  Better yet - it should be something opaque with maybe a small window so you can use the rear view mirror, but not enough of a view that you have to see all the madness going on back there. 

Call your congress representative today - get something done about this now!

Chick-fil-a Update

Chick-fil-a responded to the flurry of Facebook posts yesterday with the following:

"To our Facebook community: First and foremost, thanks for your patience as we made sure we gathered the facts in regards to recent postings. We have determined that one of our independent Restaurant Operators in Pennsylvania was asked to provide sandwiches to two Art of Marriage video seminars. As our fans, you know we do our best to serve our local communities, and one of the ways we do that is by providing food to schools, colleges, civic groups, businesses, places of worship, not-for-profit groups, etc. At his discretion, the local Operator agreed to simply provide a limited amount of food. Our Chick-fil-A Operators and their employees try very hard every day to go the extra mile in serving ALL of our customers with honor, dignity and respect."

I guess it makes me feel somewhat better.  But in the interest of good health, I probably still need to curtail my chicken sandwich intake.  

Need help from other blogspot users

Is there a way to get all comments automatically emailed to me?  Sometimes I don't notice right away that someone has commented on one of my posts.  I know I can subscribe to the comments by email for individual posts but I want to just have all of them automatically emailed to me. 

Thanks for any advice!

I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a chicken sandwich today.

I am not really a lover of fast food, except Chick-fil-a.  When we lived in Florida and San Diego there was no Chick-fil-a any where near us so every time I visited my family in North Carolina I would gorge on it.  The first month or so after we moved to Maryland I probably ate it twice a week until it made me sick.  Even now I'm kind of a junkie - it's only Wednesday and I've already been twice this week (it was the premier of the spicy chicken biscuit).  Sad sad sad, I know. 

Plus, they have a great indoor play structure for bad weather days and my kids love it.  

Now they go and do something like support an antigay group in Pennsylvania.  I didn't eat at Cracker Barrel for years because of their poor hiring practices (and I still don't - although I'll admit to going once about 2 years ago).  There are other places that I've boycotted for similar reasons - and for the most part my friends and family think I'm a crackpot about it. 

So now what do I do - boycott Chick-fil-a completely?  I might have to join a 12-step program.  Argh.

Some things are not for me to understand.

When I picked Violet up from school yesterday she told me, "I had a great day, Mom!"  Today while we were out running errands she asked what she was doing tomorrow (this is a constant question lately, fearing that we will spring ballet on her again).  I told her she had school tomorrow, "Oh great - I love school!"

I have no idea what goes on in that little head. 

I'm wiped today - with 3 out of 5 of us having this cold, I'm getting no sleep.  Hoping we'll be cough-free soon.

It's gonna be a happy new year...part 2

On our drive back from visiting family in NC last Wednesday Violet started complaining about not wanting to go to school.  Five full days before she would actually have to go to school and she only goes two days a week for 4 hours a day.  She's never had a problem with it before.  As a matter of fact I'd get the daily report on who cried when their Mommy left. 

Once she asked me if she should be crying because so many kids were those first couple of weeks.  I asked her if she thought she should, when she said no I replied, "It's because you know Mommy is coming back, right?"  Nope, it was because she didn't miss me. 

So, why, after all this time, is she making such a big deal about it?  The last day before the break she cried and cried (I warned her teachers about the crying = barfing equation) and I left her struggling in her teachers arms.  This morning was much worse.

She cried at home, in the car, and when we got there.  She started coughing and the assistant teacher grabbed a trash can just in case.  I saw she had things under control so I headed down the hallway with Zoey crying because she didn't want to leave.  I'd taken maybe two steps when I the teacher said, "Oh, wait, uh, she's urinating."  I went back in to the classroom to find the poor assistant teacher grabbing for paper towels with Violet standing not just in a pool of pee, but also a puddle of barf. 

Welcome back to reality.

It's gonna be a happy new year...

I have a hard time making New Year's resolutions.  Actually, what I have a hard time with is introspection and long term goals.  For so many years now, I've lived in the moment and the near-moments because of the kids.  I can't think about my five-year plan because I've barely been getting enough sleep to coherently do the laundry and grocery shopping each week.  Plus, if I think too much about long term goals I start to realize that at nearly 39 years old (just 8 more shopping days, by the way) I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. 

It isn't so much that I don't know what I'd like, it's more of a matter of what I'm willing to do to get there.  I used to want to be an attorney, but somewhere along the line I decided I just didn't want to work that hard and have a family.  When I was pregnant with my first I had just started a new job that I didn't love, but I did think that it could lead me places I would love so I struggled with whether or not I wanted to be an at-home mom or a working mom.  What really solidified my decision to stay home was September 11, 2001.  I just decided that life is too short and too unpredictable, that I really should spend my time doing something really important to me rather than something that "could" be important.

I don't regret it at all (well, sometimes when I'm knee deep in poop and puke I might waiver a bit), but I also know that this is not a permanent state of being and in five years all of my little ones will be in school so I'll have a bit more flexibility.  I guess what I'm saying is, my resolution for this year is to work on deciding whether or not I want to overcome my fear of five-year plans and if I decide that I can overcome that hurdle, maybe I'll think about putting a five-year plan into action --- next year.

Here's wishing you a happy and productive 2011, if that's something you're in to.