Christmas gifts

I have always loved Ikea. I am always overwhelmed at Ikea but I have always loved it. We don't live in an Ikea house but many many key pieces have been purchased at the blue and yellow box. Which is funny because I abhor the other blue box. (you know who you are)

Looking ahead toward Christmas with a one year old and wanting to get him something but not wanting the house to turn into a plastic jungle has me already looking. Leave it to Ikea to save the day.

There are three of these little guys each cuter than the next and at $7.99 an affordable wooden toy.

On the higher end you have...

Wild Flower Organics and their unbelievably gorgeous push toy. Also a beautiful toy that does not have the potential for lead poisoning. I don't know how I feel about my house being upstaged by a toy though.

Then I found Fat Brain Toys. Very affordable toys that would interest any future hybrid driving, plastic bag nixing, organic baby/toddler. I am especially fond of the pound and roll as Little bean loves to hit things. I sure am hoping he outgrows that soon.

Nickname Conundrum

When Luca was just a mere bumb Bluetooth and I loved to harrass family and friends by calling him salamander. We kept the name a secret because we didn't have a clue what his name would really be and messing with people is quite probably my favorite thing to do in the whole world.

Now that he is here I want to have a nickname for him. Bluetooth is sometimes called jelly bean, cute and I was sometimes just called Tosh, not so cute or creative. Score 1 for the Vallejo family.

I do not want Luca to be called Luc although Luc looks better the Luke. Sometimes I will call him Bugaboo but the irony of using a highly branded name on my child is not lost on me. That word is great fun to say. Try it, three times really really fast. At times I will compromise and call him bug which is cute in a maybe sort of way.

The whole post then is:
1) That I need ideas for a nickname.
2) Can a nickname just be given or do you have to earn it?
3) What was your favorite nickname?

Valentine to the Earth

While Bluetooth and I contemplate a move we are looking at a radically different lifestyle. That is what we essentially have to decide. Do we want to be able to have the ability to walk out the door and enjoy multi-cultural events, excitement of the urban city or do we want to move to a city that we understand and are comfortable in because we grew up that way.

I don't generally believe in all of that astrology stuff but sometimes I feel I have to lend credence to the fact that I am a Gemini. The whole twin thing. Because in thinking about moving I am thinking about what sort of house do we want. I can equally go for the cement block with white walls and touches of natural sustainable wood but not a single thing in sight or the huge country house with clutter and knick knacks, a stable, cutting garden, herb garden and private forest. Really isn't that what every girl wants. Now bluetooth is a bit scared because if we get any sort of land he pretty much can't leave me alone. I will order:
1) Chinese weeding geese, please someone get the geese already.
2) Miniature ponies. Because aren't they adorable.
3) Already convinced the brother-in-law to get bees. Yep, I'm a bee charmer.
4) A way to make my own wine, cheese, liquor. Pretty much anything that isn't done right and might kill you I will try and make.
5) And of course, the HUGE maze. That Bluettooth will have to take care of by hand.

Now if any one knows me they know that I will start all of this stuff and Bluetooth will have to take care of all of this stuff. So...he has decided no land. Pretty smart. But every situation all house's have some amount of land. And the number one thing that gets me about city living is the stupid front yard with the stupid postage size stamp of lawn. What are you going to do on that lawn? Nothing. So I love this http://www.chelseagreen.com/2006/items/foodnotlawns idea.

We should all do this. For the earth.

Happy Valentine's day everyone.

Busy Weekend

Wow! We should have been keeping track of our hours on the road in the past year. Little bugaboo has become quite the road warrior.

Late Thursday night we took off and stayed with Bluetooth's little sister and her husband and visited with Justin who had flown in from Fort Collins, CO. A big congratulations to Jake and Amy who are now, affianced.

Friday we left to make a well child visit for Bugaboo. Four more shots for this little boy and he did not like it! Bluetooth was even able to catch him in the act of, um, doing what little boys seem to do when naked on a cold scale. The nurse had a good laugh so no harm. Dr. said that everything looks good.

We then continued on the journey to meet up with Bluetooth's family to enjoy seem pizza in Moses Lake. We then turned around to stay at my little brother's new house in Quincy.

I am so proud of my brothers. My little bro bought this fixer upper and it is going to be quite nice. The things that he is capable of doing are amazing. Of course, being a boy, the first thing that he chose to finish was finishing the basement and making it an amazing media room with a bar, complete with kegerator. It is nice and made quite possibly the coolest Super Bowl party ever.

We then helped Bluetooth's parental units move from one house in Moses Lake to another. Love the new house.

Spent time with my sisters, Jo is expecting twins and looks AMAZING. I can't believe that there are going to be two little girls here soon. Watched my sister Rachelle coach basketball and her team flirt with Bugaboo and he flirted back. Good grief.

Through all of this Bugaboo did exceedingly well. Poor guy, every time he went to sleep he woke up somewhere different and with different people.

Long busy weekend. Fun to see people get excited about seeing Bugaboo, catching up with relatives from distant places and spending time with family.

Side by Side by Side

Bluetooth and I have been lucky enough to receive our baby books from our moms. Now the baby books are great for two things. To look back in absolute wonder that at one time we were both this young and to make me feel guilty about how poor bugaboo's baby book is. Sure, I put the facts on the line where the question is asked but sadly I'm terrible at the anecdotes in the margins. The funny stories that mean so much. The cute girl/mom thing that I am supposed to do. Luckily I have two people in my family that scrapbook and will hopefully help me to hide this woefully inadequate gene of mine.

Bluetooth at 2 and 3/4 months weighed 13 lbs and was 23 inches. This is what bugaboo was at 6 weeks. But at 4 weeks Bluetooth was the exact same weight and length as Bugaboo at birth.

I started out bigger then Bluetooth but smaller than Bugaboo but at 3 and 1/2 months I weighed 13 lbs and was 25 1/2 inches. I guess we know who the big eaters are in the family.

At 3 months my mom wrote that by 6 weeks I slept throughout the night almost consistently and by 3 months always slept throughout the night but was an alarm clock at 6 a.m.. Meaning Bugaboo is behind and I'm still an early riser.

Bluetooth's mom wrote at 3 months, started rolling from tummy to back at 3 and 1/2 weeks and continued to do so. Very active and alert and awake much of the time. enjoys lying on the floor and playing. By 2 months followed daddy, Justin and mommy with eyes. coos, smiles and laughs at 2 months and loves to "converse". By 2 and 1/2 months can really scream if wanting attention. Basically a happy baby with quite a will of his own.

Bugaboo is much the same. He did not roll as soon as his dad but he likes to sleep like his mom. He loves to eat and when it is time it is time. He will yell at me like an angry little monkey if I am not fast enough. Sometimes, I'm afraid to say, I find it funny to make him wait. He just looks right at me and gives me the riot act in his little chatter. From day one Bugaboo followed people with his eyes and has always been very alert. Mostly a happy baby but not a patient baby. Wonder where he got that from?

He is an absolute joy and we are the luckiest parents in the world.

Easy as Pie

Bluetooth loved the pop tarts from yesterday. Well, maybe love is too strong of a word. He liked them but had suggestions. The suggestion that I am going to try is putting eggs, bacon and cheese in them. Then freezing them so that I can get up even later in the morning, anything for an extra minute of sleep.

I applied for a job at my Alma mater around two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything back. The tragic irony of the situation is that my degree is exactly in the job that I applied for but my job career so far has not been. The irony is if my education isn't good enough to get me a job at the school I attended who is going to view my education as worthwhile. Does that make sense?

Also, in reflection on yesterday's post I thought that I could post a link that I go to that donates for clicks. Care2 is an easy way to help. I think that your click is worth .000005% of a penny but if enough of us do it we may save a blade of grass. A blade of grass.

So much going on but I haven't found the courage to actually talk about my life. Still negotiating the blogger thing.

Friend or Foe

The Wal-Martarticle insanity of today.

Where is a person to turn if they want to leave a small footprint on the earth? In Canada it may as well be law that you have to recycle. At every turn there is a recycle barrel, which is great. However, they don't come with instructions. I don't know what I can throw away or can't. Which color barrel does this coffee cup go in? I must not be the only person confused because in downtown Vancouver they have special garbage cans where you leave your coffee cups around the rim of the garbage can to be recycled.

It is great but daunting. In our own home I try to buy things in bulk. Everything. Bluetooth laughs but hates it. When we go to the store I love the bulk section. I get everything from rice, chocolate chips to chicken bouillon. I then come home and put it all into empty washed out mayonnaise jars or jam jars. The result being that I do all of the cooking because bluetooth does not know what is what.

I'm also into googling everything. Yesterday I told bluetooth I was going to google how to make penicillin because I have a little cold coming on. I was only half joking. If I wasn't the only life source for bugaboo I'm sure I would have done it.

I compromised and made my own poptarts instead.

What steps should a sane and logical person take to leaving a small footprint. Not saying that I'm not logical and sane but...


Homemade Poptarts

4 cups flour
1 3/4 cups vegetable shortening
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 cup cold water
16 tablespoons jam , divided

Cut flour and shortening together with pastry blender or two butter knives,
until completely blended (mixture will resemble crumbs). Add sugar, baking
powder, salt, egg, vinegar and cold water. Mix with hands until mixture
forms a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Divide
dough into fourths, refrigerating the portions you are not working with yet.
Take first 1/4 of dough and roll out onto a floured surface. Cut into
rectangles using a sharp knife. It is helpful to make a template the size
you wish your poptarts to be, from cardboard or heavy plastic, so they will
be a uniform size. Spread on tbsp. jam on one half of the rectangles,
leaving a half inch or so on the edges without jam. Cover with the other
half of the rectangles. Crimp edges with a fork. Bake at 350 degrees F. for
12 - 15 minutes or until the pie dough is evenly browned and cooked through.
Cool completely and place into zip baggies for storage until you are ready
to eat them. Repeat with remaining dough and jam until it is all completed.
Variation: Glaze poptarts with a simple glaze made from powdered sugar, milk
and vanilla extract. Be sure to let glaze dry hard before placing poptarts
into storage baggies.

When will they ever learn?

One of my old high school students pointed out this video to me. It was one of the best teaching moments that I ever had. I had been designing lesson plans that centered on how personal choice affects the world around us. It was very difficult for this inner city kids to understand and everyday felt like a huge failure. Till this student told me how he saw the video and thought of me. I wish more people would watch it, use it, contemplate it.

I'm not sure if that link will work but it is "World on Fire" by Sarah McLachlan. That video shows that just by sitting on our couches and mindlessly accepting what the media gives us affects the world.

What troubles me is how many people are just existing in this world. That they aren't considering even one of their daily decisions. The thing that it is really bothering me is the baby boomers. They are really messing up this world and my future and all future generations.

Every one knows and acknowledges the social security debacle, medicaid and medicare, and federal debt. What are the baby boomers doing by agreeing, pointing out, shaking their heads and then heading out the door to their second homes, four star resort vacations, early retirement, dual car driving households. They don't care because they will be dead when the problems are real. Right now we just know the problems are coming but by the time the problems are real the baby boomers will have been long gone.

Robert J. Samuleson puts this argument forth much better in his article. What makes this article really remarkable is that, I'm assuming, the major audience of Newsweek is baby boomers. How will this take this article? Change their ways? Probably not, maybe they will read it, throw it away,(not recycle) and shake their heads.

I know that these two things do not tie into each other very well. Yet that is the mind of the scribbler. Jumpy jumpy jumpy.

Ahhh

My rational for starting this blog was that I wasn't going to just talk about bugaboo. Third day and breaking another rational.

He's just so cute. You wouldn't believe the conversations that we have or the horrible dancing and singing that he has witnessed but I just LOOOOVE this child. I knew that I would. I knew that I wanted this experience but that overwhelming feeling of love is amazing. As Carl Sandburg said, "A baby is God's opinion that life should go on."

Right now that resonates with me. When you look around the world and all that is happening bugaboo gives me hope. When you wonder if God is even watching or caring or just laughing and shooting spit balls there is Luca. And I am reminded that it is through us and life that God enables us to make the world better. It is through hope. Hope for him, for me and for our world. Not just because he is going to grow up and do the most amazing things but for what he has given his parents, hope.

He is going to do amazing things. The list of possibilities that I have drawn up for him contains no less then truly amazing things. Hope for his mom because I finally understand unconditional love.

I love bugaboo unconditionally. (Anyone who knows me knows that I don't do anything unconditionally) But this guy, my baby, my son, my child, I love unconditionally. I want to go to the mountain top and shout it, (a song that I hate hate hate.) The thing about unconditionally though is that I don't expect him to love me back. I don't expect him to like me, respect me or even care one whit about me. I just HOPE that he will. That everything that I am and do and feel is one day reciprocated. That one day this little boy, miracle of miracles, looks up and says "I love you." I cry just thinking about it. I know that some of his choices will make me sad, and that I will embarrass him, and make him mad but in the end I hope that he can love me just 1/100 of a percent that I love him. I'm not saying that this is going to affect my parental style. I do not believe that my job as parent is to be his friend or liked. I'm just saying that at the end of the day I hope that I am enough. Not with guilt or games. This little bugaboo has such a hold of my heart that I can't imagine not seeing him every minute of every day. That one day he will be able to say no or even want things. Or, horror, leave home and have a life. I hope his dorm roommate understands his mom staying there. Does Oxford have dorms?




Hope for the world. Because now more then ever I care about global warming, the oil crisis, recycling and carbon emissions and I sorta cared before. Watch out family I'm ratcheting up the anti-Wal-Mart attacks. I need to leave this world better for my son. I need him to have some chance of a happy life. I don't think that the generations before us understands how much the world has changed. They look at us like we are crazy and dysfunctional because we have debt. Hello, how were we supposed to pay for school? Grant? Hum... not many of those. Do they get how much a house costs, gas, medical insurance or any of the other necessities. I can't fix the big things but I can make better choices. I hope that this is how all parents feel. That way the earth has a chance and maybe society.

What a post. I told bluetooth that a blog of mine would be crazy and scattered.

Not Shakespeare but equally a genius (not me, Cleese)

It is my second post and already I am cheating by posting someone else's writing. Ah, hum.

John Cleese, perhaps my favorite tongue in cheek kinda guy, recently wrote this letter to America. And I think that I will share it. Though since I refuse to advertise my blog I'm not quite sure that this qualifies as sharing, per say.

*John Cleese's Letter to America

To the citizens of the United States of America
In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA
and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation
of your independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will resume monarchical
duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (except
Kansas , which she does not fancy), as from Monday next.
Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium," and check the pronunciation guide.You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour','favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."

3. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra';you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you find you simply can't cope with correct pronunciation.

4. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up "vocabulary"). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like"and "you know" is unacceptable and * *inefficient form of communication.

5.There is no such thing as " US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

6. You will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).

7. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but to be celebrated only in England . It will be called "Come-Uppance Day."

8. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns,lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent.Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

9. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

10. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

11. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric immediately and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

12. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling "gasoline") - roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

13. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with mayonnaise but with vinegar.

14. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

15. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." American brands will be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

16. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience a kinto having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

17. You will cease playing American "football." There is only one kind of proper football; you call it "soccer". Those of you brave enough will, in time, will be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armourlike a bunch of nancies).

18. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the "World Series" for a game which is not played outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

19. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

20. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due backdated to 1776.Thank you for your co-operation.

John Cleese*

My question then is, Is it ok that I find a good laugh out of this when I am an American that essentially fled the US?

Now I didn't flee. There was an opportunity for us to live in Canada and it just happened to coincide with the election of a cheerleader to the presidency. I did not however join some grassroots campaign to sweep the Republicans out. I didn't join the underground resistance. I did the most unAmerican thing and left. Was I wrong?

Of course, it is pretty high and mighty of me to think that I could change anything at all. Despite all the feel good posters, one pebble in the water and all that crap. What do I really have to offer America? I can't even get my own family to stop shopping at Wal-Mart. The furthest I've gotten with that effort is to make them very poor liars. Every time I ask them where they bought something the answer is always Safeway.

So what is a conflicted expatriate to do?