Khubz está gozando de estos alimentos. . .
The jury is still out on
Here's why this matters. . .
Everybody does it, yells at their kids and this was taken out of context
We have lost our sense of public/private
Some 'man' did not think about what was in my child's interest when taking this tape public
I am devoted to the cause of parental alienation, restoring fairness
This is work that I've been creeping up on
I know you're with me, rosie. We've both been attacked by the public
My mom is so great. She's a cancer survivor. She loves me.
i have tens of thousands of men contact me who are victims of parental
alienation. if you think they're mad, you should hear the women they're
with now. they call and say, my husband's ex-wife is a bleep'n bleep
bleep. . .By the way, my ex-wife is the one who really yells at my daughter
I really encourage all you going through divorce to work to peace.
Well, shit, i never loved rosie. this makes me think she's an idiot.
In other news. . .Some of you know I've had my jaw realigned lately. I'm fine. I highly recommend sedation dentistry for any of you who are pondering such a thing. The drugs are something else. And even if you feel really awake the next day, don't drive. Some woman could be driving with her brand new baby and see you swerve and scream "you're driving as if I don't have a baby in my car! What's wrong with you!" Really, I'm fine.
Well, Khubz is on the fast track to anthropology. Her favorite excavation site? Her ear. Her external auditory canal. Any spot with thin skin, lots of blood flow and ten additional points if that same site sets off alarm bells for a brain hemorrhage.
This is actually a long story. Here's the ten cent version:
Daycare calls & Khubz is bleeding out her ear. She laid down to nap and blood had pooled out her ear, smeared across her cheek, on her shirt (brand new "My Mommies Love Me" shirt) and on the play pen. COMPLETELY FUCKING SCARY. S and I take her to her doctor as this is ultimately faster than going to the emergency room. She had stopped bleeding.
The dr. is scraping out the dry crusted blood from her ear and my child is babbling happily even as the long plastic hook peels away the scab. "You should know that Khubz is unreasonably good natured and therefore not trustworthy. Something could be wrong even though she's not crying." Happy, happy babble from the child.
Khubz has some kind of tear at the base of her ear canal. Her ear drum is fine. She is not bleeding from her brain. There's nothing to do about it. Don't let her stick any sharp sticks in her ear (and we had just given her a new set of sticks for ear-digging. Poor girl will have to leave them in the package.)
Of course the real kicker to all of this is that I have been bitching a lot about my child. She had us up every hour last night and sometimes every 30 minutes. So I had once again been la madre crespa. And what happens? My child begins bleeding out her ear.
Don't worry. I know, I know. I still get to complain about this girl I love. I'll just need to check her ears afterwords.
On an unrelated note. .
It is really fun to see where I am getting hits from.
Some folks have gotten here by google searching for
Ah, the company you keep. No fears, though. They never stay long.
Khubz is a musical child. She has some favorite songs.
Crispy.
One crispy mommy.
It was a rough morning.
Afterword--I love a "p.s." inserted into the top of a story. It's kind of like a pre-script instead of a post-script. Or kind of like a prequel without the idiotic jarjar binks and other disappointments to what could have been a timeless epic. **AHEM ** Back to the Afterword--I have just returned from the park with my lovely friend and her two lovely children. I feel distinctly less crispy & less lonely. The girl is also completely tuckered out. This helps sometimes. It certainly helps tonight. So moving from "it was a rough morning" to "it was a lovely evening" is pretty damn good. Please read the post below with a sense of calm and forgiveness. It was written in crispiness.
First, the wedding was marvelous! I'd never been to a Buddhist ceremony before and it was beautiful, Samm looked exquisite (of course), the children had a great time in the hotel pool and many of the adults had a great time as well (I did get in my swimsuit, not unlike a guinea pig tunneling through a paper towel roll and having just as good a time)
The trip was full of adventure for our girl. Khubz sat on a grassy lawn for the first time. She crawled forward for the first time. She got in a pool for the first time (looking devastatingly cute in her swimsuit.) She went to her first wedding. She wore her first ridiculously poofy dress.
Two sisters traveled from Iowa to Colorado via Missouri (this has the added benefit of making an 11 hour road trip a 16 hour road trip.) The parents and my brother & sister-in-law traveled from Colorado to Iowa via Kansas. So, all things being relative, our drive was painless (though also endless if you're trapped in a rear-facing carseat.) On the trip back I learned to absolutely love rest areas. Not only did the girl have well timed bowels but the mommies needed a place to stretch.
Now for the crispy mommy:
Khubz had a pretty clingy day once we were out of the car. The mommies made multiple attempts at a romantic interlude and the child thwarted each and every one. I don't know who designs mobiles for baby cribs but they sure as shit need to run the music for more than 5 minutes. We are lesbians for godssake. There's no hurry. Unfortunately, Khubz is now referring to her crib as "the crying place." Finally we gave up & everyone went downstairs. Mama went to unload the truck and Khubz fell asleep while nursing. S. needed help getting something out of the truck and I said, "I'll put her down but she'll scream." I put her down on the floor. She woke up, looked at me, opened her mouth and. . . yawned. She fell asleep. UnFingBelievable. She would wake up each time I put her in the crib. This same child saw that she was being put down and decided the floor was acceptable where the crib was not. The moment had passed and so we unloaded the truck. Khubz did fall asleep hard that night but so did the mommies and in the hierarchy of needs sleep is way, way up there. But even this does not get us to the crispy mommy.
This morning we all get up and in the shuffle for the day. We just got back from Colorado yesterday so all of the clothes are dirty except the one outfit I put on for work. Khubz gets a triamenic strip (against her will) and I am rewarded by being vomited upon. Stunned, I ask, "Did she just puke on me?" The Chicana actually begins to laugh. The child has puked up milky, snotting vomit yet again. All down the back my shoulder. A stream runs down my skirt. A puddle forms on the floor. And yes, there is puke even in my hair. "I can't just change clothes." I hand the child back to the non-pukey mommy and I get back in the shower. I emerge and the child has been cleaned up, the floor has been cleaned up and I really, really don't want to spend the day with my child (bad, bad mommy.)
I don't feel so well myself, am really tired and was also feeling a bit pissy about having just been puked on. Khubz has a low grade fever, is still pulling on her ear and has constant mucus. The dr. opens at 8.
I call them at 7:59:58 "There's an opening at 8:30, can you get here?" "Thereis?Great!Igottago!I'llberightthere!!!!" I start to hang up and hear "Ma'am? MA'AM? I need your name." "Uh, sorry." "And your daughter's date of birth?" "Sept of 07--06 I mean 06. It's been a rough morning." We get there and fast. No ear infection, some fluid behind the left ear (not the one she's been pulling at) but no infection. In the right ear? Ear wax. (some of you are laughing and, yes, Khubz is my child.) But no problems. She's been sick on & off for three weeks but the dr. said we can just expect her to continue being sick & better & sick & better and unless her fever gets up to 102 or something that we just consider this basic training for her immune system. This means that I and S. have been sick & better and as I write this mucus runs down the back of my throat. How sick is too sick for daycare? More sick than this, thank the goddess! Bad, crispy mommy. I have never been so happy to be at work and have her at daycare. (I have deleted and retyped that last sentence a dozen times. I shudder to leave it in the post but it just feels like cowardice to delete it again. I know, I know. Now I feel like deleting that sentence and this little tangent because the tanget seems dumb, dumb, dumb. Alas, looks like it will all stay & I'll leave you to wonder just how stupid something has to be in order to qualify for deletion.)
Quick--Change the topic. I'm writing this as I listen to the Gonzales hearings. I love to hear him squirm. I also love hearing Schumer overheard by the mic at the break. All the impeach Bush/Gonzales War Criminal protesters stand up when they break for lunch and start yelling. Schumer laughs, "There've got too many people to kick out." I am surprisingly impressed by Arlen Specter. I think everyone missed the boat on the highest humor of the Gonzales hearing. It was when Specter said, "I know you've been preparing for this hearing" and Gonzales quipped like a jerk, "Senator, I prepare for every hearing" pissing Specter off. "Were you prepared for your press conference?" "I didn't say I was prepared, I said 'i prepare'" "Did you prepare?" "We try to take some time to prepare before our press conference, yes." . . . "I don't think you're going to win a debate on how you prepare for your press conference" That was your clip, jon. And yes, Specter is pro-choice. Alas, I still cannot heart him. But this at least helps me recognize that he's human. The same is not true for everyone who is calling for Gonzales to step down. Take Senator Coburn from Oklahoma and his "rampant lesbianism" destroying their schools. He can call for Gonzales to step down all he likes and he is still one big dick.
I did look at the slate article as suggested by Rivolta but I don't buy it. I do think he is genuinely squirming.
"Consider how Gonzales rebuffed Republican Sen. John Cornyn when he suggested a future Senate hearing about the convictions of two Texas border patrol officers. (That's executive branch business, son.) Consider the attorney general's inability to explain why Kyle Sampson pushed ahead with a plan to do away with Senate confirmation for U.S. attorneys, if as he claimed, Gonzales didn't approve it. (That's between me and the president and Kyle Sampson, son.) Consider Gonzales' skirmish with Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer over who bore the burden of proof at the hearings. (How can there be a burden of proof when you have no authority to sit in judgment over me, son?) And listen to him tell Republican Sen. Charles Grassley: "I'm here to provide what I know, what I recall as to the truth in order to help the Congress help to complete the record."
You can't pull off this level of bullshit while sweating.
Long before conceiving of names for children I had the names for my next guinea pigs picked out.
Noor Epinephren &
Sarah Tonin
I do think my daughter is cute. Truth be told, I am a sucker for her cuteness. Just ask me what time it is? 1 a.m., 1:30 a.m., 2: 40 a.m., 3 a.m., 3:30 a.m. . .
I must say, however, that I think guinea pigs are outrageously adorable. (and, no guinea pig has ever kept me up all night.) Just look at it. All belly with tiny feet, cute little eyes and a friendly nose sticking out. Anchored by a belly. Really, the overwhelming majority of a piggie is belly. They are necessarily rotund. A guinea pig defies the very idea of a waist. I have only love for such a creature.
I will remember that portly, hairy mammals (mostly belly with stubby appendages) are loved by all good people (even those with allergies.) Pouring myself into my bathing suit I shall channel the piggie.
It's a better day.
We had problems getting to sleep last night. I mean problems. 
The people have spoken. . .All 13 of you. (How many of those votes came from me at various computers around Wichita? Hmm. . . Trade secret)
And we're working through the alphabet in Spanish. In keeping with my reread of 1984 we will strictly follow Big Brother's official Spanish alphabet.
Okay, okay, okay. . . This is all about to be renamed as "A Pretty Bad Post"
I've been trying to write something--anything--that would be witty or funny to keep a light atmosphere on the blog. But unfortunately, I keep coming back to this delightful note:
I think we're all going to die.
"Powerpuffgirl" (we're still searching for a nickname for S.) and I were watching this documentary on PBS yesterday about the historical/philosophical/political roots of al qaeda. thumbs up for starting decades back, showing how individuals influenced each other, were influenced by philosophers, state fascism & torture. thumbs down for focusing on particular arabic words, exoticizing them & creating a "foreign, terroristic lexicon" of words like "madrassa" (a.k.a. school, assholes.)
And there was this point where they talked about how al qaeda wanted to bring the western battle to the east and some supposed notes suggested the three best locations would be afghanistan, iraq or somalia. Provoke the west and they will respond like cowboys.
This is when I buried my head in "PhD-to-be" girl's chest and wept.
I wish they had also shown the philosophical & historical influences on western actors (cheney, bush I & II, clinton, blair) that supported their ideas & actions. Cultural ideas like "manifest destiny."
so that's the emotional background I've got as I try to write something about the Duke rape case that isn't predictable, shrill and defeatist. Everything is so cliched at this point but not writing about it all feels cowardly. And then there's Imus. And just now hearing about the shootings at Virginia Tech.
And then, of course, there's the advocate in me that says, "Do you think anything new is going on? Don't you know that women are harmed in countless ways every moment?"
And all of this is lapping against a feeling that I don't get to feel hopeless because I'm a mommy now. Of course mommies must persevere or what's the point? And also, having been granted my most fiercely-held dream (having wished/prayed/worked) of being a mommy, who am I exactly to feel hopeless?
Sigh.
Sigh.
Sigh.
And hopeless isn't even the right word because I don't look at the people I love and say, nope--still no feelings of hope. It's more like this sense that there's a pointless, endless violence.
Adding to my feelings of despondence. . .
Okay, I'm cutting it off here.
that list was my last attempt at injecting some sense of humor back in to the blog and instead it came out as self-hating and pathetic.
We'll try another day. Maybe "B" will be for "Basta!"
Zum: An approximate unit of measurement anywhere between 14/19ths and 3/27ths. As in, "sure, I'll have zum"
Well, Z is actually for Zucchini but readers in England will think that's cheating because how could Z be for Courgette?
I have several things to catch everyone up on but first is the matter of this blog.
I have been cleared for continued blogging by Those Who Know Best. This only encourages me in my nonsensical, random and useless posting. But my delusions of grandeur make me crave for a theme, not unlike TAL. At the same time in the name of the new democracy that is the internet I offer up a poll. (what I should have done with the books post, no? Since some people (RS) sneak a peek but never comment)
Please vote for your favorite option.
El Alfabeto--The alphabet again. This time in Spanish! This will get us exciting posts like "P is for Pera" Good times & an opportunity to expand my vocabulary base. Remember, this could be the crucial choice if you'd like me keep ahead of khubz.
A Poet A Day--Likely to be everyone's automatic choice, fear not, this would not be everlasting. Only long enough to celebrate National Poetry Month (April.) Remember, Julia Alverez is a poet!
The New Math--Please don't vote for this option. Consider it the Dennis Kucinich of the candidates. Very interesting. Perhaps some cutting edge new ideas. But no longevity. Really, I've got Khubz learning that counting up means "70, 435, 152, 35" and counting down means "35, 152, 435, 70" and that's it. (Ten points to anyone who can decipher my new math)
Fruit ranked by fiber content--This closely beat out fruit ranked by glycemic index in the primaries. I cannot make any promises about content but will give fair warning that any fiber-based theme will likely be result in numerous graphic descriptions of bodily fluids (or solids) basket tags.
A country each day--Really, did you know that the capitol of Eritrea is Asmera? Neither did I. Shouldn't you know that? Shouldn't I? Why don't we know that? Don't we all listen to NPR? And country/capitol is so. . . 7th grade. What we all really want to know is: What kind of fruit do they have going on in Eritrea? Turns out, fruit is not generally a daily consumable, but the cactus pear is right up as a celebratory dish.
Stay tuned, won't you?
And remember to vote early & often--in this case it's not a felony!
for some new letters
WTF?
In posting my previous "Y" post I am flagged with this message:
You have been flagged as a possible spam blog.
What's that? Let's click on the bubble & find out.
What Are Spam Blogs?
As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused. The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site. (emphasis mine)
UnFingBelievable.
I'd like to not take that personally but if the shoe fits. . .
Here's the message alert again.
Thanks, blogger. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Remember what I say about my excess self-esteem? It's all thanks to blogger.
This post is dedicated to my Mom who always told me someday I would use a venn diagram.
so newt is apologizing in spanish and i just want to ask. . .why bother? if assimilation is the high and mighty god why bother?
when khubz was a few weeks old i camped out in iowa for about 10 days. this was in october of last year and it was the run up to the election. iowa politics are always fun but the ads on tv are relentless!
i especially remember an ad attacking a dem incumbent, boswell. apparently boswell had been smuggling mexicans into the country illegally so they all could smoke up some meth, have a gay sexcapade marathon (after which they all try to destroy the family by trying to marry each other) and then, once the meth high wore off, bomb some public buildings in the name of allah. i am not kidding.
i felt like it was a visual aid for an ISMs training and this was illustrating the point that "isms work in concert with each other. the systems of oppression support one another and have impact on individuals that are difficult to parse out. you can't be working with a survivor living in poverty and neatly separate out 'this harm was caused by sexism. that harm was caused by classism' etc."
and i looked at my little child looking so bright (in pictures i now see she was splotchy and her head was still a bit misshapen. it was a 52 hour labor, remember) like all the right pieces of destiny and possibility. And I felt like she was the other side of those systems of oppression working in concert. Her being was their opposite.
she is just a little baby. and, frankly, not here to answer for those harms or fix them. but their very existence questions her very existence. (um, except the meth part. i don't see that one as inextricably linked, inshallah)
an arab/latina girl child (and white, too, bringing down the master race) come into the world to two women makes her a very, very queer of one sort or another. she collides with all these systems by her very being. and i felt so sad at the time (frightened of all the world) because i feared these systems would chew her up before she could spot them and that they would be her undoing.
in fact she has come into the world despite them
and that is a triumph
right now she is oblivious to them
but her mommies are not
& that is why mother is a verb.
when she learns the word 'no'
she will also learn who to say 'no' to (us & others too)
her existence cannot be undone
the world has already changed
of snotty vomit, check out this site: cheney's life in the bushes . Cheney is apparently frequently pictured lurking in bushes or shrubbery of some sort. It's completely wacky. But for the love of god don't scroll down to see the picture posted in the comment section. No matter what that girl at Rivolta Silenziosa tells you to do. Totally fucking freaky. 
I love my uvula. Don't you love yours?
p.s. 10 points to anyone who already knew that "Uvula" is latin for "little grape." What a wonderfully fruity, fruity world.
Tortuga deserves to be the word of the day not only because it is fun to say (try it) and not only because I hear Johnny Depp in his pirate voice saying "tortuga" (where will we find a bunch of pirates to crew this ship?) and not only because it rhymes with Joe's favorite word in spanish "lechuga" but also because a little foamy brown tortuga (turtle) saved us on the trip back from iowa this week. The girl woke up and we still had 1 1/2 hours to drive. That little tortuga took a beating but we had minimal crying. She is an unbelievably good baby. Much better than we deserve.
What else?
I'm going to be in Wichita 3 days next week. This means two things (three really.)
1984 --though this will be a most creepy, creepy time to read it. not that i expect that to improve any when hillary wins the dem nomination and loses the presidential election to the republican nominee, Beelzebub.
