Under the For Sale section:

FREE TO GOOD HOME: Baby. Eight Months. Cute. Likes: pulling on dog tails, picking outlet covers off electrical sockets, waking every two hours at night, twenty minute naps, screaming in public, practicing a new whining technique that involves a high-pitched squeal/ear-drum-shattering dolphin noise, throwing entire body down on the ground when a bottle is not supplied fast enough, shaking head back and forth in a disagreeable fashion. Dislikes: sleeping, behaving, not screaming, not being held, being tickled, singing and other humans.

Under the Wanted section:

WANTED: Baby from last week. Baby who cuddled, laughed, played and generally did not scream whenever not being held. Baby who slept twelve hours at night and took two hour-and-a-half naps. Baby who was described by a stranger at Target as having a “sweet disposition.” May have also been called “a happy little guy.”

Ugh.

Can you tell I’m in the middle of four-teeth-coming-in-all-at-once-because-God-hates-me hell?

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There’s a lot of fun stuff I want to do with my daughter. I’ve got an incredible [if I dare say so] book collection growing for her, and I want to do tons of crafts…in fact I go to Michaels about once a week and buy ribbon and Mod Podge and buttons for projects. Am I lame? Perhaps. And perhaps my daughter will want to play soccer and hate books and ribbon and weird buttons and I will be bummed but I guess I’ll be mommy goalie, or defense, anything her little heart desires.

But right now? Right now her interests include: putting things in her mouth, falling and hitting her head on things, crawling at record speeds around our home, getting stuck under coffee tables, putting the cat in headlocks, dog bones, and giving me heart attacks.  She can get into a good Touch and Feel book for 30 seconds at a time, and sometimes if I do funny voices and act-a-fool she’ll giggle. We went to the zoo and spent a good deal of time in front of the fish tanks We also enjoy shopping. Paige is perfectly content making goo goo eyes with strangers in the mall if it means I’m pushing her around all day and providing her with apple strawberry Gerber Stars and carrot juice.

But I got to let it out folks.

I don’t like playing with my daughter. Touch and Feel’s are cute but I can’t read “Zoo’s Who” over and over again without thinking about my email. I can only feign enthusiasm for the fish in the tank a few times before I realize I’d rather be reading the new novel I have sitting on my desk. I like to go to the park and feed the ducks but I don’t like watching my daughter like a hawk so she doesn’t put branches and bugs into her mouth. I feel horrible about this, really and truly. I want to be super mom and get psyched about everything. I want to crawl around the floor all day enthralled to be picking up dust bunnies before my daughter can get to them. In fact, I want to be the kind of mom that gets rid if dust bunnies before they even happen even with a dog, cat, and shag rug.

But I can’t.

And for the record, I’m really glad she’s sleeping, where’s my book?

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I’m a coward, and a hypocrite, and all before 8 in the morning.  It’s gonna be a long day.

I always swore I was going to be direct with my child about matters of nature and death.  I grew up hunting with my dad on one hand, and breeding cats with my mom on the other–I was never a child who had any illusions about animals, their place in the world or my dinner plate, or their deaths.  I think I’m pretty healthy, so my husband and I decided we’d raise our daughter the same way.

Until the baby bunny, that is.

This past weekend our post-war suburban neighborhood underwent something of an unprompted, unofficial ritual, the First Mowing of Spring.  It must have flushed out some wildlife, because yesterday evening we found a small juvenile rabbit crouching terrified in our lawn, not even enough instinct yet to run when people approached it.  The neighborhood is overrun with large cats; he wouldn’t have lasted the night.  And I have this thing about helpless infant creatures.  So sue me.

We followed Operation Wildlife’s instructions, caught it with a towel, didn’t let the kid pet it, didn’t feed it, and closed it up in a box, which we put on top of the fridge, out of the way of curious three-year-old girls.  Since their intake facility was closed when we called, we planned to take the poor thing in when my husband got home from work today.

Around 11 I was sitting in the living room enjoying a glass of wine and some Aqua Teen Hunger Force, when suddenly I look down and there’s a baby bunny on the floor.  WTF?  Checked the box–yeah, that’s our bunny.  So I caught him again, put him back in his box, weighted the top down this time, and poked some airholes. 

This morning Penny wakes up, and of course, wants to see the bunny first thing.  I open the box and . . . dead bunny.  Stiff, already.  Oh, shit.

“The baby bunny’s sick right now, baby.  We have to give him lots of quiet, so we can’t look at him now, okay?”

“Okay.”

Sick.  Yeah.  I wimped out.  Instead of being Spartan Mom, and explaining to her about how sometimes animals we try to help just don’t make it, I told her it was sick.  Then called my husband, and we conspired together.  The bunny will be “sick” all day, and he will dispose of it while she’s napping this afternoon.  When she wakes up, we’ll tell her Daddy had to take the bunny to the bunny hospital.

Well, hell.  I feel bad enough already about the poor thing dying in my care without the kid going around all day brokenhearted.  I’ll be Spartan Mom another day, perhaps with roadkill that wasn’t my fault.

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As I was browsing the web the other day, this article caught my attention. Since I’m always on the lookout for ways to stretch my dollar, and this one advertised a way to save $1000 a month, I clicked on it. Who doesn’t want to save $1000 a month? That’s a lot of money! What I found was another unhelpful list of things I’m already doing. It reminded me of that episode of Malcolm in the Middle, when they find out Lois is pregnant with the 5th kid. Hal says something like he’s gone over the budget and if they stop going on vacations and stop eating out, give up buying a new car every couple of years, then they should be able to make it. Lois twists her face up and explodes with, Hal, we don’t do any of those things now! Whose life have you been living?

I see so many of these “helpful” lists about how to do this or how to do that, and they’re just a compilation of things that anyone who knows how to point and click should already have figured out and chosen to implement or not (maybe you WANT to drink soda even though you know it’s expensive). They bother me, these lists. On the one hand, I feel so savvy, like I’m ahead of the game by being smart enough look ahead and beat the “experts” by doing the very things they recommend ages before they write the list. On the other hand, I feel cheated, because I’ve already saved that thousand dollars and spent it so the article does me no good. I’m giving up on reading those kind of articles and instead, I want to try to get me a JOB as one of these people writing those lists. I think I’d be pretty good at it. Here are a couple of my ideas:

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Five ways to save your marriage

With the divorce rate hovering around 50%, a lot of couples are afraid for the future of their relationships. The following five practical suggestions can help your marriage survive some rough times:

1. Don’t cheat on your spouse. Or, at least, don’t get caught. Cheating on your spouse makes him or her feel like they can’t trust you anymore. It makes them feel like maybe you don’t find them attractive anymore and would rather be with another mate. Try some magazines or videos to “spice up” your relationship instead. You can always use your imagination. Avoiding this common marriage pitfall can go a long way in keeping your relationship intact.

2. Don’t be abusive. Beating on your husband or wife sends a clear message that the relationship is in danger. Put another way, don’t hit your partner. When you show your spouse love and tenderness instead of beating up on them, it significantly reduces the chances that you will end up in divorce court and/or jail.

3. Pull your own weight. When one partner won’t get a job, or just sits around the house watching television and making demands from the other partner (Get me a beer, bitch) while the other one does all the work, it can set the relationship off balance. Spouses should try to divide the work equally. A friend of mine does not work, but her husband does, so she does the housework and childcare while he is at the office earning the income. It gives her something to do during the day and relieves some of his workload as well.

4. Keep it in your pants. Your wallet that is. Overspending is a common complaint among married people. One spouse digs the couple into debt, and the other spouse feels overwhelmed with the alarm-colored disconnection notices and aggressive phone calls from collection agencies. Discuss large ticket purchases before hand and consider working up a budget.

5. Talk to each other. It may seem obvious, but I bet a few of you still don’t communicate with each other. Set aside a few minutes every day to ask about your spouse’s day. Let your spouse know what’s on your mind, too. Talking to your spouse is an excellent way to keep your finger on the pulse of the relationship, and it can be fun.

In conclusion.

Today’s high divorce rate can be frightening. But, there are some tools you can use to keep your relationship together during these hard times and avoid high lawyer costs and complicated child custody battles.

Or how about:

——————–
Five ways to raise good kids.

Parenting has never been harder or more wrought with misery. Today’s parents face the difficulty of bringing up their kids in a world that didn’t exist just a few generations back. Here are five tips to help you raise strong, independent, brilliant children.

1. Feed them. Studies have proven that children of all ages and sizes need a form of nourishment to thrive. It’s a good idea to have some kind of age appropriate food source available for your growing children. I can hardly think of an easier way to bring about good success in childrearing than if you just feed your offspring.

2. Give them attention. It has been strongly suggested that children who get positive attention from their parents have a better chance of growing up to be healthy and well behaved adults than those who are locked away from human contact, or treated with consistent unkindness. Try holding your child right from birth, look at him or her when speaking and offer praise and kindness throughout their stay in your home.

3. Educate them. Schools are available at little or no cost for every child in the United States once the child reaches a certain age (contact your local school district for specific information pertaining to your area). Providing an education, either at a local elementary school or through home schooling can give your child tools necessary for becoming a contributing member of society.

4. Clothe them. Children fare better when they are not naked. Protecting their skin from the elements makes them more comfortable so they can focus their attention on learning and developing. It helps reduce the risk of humiliation, as well. You should also consider providing medical care in the form of immunizations and remedies for common illnesses. Keeping your child healthy improves the odds that they will reach adulthood and be stronger when they get there.

5. Value them. It may seem like a given, but there are people who need to be reminded that children are human beings and therefore are granted the same rights that all humans are given. If we love them, want them and treat them well, then they will grow up to be strong, independent and brilliant.

Putting it together.

In these crazy times where we hear horror stories about adult children still living at home, deadbeat kids who won’t get jobs and juvenile delinquency, child-rearing seems like a hopeless, helpless job. But, by using the tools above, you can greatly improve your chances of avoiding some of these bigger pitfalls.

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So, what do you think? Am I ready for the “news you already knew but somebody needed a space-filler” lineup yet?

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As gas prices quickly rise to nearly $4 a gallon ($3.77 in my neighborhood — thankfully I live near an Indian Reservation and can get it for the low-low price of $3.44 a gallon), the government has decided to start sending out the much needed rebate checks on Monday, a week earlier than originally planned.

I have seen countless articles from financial experts on what to do with the money — stick it in your savings account or pay off debt. Seems logical to me. I’m not too concerned with boosting the economy by purchasing a flat screen TV or a new summer wardrobe. I’m more concerned with boosting my credit rating and safety-net. Our rebate check will be nice and safe in the bank. Sorry George.

Retailers hate people like me! Lucky for them they’ve devised some ingenious marketing plans to put all of those rebate bucks in their pockets. It’s going to be a feeding frenzy to snatch up $106 billion dollars.

Sears will be converting tax rebate checks into gift cards at cash registers and online, and adding on another 10 percent. The gift cards have no expiration dates or fees, but shoppers must purchase a gift card equal to the entire amount of their rebate check.

Wal-Mart’s customer service centers will be cashing rebate checks and running special promotions to encourage spending.

Home Depot is planning a campaign to encourage shoppers to use their tax rebates to buy eco-friendly products such as programmable thermostats (and I’m sure a new turbo lawn mower and shiny grill).

You can get all of the details here.

So what’s your plan? Will retailer promotions and incentives sway you?

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On one particular road trip I gained some very useful insight into the world of effective mothering. Let me explain…

In the car was myself (age 26, no kids, but hubby and I will be procreating in the coming years), Friend A (30, she and dh have decided not to breed), Friend B (39, mother of a 13 year old girl and 9 year old boy), and Friend C (46, mother of a 21 year old girl, 19 year old boy, and 14 year old girl). As you can imagine, our conversations, opinions, and views of the world differ greatly — and manage to form a wonderfully weird recipe for comic relief.

Friend C takes a phone call from 19 year old son who is away at college and happy to make regular withdraws from the Bank of Mom & Dad: “I just feel so damn guilty every time I talk to him. He doesn’t have a job. He has no money. I feel like I should be sending him more. All of his friends are out having fun, and I know he’s in his room because he’s broke. Really, so f’ing guilty.”

Myself and Friend A offer the only condolence and advice we can think of: “You’re a wonderful mother!” “Don’t feel guilty! He’ll get a job soon, once he realizes that you and husband won’t financially support him.” “It will get better, don’t beat yourself up over it.”

Friend B then offers up the kind of wisdom that only a mother could concoct: “Screw feeling guilty! Just do what our mothers, and their mothers before them, did — transfer your guilt onto that little shit.”

Problem solved.

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I keep seeing sooo many blogs ridiculing that clip of the women from the LDS-breakoff compound in Texas. They’re robots, they’re brainwashed, they’re as interesting as oatmeal, they’re frumpy, they’re ugly, they’re dressed like Laura Ingalls, they sound coached . . . it just goes on. Many people are demonizing these women, but most are simply laughing their asses off at them.

Well, I’m not. I can’t see anything the least bit comical in that interview. What I see, instead, are three women who have been raised to be gentle, soft-spoken, modest, and kind, thrust into the glare of the public spotlight days after their children were taken from them at gunpoint and the safe insular world that’s all they’ve ever known was torn apart. I see three women standing up to that pressure with incredible grace and strength, doing everything in their power, from breaking their culture’s rules of personal modesty to parroting lawyer-penned lines, to show the world that they’re not child-raping freaks so that they can just get their babies back. I see a fucking TRAGEDY here, and my heart goes out to them.

I do not agree with the practices of the Poly-Mormons. Hell, I just don’t like Mormonism. I also am not a fan of child-rape. But that isn’t what happened there, and nobody seems to understand that.

Picture the scene. You’re a girl, you’re fifteen, you’ve been getting visits from the cardinal for a couple of years now. You live in a culture where there is no independent role for women outside the home. Your parents come to you and say they’ve found a man they’d like you to marry, an older man who is stable and can provide for you and your children and who will treat you kindly. They never say the words, “you have to”, but they’re implied—after all, you’ve been raised to obedience.

You’re not at a Mormon compound in Texas—you’re a free-born American farmgirl born in the year 1835. Or an English noblewoman born in 1532, or a Russian peasant born in 1746. Basically, you’re any girl born anywhere in the world before the twentieth century.

In our modern culture we seem to equate “marriage to underaged girls” with “brutal rape of babies.” Not so. These “children” were probably quite a bit less traumatized by their wedding night than I was by losing my virginity against my will at roughly the same age. Hell, they’re less traumatized than their male counterparts, countless of whom are exiled and abandoned because with the old men marrying multiple young girls, they have no prospects of a wife and family and therefore no place in their culture. But that’s another beef, for another time.

I’m not trying to defend the practices of these “cults”, although I could, to an extent. I’m defending Nancy, Esther, and Marie from the demonization that is being heaped upon their bowed heads. These women were not knowingly commending their daughters into the hands of slavering, abusive child-rapists. They were marrying them off to provider-husbands, as their culture believed. They’re not Koreshians sending their ten-year-old daughters off to a “spiritual marriage” with a slimy cult leader, they’re simply doing what their mothers did, what their grandmothers did, what YOUR great-great-grandmother probably did. They are living the life to which they were born in the best manner possible, and now that life has been torn out from under them. Imagine what you’d feel like if suddenly THEY were the majority, and came storming into your home and confiscated your children because you’d been a horribly abusive monster for letting your 17-year-old daughter dress like a hooker. Myself, I’d be a pissed-off, fire-spitting, enraged dragon-lady. I would not have the strength to sit in front of a camera and quietly, gently, and smilingly defend my way of life. I’d make an ass out of myself, and where would that get me?

Again, I’m not saying that I believe the way these people live is “right”. I’m also not saying it’s “wrong”. It’s most certainly different, but not so much so in a historical context. I’m just saying that no matter the findings of abuse that may or may not come out of the investigation, there is no call to humiliate these women further with public ridicule. They have suffered more in the past few weeks than you or I, G-d willing, will ever suffer in our entire lifetimes. They are terrified, they are lost, and they are despairing. And yet they still have the strength to go on a television program where they knew they were going to be torn apart for their beliefs, and answer questions calmly, gently, and smilingly. They have comported themselves with more grace than I could ever hope to. That’s not “brainwashing”, folks, that’s fucking CLASS. I admire these women for that. And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.

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BPA — or bisphenol-a to you nerdy types — has been in the news a lot lately. Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R Us are the latest to listen to consumer demand (go free market!) and are starting to pull baby bottles containing BPA. Canada’s push for a full ban is moving forward, and more and more companies are starting to manufacture BPA-free alternatives. Why? Because experiments on lab animals has linked BPA to “changes in the brain, early puberty, and possible tumors.” Not exactly something you want to make it’s way into your baby’s body (or yours for that matter — Nalgene, a manufacturer of reusable drinking bottles, is also starting to phase out BPA in its production process).

We’re certainly not ones to shy away from a trend when there’s good science and our kids’ health involved, so we’ve convinced Medela to give away a Breastmilk Feeding & Storage Set containing three BPA-free bottles, lids and nipples, to 5 of our lucky readers to get started down a toxin-free path. (Pssst, we have a sneaky feeling these bottles would be just fine for formula feeding as well.) The entry form is here.

Ed. note: The Imperfect Parent did not receive any compensation for this post

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Phil and I were in the car chatting about what would happen if I got pregnant again and without doubt I told him I  wouldn’t  want another baby. I think I shocked him. Yes, at some point in my life I might want another child, and might even become enthusiastic for sleepless nights and little time to myself but not now, not right now. Right now I have an active almost nine month old, a small pathetic writing career, a good amount of sleep, a body that I’m slowly getting comfortable with, and sanity. I was an emotional wreck when my daughter was a newborn, so why would I put myself through that.

Am I a selfish person for not wanting to shoot babies out one after another? Is it selfish I want to concentrate on ME and MY writing and watching MY one little daughter grow into a little person? Truth be told I don’t give a shit. I’m happy now, and I know getting pregnant again would make me miserable. I think I shocked my husband. I don’t know what he thought; I complain about motherhood at least 10x a week and yet I do adore it, but I am not multiple material.

I said to him, when Paige asks how she was concived I can tell her with love, red wine consumption, and joy. I wouldn’t want to give birth to a child I will resent. And yes, call me awful but I think I would resent it. For all the love I would probably feel a tiny part of me would be miserable, and I don’t want to have to say, well you were a mistake, I didn’t really want another baby but I had you because I felt it was the thing to do since Daddy and I love each other most of the time.

Awful? Maybe.

But I don’t care, I love being mom to one.

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Spring has sprung! As I look out my front door I’m comforted by the new blooms on the trees, the flowers beginning to shoot up, and the warm sun blanketing every surface. I love spring! I love all of the four seasons, especially when they start to blow in.

My quiet neighborhood is also buzzing with children on bikes, scooters, roller blades, you name it!  Some are outfitted with helmets, shoulder pads, the works.  But that’s not my primary concern.  What nearly all of thee kids were missing was parents!  There is no adult supervision.  That’s fine for most kids, but I just can’t comprehend letting a group of 5 year olds roam the streets.  I’m familiar with some of the faces, and I’m aware that many of them live as far as 10 blocks away.
I live in a great neighborhood.  It’s situated on the border of a city, and only a few blocks from semi-rural living.  I love living here, but…

Maybe I am just an over-protective worrier.  Maybe it is because I have a Down Syndrome sister and have always viewed the world as “dangerous” in relation to her.  Growing up only a few miles from the house I now share with my husband, we were only allowed to play in our neighborhood.  And by that I mean on my parent’s block.  My older sister and I, as well as the many kids that lived in the surrounding houses, played on the front lawns.  We couldn’t take off on our bikes without someone’s parent until we were about 8 or 9.  And after 7pm, we had to be in “shouting distance” of our house — close enough to hear mom yelling for us.

Don’t get me wrong — my parents weren’t super-protective!  By age 9 my best friend and I could ride our bikes to the park, roller blade to the ice cream parlor, take off for an hour.  But after an hour had passed we HAD to check in with someone’s parents.  On the rare occasion that we “forgot,” we were met by our mothers, hands on their hips, standing on the corner of our street.  Never a good sign.

I guess I’m just shocked to see little kids (again, 5-6 year olds) riding around the streets at 7 o’clock at night — without an adult in tow.  I am aware that most of their parents work full-time and have other things to do outside of following their kids, but shouldn’t someone be with them?  Why not restrict their adventures to the block on which they live?  I’ve heard some parents say “Well, they just won’t stay on the block.  They just take off on their bikes.”  WHAT???  My parents would have killed me!  I knew my boundaries — which, until I was 5, were “Mrs. St. Maurice’s hedges and Anne’s driveway.  Go beyond that and you’re little behind is in the house for the night!”

I’m worried about some of these kids — am I overreacting?

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