January 31, 2011

January 31st, 2011

Hi Baby,

See this day's post over at your mom's other blog, "1/3 Life Chic," where I try to talk about fashion.

Can't wait to dress you up and not embarrass you with MY clothes!

January 27, 2011

January 27th, 2011

*Kind of a weird topic for January, but it's been on my mind awhile...

Dear Sofia,

Is it true: conservatives love Christmas and liberals love halloween?

Things to love about Christmas: Celebrating the Savior/acknowledging there IS a Savior(!); corporate worship; singing great hymns of the past (honoring faith of our fathers); time spent with family...

It's no secret, to me at least, why we love Christmas so much. Even "secular Christmas" (meaning, all the fluff without the significance) is celebrated with joy as people sing carols, give gifts and suddenly become quite philanthropic.

Halloween shouldn't even be called a "holiday" since it is not a holy day. There is no "orthodox halloween" and "secular halloween;" it's all secular. In fact, it's all pagan. And why do they like it so much? I think it's for these reasons:
- Dressing in costume symbolizes their belief that man can change himself (free will/God's impotence)
- Romanticizing of death - for those who don't believe in eternal life, death is the ultimate event in one's life
- The excuse to frighten people, especially children - harming children in some way seems to follow a liberal m.o. (see: abortion)
- Handing out candy is a seemingly innocuous easy of enveloping children into the tradition, fixing in their minds the reward for the best participation in the pagan practice

As for me, I'm torn. Does halloween have to be a celebration of death, a spitting in the face of God while baying to the full moon and gorging on sweets? Dressing up in costumes is fun, for goodness sake, and when you're a creative person you need all the outlets you can get! Really, how often does one get to dress up, for any occasion?

Baby, I dressed you as a sushi roll for your first halloween. Was that wrong? Even your dad thought it was cute. But how will we participate in it when you're older? Anyone have suggestions?

January 25, 2011

January 25th, 2011

Dear Sofia,

I don't think I want you to have a social network account. What is social networking? Punchline: a huge waste of time! Ha!

No, just kidding. Although I often find myself in a wormhole on facebook, I mostly like to check new kid photos and read funny stories from friends in other states (that'd be all of my friends). Or giggle at how many comments I get on funny pictures I post of you get.

But, in case anyone reading this blog would rather NOT participate in the myriad information stealing tactics on said facebook, below is a link to a short article detailing how to remove yourself from most info-mining. Mostly it involves resetting your privacy options, but there was an element there I wasn't aware of.

Best tip from me: don't stay signed in. Just uncheck that box. Otherwise, every partner website you go to while you are still signed in will steal your stats. There are a ton of partner sites to facebook; that's how a "free" site makes money, you know.

Baby, I already see your eyes meandering to the glow of the laptop screen sometimes. Look away, look away!!

Love, Mom

ps. Here is the article I mentioned.

January 24, 2011

January 23rd, 2011

Dear Sofia,

Someday, baby, you will understand that your mom is weird. But.. not in an awkward or embarrassing way. Rather, I have too many things I want to do and not enough creative outlets for them.

Also, I'm an idea stealer. I see something cool, I will copy it. I have no qualms about this. I'm a good art copycat, which makes it easy to decorate my home with beautiful pictures - without having to buy those tacky reproduction posters (apologies if any readers like those, I just prefer the tactile element to real paint). Or, I see a fashion I can't afford and I can easily try to sew it myself.

I do have a thing against knock-offs, meaning fashion or accessories that are pretending to be the real thing but aren't. I do not like those. But my copies are ok to me, probably justified in my mind because I know it's a form of flattery and not trying to usurp the original item.

That is a long introduction to the following picture. Sofia, your auntie Angela sent me a series of photographs of a woman's baby, dressed and posed while she sleeps. They are AMAZING. They are so amazing that I thought, "I wonder if I could pull those off." Now, I still do not know how to work my camera (which is dumb, because I've had it over two years!) and this was a first attempt, but I still think it turned out ok. And, so long as you don't mind I would like to try some more!

*If anyone has any suggestions, I'm happy to use them!


P.S. The "big bad wolf" is Pousse. He's the only thing close to a beast we've got around here, and since he's pretty silky, he doesn't make for a very tough-looking villain!

January 21, 2011

January 21st, 2011


Dear Sofia,

I'm not going to write much in detail about the babies in this story; it's too shocking and too sad.

Over this past week a story came out about an abortion "clinic" in Philadelphia, PA where hundreds of babies were murdered. I cannot express how deeply mournful I am for those babies. An abortion "clinic" is a place where people go to have their babies taken away from them, and their lives destroyed. This particular one offered abortion services well past the legal gestational age of 24 weeks. In fact, at least one baby was murdered at 30 weeks - that's just two months before being full term.

Many babies are labored and birthed before that point. A woman I work with had her baby at 22 weeks. He was only 2 1/2 pounds upon delivery. Today, he is four years old and just a little small for his age, compared to his peers.

Why would someone opt to kill their baby instead of giving it up for adoption? I think many women are told that it's not really a baby, or, carrying he/she to full term and then giving him/her up means it really is and was a baby all the time. Faced with the decision to either deal with the emotions attached to keeping a baby you weren't planning on or pretend that it "never really happened," a lot of women (and not just young women) choose the latter.

At every abortion facility, they are killing babies. But they, for the most part, abide by the law to do it. That does NOT make it right, not at all. But even Planned Parenthood will say "we can't help you here" if you're further along than the 24-week limit. At the place in Philadelphia, however, babies were gruesomely, viciously, savagely treated.

And their mothers fared no better. At least two women were killed during procedures: one was overdosed with anesthesia - administered by un-medically trained staff - and the other bled to death after having her internal organs punctured by the clumsy "doctor" of the place. Another woman, only 17 year old, required a hysterectomy after a botched procedure. Faced with an unwanted child once, now she never again has the option of having children.

I want to scream about this. I want to - forgive me, Lord - inflict revenge against these child murderers. Their brutality makes me sick, and yet it's the sin behind it that really turns my stomach.

Even way back when I was a liberal (yes, it's an embarrassing truth) I wasn't comfortable with accepting abortion as an equally reasonable option. I would say I was "pro-choice" but almost always vocalized a caveat to that stance, namely that abstinence and, barring its failure, adoption were far better choices because they spared an innocent life and posed no threat to the mother's emotional/mental health. Yes, even back when I thought the Iraq war was "for money," I could not stomach the cavalier attitude with which people spoke of aborting babies, as if it was just another "medical procedure," like removing a tooth.

Someone will comment that it's only because I have a baby myself now - because I've been in the exact position of "choosing" whether or not to have a baby - that I can be so staunchly pro life. But it isn't just you, Sofia, that colors my perspective. It's the babies that were miscarried, grieving their mothers. It's the women who long to have children or be able to adopt, just to hold a squirming, wrinkled little person who needs them. It's the women who did chose to abort a child, and later fall into despair because of it.

All of these have given me a profound sense of empathy. A heart for little ones and their mothers alike, you could say. It's only you that has increased my ability to love so much more, so I have room for more in its scope.

I think I want to become a pregnancy counselor.

January 10, 2011

January 10th, 2011

Dear Sofia,

Yesterday we heard/read about a shooting in Arizona. A 22-year-old activist decided that, instead of participating in the world like a reasonable person does, he would shoot to kill his district's congresswoman. He didn't agree with the way she was doing her job in government. It was very sad that, in addition to that woman who was killed, so were several other people; the shooting took place at an outdoor meeting in a public place. Included in the casualties was a nine-year-old girl. She was just a child and now she has been killed.

The reactions in the "news" media have been typical as of late: they all suppose that the shooter was an "anti-government" / "hateful" / loosely-related-to-the-tea-party person. Forgetting, or deliberately putting out of mind as it were, that "anti-government" is not synonymous with "politically conservative." Nor has the tea party movement ever been linked to violence of any kind. Not even yelling and screaming at a rally, nada. They aren't anti-government, they're anti wasteful, bloated government.

But when citizens exercise their constitutional right to protest against their government running out of control, they're called domestic terrorists these days! While all along people like the Arizona murderer, who was exercising not his rights but his personal inclinations, get somehow validated posthumously because they're, essentially, useful idiots.

Oh, how dare I insinuate that the "news" media ignored the facts of the crime so they could use him as an example of how "dangerous incendiary media figures like Sarah Palin" are inciting people to violence against government figures! By the way, did you know that I didn't quote that line "dangerous...?" I put it in quotes because I assumed someone had written that! So I googled it... and got 102,000 results with "incendiary" and "Sarah Palin" together. The first one came from a so-called writer on the Huffington Post. Go figure, huh?

I am so appalled at the media treatment of this crime. I'm angry and righteously so, for the families of the murdered. To every writer who reported from the anti-government angle, you should be ashamed of yourself.

January 1, 2011

January 7th, 2011

Dear Sofia,

Happy New Year, baby!

By the end of this year you will be one year old. As excited as I am for that, I already don't want you to grow up or get bigger. Please stay small and sweet forever.

Love,

Your Mom

December 23rd, 2010

Dear Sofia,

See these pictures? This is why I don't like to make gluten free cookies!

They take a lot of ingredients to prepare, the dough is difficult to use (super sticky) and they stick to the pans
so removing them means breaking them into tiny pieces.

Arrrgh!

I can make great brownies, cake, cupcakes, muffins.. I just can't do cookies well. Even with a mix something always seems to go wrong.

But, this year I did make some sugar cookies for Christmas eve and they turned out very nice.



The trick was, they are dairy free also (because your first cousin, Kristan, is df as well as gf). I had better learn how to make cookies consistently so you and I can do them for Christmas in a few years!

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