Woot. (Old mnftiu. Get your war on. Yeah, some people like the grad school cartoon or toothpaste for dinner. I pick my poisons too.)

Labels: media, politics

Are not my bag. Or macroeconomics are not. and i know this is not how it works: i know. And i know this is not where it stops, and i know i don't have the patience or the level of interest to figure out why or how. Every time i try to learn anything about it i, oh, look, a shiny object. Or even an object that is not shiny. Or blank space. i could barely finish Freakonomics and in fact now that i think about it, i'm not sure i did, and there are not very many books i don't (eventually) finish. But somehow i can't help going, You greedy thieving bastards, I hope you lose six houses.

Vaguely concerned about the retirement accounts.

If those sordid old white men have handed my daughter thousands of dollars in debt, though, if they saddle her with something awful that will keep her from going to college (if she wants to go to college), then i know enough in turn that i am absolutely powerless to stop them, and that makes me angry.

(Did you think Viagra was a cure? Viagra is a symptom of all that is wrong with America. Ohhhh? Rapacious elderly man wants more power? More gratuitous luxury for the rich with nothing better to do? Covered by his fancy health insurance that denies other people things they actually need? Why, of course. Assholes.) Um, apparently i'm still bitter.

Labels: emptor

You are now officially Too Big for nine month things, and most size seventy-four-centimeter things which is the system here, and also Too Big for a lot of twelve month things, and some of the size eighty-centimeter things, and so when i was at the resale shop there was a little jacket with fur around the hood (fake) and it looked like it was big enough but said it was size 9m, but it was €5 so i got it anyway and it must be the largest size 9m thing ever to be made because we have to roll up the sleeves. Wore it to Red Bull Flugtag (which was awesome, though we could have done without the rain) and you looked so snug. Also got one of those fleecey blankets and have cut holes in it to sit in the stroller and wrap you up in with the seatbelt. I love that fleece doesn't ravel. Having to buy a sewing machine would be a pain.

Things that are not a pain: well, we got you some Duplos, but you won't know which day your birthday is anyway, so we've opened them and been playing with them. Because you were playing with L's Duplos in Miskolc and couldn't get enough. So we build a thing and you take it apart but - but! - if we put them in your hands just the right way, then you can put two together. Just two. And then you take them apart again. But you get it.

I went to the stationary store today in an attempt to get you crayons - who would think, they don't have normal crayons? How can a country without crayons exist? - but there were no Crayolas. There were weird Austrian extra-waxy things that might translate to crayons, or they smelled kind of almost but not exactly like crayons, i don't know, maybe they're better, maybe they're adequate, i guess we'll see, and i don't know if you'll like crayons because eighteen months and up is splattered all across the Crayola website, but somehow we will puzzle through. Can store them if you don't like them yet, anyway.

You aren't walking regularly by any means: you are very cautious, and almost never let go. And when you do let go you really almost never take a step. But this is how you are: you do a thing, and then forget about it for a week or two weeks or a month, and then you're doing it like it's nothing. But every time you take a step, you are taking it towards the dog.

Dog is doing well with you. She lets you hug her and pet her (except when you pet her, sometimes you remember to be gentle, and sometimes you get too excited and kinda swatty) and she gives you doggy kisses even when you don't have food on you. When she gets fed up with being poked in the eye we are trying to teach her to go and lie down on the bed, but if we decide to switch rooms with you and put the bed up (which i am trying to talk M into) then we'll have to have another strat. She is very cautious when you are eating, always there, just in case, but she has learned very, very thoroughly to not take food from you directly (ahem.)

So you have learned, in response, that you have to throw food on the floor for the dog to get it, and we usually decide, when you start throwing stuff on the floor, it means you're not hungry any more, right? if you're not interested in eating? Because there will be no Clean Plate Club membership. i can say that much. You do this thing, in particular, when you're definitely full, that you'll take something we put in your mouth (either puree or bits) and take it out with one hand (this really doesn't work well with the puree, let me tell you) and then you throw it on the floor. Clear signal, that. Because we praise you for putting food in your mouth, i guess. You are getting much better with the spoon-goes-in-the-bowl when it's something you want, which is mostly applesauce. We go through many large jars of applesauce: if we were still buying babyfood applesauce, we might not be able to afford it all. Grownup applesauce i think has added citric acid, or something; but whatever is in it it doesn't stain, so you can do it yourself, mostly. With a minimal amount of guidance. Eating all sorts of other things: last night for dinner we had some beef and tomato sauce babyfood stuff, lumpy but from a jar, and some big broccoly stalks and some long, thin pieces of cheese. And you ate the broccoly and the cheese but didn't want anything to do with the puree: because there was tomato in it, i wouldn't let you fling the spoon.

We do have to remember to keep your Cheerios out of dog reach. They are an unnecessarily expensive snack for her.

Labels: baby, milestones

If we don't move:

• We don't have to move.
• We don't have to fill out new forms and get the cable reconnected and have everything forwarded and reregister with the meldebureaus and all of whatever other paperwork there is.
• We don't have to take apart all the furniture.
• Living above the little restaurant is kinda nice.
• Also near park, grocery, pharmacy, little store on the corner (which i have just found out is Israeli, not Turkish), video store, tagesmutter, work.
• Our floors are more annoyingly creaky than i previously thought possible.
• Old crumby building. Want neubau.
• Drafty old windows and doors. (Continue to be in process of fixing. Takes a lot of fixing. Many strips of sticky insulation tape. Many trips to sticky insulation tape store. All that work not wasted. False: sunk costs.)
• No balcony.
• Still stupid two-hallway layout in five hundred square feet.
• Unbabysafeable heating system (seriously, because i am the MacGyver of babyproofing, though realistically i think probably all parents are, and while the radiators could be babyproofed with a circular saw and some latticework, the tubing, not remotely. I am researching insulation, though. And should i really buy a circular saw just for this? I can't decide. And i'd also need an electric drill. And other things. And i have asked the other parents in Vienna how they babyproof their heating system, and the answer is that they don't, so does that mean it's possible not to? And if they're not doing it, shouldn't i all the same? Overthinking).
• The toilet is through the closet.
• Said toilet includes no sink.
• The bathroom is in the kitchen. (The previous sentence only makes sense if you have been here. I know.)
• We have relatively quiet neighbors.

If we move:

• Theoretically, the perfect apartment exists.
• The perfect apartment is within a five minute walk from our current apartment. We have decided on this. It is a high priority to be close to the work and close to the tagesmutter and that gives us about a six block radius and it is nonnegotiable.
• It has three rooms, plus a functional kitchen with, by God, room for a microwave.
• The dishwasher in the perfect apartment works better than our dishwasher.
• The layout of the perfect apartment does not have two stupid hallways. The toilet is not through the closet. The bathroom is not in the kitchen. Of all places.
• The perfect apartment features a sink in close proximity to the toilet.
• Possibly a balcony.
• Every apartment in Vienna has the same unbabysafeable hot-copper-pipes-and-radiators hot-water heating system. All winter long.
• We'd have to move. The furniture, the mail. And do all that other stuff. In German. Again.
• I hate moving.
• It is winter. I hate moving in winter. And it is raining. And i hate moving in the rain.

The perfect apartment does not exist, at this time, in this neighborhood. And i am not going to compromise and have to move for less than perfect. And i know it does not exist in the here and now availability because i combed the internet today and it wasn't there.

If, on the other hand, we switch rooms with Little E:

• Maybe we could stop sneaking through the closet to go to the toilet after 8 pm. Stupid creaky floors. Stupid toilet location.
• Room for all her toys in one place. Especially now that we've got her a bucket of Duplos (which do intersect with her Quattros, but not as well as i had been expecting).
• If we put the bed in the attic we could still fit our big wardrobe in the room where we sleep.
• If we put the bed in the attic, the dog can't get on the bed any more. I can't decide if this is a plus or a minus. Because first you instinctively go MINUS but then you think, oh, the dog hair, and she couldn't track mud on the pillows, and she wouldn't take up half the bed any more and the way we are always shoving each other to give me more room and then i can't because the DOG is taking up literally half the bed, with the dog hair, and the little road construction pebbles that get stuck in her paws, or something, maybe it is a plus.
• If we put the bed in the attic, no more babycuddles in our bed, so we'd have to unfold the futon. But there would be room in her room for the futon, especially seeing as how she's outgrowing nursing in the Ikea POANG chair - her feet don't just hang off the side any more, her knees get stuck under the arm. It was about a perfect nursing chair while it lasted, but its future is limited. Or maybe put the blue sofa in her room. Either way.
• If we put the bed on the floor, then we can't fit any other furniture in there. At all. But then we get the baby and the dog on the bed.

Humm.

Labels: house

The big news would be that you can walk.

Um, only two steps, and you only did it once, but you are moving nonstop. And you crawl fast and before i know it i blinked and you're off playing with the shower curtain. What is it with the shower curtain? I think you really like your bath. Anyway, even less time for, oh, blogging.

You also did the sign for lights several times and the sign for milk once. Have added in water and hurt (also still hoping on bed, mommy, daddy, dog, more, all done; i'll start remembering what change was too, maybe diaper, maybe eat-food, what else? book. Yes.) but no response on anything else yet. ASL Dictionary continues to be the most helpful website ever. Maybe will point out cat and chicken. Um, will you get sad if you figure out that the chicky in your animal book and the food inside the schnitzel is the same thing? Um.

People ask what i want for my birthday. And i said i wanted people to vote, and to tell their friends to vote, and an Obama onesie for E. And then i was making angry noises about Mrs McCain's $300,000 outfit and M said Well if you had enough money to not worry about it why not spend six figures on earrings? and i said If i had enough money to not worry about it i'd buy world peace and he said But no amount of money will do that. Stupid realpolitik. And i already have a new pair of shoes to replace the old pair that are literally falling apart after i wore them every day for two years and put about a million miles on them (unlike some shoes i could mention, that fall apart AND give you blisters after hobbling about and driving in cars for a single evening). Though i could really use one or four of those wide rubber bands that broccoli and asparagus come wrapped in in the States - we have had a row of several jars be very hard to open and all the vegetables here come wrapped in skinny rubber bands instead and they always flip off.

But no. Oh no no. what am i getting? Spore. It will download as soon as M gets home and can make the silly game-buyer-software-download thinger go. And as an extra plus E really liked watching the Sporelets in the creature creator dance. Woot!

Labels: emptor

Okay.

Obama will pass the Fair Pay Act and the Employment NonDiscrimination Act, to make sure that my daughter and my female friends and my gay and trans friends and, well, me, we can work and can get paid like men do. He will help ex-offenders reintegrate into society and expand prison-to-work programs, and will listen to things that prove drug rehab programs work better than prison terms for drug offenses; these programs have been PROVEN to reduce recidivism, and fewer people in our prisons would be a really good thing, especially for minorities. He wants to help people vote and get involved in democracy which is a good thing immediately and if you need help explaining that one, when we live in a place where everybody is supposed to get a vote, then you're beyond my powers of reason. He will end the stop-loss program (good for military families, and good for the military in general, as people will be more likely to enlist if they don't get stuck in the hot place for years and years) and will not build unproven missile defense systems (and spend money we don't have and piss off the rest of the world by doing so, when the stupid thing DOESNT WORK ANYWAY); he wants to return to being a leader among *allies* instead of the detested straw man GWB has made himself (and you thought Democrats hated him? do you think *I* am angry? Democrats have a mild distaste for the man compared to what i hear out here). He has a plan to help autistic spectrum persons that makes me cry i want it so much. He wants to give tax cuts to working families instead of the uber-rich (and i bet his idea of a working family is not somebody with a five million dollar revenue stream).

I am not even halfway done.

He has introduced legislation to reward companies that give good jobs with good benefits to Americans and wants to end tax breaks and other perks on companies that send jobs away (do you need help seeing why this is a good thing?). He wants to ensure that much much more of our energy comes from renewable sources, creating jobs and stimulating the economy in the process - and energy independence is good in the long term, and jobs are good in the short term and the long term. He wants to double federal funding for basic science research (which will basically put it back where it was seven years ago, and which i have something of a personal interest in as i don't know if i could find a job in the states right now, and i'd kind of like to go home at some point in the future. Want liz home? Vote Obama). He wants to protect workers' rights by protecting the freedom to organize and raising the minimum wage (and indexing it to inflation) and expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act which will really help a lot of people trying to balance family and work - not everyone even gets sick days. He wants to expand afterschool programs and make quality child care more affordable and available (i can't even explain how big and immediate a problem this is for parents), he wants to make math and science education an actual priority instead of somethign to be stigmatized and cut, he wants to recruit and retain and reward teachers, and he really wants to be sure that every child has health insurance (as opposed to making sure that every baby is born, and then letting it go). He wants to ensure that everybody, everybody, has health insurance ("by the end of his first term in office"). He supports stem cell research (and if you don't know anybody that could help, you aren't paying attention), supports Roe v Wade (important, because it IS under attack), and has introduced legislation to expand complete sex ed and access to contraceptives and prevent unwanted pregnancies (and, therefore, prevent abortions too, which let's face it nobody wants). He favors a phased withdrawal from and political solution to Iraq, and wants to strengthen Veterans Affairs and expand it to include all veterans (which i didn't even realize it didn't, and that is sickening). He believes that passing laws such as No Child Left Behind that mandates states to spend money without providing the money for them is a pretty bad idea, so he wants to provide the money. He will require polluters to pay for Superfund cleanups. He wants to safeguard and improve public transportation (because you are lucky enough to have a good job and an apartment you can afford in a decent enough neighborhood with a safe and functional subway, but not everyone is so lucky). He wants to triple the size of AmeriCorps and expand the Peace Corps (which will help everyone in the whole world). He wants to build a safety net for family farms and favors immediate country of origin labeling (which i've seen, here, and i think it's really cool). He has ideas about fighting poverty and ending the inner-city violence cycle that could really work and have been implemented and are working in the small scale already. He has a detailed plan to end our addiction to Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil in ten years (TEN years!) and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 80%. He wants to build a million plug-in cars, in American factories with American workers, and put them on the road for American drivers to save money at the pump. He wants to avoid a war with Iran. He favors a two-state solution in Israel (fucking Finally!!) and has a plan to help Palestinian families, not Hamas and Hezbollah. He wants to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, worldwide. He will stop the Darfur genocide and fight poverty in Africa by doubling our foreign assistance investment.

And this is how he will pay for it: He wants to restore fiscal discipline (i say restore, because the debt has increased by 50% under GWB) and institute pay-as-you-go spending and cut pork and end tax haven abuse and tax cuts for the very rich. He has voted over and over and over again for pay-as-you-go spending.

And, above and beyond every platform plank i can find to agree with, he engages people who have not been engaged in politics. He makes people realize that their votes and their voices count. We are supposed to be part of a democracy, here - if people don't vote, if they feel like they can't affect their own government, the government whose only purpose is to help them and that was put in place for them, the terrorists haven't won, but the founding fathers sure have lost. I believe in democracy (or, well, republicness, but whatevs). And if more people are voting because Barack Obama inspires them, because he *does* bring hope, then that is a very good thing.

In short: I LOVE HIM, CAN HE PLEASE BE PRESIDENT.

There are places he's not perfect: i'd like it if he explicitly favored nuclear energy, if he said he liked gay marriage, if he promised he'd sign Kyoto. but he is so, so far ahead of the opposition. so ...

here, after everything else, now, is the part where i talk down the other guy: you want the compromise position? Where have the Republicans compromised recently? Is that the part where we destroy the environment in the name of maybe getting ten cent cheaper gas in twenty years? Is that the part where we ignore what most of America thinks about choice and outlaw abortion in every case? Is that the part where we don't have health care for huge numbers of people, including really depressing numbers of sick children? Is the status quo really the way you want things to be, with people dying far from home for a war nobody wants any more, people out of work who want to be working, more people going to food pantries and soup kitchens than have happened in a long, long time, and just because your personal life is going well, it's all okay? It's not okay. it's NOT OKAY.

Labels: politics

Palin gives me hives.

Though, to be fair, so does McCain, and i'd hate whoever he picked. And the let's-talk-the-pregnant-teenager-into-keeping-it-(or, again just to be fair, they probably just raised her that way, so it can still be her "decision" to have an 80% chance or whatever it is of dropping out of high school and a slim to none chance of finishing college and a where has your life gone now, Little Miss Priveleged chance of ever really being able to support herself without her parents or her husband helping)-and-marrying-Mr-Myspace-Kids-Hater is barely the icing on a many layered cake of I Disagree With Everything They Have Ever Said Or Done, so there's that.

Also it ticks me off to no FUCKING end that they keep emphasizing that it was the daughter's CHOICE to have this child, and to keep this child, when it is a choice that Ms Gives-Me-Hives would take away from everyone else's daughter ever. WANT TO BREAK THINGS. GRRRRR

Whatever she says now she was a big proponent of the bridge to nowhere before.
She is anti-choice even in cases of rape and incest. (Now i want to hit someone.)
She supports abstinence only sex ed. (Way to get more abortions, moron.)
She favors (i am actually TWITCHING) the teaching of CREATION. Not just intelligent design, Creation. Christian creation. By god. In public schools.
She is against gay marriage. (Oh, fuck you. Fuck you.)
She wants to open the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. (BUT YOU LIVE THERE. HOW CAN YOU? HOW? &!!%$#@!*@&(!*$#$%*)
She doesn't think people have contributed to global warming. At all. (gah)
She opposed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. (Fucking hypocrite!)
et c.

and the extra little dab of icing? This person could be in a place that would allow her to make medical decisions for EVERY American (see: four Justices disagree with Roe v Wade already and more are up to go). And if she got on an EIGHT HOUR plane ride with her WATER BROKEN with a SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD then she was putting them BOTH at risk. and this is not someone i want making ANY decisions for me. And i know this just sticks in my head because i still feel like i just gave birth so i'm all hyper-aware of it, but whatever.

I am twitching so much i have a cramp in my arm now. How can i punch people in the face like i want to if i have a cramp in my arm? Ahhh, nonviolence.

But do you see this? This is feminism. This is prioritizing her POSITIONS on ISSUES THAT MATTER. And not about her body, and not about Can a mommy be a president?, and not about her VPILF-ness, and not about her daughter, and it's great that a woman is on the republican ticket even if she is anti-woman, but what else would i hope for from Them anyway? Bah. I am a spitting yellow cockroach Democrat but i can't decide if that is saying a whole hell of a lot or very very little at all - though i will fight tooth and nail for those tiny grain-of-sand differences between the two main parties. Assholes. When can i vote? I WANNA VOTE.

Everybody i know better vote.

Labels: politics

http://mjam.at

I put in my address, and it not only tells me exactly who will deliver what to me for how much at this hour, but plugs in reviews of each restaurant and can sort them by type of food and by rating. And then - i think - i can order it all online without talking to an actual person on the scarey deutsche telefonapparat. i LOVE the intarwebs. this is the coolest thing ever. Someone is a genius. Hey, can we get that guy a Fulbright?

Now if only i was remotely hungry. The Indian place listed first has a review that goes like this:

nomnomnom

and that's it.

editing pictures is boring (it WOULD be hazy when we're on top of the stupid church in another country, right? Right?). Am getting better at taking pictures that are coming out cooler (to be fair, so is M; this fancy camera thing is paying off) and i don't want to delete them, so have to upload to Flickr and tag. Bah. Off to Lolcats. Again. Nomnomnom.

Labels: food, internet

Was pushed to this coming weekend from July, to make room for the Euro cup. Europe's largest open air festival, with music and ... all those other things, free. (Maybe we should remember to bring a picnic.) Site. Map. Excerpts:

8 | Wr. Städtische Versicherung / Sicheres Wien - Insel
Samstag&Sonntag 14:00 Uhr Rettungshunde des Arbeiter Samariterbundes, des Roten Kreuzes, der Johanniter und der Österreichischen Rettungshundebrigade Zeigen Wie Sie Leben Retten
Samstag&Sonntag 17:00 Uhr Vorführung der Polizeidiensthunde Wien

9 | Eskimo / Kinderfreunde - Insel
Freitag, 5. Sept. 2008 von 14.00 bis 18.00 Uhr
Samstag, 6. Sept. 2008 von 13.00 bis 18.00 Uhr
Sonntag, 7. Sept. 2008 von 10.00 bis 18.00 Uhr
Samstag 14:00, 15:30 Uhr Kasperltheater - Puppenbühne der Wiener Kinderfreunde
Samstag 14:30 Uhr Showbox - Die Talenteshow mit Jungen Talenten, Präsentiert von Walter Mohl

14 | MTV - Insel
Taglich Von 15:00 - 20:00 Uhr wird täglich zu einem Graffiti Contest

20 | Arbeitswelt - Insel
Samstag 13:00 Uhr Live-Musik mit Calvados, What the Funk, Blue Zweigelt Blues Band, Capt. Minus und die Mathematiker, Take Off

23 | Kinder - Prater - Insel
Samstag, Sonntag 10:00 Uhr Kinder - Prater

50 | Sonstiges Jet Ski Freestyle Champions
Samstag 14:30 Uhr Freestyle Contest Group A
Samstag 15:30 Uhr Freestyle Contest Group B
Samstag 16:45 Uhr Backflip Contest
Sonntag 13:00 Uhr Final

also, Red Bull Flugtag 21 September. Holy Crazy Festival-Having Europeans, Batman.

Labels: festivities, vienna

You will eat whatever we put in front of you but are starting to put fewer things in your mouth for just exploring - so now we can set you down in a playground with wood chips on it and you don't eat the wood chips. Score! (Bye-bye Freudian oral stage and theoretical dependency issues, right? Something like that. Anyway, not everything is going in the mouth, any more.) And then you can watch all the larger kids on the playground stuff, and you can go in the swings and we can pull you slowly down the slide and there are little rocking horses and teeter totters and things, and you stare at the kids climbing on the taller bits of playground and learn and learn and learn.

But you are so funny, now, you are a little crawling mass of id. If there is a nipple you HAVE to have milk. If there is a stacked set of stacky cups you HAVE to knock it over (which is convenient to distract you for a moment: i set up the stacky cups in the opposite corner from where you are, and then i have about forty-five seconds to clean something up as quickly as possible, because nothing will take you off those cups). And, um, if the books are on the shelf, you HAVE to go and pull them off - though admittedly we do keep them on the baby-sized shelf so you can read them whenever you want. Less convenient while visiting, where you also HAVE to pull everybody else's books and magazines off everybody else's shelves. All just as soon as you notice. And Nagymama says you're going to be mischievous but i think that requires the understanding that you're not supposed to do something and the remembering that you're not supposed to do it and i don't think you're quite there yet. You stop when i say No. (usually, this week, in the context of No standing up in the bath, and then you look around at me and sit back down. And i can say that's not for eating and you don't.) So there's that.

Doing well with the one-sided nursing. About every two or three days - whenever it gets really engorged, which is getting slowly less often - i let you nurse once on the right, just to take the edge off, or i'll use the breast pump, which is gentler but less efficient. And once every two or three days is rare enough that i can heal in between so it's not so bad, and i know if i just dealt with the engorgement and didn't get the milk out it would probably go away faster, but i'm playing this by ear and changing my mind every fifteen minutes, it seems like, and you're sure eating enough and getting enough milk on the left the rest of the time, more or less i think, and anyway this is working, for us, for now. Slowly i am healing and the elasticity is coming back into my skin, slowly, so i crack a little less each time, which is JUST AS PAINFUL AS IT SOUNDS, but it's there and it's working, at least.

We are thinking of what to do for your birthday. It's a Thursday so I can be home; but, oh, right, we have to call the doc and reschedule your appointment for the week before your birthday instead of the week after because your great-aunt and uncle are coming and right now you're getting your first MMR shot the day before they visit and that has the chance of putting you in a pretty sour mood, so we'll try and fix that ... mmmkay ... but there will be a zoo visit, i'm sure, and we'll find you some Crayolas, and a nice winter coat and snow pants (absolutely necessary for the playground in the cold, here, disastrously so), and maybe some iTunes. You have two shelves of books, two full boxes and a bin of toys, plenty of clothes, you have musical instruments and dolls and light-up phones and fingerpuppets and spoons and sippy cups and puzzles and a stacking cup set and bath toys and stuffed animals and Lego Quattros (which are even larger than Lego Duplos, but you were playing with Duplos happily in Miskolc so i think we can upgrade) and photos and a ring pyramid and so many things. As of yet, you have no extensive block set or play food, now that i think about it, but you do have nice European wooden toys - a small-scale woodpecker on a stick that goes clickyclickyclickyclick and a big push-toy thing that we are calling a butterfly that, as it happens, goes clackyclackyclackyclack when you walk with it and the wheels go around and right now we have to push it for you and you chase it, but i think when you learn to walk you can push it yourself. You have a (plastic, but) bunny whose ears move when you pull or push him, you have a soccer ball, you have a book with zippers and snaps and buttons and velcro. So maybe we will find you some blocks.

Do you need blocks, if you have a stacking cup set and two full to overflowing bins of toys? We could get you a block set and then theoretically donate some of the toys you don't seem to like so much. If i could find a place to donate toys. Donating clothes is easy: in a four block radius there are at least five or six drop boxes, just next to the recycling bins, and i know they accept "household items," some of them, but i'm not sure that includes toys. I bet it does. Small space living is having us make decisions. Do you need the phone that only rattles, if you have the one that lights up? Do you need the stuffed cat, the big white bear that sheds fur when you touch it, the elephant in an election year? (Um, you may not need the elephant in an election year, though i'm trying to teach you to bite it viciously.) We haven't donated any toys yet, but that giraffe rattle i think you have outgrown. Maybe, too, we'll get you a shape-learning puzzle blocky thing, and donate ... something ... to make room for it. Do you need a shape-learning puzzle blocky thing if you have a shape-learning book? Do you need blocks if we just go ahead and get you a basic bucket set of Duplos? Humm.

Mommy is being paranoid about encouraging your creative development. Clearly overthinking this. Put the coffee down and step away.

Labels: baby, breastfeeding, milestones

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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