Thursday, April 21, 2011

My Husband Went to Texas

....and all he brought me was this stupid cold.

Yuck.  Bill got back from a business trip last Friday and I promptly fell to whatever nasty virus he carried home. I tried to stick it out Saturday and Sunday, but Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were couch days. Rosie joined me in my misery and together we watched PBS Nova videos and Cesar Milan episodes on Hulu between nose blowing, cough drops and cups of soothing teas.

Theo attended soccer camp for the first three days of the week, but he came home yesterday sneezing and blowing, a sure sign that his system is overcome.

Currently I'm at that awkward stage where nothing sounds good but I'm starving, my body aches for serious exercise from the stiffness of lying on the couch for 3 days (and 2 nights) but the 15 foot walk to the kitchen requires a 10 minute nap.

I spend 20 minutes trolling the web for more ideas of how to beat this virus.  Nothing I haven't thought of.  Here's my personal list:
- lots of ginger/lemon/honey tea
- lots of throat coat tea
- chicken broth soup (oddly the homemade bone broth made me retch, so I'm onto Pacific Natural Food broth)
- naps
- zinc
- herbal remedies for cold/flu and echinacea plus from Dr. Schultz
- tom kha gai soup from the local Thai restaurant
- baths with both epsom salts and sea salts

I suspect it will be a few days before I'm back to par.  Fortunately until then, PBS just posted a new series with Professor Henry Gates, Black In Latin America.  

Friday, April 15, 2011

I Can't Be Racist

Here's a fascinating post by JaeRan Kim about how people (I'm figuring really it is mostly white people) justify that they can't be prejudiced because they have a _______ friend.

It reminds me of my post a while back struggling with the word "friend."  And it brings to mind the challenge at Pact Camp every year - as white parents of children of color, who are we *really* friends with - who do we share dinner with, who do we worship with, who do we spend our leisure time with.

I really like JaeRan's point that we all grew up with and still carry prejudice.  What is important is what we choose to do about it.
We have our biases and our prejudices – the point is, when do we decide we are going to be responsible for what we say, and take ownership when what we say is based on stereotype and assumption? What do we do? Say, “I’m sorry you were offended” (which always blames the victim). Or do we say, “wow, I didn’t realize that what I said was offensive” and then take active steps to learn from that experience?
Taking stock of the reality of our relationships can be very challenging.  But really, isn't it worth it to look around and see who we're really telling ourselves and our children is worthy of our time, attention and love?

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Old Prejudice

image from Gap.com
can't find an attributable source for this

Earlier in the month, I posted about my frustrations with my jeans wearing too thin too quickly.  I blamed it on my extra weight, but in the comments section someone suggested it was the Gap brand quality and that I should try Levis.

Normally, I consider suggestions like that pretty seriously.  But without a second thought, I marched off to the Gap and bought 2 pairs of jeans.  I didn't consider looking at Levis, I didn't even try to figure out where there might be some I could try on.

This morning the reason why dawned on me.  Cowboys wear Levis, people from town don't.

Wow, is that an old and very random prejudice rattling around inside my brain that I had NO idea was there.  One along the lines of town people are much more sophisticated than kids from ranches, and sophisticated is of course, better. Shocking to me because both sides of my family are/were cowboys.  My mom still wears Levis (she also did barrel racing).  Assumably, being a town girl, I picked the idea up in high school where kids divided themselves into cliques and established odd rules to protect the order: cowboys, jocks, stoners, band/orchestra people, choir kids, activists.

Somehow to me, Levis became a marker of second class membership. Not like I was a model of sophstication or high social standing. I was in the band, for pete's sake. Reminds me of the star bellied sneeches. Maybe I'll go buy some Levis this week and clean some of the cobwebs out of the hinter regions of my brain.





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The barrel racing clip is actually really great.  If you didn't click on it, you really ought to go back and look at it.

Monday, April 11, 2011

I Guess This Is For Real

Pulled out all the baby clothes for giving away on Friday.  Inventoried and offered to sell all my supplemental nursing gear and domperidone. I cried buckets of tears.

It looks like we're really moving onto the next stage of our lives.  The one without babies. I'm sure I'll be okay with it, but right now I'm sure feeling sad.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Weight is Expensive

I'm about to order some jeans and several pairs of pants from Gap.com. Again.

When committing to take domperidone to induce lactation, I knew one of the associated side effects would be weight gain because I've seen it in myself and every other woman I know who used domperidone for a long time period. I anticipated the socially trained self-dislike that would come along with the extra padding and have spent plenty of time over the past 2.5 years channelling that energy into plenty of positive affirmations about being lovable at any weight and appreciation for my body's amazing ability to make milk to grow a baby.

What I had not anticipated, and find myself constantly frustrated by, is how expensive carrying extra weight around is.  Right now I'm totally fixated on how my weight dictates that I need to buy new pants every 3 months.  At my usual weight, I can wear a pair of jeans for 2 or 3 years because they're so durable. But add 50 pounds, maybe all to my thighs and derriere, and the amount of rubbing on the inner seams that comes from a day's activities means a trip to the Gap every 3 months because I've sprung another leak.

Maybe the only thing worse than yet again shelling out my husband's hard earned cash for more pants is walking through the day with the cubby bunnies that currently live on my thighs squeezing their way through the growing holes in my pants.

So I'm off to order more pants from Gap.com, looking forward to the day the hormones have washed out of my body and I find my way back to my own, regular weight.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Cute Math Interpretations

Homeschooling works in part for me because I so completely cherish being the one who receives my children's literal thinking.

Theo's doing math this morning.  Here's the question:
A pumpkin weights 8 lbs.
An apple weighs 4 oz.
What is the difference in their weight?

His answer: one is measured in pounds, the other in ounces.

Tee hee.  Smart, right, and not what the writers of the book were looking for at all.