Random Thoughts: The Neglectful Edition

I’ve had a post boiling in my head all week, but it’s about politics, and the obstructionist GOP leadership — not just in Washington, see Minnesota for some truly fucked up reasoning — and debt ceilings and deficits and…

And every time I start it, I descend into outraged sputtering. With profanity.

So I don’t want to do it.

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But this: The governor of Minnesota finally “compromised” with his GOP-led state legislature. The government in that state has been shut down for two weeks over the budget.

Instead of raising taxes on people who make a million dollars a year, or more, he went with the GOP plan of delaying payments to schools and borrowing to meet the budget numbers.

Because that’s a GREAT PLAN.

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I simply do not understand the GOP stance against any and all tax revenues being raised. Without exception. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND, and thinking about it makes me want to go into a profanity-laced rant. Which doesn’t exactly elevate the discussion, you know?

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Here are some things I haven’t told you: Michael is trying to pull up. *sob* He sometimes walks on all fours instead of crawling on hands and knees. *weep* His two front teeth are millimeters away from breaking through. *please please please, already*

So this baby that I wanted because I wanted another baby is growing. Is becoming less baby-ish. It happened faster than I would have wanted. I’m trying to come to terms with it.

Because *we are done*.

Michael loves me best, still, and proves it by crawling directly to me and then giving me open-mouthed, drooly kisses on my cheek when I pick him up. He follows me around the house, room to room. And even though his sisters make him belly laugh, he still checks in with me to make sure I am not going to abandon him to their overwhelming affection.

At 7 p.m., the move toward bed must begin, because he will suddenly be ready, and will start to cry and not stop until he’s got that bottle in his mouth and is dozing off in my arms. Everything else can go hang.

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I have not been eating with my children lately. When we get home, my children NEED TO EAT IMMEDIATELY OMG! So I throw food in the girls’ direction, and sit down to feed Michael.

Since I don’t particularly enjoy warmed over mac ‘n’ cheese with Boca chik’n nuggets, I often don’t eat until the children are fed. I usually crave a salad of fresh greens from my CSA with some cheese and fruit, and maybe some nuggets and some sweet potato fries on top (the vegetarian’s version of a grilled chicken salad, Pittsburgh style).

And all that takes time. So I am often eating at 6:30, or 8 or 9 p.m. Which makes me super cranky. The girls’ bedtime has not been going very well. I’m working on it.

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Finally, this (via @JanePitt, via Suits+Boots):

“…You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.‘”
— Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell

NOW, I feel better.