Outrage

Dear Senior-Aged Lady on NPR,

When you say, about our President, “I don’t like him. Can’t stand to look at him” and about his wife Michelle, “It’s about time we get a First Lady in there that looks like a First Lady and acts like a First Lady,” you sound like a raging racist.

And I’m sick of it.

If you want to disagree with President Obama on his policies, I’m totally cool with that.

I’m not sure what’s to dislike about Michelle who for all intents and purposes is a stay-at-home mom with two kids who grows a garden in her back yard (granted on a larger stage than most SAHMs I know), but so be it. I’m not 100 percent sure what a First Lady is supposed to act like. They’ve been a wide range of personalities in my experience, starting with Nancy Reagan. (I don’t really have a sense of First Ladies before her.)

If you don’t like the Obamas because (and still!) because of the color of their skin, or because you think he’s a Muslim who wasn’t born in this country, you can go pound sand. That’s a load of crap. If you are outraged over his “destroying America”, you better be able to back that up, sister. There has never in my memory been a President so regularly and falsely maligned as Obama, and I don’t even mean in the media (mainstream or otherwise).

The latest whopper I heard? That Obama survived a botched abortion, and how could he be “pro death” even after that experience.

People, I didn’t even have the words.

So, I’ll repeat: If you don’t like Obama’s economic or foreign policies, go ahead and talk about that. Have some facts — there are plenty out there. But if all you can reach for is coded racist language or blatant hyperbole and lies, keep it to yourself. I’m sure you can find good, solid reasons to vote for the GOP ticket. I can’t, personally, but I’m willing to have the conversation as long as it doesn’t mention Obama’s birth certificate or allude, however obliquely, to the color of his skin. You’re just embarrassing yourself.

Sincerely,
rpm

Random Thoughts: The So This Happened Editon

She just said she really likes the peace sign. Which, that’s a good thing, right?

Conversation after the first day of school:

Kate: I made a new friend!
Me: What’s her name?
Kate: She forgot to tell me!

++

I was trying to figure out why they looked the same height, and realized that Flora’s backpack was so heavy that she’s leaning forward. (It’s stuffed with supplies for the school year, including a ream of paper.)

++

So it’s been a busy week, with meet ‘n’ greets, and first days, and (for me) an eye infection/sty/ingrown eyelash.

The kids and I are ending it by going up to Erie for the weekend. Whew.

++

Kate has triplets in her class, two boys and a girl. I met the parents Tuesday evening. “God bless you,” I told the mother. She laughed. “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I wouldn’t have to work.”

++

What happened with you this week?

The Great Nanny Experiment of 2012

Last May, when school was ending and summer time was rolling around, I realized I didn’t want to spend my mornings rousting my children out of bed to take them to daycare.

As far as I saw it, I had two choices:

1. Quit my job.
2. Hire a nanny.

We went with the second option. (The first is always very, very tempting.)

It was the right decision.

I’m not sure I will be able to adequately express the difference having a nanny made in my life. But I’m going to try.

Before I start to gush, I will state upfront that she wasn’t perfect. Kerry (not her real name) likes country music, which is probably about the only genre of music I don’t like. My kids learned some country songs over the summer, and also learned that “po-po” is slang in some circles for “police”. We’ll call it “broadening their horizons”.

Kerry also… how do I say this delicately? She could have chosen more modest clothing. Kerry is a big-boned, curvy girl, and likes short jean shorts and tank tops. I’m not sure if I had the right to say anything about this. (What say you, readers?)

Okay, the cons out of the way: OH MY GOSH, I WISH KERRY COULD BE OUR NANNY YEAR ROUND. SHE MADE A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN MY LIFE AND THE KIDS’ LIVES THIS SUMMER.

I’m not sure how much my children appreciate the fact that they didn’t have to go to daycare this summer. They slept in every morning (except that one time Flora got up at 2 a.m.). They played with their cousins several times a week (my niece and nephew were over Bella and Tadone’s quite often). They were able to take swim lessons.

Kerry had no problem driving the kids around. We installed carseats in her back seat, and she took them to the zoo, the Aviary, the mall, the park, the pool, and so on. She bought them little gifts. One night, she even took the girls to the Butler County Fair — they had a blast, of course.

This is what hiring a nanny did for me, though:

First, mornings were a breeze. I got up, got ready, got out the door. I didn’t have to herd the children out of bed, to the kitchen table, back upstairs to get dressed; I didn’t have to hassle my husband about getting out of bed. I came downstairs, poured myself some coffee, and drove to work.

It was a lovely, quiet time.

Second, after work I got home an entire hour earlier than I do during the school year. I didn’t have to run around picking up the children from their school and daycares. We had an extra hour to play games, go for walks, read books or do crafts. Evenings were *relaxing*, not the usual mad dash to bedtime.

Third, my house was clean. So clean. Kerry guided the girls through picking up the house, putting clean dishes and clean laundry away, making their beds. She got them to vacuum, she showed them how to load the dishwasher. And so when I came home at 4:30 p.m., things were neat and organized. It was so… light to come home to a picked up house. I breathed more easily, I didn’t feel so overwhelmed.

Lastly were little odds and ends I could depend on Kerry for: tiny errands to pick up dry cleaning or groceries, having the kids bake or make pizza dough, running them to meet me at the mall when I had an eye appointment. It’s probably all these little things that assumed the most weight. The fact that I neither had to bug Dan nor do it myself — stop for milk, grab a birthday card, handle two children while the other one had an appointment.

Sometimes, moms joke about “having a wife”. Whether we work full-time or part-time outside of the home, or are home full-time with our children, sometimes we wish for another body to send on errands, another body to occupy one or two children while we do laundry or cook dinner — or conversely, a body to do the chores while we watch the kids. In most households, we moms still take on the majority of housework and childcare. Even though dads are more involved, it’s still not a 50-50 split in most households. So sometimes we wish for that third body. (Or telekinesis — just me?)

Having a nanny — a childcare worker who came to the house — was like having a wife for me. It was rather glorious.

Overall, of course, and most importantly, Kerry was great with the kids. She interacted with them, guided them through their day, keeping them busy with fun and with chores. Michael adored her. Kate and Flora listened to her (there was an end-of-summer dust-up) and enjoyed being with her. She really loved them (and has already offered to babysit when we need her).

So, I can easily forgive her for teaching my kids a couple of country songs. I’m not sure, if she weren’t a teacher and could work for us year-round, how we would have kept her on. It sure would be nice if she could pick up the girls from school and get their homework underway. But as it is, we’ll have to muddle along without her… (I have some ideas about that).

Do you sometimes wish for a wife?

Meatless Monday: Tomato Sauce

For all that I’ve been getting hoards of farm grown tomatoes for a few summers now, you would think that I would have actually made spaghetti sauce from them.

Not so much.

So when I picked up 25 tomatoes last Thursday, and realized I still had eight from the week before, I knew I had to take drastic measures with my bounty. (I off-loaded about a dozen tomatoes to my SIL, with whom I split my CSA box.)

Upon surfing my trusty recipe sites, I realized that I was going to need to skin and seed my tomatoes. This was going to be a new experience for me, but I had two trusty guides: Mindy at MindyBakes (which could more accurately be called Mindy Does It All In The Kitchen) and Deb at Smitten Kitchen. I also studied their sauce recipes, and these are pretty much the basis for what I made this weekend (and am eating with the kids tonight).

So check out their sites to see how the pros do it. I’m just going to list my tweaks. There are about 1,000 sauce recipes out there, and you probably have your own as well. And for that matter, what I did this weekend will probably change next time I want to make sauce.

I started with 4 pounds of tomatoes, and skinned and seeded them. Blanching them, then throwing them into ice water makes this a breeze. I used 5 cloves of garlic, 1 stalk of celery (chopped), and 1 carrot (grated). We don’t do onions in my house, which I realize is probably blasphemy in some circles. But we just don’t like the way cooked onions taste. If I had had dried oregano, I would have used some of that; as it is I used fresh basil (added at the end) and red pepper flakes.

I froze half the sauce, of course. When you have a bounty of summer tomatoes, you gotta freeze some of those puppies. I don’t can, so I gotta do what I’m able to make them last. Next week, I’ll be roasting whatever I get, and freezing it to make this soup (from Smitten Kitchen). I can’t wait!

In Defense of Joe

Since Romney has picked his running mate (Congressman Paul Ryan, in case you were not aware), I have seen a lot of crowing over what a doofus Joe Biden, our current vice president, is.

I have seen it predicted that he’s going to get his ass handed to him in the VP debate. I have seen him called a joke, a goof, an idiot.

In my opinion, there’s a lot of premature gleeful hand-rubbing going on.

Why don’t people take Biden seriously? Sure, he’s prone to gaffes, he sticks his foot in his mouth — name one politician who isn’t and doesn’t. He’s got a lot of passion and goes off message (though, ultimately, not to his party’s detriment). He doesn’t use a lot of high-falutin’ rhetoric.

In some ways, he’s both the perfect foil and the perfect partner to our serious, calm, and articulate president. According to an article in Politico, Obama says, “The best thing about Joe is that when we get everybody together, he really forces people to think and defend their positions, to look at things from every angle, and that is very valuable for me.” From what I’ve read of the man, he plays devil’s advocate in the Administration. He’s not a lick-spittle.

Joe Biden is well-liked on Capitol Hill. He has more than 30 years experience as a politician. He’s been chairman of two Senate committees and a caucus. He’s written laws, and was the youngest senator with more than 10,000 votes in the Sentate. He is smart, savvy, plain-spoken, and bipartisan.

And he’s been through some shit. He lost his first wife and a daughter in a car accident. He was a single dad for five years. He’s been married to the same woman, his second wife, since 1977. He’s had some serious health scares.

Paul Ryan is 42 years old. He’s served as chair on one committee. He has no foreign policy experience. He’s a Tea Party favorite, which is the direct opposite of bipartisan. He’s probably no dummy, but come on. You really think he can hold his own against Joe Biden?

Because I don’t. Not that I’m going to discourage Republicans (or libertarians or independents) from underestimating Biden. Oh no, underestimate him all you want. I think he’s going to surprise you.

I’ll go make some popcorn.

++

Updated to add: Since the Bush/Kerry run off (was it the 2004 election?), there’s been this “beer test” for the candidates, as in “Who would you like to have a beer with?” As much respect as I have for our President, out of the four candidates in this race, I think I’d enjoy sitting down with Joe the most. He seems pretty humble, pretty funny, and pretty smart. He seems to be in touch with the electorate, and he seems like he’d go to bat for the middle class. Paul Ryan has dreamy blue eyes and all, but he also seems like, on a date, he’d prefer to listen to the sound of his own voice. Plus, he wouldn’t drink beer, he’d drink really pricey wine.

Horndog

(Dad, this one may make you uncomfortable. Read at your own risk.)

I’ve always had a pretty high libido — no, let me rephrase that: When Dan and I got married, I had a very high libido. I had an enjoyment of and appreciation for good sex. Dan and I were well matched in this area (as well as in most other areas, for the record).

Then, of course, came four pregnancies, three live children, and, you know, nearly 11 years.

My libido dropped, and in some months (years?), disappeared down the rabbit hole nearly entirely. This was a bummer for Dan, who instead of an enthusiastic bed partner, got a dutiful one.

Since about March or April this year, I have noticed an appreciable spike in my libido. Which in some ways is delightful, although it does occasionally warrant extra cautious measures so as not to displace Michael as the baby of the family. I am excited to have my libido come roaring back (and, yes, so is my husband).

Dan and I practice NFP (natural family planning — NOT the rhythm method), and it’s kind of a drag. Plus my charting has really gone to pot, and I need to up my game there — I downloaded an app to my phone (oh yes I did), and that should help. We briefly discussed a copper IUD, and I may still have that conversation with my midwife, but for now NFP is it. (Permanent sterilization was not on the table, for either of us, which has some to do with our Catholicism and a lot to do with REALLY SHARP OBJECTS near our parts.)

I hate the stereotype of the married couple who don’t have sex; I hate even more the stereotype of the horny father and the sexually unavailable mother. I understand (now) the physiological reasons for the latter, but eventually reestablishing sexual intimacy should be viewed as a given. And for that matter, something to look forward to.

I sometimes wonder about the reasons for my elevated sexual interest. Is it a function of a biological clock? In which case, poor clock. Your imperative has been fulfilled three (almost four) times over. Is it a function of more sleep? More independent children? A renewed ability to focus on self? A continued desire for all levels of intimacy with my husband? All of the above?

Is this type of surge common to 40somethings? Or if not age-related, could it be related to reclaiming of the body for something other than reproduction? If a woman has several pregnancies in her 20s, when her last baby reaches a certain age, does she look around (presumably in this scenario at her husband) and think, “I gotta start hitting that more often?”

I know. Lots of questions, and probably everyone’s answers are different.

Being this horny (again) is distracting. In a good way, but still. And even when my libido wasn’t raging, Dan and I managed sex (or like activities) about twice a week on average. The thing about sex — if you like it anyway, which I do — is that even when I didn’t start out in the mood, I still often managed to have a pretty good time. Good lube helps, in case you need a #protip.

These days, I have dirty, dirty dreams. I spend too much (?) time fantasizing at my desk and sending my husband suggestive texts. Again, he’s not complaining.

Speaking of texts, I don’t really get sexting — do you just delete the pictures from your phone or camera later? What the sexiest thing to sext? I’m guessing cleavage, which if that’s the case, I should just stick with suggestive texts.

What say you, readers? If you’re in a long-term relationship, what keeps the home fires burning? If you’re a mom or dad, did you have to regain your mojo? How do you manage your sex life? Do you schedule it, or wait for the mood to strike you both? Or do you go along with the partner with the higher libido, compromise? What’s your favorite lube? I’m a fan of the old standby, Astrolube, although Dan and I have experimented with some fun KY combinations. (TMI?)

Conflict

Like siblings throughout millennia, my girls bicker with each other. They pick, they poke, they boss (okay, Flora bosses), they stick their tongues out at each other.

The majority of the time, I can let it wash over me. It’s background noise, perfectly *normal* background noise, and I usually let it go. I’ve also noticed that if I decline to play referee, the girls themselves usually quickly move on, and start playing together with absolutely zero conflict.

But there are times I can’t ignore it, and I have to do something.

For example, dinner time.

Dinner during the week is usually just the girls, M, and me. At the table, Kate is a noisy wiggle worm. She squirms, she hums, she makes noise. As a mature adult, I can easily tune her out — unless she jumps up three times in 30 seconds. Then I’m like, “Sit down! What do you want?”

But Flora cannot ignore Kate’s steady stream of noise. (Which of course is rich with irony because Flora sings, talks, and whistles to herself all the live-long day, except 1. at the dinner table and 2. in the car, which is the other place that this happens.)

Flora asks Kate to stop. Kate doesn’t stop. Flora starts to whine, and teh whining I cannot tolerate. I should be a bigger person here, but Flora whining at Kate to stop or whining at me to make Kate stop sets my nerves on edge.

I don’t know if Kate doesn’t stop because she knows it bugs the shit out of her big sister, or if Kate doesn’t stop because she just can’t stop. I suspect it’s a combination. Kate starts humming to herself without even noticing it, her big sister starts in on her, Kate revels in the attention and keeps humming.

I have a couple of strategies to deal with this. One is to put on some music (right now, “Call Me Maybe” is at the top of the playlist at Casa di RPM). This distracts the girls long enough to get us through the meal. The other option is to simply send Flora away from the table to wait it out. Once Kate is done, Flora can come back to the table to finish her meal in peace.

Sometimes the music backfires, especially if we’re in the car, and Kate wants to sing along, and Flora doesn’t want her to sing along. Sometimes, asking Flora to go into the other room results in a meltdown, usually because I won’t let her bring her food, and then she can because quite unreasonable, and I have to send her to her room.

So, distraction or separation. (I may need other distraction suggestions.) The other time the bickering bothers me is when I need them to get something done so we can leave the house or otherwise get on with our day. Leaving for Target for back-to-school shopping can be delayed if the girls won’t stop arguing with each other long enough to change their clothes.

Our other conflicts occur when the girls become a team, and they are playing against me, or against Dan and me. Yesterday, the girls simply refused to clean the front room. Dan and I must have asked a dozen times. They were asked; they built forts; they were asked; they started and stopped; they were asked; they threw a few things in bins, and went to play Pokemon battle. I was losing my mind. (I finally took night time show away, then night time treat. “We don’t mind!” they chirped.) So they bicker bicker bicker except when they can be united in their distain for cleaning up after themselves. Fantastic.

What do you do when the bickering threatens your sanity? Conversely, what do you do when the bickering is over, and your children are utterly ignoring your orders to do their chores?

Thinking Aloud: Beauty in the Eye

When I was 16 years old, I told my parents I wanted a nose job. I *hated* my nose. For a long time, I blamed my nose’s appearance on the spill I took down the stairs that broke my front tooth. I figured I should get it “fixed” because it had to have been broken. Why else did I have that stupid lump in it?

(Spoiler alert: I have my dad’s nose. I didn’t break it when I broke my tooth.)

My parents didn’t dismiss me out of hand (i.e. “Don’t be silly! You look fine.”), nor did they take me to the nearest plastic surgeon. They encouraged me to look into rhinoplasty, and said that when I was done growing, we could revisit the issue.

Do you know what they do to your nose when you have rhinoplasty? (Or at least how they did it *hurmph* years ago?) They break it. It takes up to six weeks to heal, and in the meantime, you’re walking around with black eyes and a broken nose.

After doing the research, I decided my nose was just fine. Or if I felt differently when I was an adult, well, then I could proceed accordingly.

As an aside in this conversation: I never, ever, not once asked for or (seriously) considered a boob job. Not as a teen, not now as a grown up. And if I was going to look into any plastic surgery, I would’ve thought this would’ve been the go to. I am ridiculously under-endowed in the chest area. Thank goodness for (lightly) padded bras is all I’m saying.

In the news this week is the story of a 14-year-old girl who was being bullied at school, reportedly because of her looks, and so her mom appealed to the Little Baby Face Foundation, which offers corrective — CORRECTIVE, not cosmetic — surgery to children with facial deformities. The girl got $40,000 in free cosmetic surgery. Because she was being TEASED.

I learned of this story through an opinion piece at The Nation, and I whole heartedly agree with a lot of this article. Especially this part: “There may be a bit of head-shaking over young girls going to drastic measures to feel beautiful, but we never seem to question the idea that feeling beautiful is a worthy goal in the first place. We should tell girls the truth: ‘Beautiful’ is bullshit, a standard created to make women into good consumers, too busy wallowing in self-loathing to notice that we’re second class citizens.”

Like my happiness post a few weeks ago, here’s another area where we (in general, as a society) are being misdirected. The point isn’t to be beautiful in order to have self-esteem. The point is to have self-esteem, to be confident, period, full-stop. Yes, we should seek to be well groomed, well dressed, hygienic. That’s just polite.

Beauty — superficial, how-you-look beauty — shouldn’t be the goal. Will I encourage my children to be beautiful people? Yes, especially on the inside, where it counts. Will I tell my kids out of hand that they are beautiful, or for that matter, smart? Probably, in small doses, yes. I think it’s more important to tell my children that with hard work they can do whatever they want in life. I think it’s more important for them to grow into confident people, and they can do that only through their own effort. I can’t give them confidence by telling them how beautiful and smart they are — would that it were that easy! I can and will, of course, tell them that I love them without reservation (because I do).

I still have the nose I had when I was 16. But I don’t have the self-consciousness I had then. I’m sure the mom in the above story was well-meaning, but what about telling her teenager to wait? (Which is basically what my parents told me.) What about looking into other resources to help her teen cope with the bullying? “Solving” the problem through plastic surgery isn’t the answer. Slapping a new coat of paint on something that is weak on the inside doesn’t strengthen the inside. (I don’t mean to call the girl weak — of course she’s vulnerable and self-conscious — she’s 14!) She needed a better outlook, not better looks.

What do you think? Does the emphasis on beauty do girls a disservice? What should be be telling our children?

Social Media Burnout or I Don’t Really Care What You Think

Along with my short list from the other day of some of the reasons for the lack of posting here, there’s this.

Some days, I just don’t care about other people’s opinions. Even when they agree with me, their need to assert it on the Interwebz just seems tiresome.

(Cue mass unfollowing from Twitter.)

I don’t feel this way all the time. If I did, I would just quit social media (cue cheer from certain corners!). As examined in this well-written post by Carpetbagger, the way opinions and positions are so very diametrically oppositional is wearing.

And it’s not even November yet!

I can pinpoint this feeling exactly to the day the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act was being revealed. I actually (briefly) unfollowed a couple of people because if the law was not upheld I did not want to view or participate in their particular brand of gloating. Even if it was very subtle. I just did not want to deal.

(I’m not proud.) (I did refollow them.)

And due to the persuasive presence of social media (in my life, anyway), we are (I am) awash in Other People’s Opinions. All. The. Time.

Then we had the Aurora theater shooting, and the horror expressed over the fact that there were children in the theater at a midnight show. (None of our business! Not our children! The parents didn’t take them to the theater to be harmed. What happened was the fault of one very sick person.)

For the record, I had two — TWO — very interesting and civil conversations on social media (one on Twitter and one on Facebook) with two people with different opinions than my own. To sum up: they asserted that if citizens had been able to carry concealed weapons, the carnage in the theater would have been less. I asserted that I strongly doubted that. We all had our good and valid reasons for our positions, and no one called each other reductive, nasty names.

Of course, the general parent judging that goes on all the damn time in general. Over it, and I still get sucked into the debate. If not directly by commenting on it, at least I read things that piss me off. Gotta learn to NOT CLICK.

Then the whole gay marriage/Chick-fil-a flap. I was dismayed to see some people in my social media circles supporting Chick-fil-a on their so-called “Customer Appreciation Day”. But that’s their right. It’s my right to never set foot in there again. It’s the beauty of the free market/democratic society! You get to say what you want, give money to organizations you want, and I get to boycott you!

Let’s review, real quick, the “freedom of speech” clause. It’s pretty straightforward: The government cannot censor speech. That’s it, in a nutshell. The government can’t shut down a newspaper, TV channel, or Internet site. The government can’t hack your blog and crash your servers.

Can you be fired from your job by mouthing off about your employer on Facebook? Yup. You can say whatever you want, but in some cases — not related to government censorship — there are consequences. If Dan Cathy wants to give money to organizations that work hard to suppress civil rights of a minority, he is free to do so. I am free to not eat his waffle fries.

In all the hoopla, this article from The Daily Beast was my favorite. It’s written by a gay employee of Chick-fil-a, and I honestly hope that if you are on the wrong side of this issue, it gives you pause.

Sometimes, it’s good to read things on the Internet that make you mad. It’s good to read stuff you don’t agree with. I think it’s important to know what others think and why. Just keep in mind that your next move should be to think before you type an angry, hate-filled comment. If you can’t think of anything that’s not flaming with anger or filled with hate, then don’t say anything. You are free to disagree — you are, even, really, free to be utterly uncivil online, I have to admit there’s no law against being an asshole — but do you really want to be the troll in the room? Hate has never, ever ever, in the history of the world (to my knowledge) changed someone’s mind for the better.

Some other things that drive me up a wall, in no particular order:

1. Being passive-aggressive online. If you have something to tell someone, tell him/her.
2. #vaguebooking (or #vagueTweet) This one probably bugs the majority of social media users. If you have to wait to tell us something, then wait!
3. Truly random, all-over-the-place posting. I know the Internet is the Wild West of communications, but sooner or later, if you want to do it right, you’ve got to find a theme, a niche, something you care enough about to regularly talk about. [Edited to add: The nature of Twitter is random, and I understand that. However, after a while, you start (if you are “good” at it) to talk about a few topics regularly. Yes, there’s going to be randomness. I guess the type that I’m talking about is navel-gazing randomness with no rhyme or reason, or totally goofy mental vomit. I’ve gotten to know people from Twitter, and when you are all over the place, it’s hard to have a conversation with you.]
4. Sponsored posts. These less drive me crazy than make my eyes glaze over a little bit. Confession: I don’t read sponsored posts, not from Babble, not from Big Name Bloggers, not from other writers I regularly follow online. I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal. I just see “This is a sponsored post from XYZ”, and I click on the next thing.

Do other people’s opinions wear you out? What do you do? Should I take a social media timeout? Until after the election?! (Not really, not going to happen.)

On (Not) Writing

I don’t mean to be letting long gaps between posts happen. I have lots on my mind to write about here, I just haven’t had the space in my head or in my schedule to put something coherent together.

Please be patient.

For one thing, I am actually writing… something. I’m not 100 percent sure what it is yet, but I know that it needs to be written. It pretty much is taking up all my head space right now, and I’m working — chipping away, really, given the whole full-time work, full-time mom thing I have going on — on getting it out of my head.

I have a lot of thoughts about these two Fresh Air interviews — one from an American nun, one from an American bishop. My overall thought is that — more than HHS mandates and the like — the outcome of this crticism and how the outcome happens will shape the future of the American Catholic church.

I also have thoughts about helicopter parenting, letting my children sleep over the house of a woman I just met, and sexism, but, again, head space and time aren’t quite letting me complete my sentences.

Finally, I am having a TMI/non-parent-reading-friendly issue regarding my libido (through the roof) and the fact that I don’t want to have any more babies. So that’s fun.

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, look what a good-looking family of five we are!

What taking up space in your head lately?