Jim Anchower, Jean Teasdale

It’s been a long time since I rapped at ya (not really, but I was thinking about my favorite Onion columnists and how brilliant that line is). But it does seem like a long time because so much has happened! First of all, my in-laws left and my dad came into town, which means I was able to complete my “grandparents holding Theo” photo set. It’s pretty awesome that all four of them got to hold him within the first month of life.

My dad has introduced me to the word “fooler”, which is an old timey way to say “pacifier”. He constantly calls it a fooler and it sounds so antiquated and rural that for a moment, I feel as if I’m in the backwoods of Mississippi (where his ilk originated). When I googled it, I found it mentioned on a website called “coalspeak: dictionary of the coal region”.

We (I) sold our Yaris on Craigslist within 8 hours, and we bought a minivan (yes!) (a KIA Sedona, which I am convinced is highly undervalued). I literally had 7.5K in cash by three in the afternoon after I’d posted it at 8:30 am. This is the first time I’ve ever sold a car and I guess there are some unspoken rules about car selling that I was unaware of. I listed the price that I wanted in my ad, rather than bumping it up in anticipation of negotiation. The car selling business is shady to me if everyone just expects the prices to be artificial. It caught me off guard when the buyers asked to negotiate. Of course, because I am not a quick thinker, I caved and lowered the price, which means I sold it for 500 bucks below the blue book value. Did you know that I am REALLY bad with money? I have no emotional connection to it and generally don’t think about it at all, unless it’s in the context of, “Do I have enough money to get a bagel and coffee”. This is why, during the course of cleaning out the Yaris, I found a five year old coupon for a free oil and filter change (worth like 80 bucks) that I forgot about. This is also why I will probably spend my retirement living in a single room at the YWCA.

Moving on! Because I am descended from hill people, there is nothing I have looked forward to more than having a kid so that I can take him to get seasonal mall photos. His first one was with the Easter bunny! I guess his next one will be santa, but if there were more opportunities (Halloween?), I would be there in a flash.

And lastly, I decided to do paper birth announcements when I read that if you send one to the white house, you will get a "welcome to the world" card in response. Theo’s greeting from Barack and Michelle arrived this week!

Things I have been worrying about during middle of the night feedings:

--Trayvon Martin (so incredibly effed up and the conservative defense of Zimmerman makes me want to puke (obviously)).

--Healthcare reform (NPR did a great piece on it in which the went back to the late 80’s and reminded (informed) us that when the first Bush was in office, the republicans were the ones demanding that everyone buy it and the democrats told them it would be DOA). Our country is so doomed.

--the new film Bully and the NYTimes analysis of the bullying epidemic as a reflection of the great adult culture wars and the malice with which republicans conduct business (I might be stretching their assessment a little bit here). I worry about Theo and bullying so much. I watched the trailer for the film during a middle of the night feeding and literally cried for ten hopeless minutes while breast feeding (tears falling onto his sweet delicate skin--not a good scene). Watching those parents try to understand and help their kids was devastating. I need to have a master plan for bullying--maybe sending him to private schools his whole life (?). Moving to another country (?). Convincing my mom to home school him (?).