THE CONUNDROM OF TODDLER NURSING!

In my house, midnight nursing is becoming a problem because I am getting very tired of being sleep-deprived all of the time.

Annika is 19 months and I don't want to wean her at all. However,even though she nurses very well right before bed (AND I give her a snack prior to nursing to ensure a full tummy) she still wakes up two or three times a night and wants NOTHING BUT TO NURSE at those times.

For a long time it wasn't such a big deal-- she would nurse and pass right back out, but now she starts suggesting that we go pee-pee during her wake-ups or that we go find daddy, etc... The pee-pee one is really hard because I feel like I should let her go if she needs to-- but then she just sits there on the potty in the middle of the night while I'm all fagged out and slumped over on the bathroom floor and never goes, but instead starts pulling her books out and demanding that I read them (*which I don't of course!!!) By the time I get back to bed I lay there and space out for a long time before Ican fall back to sleep.

I finally realized today as we embark on the adventures of "the twos" (I won't call them terrible-- but you know what I'm talking about) and potty training and a heavier work/school schedule for me,that I am simply not a very nice or good person (at least not as nice and good as I could be) when I am tired all day!

I've tried everything from exercising more to boost my energy to resting more to conserve my energy and all roads seem to lead to the same end: and angry, overtired, getting burnt out mama...I've acted the complete martyr in this situation so far, believing that it is in the best interest of Annika's well being to continue dragging myself out of bed every single night to nurse her as many times as she may wake... but today I finally realized that I would be doing her a better service by getting my sleep so that I can be a better mother during her (and my!) waking hours.

So how to break the habit in a healthy way? Our plan as of now is to pick a night to put her to bed, close the door, and then not go back in until morning.

I believe that she will break the habit after one night like that,but I hate the idea of her feeling like I'm not there. I plan to prep her all day that day, reminding her that when she wakes up I will be sleeping in my bed.Is it so bad to have sep. anxiety at night? I remember having it as a child in my own bed... the nighttime is scary. I always used to be afraid that my family might have disappeared in the night. But they never did... and I'm fine.

Isn't it just a part of growing up?

I'm Still Here... But are You?

It's August and I (barely) made it through last year's school. If I thought December was bad, I had no idea what lay ahead. My spring semester was what made me, well... a very mean and evil person who some people may have said bore a resemblance to SATAN! My poor husband, my poor child, and poor everyone else who had to deal with my insane moodiness which was followed up by a deep depression that lasted from May-July.

For those of you who suffer regularly from depression, my condolences. I have not had that ghost in my life for many years now and I had forgotten what it feels like to ignore your life and child (poor Annika!) to sleep in until 10 and then never get dressed, never pick up your house, shuffle about bitching at your husband and yourself, and your child, and whoever/whatever is closest at hand (pet, mail carrier, car or any other animate or inanimate object). Friends stop calling because you never call them and when you do you're terrible company because you hate yourself and your friend and the phone you're talking on, and what food you might be eating, or what music might be playing in the background or what color the wall might be painted in the room you sit in because you hate everything, starting and ending with yourself and your anger and hatred radiates throughout your life.

When your anger susides you find yourself washed up on the island of apathy-- the reason you sleep late and don't wash, and let your child play by herself in her bedroom for long stretches of time while you read or watch movies, or just lay there like a lonely lump. You feel like you have no one and you watch the beautiful weather pass by your window without the slightest wish to feel the sunshine or stretch your legs. You become pastey and gain weight as your steady diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches supported by the steady rotation of coffee and wine makes you feel worse and feeling worse makes you more apathetic and lethargic. You know you should do yoga today, or take a walk-- but you don't. You just Don't.

The essense of depression: You just don't _____.

My marriage was hit so hard as I hated on my husband. I got angry and berated him, accused him, nagged him, complained about him, and then felt sorry for myself, cried and sobbed myself to sleep at least four times a week, felt guilt for being angry and sad and dissatisfied with my good life and spiralled deeper into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, coffee, wine, and general malaise and hatred for all. The whole thing erupted into a huge blowout between us that almost rent us apart forever. We held on tight though and we're seeing a big payoff now for working through it.

When I saw that I would never be able to hold my life together if I didn't pull myself out of the sewage stew I had been long-marinating in, I began researching breastfeeding-friendly remedies for depression (St John's Wort, ladies coupled with VIT B's and OMEGA-3's and... Exercise). Completely fed up with my inability to shake my funk, I stopped at the vitamin store on my way home that night to stock up on the aforementioned remedies and scheduled an appointment with my counselor (who I last saw in 2003). Then the next day I FORCED myself to take a walk-- just a short one-- but an OUTSIDE walk with Annika in the sun.

After a few weeks of counselling, taking my supplements, and spending a lot of time outside, I started feeling better. In one of our best decisions thusfar in our marriage we decided to start seeing the counsellor together! That was a major defining factor in my eventual upturn. (All people in relationships, tune in: couples/marriage counselling= worth every single penny you pay... and you will pay, but it will save you years of hardship and strife!) We have learned new and better ways to communicate, speak, listen to, and be considerate of each other. My growing marriage was like a well-needed fresh start. We both got to vent out our frustrations over the past year (you could see my December post... I've seen better years, suffice to say) and then work through it. We still see the counsellor every couple of weeks.

So, between outside time, homeopathic medication, a return to yoga, and more exercise, I began to emerge from my cave. I finally felt fully-returned about two weeks ago. I am enjoying my summer ... just as school is about to start again! Curses!

This year will be different though. I have a gameplan to save my sanity! I have set-aside worktimes, babysitters, schedules, plans, and I am optomistic. I'm trying to get as much a head-start as I can... and no more procrastinating. I am putting that behind me!

Well, perhaps you'll hear from me again ... in December!

December Blues

Look at me! I'm a mess! If you could look back through your computer right now you would see me: worn-down, slightly frumpy, hungry and thinking about ordering pizza out of desperation, slightly buzzed with a headache and film over my eye sitting in front of the computer at my workplace with a jelly-jar of wine in front of me, my wallet sprawled all over the place because I lost a credit card, and my trusty World Almanac and few pens hanging out on the desk... just in case... It's December. It must be because... just LOOK AT ME!

These are the moment when I never want to take another class again... ever. The semester is winding down and the "holiday spirit" and cold weather are descending upon us (in other words... the desire to stay in your pajamas all day and blow off any and all things that have deadlines is gaining momentum). That is why I find myself in front of this screen blogging at this very moment when my homework is pressing so hard upon my back that I have "checked out." I just simply cannot take another minute of the stress.

My head hurts

My nerves are buzzing.

You see, the thing about graduate school is that it's not like undergraduate school. You just can't blow off anything. You are just stuck having to work your ass off up until the very last SECOND of your semester. And then you collapse. Then you have a few Christmas cookies and some coffee, you toast with champagne on New Years and start up again a few weeks later. It's like... is this worth it?

I am learning a lot from my classes and I enjoy them very much overall and I do know that it is worth it... it's just that at this particular time of year everything becomes more difficult. The sun goes down at 5:00 and doesn't come up again until 7:30, the covers on your bed are very warm (and so is wine in the belly, mind you... especially glugg), the books you've been trying to squeeze in between your readings for class start to be so much more inviting, magazines bombard you on every side viing for your attentions, you start to get crafty (I recently started a quilt and four other sewing projects) you want to eat big meals, you want to move slowly, and you don't don't want to work.

This is the time of year when my procrastination circuitry really starts to groove. I put assignments off until literally the last moment and then I get completely stressed because I have to cram to finish them. That has been my weekend and now it is spilling over into my week. I can see the end: all assignments are due Friday so I simply will not have any more stress after that but getting to Friday can be so difficult sometime!

I can also see the big picture. I will be a real librarian when I finally graduate from this program and have my master's degree. The hard part about it is, I really stopped dedicating my life to formal education after I walked across the stage in 2005 and accepted my BA in Literature. I got married that same summer in a magically romantic dream-wedding vacation to Ireland with my entire family and I spent the rest of that year "taking a break" and enjoying the life of freedom.

The same week that I returned my acceptance notice for UW-Madison's SLIS program I found out I was pregnant. I had been so worried about getting into the program and was so excited to be accepted. A few days later when both lines were pink, I wondered if I should just scratch the whole thing.

I was right to consider it... it hasn't been easy! Annika was born just four days before my second semester of graduate school started. I'm glad that I stuck with it and I will be so glad when I have my master's next January. But now that I have a child I am insanely jealous and greedy with my time and I simply will not put school at the top of my list of priorities. I have many things on the list before school-- including my own mental wellness (that is why I am posting a blog instead of doing homework right now) and while I know I have my priorities just the way I want them, it does make it hard.

I have had to learn how to be a "good" student instead of an excellent student. I was an over-achiever in undergraduate school and I have had to let go of that obsessive part of myself in order to maintain the quality of life that I want with my family and for myself. I am still learning a ton and getting a lot out of my education but I am not spending hours on it every day.

But just like everything else that starts piling up in December, so does my weariness about my grades. I start hyper-analyzing every comment my teachers have made, poring over every assignment, calculating grades and having a hard time sleeping. Next Friday I will let go and allow my classes to turn out as they may (I will most likely get A's in both of them, by the way... I'm just OC when it comes to the end of the semester) but until then, well... it's a bit of a bumpy ride!

So raise your wine glass with me now (well, mine is empty.. I've moved on to water, as I rarely have more than one glass of wine in one sitting) and let us toast PRESSURE, that terrible thing that makes us appreciate leisure.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday and all that shizzy

Well, Thanksgiving is here, or is coming then, isn't it? Here I go, I guess I can't resist. I HAVE to talk about Thanksgiving even though it drives me crazy that every single radio show is about THANKSGIVING or TURKEYS or FOOD on this, the fourth week of November. It's like I can't escape the hoo-ra but here I am adding to it. I am just pitiful.

So have you all heard of a "tofu turkey?" Yes, this is a real phenomenon, although I have never partaken of such fare. Even vegetarians do draw the line somewhere. Let me clear up just where that line falls: I have eaten sliced tofu turkey... like deli-style with mustard or swiss chees (mmm-mmm!), but a round rump (I guess you wouldn't call it "rump" per se... more like "clump") of wobbly product of bean I have no desire to explore-- not even for pure curiosity. I did eat "bean curd" in China though... and quite a lot of it. It was pretty wobbly... hmmm.... what was I saying about that line?

I would like to see a "whole" tofu turkey on a menu. Do you "slice" it? Would one put it on a sandwich on the second day? Is there such thing as tofurkey gravy?

I remember eating turkey sandwiches for a week after Thanksgiving as a kid. Do you still do that, my meat-eating readers? Do you look forward to the buttery turkey slathered with gooshy gravy each year only to find yourself feeling nauseated at the sight of turkey three days later? Do you begin to gobble on the fourth day?

Now let's talk about "BLACK FRIDAY." That ridiculous day where people actually line up, LINE UP PEOPLE outside of Walmart at 5:00 am just to stampede each other as if they are at a Beatles concert and buy a cheap crappy telly that will never compare to John Lennon or Paul McCartney and will blow out in a year anyway for fifty bucks or that waffle iron you've always wanted to get that "special someone" for the amazing deal of ten dollars (Great gift ideas, thanks Walmart!)

Is a deal like that really really worth the dignity that one loses by mooing and herding in the pre-dawn hours just to get in the door BEFORE those tellies sell out? I mean, come on. It's no wonder that our government was able to trick us into agreeing to the war in Iraq. We're like sheep. We depend on the media, advertising, and the government to tell us how we feel and where we go when. The corporations holller that they will give you a deal and we clamor like ants to a sugar bowl; we are ensnared! How that does resonate with our current political situation...

I have to give props to those good folks who use this undeclared holiday against the very consumers who make it happen. I'm talking about the enterprising people who go in and buy those discounted items to resell them and turn a profit. Thank goodness someone is taking advantage of the schemes of the corporations and our own weakness for advertising.

I guess one thing I hate more than those Turkey bits on NPR is when the news starts reporting on all the action of "Black Friday." I mean, way to feed the monster. Make everyone even more involved in the goings-on than they already were, and suck me into the mess as well.

This year I have come to understand that all of "the holidays" are just days. We look forward to them so much-- but what are we really looking forward to? We are looking forward to an excuse to get together with our families, relax, stop thinking about WORK WORK WORK and let loose a little bit. The thing is, why wait for a holiday? If we were just a little more balanced, we would be able to enjoy those things on a regular basis.

Now that would be cause for celebration.

Ahh, Saturdays

Well, I can't say it started well, and yet it's off to a good start!

There is something about a Saturday that makes me say to myself, "self, you are excused from doing anything at all all day. You may lay in your bed as late as you wish, you may drink coffee and eat food in bed, you may stay in your pajamas until noon-- or later! if you wish-- and you may put off taking a shower until you go out in the afternoon." It is my credo for weekends. I just need ONE day to sleep in or lay in or whatever and I'll be fresh for a new week.

So... at 4:45am this morning, there I was, sitting on the couch in the dark downstairs doling out breastmilk to an electric pump, half asleep and rather irritable, wanting to be like my husband who was out cold in bed happily sleeping, non-engorged, stretched out and even snoring.

Breastfeeding is so wonderful and not so wonderful. I wouldn't trade it for anything else (or else I would have already, since Annika is old enough, technically, to be eating more table food) and yet, the responsibility of it is unrelenting! Annika still eats seven times a day, SEVEN, people. That is seven times that we sit down together in a quiet place (she won't eat with the slightest distraction... including the turning pages of a book or mag, so I can't even read while we "do lunch".. or dinner or snack or breakfast!) every single day. Now, even as I write that, I realize that I am lucky to still get seven opportunities to snuggle with her and cuddle her and gaze lovingly at all those amazing details of her features, but just once in a while I wish for a reprieve!

Right now, Annika gets four out of about fifty feedings per week from a bottle. And those are while I'm at work. I could ask Jeremy to give her a bottle more often, but at this point there is no point... because I have to pump anyway if I don't feed her; I need to empty and I have to have milk to give her if she's going to have more feedings from a bottle per week. So I really don't get out of anything by letting her take a bottle. I absolutely refuse to give her one drop of formula because I don't need to, so... there I was this morning at 4:45 pumping in my half-asleep confused state of early morningness once again. I am thankful that my milk is in no short supply, but... it doesn't seem to understand the concept of taking a break from production. My milk elves work around the clock!

Early morning pumping is good and bad. It's great because you get a lot of milk since it's been building up all night. It's not so great because after collecting, sealing, labelling, and storing the milk and rinsing off the bottles and such, you are more awake than asleep so falling back to sleep is difficult. Early morning pumping must be perfectly timed also. If you wake up too early you'll be up half the night trying to get back to sleep; if you wake up too late, you'll be up the rest of the morning waiting for Annika to wake up and eat because it's too close to her waking time to pump (she'll have no breakfast) and you're too full to sleep.

So, this morning my timing actually was perfect-- but I was having trouble falling back to sleep after I came back to bed. Finally, as I drifted off, Annika started crying in the next room. Curses!

Hoping she would fall back asleep, I just laid there, waiting. To no avail. She was up and wanted me to be up too. And NOW! So, I got up, brought her into bed and fed her, hoping she might decide to fall back asleep. No, no. She was all about playing with my nose, pulling my hair, crawling over me to talk to her daddy, etc! Normally, I absolutely love these time with her, but I was just so tired this morning for some reason.

We put her in her play area and Jeremy (who had been sleeping all night long, lucky!) hopped up to get moving on his busy day while I waited to see if I could get a couple more minutes of sleep, which I did while he was getting ready. However, as he was getting ready to leave to the hardware store, Annika got all cranked up and did not want to be put down. She wanted her mums and wouldn't have it any other way.

Initially, I was annoyed because I was still in some kind of stupor and didn't really feel like playing but soon I realized after her continuous complaining that SHE TOO WAS just TIRED! Aha! So I fed her again and out she went like a light. I put her in her bed and there she has been ever since.

Now I feel like a new woman! I am ready to face the day and my child! It's ten o'clock now and I hear her stirring. While she's been sleeping, I've read my Time magazine, checked in on my school stuff, relaxed in bed, eaten a scone that Jeremy brought home for me-- IN BED! (I love it!) and had a cup of coffee.

Now that is how Saturday is supposed to be. There is gentle and relaxing music flowing from our rec room down the hall, I am happily posting on my blog, and my baby is sleeping in. All of the frustration from earlier is forgotten like melted ice in a river and life has resumed its normal hue of happy contentness.

Having a child is like living in a theme park. There are so many things that give you so much happiness! You are constantly riding these really amazing rides and everything is novel. But once in while, as much as you love being there, the heat and the lines get a little overwhelming. That's when you just need to get a big glass of water (coffee, in my case) and sit down in the shade to take a break. That's all it takes and then you're ready for the next round. And that is my life over and over and over in cycles-- and I love it! I truly do! Even the lines and heat. I just need my Saturday morning, that's all... it's my water in the shade moment.

My biblioblog

And for more of my crazy thoughts, please feel free to view my "other" blog at www.klonickibiblioblog.blogspot.com

I've been so busy thinking

I've been so busy thinking and not writing any my thoughts down! Shame on me! Recently it actually occurred to me that I have a social or moral obligation of some kind to write down my thoughts and try to publish because that is one of my skills. I used to do a lot of things with my writing, including public readings, workshops, and limited publishing. Now I do nothing. I have gotten so caught up with my mommy life and wife life that I have put writing to the side. That is not really acceptable because I have something to add to society and I should be doing my part, just like everyone else.

So what have I been thinking so much about? Well, I have really been struggling with some certain issues in our society and what I can do to make some changes around me. I tend to be a very overly-critical gloom and doom type of person (a part of my thinking that I am working on to be less consuming of my overall perspective on life) so I know that I probably blow some things out of proportion but I see real-life examples of these problems every day; some of the problems are everywhere I look and I feel overwhelmed, and some of them just pop up here and there and bother me a lot when they do.

Problems with our society in the midwest US right now (this is the area of my expertise, as I live here... Other places probably do have the same problems but I can only speak about what I currently have experience of) are as follows:

1. Disintegration of the overall community. I cannot get over how people take such meticulous care of their little space in the world, trimming their grass, clipping their hedges, and planting their trees and flowers, ultimately so that their neighbors don't think poorly of them, but they never talk to their neighbors nor do they ever sit outside in their own lovely yards and enjoy them. The whole setup is just ridiculous to me! Invisible lines that mark "property" that is divvied up among people who then cloister themselves within their lines and create tiny worlds of their own, separate from the tiny worlds of their fellow neighborhood dwellers. So where does the community go?! People have been conditioned to fear each other and be suspicious of most, if not all people outside their arbitrary little property lines. It starts when we are children and we are cautioned in a well-meaning way "not to talk to strangers." Don't get me wrong, I don't want Annika, for example, talking to strangers when she is a little one. But it is one thing to caution your child against talking to strangers because she is a helpless child whose experience in the world cannot compete with an adult's so she is much more easy to be taken advantage of and another to just preach fear so that she is instinctively afraid of anyone and everyone forever. As it is, adults are actually the ones who are afraid of strangers and they pass that right on down to their kids. Instead of viewing the person who is pulling up to ask for directions or who turns around and talks to you in the grocery line as another person with kids and a wife, or who also works a crappy 9-5 and is just doing their thing in the world, we automatically go on alert, thinking "is this person trying to hurt me? Is he going to follow me to my car? Is he going to grab me and pull me into his car?" etc etc. UMMM MOST LIKELY NOT! But that is our first impulse every time a stranger talks to us and it starts young--- it is an impulse that is ground into our systems from the first moment we can speak. I have been trying to debug this pattern in my software for a while now and will probably be working on it for a long long time. Community has broken down between neighbors and "strangers" and this is because of the starchy mechanization, incorporation, and sterilization of everyday things.. Such as: Grocery shopping. We all need food and other essentials to live. For ages and ages we have come forward to the front lines, as I may say, with our wares and presented what we worked hard for while people came through the marketplace, meeting with each other and meeting with the vendors, negotiating fair prices for all commodities, and picking the freshest and best ingredients for their needs from a selection hand-picked by the vendor. Such a thing is no more where I live. We rely almost solely on the "X-MART" big box grocery where produce comes from all over the world, ripened in the box, food is pre-made by someone who cares nothing about you, your health, or your palate-- who cares only about your money. That food is bagged and boxed and is stacked hundreds wide and several deep down long and clean aisles where shoppers do not interact, the prices are set by someone far far away at a desk who has no relationship to you or your community, and the only contact with a person is at the check-out where a little "hello" may happen but not likely much more. Even having a real checker is not necessary anymore. A person can literally (and many often do) go through the entire supermarket experience without having to interact with one person face-to-face. Where is the accountability of the producer, in this picture? When the person you are buying your vegetables from is Joe from down the street, his kids play with your kids and you all share other many things in life, he is not likely to load is produce with toxic chemicals which will not only affect your food and his, but his water and yours, and all the children who play in the gardens and fields. But who is to stop the producers of today? They will do whatever they please in other countries where the natives (the neighbors, whose children will be playing -- and working for too small a wage-- in those fields) don't have the channels to say no to the toxins and the work conditions. So they get poisoned, their land is destroyed and stolen, their children pay the price and then the food is shipped here, where our children are poisoned and we pay the price. What do the owners of the farm care? They dont live on the farm. They hire the locals to live/work on the farm. They live in poshy homes on beaches and have never gotten dirt under their fingernails before. Now the natives who do all the work do not get fair pay for the work, like they would if they were taking their own food to market. The person who reaps the wide profit never does a day of manual labor in his/her life. Do you all see the problem with this picture? The community of the workers falls apart, our community falls apart.
   
2. Disintegration of the family unit. So, whose fault is it anyway, that today's children are raised by television, raised on junkfood, and raised to continue being children until they are thirty and up even though they start having children of their own at half that age? Is it the parents' faults? Does no one love their children anymore? Does no one want the best for their children anymore?! I find that highly unlikely. While I'm sure there is the occasional parent who really doesn't give a crap about their kid because of drug problems or mental problems, the instinct for humans is to love their children with a feverishly immense love. So, why are peoples' children going to the wayside under the loving eye of their parents? My bet lays in misdirected love in a society that does not prize or even appreciate the family unit anymore. Let's start with the institution of marriage. Now, I am not the guy who walks around shouting about how the "institution of marriage" is being corrupted by gay marriage. I don't feel that way at all. However, I understand why people are saying that. It is a scapegoat because the family unit IS being corrupted-- but not by gay marriage. The institution of marriage has always been corrupt and easy to be based on the wrong things and is still today, only now parents and good parenting is no longer appreciated; those two things are a deadly combo for society. When people get married because of social pressures to create a family but then receive no support or encouragement from their community as a family, the family breaks up literally or psychologically and parents find themselves unable to give each other or their children what is needed to be healthy and happy functional people. It starts on the wedding night-- and no, I'm not talking about the hot bed scene! That's a good part of marriage, which also, too often, becomes lost in the shuffle. I'm talking about the fact that after marriage, the couple is no longer "check up on." Nobody asks how the couple is doing-- I mean really DOING. There is no support system for the couple and people prefer that they keep their "dirty laundry" to themselves. Therefore, problems in the marriage, with no help, become bigger and bigger and dysfunction can easily take over any relationship, no matter how much love was there to begin with. Then, add to the mix a social acceptance-- even encouragement, in some cases-- toward divorce when things are "unresolvable" and now we have a breakdown of the family unit. Now let's talk about kids. Oh, people are more than willing to give advice about child-rearing, and that's good; at least it's not like marriage, which people are expected to do alone but raising your own children is no longer a real option for most working people who need two incomes to survive, or who didn't make it with their spouse or mate (see the last section) so now their ONE income is extra-essential. Let's talk about maternity leave. Six weeks?! SIX WEEKS IS NOTHING. What is a mother supposed to do with her child in six weeks? A newborn is hardly cognitive at six weeks, not to mention the predicament of how a mother is supposed to nurse her baby if she has to return to work at six weeks. Now the mother-child bonding of breastfeeding is lost as a mother returns to work, the ability to relax and take the day moment to moment, as child-rearing should be is lost as the mother has to have the child to daycare before she is to work at some ungodly hour of the morning. It is noon here, and I am still in my bathrobe; Annika is just waking from a 3 hour morning nap and I have nursed her three times since she woke up this morning. I have an amazing relationship with my daughter because I have time to ENJOY her and also time to keep my house clean and to cook dinner and to sit down and nurse my baby several time a day. We take walks, we go to the park and she is learning essential life skills even now at six months. I have chosen to rebel against the norm and stay home almost full-time to raise our child for at least the first year of her life while she is nursing full-time. How many women in our culture get to do that? I am very lucky to be able to. Most women do not even have the option and if they do have the option to make it work (like we do) with very part-time work, extra work for the husband, and a little cutting here and there of extra expenditures, they don't realize it because it just isn't encouraged in our culture to even TRY to make it work. I'm glad for the feminist movement and all, but the whole idea of women working has turned against women and family in general. Now all women are expected to work and there is little provision and no monetary support for staying home to raise children-- a priceless duty to society that society is not willing to pay the price for, but is paying the price for not paying for! The entire family becomes strained when both parents have to be out the door early in the morning and they all return together at the same time at night to try to negotiate dinner, relaxation, and bedtime together. It's no wonder children are plopped in front of the TV while mom or dad makes something (prepackaged and quick from those wonderful food corporations we were talking about before) for dinner while the other one tries to pick up the mess that couldn't be taken care of that morning. Weeks turn into long stretches of barely seeing each other and weekends turn into catch-up time around the house and selfish "me-time" for moms and dads and kids because they haven't been able to relax all week. So before you know what's happened, parents have little-to-no significant understanding of their children who are growing fast into adults and it's hard to create that relationship when it's been neglected for so long, children are learning their values and morals from peers and television, and having kids of their own.

I have to cut this short now because Annika is ready for a playdate and i need to get moving. i'll post some more later!