I finally have a minute to sit down and post a blog and actually feel compelled to do so! It's the perfect storm, let me tell you.
So, August was a pretty busy month for us. My family came to visit, we had Garrett's birthday party and my cousin got married, all over the same weekend. Garrett did much better than I expected as a ring bearer. He also now thinks every day is his birthday and all packages that come in the mail are presents for him. It doesn't help that we celebrated a month early and then the 3 of us celebrated again on his actual birthday. We've also been to the Ringling Brothers Circus, Dallas Aquarium, saw 2 more movies in the theater, had a few play dates with friends, and started back to Mother's Day Out/Preschool (depending on the name you want to give that program. I say for 3 year olds it's MDO, but once he's 4/5 then I will call it Preschool.) This was all in the past 4 weeks, so it's been a busy, but productive, month for us.
Today we had the big 3 year doctor check-up. My child is very hot/cold. One minute he's crying and literally sliding down the back of his chair in the office when the doctor walks in and the next minute he's handing him a coloring sheet that he had been working on. He sat on the exam table and was very cooperative throughout the entire check up after his initial meltdown. At one point he even looked at me and said "I good boy, Momma!". Of course that might have had something to do with the icecream that I promised him if he behaved himself.
I'm sorry, did I just say that? I would never condone bribing a small child. It's just not done.
Thank goodness that we didn't have any shots this go around! Of course the doctor warned me that next year at the 4 year check up, it will not be pretty. He actually promoted bribery for that checkup, saying "Maybe you should have something special planned once you leave here." That does NOT sound good at all!
I'm not a political pundit, but I found myself watching the RNC the other night when Sarah Palin spoke. I had never before heard her name, so the speech was a good introduction to who she is and let me just say that I was really impressed. But first, I have to say that I want this teen pregnancy issue to be taken off the table. The choices that her 17 year old daughter makes cannot have any bearing on the type of person or parent that Palin is. I say that because, while I was a pretty good teenager, I would never have wanted anything that I did to reflect badly on my parents (namely my dad who is a pastor) because they did most everything right (of course all parents make mistakes, I know I sure do). I'm sure Bristol Palin does not want her choices to reflect badly on her mom. She's adult enough to know that having sex can sometimes result in pregnancy even if you take all the precautions that are available. She could have gone out and had an abortion without her parents ever knowing, but she didn't. That right there is what speaks volumes of the Palin's parenting.
Ok, so I said I wanted this issue taken off the table and then proceeded to talk about it, sorry. How many of you (ladies especially) squealed with delight and had a huge grin on your face when you saw the littlest Palin daughter lick her hand and slick down baby Palin's hair??! I loved it!! So cute and so real. What a little sweetheart, both of them! I would get a kick out of watching Sarah Palin reviewing that footage! Let me just say that seeing that precious little Down-syndrome baby squeezed my heart and choked me up. Could I love the Palin kids any more than I already do? I think I'm just a softy when it comes to big families. Of course those kids have no bearings on whether or not their mom (or McCain) are the ones to vote for so I hope nobody votes based on them. However they definitely made Palin more "real" to me. And Palin in turn made McCain more appealing. I had no plans to go out and vote for Obama, but now I feel actually compelled to vote for McCain/Palin rather than allow apathy to swallow me and keep me from the polls come November.
I've got to add that if Obama and Biden didn't consider McCain a real threat before, you can bet they do now. And I cannot wait for the VP debates! Yes, I realize that Palin was reading a teleprompter rather than thinking on her feet during the speech, but everyone should be in agreement with me if you watched McCain last night, teleprompter reading is not something that comes natural to most. Palin obviously knows how to atleast read with inflection and (I think) will hold her own just fine against Biden.
Yesterday morning I dropped my son off at MDO and came home to kill some time before my hair appointment. So I flicked on the TV and turned it to the only talk show that was on (no cable here!) at that time. Unfortunately for me it was "The View" and double unfortunately, Elisabeth Hasslebeck (the show's token Republican) wasn't there! You would think that those women would actually have been impressed with Palin. Women's rights and all that jazz, but apparently the Republican label trumps estrogen and those women ripped her to shreds.
From Palin's criticism of Obama's community service ("Obama graduated from Harvard and could have done many other things, but chose to 'give back' to his community instead. That's noble and not something to be made fun of." Yes, Sherri Shepard, it's noble, but not something that should go on the resume of a presidential hopeful. Hence Palin's point in bringing it up as something that does little to give Obama the experience he needs to be president.) to the pregnant teenage daughter (I won't go there again, promise!). I could only stomach about 10 minutes of it before I had to turn it off. Then I later heard on the radio someone say "Republicans are against teen pregnancy, but now that there's a candidate with a pregnant teen, they act as if there's nothing wrong with it." Umm, maybe I missed the Republican memo that came out saying we're "against" teen pregnancy. How is one against teen pregnancy exactly? Especially when the Republican party is against abortions. You can't be against abortion AND against pregnancy. Yes, Republicans preach and support abstinance and are usually against sex education in the schools, but I don't see how that equals being against pregnant teens. Yes, I know, we don't *want* girls to get pregnant at a young age. It's not good for them and a lot of the time can result in the babies being raised in a less than ideal environment. But it's very frustrating to hear all these appearingly uninformed people making statements that are certainly not based on facts.
I know that this goes both ways with Republicans making uninformed statements in reference to all-things Democrat. But all this is more reason behind my 'head-in-the-sand' mentality. The backbiting and namecalling grates on you after awhile. I just don't see how politicians can live in that world.
Ok, so in closing, please vote for me. No, that's not right. I promise I will attempt to post more frequently now that Garrett is back in MDO. I'm in the beginning stages of planning to start a blog elsewhere, so once that is a done deal, I will let you know where you can find me.
