Way to Offend Me!

So yesterday started my family's crazy month of birthday parties. In the month of March, we have a party every weekend! In fact, I had to turn down some invitations because there is just not enough time in every day for all these parties! And, we can only afford so many gifts for all these kids! 

That brings me to the fact that one of our friends really offended me yesterday! The party we went to yesterday, and the party that we are going to next week are for cousins who are a year apart. They like Batman and Star Wars (what little boys don't?) While searching for gifts for them, I could not find anything that wasn't super crappy! I mean, I don't want to get these sweet little boys crap toys that are going to fall apart the moment they look at them. All the good toys were way out of my price range (I'm not going to spend $40 or $50 on a kid that's not mine.) So I settled on Play dough. I found these awesome little sets that have letter and number cut outs. I feel that kids learn best when they don't actually know they are learning, so what better way than to hide it in Play dough fun! I also included a giant set of extra play dough, because you can never have too many colors, or too much to play with!

The first little boy didn't really care about his present, but in all fairness he got this huge play set, and that was all he cared about. And that's okay, the fun of play dough will never outshine a play set that you've been really wanting! We told the parents of the second little boy that we also go him the set, plus all the extra play dough, and seriously, this guy actually said to my husband's face "Oh, well, that will probably end up in our give away pile!" What the hell! Don't actually tell that to us, it's rude. I searched long and hard for a good gift for your child, and couldn't find anything that wasn't complete crap! Went for the play dough because in our house, everyone LOVES play dough! Bringing down the play dough is like giving my girls another Christmas. And my husband and I love play dough too. If you don't like it, whatever, but don't sit there and tell me that you are just going to give it away. It kinda makes me feel like crap, and that maybe I'm not good enough for you! So now I'm not sure what to do. Should I give it to them anyway? Should I try to find them something more worthy? Anyone out there have any suggestions? Anyone out there think I'm over reacting, and think that play dough is a crap gift?

Joys of Weekly Food Shopping

The fridge was getting bare, so it was time to head to the store today. Usually I like to go by myself. But Hubby has been working non stop (hooray for our bank account, boo for  not seeing him!) so if I didn't take the girls, we would end up having nothing to eat. 

Going to the store drains me on a few levels. For one, there is just shopping with the girls. Now, my girls are very good kids, and I admit that I am a very lucky mommy. That being said, there are still problems while at the store. DinoGirl (she's 4) LOVES to run around the store. She usually doesn't get to far away, and she's really cute and quiet, so most of the time it's okay. However, she does wander sometimes, and then I have to go find her. Usually I put her in the cart, but today we just had too many groceries to get. And then there is Monkey (she's 1). She does sit in the cart, because, being 1, she would wander super far away and end up lost. Plus, she is loving pulling everything off the shelves. But, putting her in the cart means I have to watch her constantly because she can climb out of the cart. Doesn't matter if I buckle her or not, she gets out of it, and then I have people screaming at me that my toddler is standing in the seat, about to fall! Thankfully today, both the girls were really good, there was no far wandering or cart escaping, and a nice produce worker even gave us samples of different kids of apples, which made the girls very happy!

Second part of the store that is draining is the getting everything into the house! The way our condo parking lot is set up, our parking space is far away from our front door. So I usually steal someone elses spot, just so I can get everything unloaded. I unloaded the girls, got them set up with lunch, put the gate up, and then rushed to get everything into the house before my neighbor yelled at me for using her spot (which she never uses, by the way). Then I have to move my car, and then put everything away. Today, while I was putting everything away Monkey decided that she was done with lunch. So what does she do? She dumps her bowl of pasta on the carpet. She then decides that DinoGirl must also be done, so she dumps her pasta on the floor too! While vacuuming up all the pasta, I ended up vacuuming up one of DinoGirl's socks that she has just dumped on the floor! I'm trying to get the sock out, and she's crying that she misses her sock. I was very happy for the nap time that was to follow the clean up session!

The third, and most draining, part of shopping is the financial aspect. It seems that no matter how little I get, our bill is always so high. Hubby and I have started planning meals for a week or 2, and then shopping accordingly. That has cut our bill down, but it is still so high. For our income level, we really should be eating crap. But, we both insist on feeding our girls healthy, whole foods. You will find very few packaged foods in our house. We are even starting to get into making our own pasta. And our girls eat so many fruits and veggies. We honestly cannot afford to feed our girls as well as we do, but we don't really see it as a choice that we can make. My girls love homemade food, and they reject fast food. And that makes me proud, and so happy! But it also worries me to no end. We have cut pretty much all luxuries out of our life. We live in a tiny condo, we have the cheapest car insurance possible, there are no fancy cell phones in our house, and both of our cars are on their last legs (yet another point of worry for me, seeing as once they go we have no way to replace them). DinoGirl only goes to preschool 2 half days a week. There is nothing left to cut except our food bill. It saddens me that we hardly make enough to feed our girls!

A lot of that has to do with the area that we live in. Everything is more expensive up here. Everything. We do want to move, and we will move, but probably not for another year. I try not to stress about money, and most of the time I succeed. That is, until grocery shopping day!

Free Speech

Today during nap time, I was browsing Yahoo News like I always do during nap time. I like to kinda keep up with the world, and see what's going on. Also a great way to find out what some of the celebs are up too, which as embarassing as it is to admit, I have an obsession with celbreity news! Moving on...

Today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church in a suit filed against them The suit was filed by a family of a fallen Marine, and they filed because this church, lead by their Pastor Fred Phelps, was protesting outside of their son's funeral. Now, this church believes that our soldiers die because there is homosexuality in the world. And apparently some of their signs were pretty hurtful, and caused many grieving members of this family emotional distress.

The Supreme Court ruled as it should. This protest, no matter how hurtful or tactless, is protected under free speech. And free speech is a wonderful thing, especially for extremely outspoken people. What bothers me is that something like this would even have to go in front of the Supreme Court in the first place. 

We are all taught from an early age that if we don't have anything nice to say, we shouldn't say anything at all. And that's mostly just crap our parents tell us because it's supposed to teach us to think before we speak. We all say and do hurtful things. It happens, we are human beings. However, it seems that some people cross the line so far that they can no longer see the line. 

Now, the members of this church have every right to believe as they want to believe. And really, it affects no one. Whatever. No matter how crazy it seems to the rest of us, they still get to believe it. And they even have a right to protest, and vocalize (as loudly as they want) their thoughts and opinions. And I support that right. In fact, I would help them organize their protests, because everyone should be able to do what they want. That being said, What in God's name are they thinking to go sit outside funerals of dead soldiers, and say the awful things they say? That shows a lacking of plain human decency. No matter if love the military, support everything they do, or hate the military and think it should not exist, we all agree that the loss of a son or daughter, mom or dad, aunt or uncle, sister or brother, is an awful experience. How could these deranged people think this is an appriote time to try and sell their political message? Especially when that message is saying that God killed these soldiers because he's upset about homosexuals? 

The members of this church, lead by Mr. Phelps, say that they are getting out this message because it's their duty to human kind, blah blah blah. Probably think they are going to save the world from themselves. But how can you think you are doing good when what you are doing is hurting so many innocent people? There is a time and a place for free speech, and funerals are not it!


http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110302/pl_yblog_exclusive/courts-ruling-in-funeral-protest-case-restates-first-amendment-principles