Dear Family,
"Working as a mover makes you not be a hoarder. I see so much stuff every day, and I don't want any of it! All they are...are nice things."
--G.
Owner of a local moving company
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Dear Family,
"Why change the diet, many people ask; we are going to die anyway, so shouldn't we just enjoy what we eat? The problem...is that if we just eat anything that tempts us, and allow our families to do the same, we end up with a life in which little can be enjoyed. The biggest motivator for many families to change their diets is the hellish behavior of their children--temper tantrums, food intolerances, constant bickering, taking hours to go to sleep, withdrawn and autistic behavior--with concurrent stresses."
--Sally Fallon Morell
"We don’t treat asthma in mothers to whom breathing is important. The importance of breathing is assumed by everyone at every level, and anyone having trouble with it is going to do what she needs to do to get it to work. Period. What a wonderful world it will be – and how much more easily successes will come – when breastfeeding is nothing more than what our own culture does.“
-- Diane Wiessinger, Author, IBCLC and La Leche League Leader
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Dear Family,
"But oh how I loved everybody else
When I finally got to talk so much about myself."
-- Dar Williams, "What do you Hear in These Sounds?"
"Theirs was a large, noisy and improvident household, but they muddled through."
-- Beatrix Potter, "Peter Rabbit" [an adapted version of?]
"Time flies, when it's not your baby!"
--Our Neighbor, upon seeing Ivy for the first time in two months
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Ivyisms:
Hi Family,
I am expecting this will be exceptionally interesting and well-done. It is also an issue that makes me so angry that I can't see straight!
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/miracleindustry/americas-most-admire…
"Enjoy,"
--Sarabeth
I got all sad tonight. I'd kind of remembered to forget that tonight is Erev Rosh Hashanah, mostly because I am completely not a Practicing Jewish Person in any religious sense.
A retelling of "Upstairs Downstairs" from "Owl At Home,"
with apologies to Arnold Lobel
by Sarabeth
(Details have been rearranged and omitted to protect the innocent.)
Once upon a summer day, Ivy got up _really_ early. So did her parents. Amazingly, after two hours of pooping, playing, nursing, complaining, nursing, and playing while complaining, Ivy fell back asleep. Even more amazingly still, so did her parents.
After dialing unsuccessfully through Lowes' call-waiting system, and talking to a Home Depot customer service person who actually went into the back to see if Home Depot carries the correct replacement size (they do not), I finally got through to a Live Person in the Lowe's Appliance Department, who sent me over to the Parts Department, because the filters were not in stock in that store either.
I told the parts guy what I was looking for, and he inquired mildly: "Have you tried cleaning them?"
I find myself feeling guilty about feeling exhausted by having four kids. I find myself getting defensive: Yeah, I know, If I didn't choose to homeschool them, If I didn't choose to be obsessive over their nutrition, If I balanced my life better, If I had obtained the right sort of therapies for my kids and me, If I managed my stress better, If I didn't choose to be a stay at home mother, if if if...then I could occupy myself with something more legitimately useful about which I could stress, like a Successful/Ambitious Career! Got it.
Below is an excerpt from an [article](http://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/new-prescription-drugs-major-health-risk…) that makes my blood boil (if you can tolerate a crazy level of boiling, check out this [amazing book](http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Medicines-Organised-Crime-Healthcare/dp/18…) that goes into great detail concerning why the drug cartels - I mean Pharmaceutical Companies - are mor