A group of church families were camped nearby during the first week we were here. Lots of kids. Lots of rowdiness. A little girl just a year older than Eliza, who came over to play pretend games on the second afternoon.

That second night, I overheard a father and a crying child in their tent across the street: "I told you to put on your pull-up, and I told you AGAIN to put on your pull-up, and when I turned around, you were lying there with your legs out and you had NOT put on your pull-up. You have to learn to do as you're told!"

After Jeff and I had been together for awhile, I pretty much told people that my favorite topic of conversation was sex. I was probably a bit, I regret only a little, insufferable about how fun my life had become. But you know how it is - when something takes up a lot of your brain space, it becomes your Primary Topic of Import.

Dear Family,

"The notion that we need the same type of economic system for all areas of life is ridiculous. For big things like cars, airplanes, computers, etc, capitalism is appropriate and works very well. For public services, education, utilities and (I believe) natural resources, a kind of socialism is the appropriate model. But for things like food, farming, clothing, low-tech manufacturing, etc, the best model is free enterprise (which is different from capitalism)."

--Sally Fallon Morell

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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behavior of their children--temper tantrums, food intolerances, constant bickering, taking hours to go to sleep, withdrawn and autistic behavior--with concurrent stresses."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.