Dear Thursday Thirteeners and all the Usual Suspects,

Do you remember being 7 years old? I do. It was fun. I learned to ride my bike — my Dad taught me. I played Red Rover, Red Rover and hide and seek with all the neighbor kids. I loved going to ballet class, and to the lake and river. I loved my second-grade teacher because she thought everything I did was perfect. I had fun playing beauty shop with my 4-year-old sister. We had a Halloween carnival, just the two of us.

For my daughter, however, 7 has not been that fun. She’s the guest poster this week. Presenting… Wacky Girl, in living color:

A lot of people of people think it’s fun being 7. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s not.

1. You’re in the middle, right in the middle, of all the kid ages, up to 10.

2. There’s no good movies cuz they’re all either baby movies or grown-up movies.

3. It seems like all the people are older than you.

4. If they’re not, then it’s good.

5. When they’re babies I like to play with them.

6. If you have a younger sibling then they get, like… Well. If you do something, like it’s the first time, and then the sibling feels jealous of you. And then they get to do the same thing for the first time, even though they’re younger, which is not fair. Like seeing PG movies.

7. Also, if you have a younger person in your family, they usually get to go first.

8. Sometimes when you’re the oldest it’s fun. Sometimes your brother or sister don’t get jealous, and you get to take the first turn.

9. You’re almost 8, and you’re almost 9, when you’re 7.

10. Seven is a lucky number.

11. You get to eat hard candy.

12. You can swim better. I’m in Seals in swim lessons.

13. You get to stay up later and watch more grown-up TV!

I love everyone!

Wacky Girl

Internet,

What’s going on?

xxox

WM

Dear Reader,

I love MomsRising for many, many reasons, but mainly I love them because they make it so easy for me to do some political work while I’m still in my pajamas. Here’s an e-mail I got from them today. I highly recommend signing up on their e-mail list, and sending them a few bucks when you can spare it.

Yours in female power,

WM

Dear MomsRising Member,

Last Saturday we alerted you to the Fisher Price recall of preschool toys due to toxic lead in the paint (Check the end of this email for specific info on what’s being recalled.). (more…)

“Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship.”

— Sharon Stone

One of my girlfriends e-ed this to me, when I was having a cruddy day. It’s a good one to re-read from time to time.

WM

“Someone will always be prettier.
They will always be smarter.
Their house will be bigger.
They will drive a better car.
Their children will do better in school.
And their husband will fix more things around the house.
So let it go, and love you and your circumstances.
Think about it.
The prettiest woman in the world can have hell in her heart.
And the most highly favored woman on your job may be unable to have
children.
And the richest woman you know,
she’s got the car, the house, the clothes….might be really, really lonely.
So, again, love you.
Love who you are.
Look in the mirror in the morning and smile and say
‘This right here is what I got, and it ain’t half bad.'”

You realize, don’t you, that it’s hard for me to enjoy my morning dose of java without some yummy blogs to read. So why aren’t you posting???

What’s going on, honey? Have you heard it all before?

“When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.”

— Mark Twain, “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar”

Here’s the grumpiest post ever. (Also really funny.)

Isn’t that imaginatively titled? Well, I have not the words, but I still persevere.

I may have a new post up over at GNM. It’s not up yet (ed. to say: it’s up! I wrote about road trips this week), but then again it’s only 4:15 a.m. and the grasshoppers are probably sleeping. I am not sleeping. We have too much going on this weekend and I’m a little worried. It’ll all be fine. Or it won’t. That’s life.

Did you hear that they stopped handing out free formula in diaper bags at a bunch of hospitals? They did. Because they’re “supporting” breast feeding. What? Some of us do well with nursing. Some of us don’t. And some of us, in spite of the fact that our nipples crack and bleed, because we’ve given birth to “Barracuda Babies” (that was my Lactation Nazi’s description of both my kids) well, we press on and it works out.

In spite of the exhaustion.

In spite of our husbands shouting, like evil drill sergeants, “DO YOU WANT TO JUST STOP NURSING? DO YOU WANT ME TO JUST GO TO THE STORE RIGHT NOW AND BUY SOME FORMULA? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?”

My response to that was: “Yes.”

Yet he refused to go to the store! Tease. Luckily I had cases of the formula stashed in the pantry. (“Crack cocaine,” as Amalah’s unkind Breastfeeding Nazi described it. Here’s her post, go read it.) While I was pregnant I signed up to be on everybody’s mailing list — Similac, Enfamil, the Amazing Free Stuff site… And they all sent goodies. Thanks! Cuz I love some goodies.

I think we used one small can of the formula, or maybe we didn’t, who knows, then I gave the rest to the foodbank. They were thrilled. Turns out, it’s expensive and foodbanks are more than happy to take it from you.

Yes, I’m glad that breastfeeding worked out for me and my babies, in spite of the “nipple issues,” in spite of my losing 50 pounds in two months (combo wallop of thyroid problems and mommy-starvation from nursing. My babies were well-fed, I was ravenous), the hideous pumps, the people who gave me grief about “isn’t he/she a little old for that?” (My daughter nursed ’til she was 2; my son until 18 months.) Of course I’m glad. But if it hadn’t worked out?

I would have felt like crap because of all the shaming I would have gotten.

“Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.”

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)

Seneca, you were smart! You philosophers — isn’t that the way it always goes? I am smart, too. I am trying to be 1) consistent 2) not angry 3) more patient. With the traffic, with the kids, with the weather, in my relationships. With the stuck-up pool ladies. (No, I’m not saying which pool. But here’s a clue to help narrow it down: The one with the most Stepford Wives. “…one of these things/is not like the other/one of these things/just doesn’t belong…” Can you guess? The thing that doesn’t belong is me.) (more…)