this just in!

(from henry rollins, upon seeing the photo of oskar getting his book from the shelf.)

oskar's reading material

i'm so proud.

xmas 2008

it's been so long...

but things are calmer. much calmer. yay for the wonders of medication! it was a really nice christmas and now it's 3:11 a.m. and oskar felt all sorts of not sleepy. so we're hanging out and i'm counting down until 4 a.m. when i know he'll be ready to go back to sleep... very soon. i am realizing that we have a TON of toys, and what's oskar playing with right now? a cardboard box.

sigh.

he is full-on crawling at top velocity, pulling himself up to standing against furniture and he will even attempt a no-hands standing position and succeed for about five seconds.

t-minus 30 days until walking, i predict. crazy.

maybe that was a little bit harsh.

but you have to understand how frustrating it is. we went to a school band concert the other night, and i know for a fact i wasn't the only one who felt... weird. like, all eyes were on us four parents. and not just because we have adorably cute babies.

maybe that was just paranoia -- us being worried that we were being studied by those around us. but it was creepy.

so i was harsh. but i'm in protective momma bear mode. i know my kid has caused some stress to those around her... but she's a victim in this, too. she didn't ask for a mood problem. she didn't do anything to bring it on. it happened. now we deal.

begin rant

this will not make sense to many (or a few) who read this, but it's basically some lint falling out of my brain that threatens to make my brain explode if i don't free the lint.

suffice it to say, we're dealing with some parenting/child issues, and i have a few things i want to get out. i became a parent at the age of 20/21 in an unplanned manner, but i chose to keep abagail in my life because i knew, i KNEW that i could raise her well. i also knew that there is no lifeguard at the gene pool and that, genetically speaking, she could take on some of my traits besides my childbearing hips (which she has avoided).

having said that, i resent people acting as though we are unaware of what is happening. my ex said it best by saying, "no shit, sherlock." i am a young mother. but i am not a stupid, unknowing mother. i am a mother who has seen what shit can happen. i am a mother who has done stupid things, and i am a mother who has survived. my mother is a mother who has survived. my daughter will survive all of this, too.

i am tired of people not having faith in my daughter, and acting as though this situation will NEVER resolve itself, when it's only been in repair mode for a couple of weeks. these are people who should fucking know better. and i know that some kids are uncomfortable and uneasy right now. boo hoo, i'm working on keeping my kid functional and alive, so you whiners can just eat it.

there's my rant. i only mean to be bitter a little bit, but as a mother who is fighting like hell to keep her child functional and simply OKAY, i get frustrated. who knew that it would be the school officials who were the compassionate ones????

f**king awesome

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black

good times 'round these parts.

this is pretty goddamned funny...

thanks for this, jege!

i'm so proud of my friends!

GOLD: Prologue (SD) from David Nett on Vimeo.

hmm... nov. 25... why should that date ring a bell with me...?

oh yeah. almost forgot.


Nine Inch Nails - Lights In The Sky 2008 tour ad from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

video time, take two..

are you fucking kidding me?

i am absolutely...

... not functioning today. do you ever feel like your back is about to break (figuratively, not literally)? trying to anticipate problems and solve problems and no matter what you do, you are left cleaning up a mess??? (this is in no way relating to oskar's bodily functions.)

i'm just tired of being as strong as i have to be all the time. bah.

what i can't stop listening to...

Never Think by Rob Pattinson (from the movie Twilight). good stuff.

six months of the oskar

so, so proud.

my new favorite site...

can be found HERE. now everyone, go update your twitter status with a cuss word.

abbey and oskar...

for having two different dads, my two kids look a lot alike as babies...






they aren't clones or anything, but for being half-sibs, they are pretty similar.

a giggling child just kills me.

my kids rule.

holy crap. CANNOT WAIT UNTIL NOV. 25!

some info from MomentFactory on how they did what they did for NIN's shows (interactive stage shows)... 3:07 will freak your shit, but the whole thing is kick ass.



this is where a fella from MomentFactory explains the magic... 3:34 is especially interesting.

absentee voting brought to you by Chris

one year.

oskar is sleeping in the sling right now and the poor kid's head is damp from my weepy nature. bram embodied unconditional love and friendship. i know i'm not alone when i say that a part of me is missing since he left.

this is so cool...

the larson family, back to the days of denmark.
you can see where we come in at number 60.

happy birthday to the bestest friend ever!

happy birthday, amycita!!! i love you so much!

ugh.

i want to slap that wink off of her face.
"hockey moms and joe sixpacks..."

i can't even BEGIN to express my hatred right now. especially when i KNOW there are houses in this country where, in the tv room, there is some douchebag yelling, "yeah! let's hear it for us joesixpacks! wooo!" (my money is on his face being painted for a sports team.)

i do, however, enjoy watching mccain wander around aimlessly during a townhall meeting.

seriously?

laura ingraham just called the leader of iran "far left" on the fox network, when discussing why these "far left" guys like obama.

that's what we get for turning on the fox channel to just see what the crazies are saying.

some oskar footage...

facts.

debate #2 facts.

real-time, completely biased debate commentary.

mccain told an audience member that he had (the audience guy) probably "never heard of them (fannie mae and freddie mac) before this crisis." crappy assumption that the average "joe six-pack" wouldn't know of those companies. i knew of them as an 18 year old getting a student loan.

mccain: a $5000 tax credit for health care -- that goes DIRECTLY to the insurance company -- and then you still have to make up for the other roughly $7000 for health care? oh, and your health benefits are TAXED? gross. oh, i can cross state lines to get health care? THAT'S convenient. i'm sure THAT won't cause any corporate red-tape kind of shit. i can barely get things approved from my company that is IN THIS VERY CITY.

i don't know how much more of this i can take.

some quick thoughts before bed...

not much time to write lately --- funny how caring for an infant can eat up time. here are some things on my brain...

1. sarah palin. you evil, evil thing. just because you didn't vomit all over yourself at the podium DOES NOT MEAN that you tied in the debate, let alone WON the debate. and i'm sick of people who think otherwise.
2. again, sarah palin. shame, shame on you. for so many reasons.
3. and to you john mccain -- shame on you. you could run a clean, slander-free campaign, but you didn't. you are selling your soul and it's shameful.
4. tina fey, i want to be like you when i grow up.
5. this is neither here nor there, but oskar is sleeping next to me right now and his little bare feet are on my arm. awww....
6. i have the best kids in the world.

must sleep.

did you happen to see...

... the most beautiful girl in the world?

can't wait to watch thursday night's freak show!

excerpt from katie couric interview with palin:

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

i think she realized that answering honestly to the magazine question -- Redbook, Family Circle, Better Homes & Garden -- MIGHT shoot down her credibility as a world leader.

And asked about reports that one of the churches she attends has encouraged gays to become straight, Palin referred again to her own life. "I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships," she said. "I have ... one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years who happens to be gay. And I love her dearly. And she is not my gay friend, she is one of my best friends who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice that I have made."

a CHOICE! see? if you don't wanna be gay, just CHOOSE not to be! SIMPLE! and if you are gay, it's because you've CHOSEN it.

thanks to dust for the link!

this site rules.

seriously?

for real? oh PETA. i don't know what to do with you.

a good read...

dustin forwarded this on to me... good stuff.

will someone PLEASE make them stop lying???

pretty please, with sprinkles on top?

STOP THEM.

each misleading statement deserves a flogging.

mccain and palin actually took information from an article that was cleaning up internet rumors about bat-shit crazy palin and used it to make obama look bad... luckily factcheck called them out on it, but sadly i know the fox news crowd won't realize that. bah. fuckers.

internet awesomeness

props to cgt for this:



and someone on the nin forum found this:

a few minutes of downtime...

time for a few photos...

wow!

keep talkin', crazy Alaskan lady!

wise words from those beastie boys...

"party people, just wanted to reach out and make sure everyone is registered to vote this year. in many states you need to register well ahead of time. this is a friendly reminder so you don't get caught with your pants down. let's get obama into that oval office and get things back on track.
adam, mike and adam"

i just tried to watch a smidgen of the RNC -- guiliani was speaking -- and i couldn't do it. he was busy making obama sound elitist, so instead of ramming my fist into the tv screen, i changed the channel.

fox news in minneapolis was reporting that there is concern that a rage against the machine concert might bring out rage in concert-goers. yeah, it must just be from the concert... no other reason that people would be pissed off. not a bit.

shame on you, st, paul police....

assaulting and arresting journalists? really? has it come to that? i understand that you'd be pissy about some asshats busting windows in downtown, but just like the RNC, journalists (AND protestors) have every fucking right to be in st. paul.

tonight we drove to st. paul to check out the chaos a bit -- we seemed to always be on the cusp of something going on -- mostly just stuck in traffic, nowhere to park and honestly, with the way the police are tossing tear gas around willy-nilly, i was okay with not being in the midst of the crap (esp. with the wee oskar in the car). at one point we were stopped and after a march went down a street, it was followed by a couple of cop wagons, cops on bikes AND cops on horseback. then we drove around some more, mostly b/c all of the usual routes i knew to get home were blocked off. when we were on kellogg and getting closer to the xcel center, it was all fenced off and there were national guard looking fellas standing every five feet or so. it looks like a military base landed in the middle of downtown.

finally we found an interstate exit, but riot police began to block it off in front of us. we drove around and then at another intersection we were stopped and there was about 20-50 (dark, so hard to tell) riot cops lined up. photographers began heading in that direction, so again i think there was something going on. however in our car oskar was beginning to seriously lose his shit (between teething, being gassy and over-tired, he was pretty upset) so we u-turned the hell out of there and finally found a street not blockaded.

it's definitely crazy, the crap that is going on. did they have stuff like this going on in denver, and maybe we just didn't hear about it? there just appears to be some excessive force being used against protesters. and journalists. and anyone who happens to have a camera.

gripe 2 of the day... the whinerbabies who are still pissy that hillary didn't get the nomination, and they are such fucking idiots that they are backing mccain. do you think for a second that, had hillary gotten the nomination, that obama backers would say "waaah! our guy didn't get it! now we need to back mccain even though it goes against our interests!" ??? NO. NO FUCKING WAY. if i seem hostile about this point,... well, it's because i am.

MORE WHINERBABIES. man up, take one for the team. if hillary can move on, i reckon you can too.

if you fuck this up for the rest of us, it will be on your head that we move full-steam ahead even faster to hell in this crappy little handbasket. idiots. bah.

okay, last gripe o' the day. i'm glad Obama -- as always -- took the high road on Palin's daughter's pregnancy and said family is off limits. the high road is what won him the nomination, i believe. with that said, what do you think would have happened had bill and hillary's daughter chelsea was "in the family way" during bill's years in office? can you even fathom the fallout from that?

i have a lot on my mind and it's all bubbling up to the surface. no one is safe from my wrath. bah.

update...

life is calming down a little bit after a pretty nutso two days. calm is good. i like calm. so yes, crystal, things are okay now.

aaaaand.....

another shoe drops. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

some thoughts.

i think of myself -- and have always thought of myself -- as broken, for the most part. i'm functional, clever, blah blah blah, but there are parts of me that will always be somewhat in pieces. and when you think of yourself in this manner, it makes the idea that you are capable of growing a complete person inside of you difficult to believe.

early on in my pregnancy with abbey, it was almost impossible to comprehend that anything healthy and beautiful could come from my tobacco-coated, prescription drug-laden, alcohol soaked and somewhat carved-up self. and i recall nursing her in bed when she was a few months old, and being so taken in by her. there was this small person, completely formed, no broken parts, and she had come from ME, of all places.

this feeling happened tonight. in bed, nursing oskar, and i remembered the sound of his heart when he was still in fetus stage. then i touched his chest to feel his heartbeat and i was mesmerized by his bones -- his rib cage, specifically. then i just studied him in disbelief. sure, this time around i was not tobacco-coated upon conceiving this baby, but still my usual, broken, in-pieces self... and here's the little boy with the correct numbers of digits, both eyes, no extra body part or tails of any type.

i don't say it often (mostly b/c i'm afraid i'm tempting fate and if i say it, it somehow opens the door for life to come in and kick me in the head), but i have a very, very good life. from all my fucked-up parts, all my neuroses and my flaws and my complications and issues and broken pieces, two completely amazing children have come into my life, as a result of my life. (not that i solely made them, but you know what i mean.) my very existence made them exist.

i can't wrap my head around that. but i know to say that i'm lucky is a complete understatement.

wha...? an actual blog post?

of course now that i've typed the post title, lil' Oskar has begun to stir. figures.
so what's new in my life? besides trying to master the skill of the double breast pump (damn near impossible with what i've got to work with), not a whole hell of a lot. i was going through a whole "which pill should i take?" situation when i finally resolved that going back on prozac is for the best. oskar is older now and can handle the wee dose i'm taking --- the benefits WAY outweigh any possible risk, so we're moving ahead with that.

fall is on the way here and although it is my favorite season, fall is usually riddled with all sorts of head problems for me -- but it seems like it will be less this year. it was kicking my ass last fall (as it usually does) and then bram died. that really changed EVERYTHING. it changed how i think about stuff, how i worry about stuff, how i feel about people and how i express to people how i feel about them. it put all that head shit on the back burner and now i feel like -- for the first time ever -- it's staying on the back burner. i know it's always going to be there, but that horrible crap is less important than everything else. that fucker gets no more of my life and no more of what little sanity remains in this grey matter of mine. (that's right, i spell it GREY, now GRAY. i also spell theatre with an RE. unless it's a movie theater. that's different. but i digress.)

so i'm re-medicated (b/c i found zoloft to be as useful as tic-tacs) and my anxieties are better already. never realized how i'm so uncomfortably close to being a hypochondriac. i had the aura migraine a few weeks ago and since then i was horribly obsessed with "what if another one comes" that i was making myself sick over it. then i was worried about my heart and cholesterol and basically anything that could that happen to the point where i was just a wreck. it's a little known bit that, while pregnant, i actually went to urgent care b/c i was having chest pains and freaking out that i was having a heart attack. irrational? completely. but that didn't make it any less scary.

dude, i need to sleep.

it feels nice to write again. more to come in the not-so distant future.

boy learning to laugh...

stupid summer colds!!!!

from nin.com:

"8.01.2008: NIN Minneapolis show at Target Center postponed to November 25th

We regret to announce that due to illness, the Minneapolis show originally scheduled for Saturday, August 2nd at the Target Center has been postponed due to illness. The band is sincerely sorry for the last minute announcement, but after receiving doctor's orders not to perform, Trent has reluctantly agreed to the postponement.

The concert is being rescheduled for Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at Target Center. All tickets purchased for the August 2nd concert will be honored on the new date. For those unable to attend the rescheduled date of November 25th, a refund will be available at original point of purchase.

Thank you very much for your understanding."

*tear*

a brief post before bed...

congrats to jason and leita on the arrival of the wee baby Hank!

last week was basically defined by sunday's migraine. once every six or so years i get one of these bad-boy, ass-kicking aura migraines that destroy me. it's pretty scary when you realize you can't recall a certain word, or even pronounce it correctly... dysphasia is just one of the many gems the aura migraine offers.

so eight hours after it began the pain finally stopped. monday was kind of a blur but today i was pretty much back to normal.

bon voyage to terry -- have a great time in paris, my friend!

now.... to sleep. must... sleep....

a visit with em and family!

emily, one of the lovely leingirlz3, had a wee boy five days before our oskar was born, and last night we went over to visit!

look at those kiddos! plotting our demise already.

oskar has brute feet.

even their moods were in sync.

abbey and ellie bonded.

we've acquired a bumbo seat for oskar...


oh, and look below to see what came in the mail today for oskar to wear... (note the defiance in his left hand...)

but even a hard-core badass like oskar needs a tubby.


he likes the warm towel on him to keep him toasty...




awww, cheeks mcghee.

good stuff.

when i nurse oskar, he'll sometimes fall asleep with his fingers in my belly button.

what a lad. takes after his awesome sister.

so pensive as i kiss him.

terry, wearing this year's fashionable Oskar.

a great article on the myth of spoiling babies

dr. sears is the best, and it's great to have an expert actually confirm what i feel in my gut as a mother. so if you are interested and have time, take a read...

SPOILING

Few parents make it through their offspring's babyhood without being told that all their efforts to nurture and respond to their baby will surely spoil her. And if it's not spoiling that they're warned against, they're told not to let themselves be "manipulated" by baby. Attachment parenting is not the same as indulgently giving your child everything she asks for. We stress that parents should respond appropriately to their baby's needs, which means knowing when to say "yes" and when to say "no." Sometimes in their zeal to give children everything they need, it's easy for parents to give their children everything they want, and this is indeed harmful. Parents must learn to distinguish between a child's needs and a child's wants.

Yet, telling the difference between needs and wants is not a problem that parents have to wrestle with during their early months of parenting. In the beginning, wants and needs are the same. During the first several months of life, a baby's wants are a baby's needs. A consistent "yes" response teaches babies trust, which will make them more accepting of "no" later on, when they start wanting things they should not have. If you learn to know your baby by responding readily to his needs in the early months, you'll have a good sense of when it's appropriate to say no later on.

New parents often ask, "Won't holding our baby a lot, responding to cries, nursing our baby on cue, and even sleeping with our baby spoil her?" Or they ask if this kind of parenting will create an overly dependent, manipulative child? Our answer is an emphatic no. In fact, both experience and research have shown the opposite. Attachment fosters eventual interdependence. A child whose needs are met predictably and dependably does not have to whine and cry and worry about getting his parents to do what he needs.

Dr. Sears suggests: Attachment parenting implies responding appropriately to your baby; spoiling suggests responding inappropriately.

The spoiling theory seems scientific. At least it seemed logical to the childcare "experts" who popularized this idea, beginning in the early part of the 20th century. They thought that if you rewarded crying by picking the baby up, he would cry more, so that he would get picked up more. It turns out that human behavior is a little more complicated than this. It is true that if you carry a newborn baby in your arms much of the time, the baby will protest when put down in the crib. This baby has learned how to feel right, and she lets you know when she needs help getting that feeling back. However, in the long run, this rightness within her will make her less likely to cry for attention. She gets used to feeling right most of the time, and her parent's responsiveness shows her how to recognize her own needs. Spoiling happens when a child is put on the shelf, left alone, forgotten about--the way that food spoils. There was no scientific basis for this spoiling theory, just unwarranted fears and opinions. We would like to put the spoiling theory on the shelf � to spoil forever.

The attachment style of parenting is not the same as overindulging kids or creating inappropriate dependency. The possessive parent, or "hover mother," is constantly in a flurry around her child, doing everything for him because of her own fears and insecurity. Her child may become overly dependent, because he has been kept from doing what he needs to do. An attached mother recognizes when it is appropriate to let her child struggle a bit, experience some frustration, so that he can grow. This is why we continually emphasize putting balance in your chosen parenting style. Attachment differs from dependency. Attachment enhances development; prolonged dependency will hinder development.

Science Says Attachment studies have spoiled the spoiling theory. Researchers Drs. Bell and Ainsworth at John Hopkins University studied two sets of parents and their children. Group A were attachment-parented babies. These babies were securely attached, the products of responsive parenting. Group B babies were parented n a more restrained way, with a set schedule and given a less intuitive and nurturing response to their cues. All these babies were tracked for at least a year. Which group do you think eventually turned out to be the most independent? Group A, the securely attached babies. Researchers who have studied the affects of parenting styles on children's later outcome have concluded, to put it simply, that the spoiling theory is utter nonsense.

Pick them up quickly and they'll get down quickly. Or, as one sensitive mother of a well-attached child said proudly, "He's not spoiled; he's perfectly fresh!" Spoiling does become an issue a few years from now, when overindulgence or permissiveness signals a parent's inability to set limits and provide boundaries. This happens most often in children who are materially bonded or whose parents are still trapped in dysfunctional patterns from their own childhood.

Oskar's first mohawk...

oskar chats with his dad

ahh! ahhhhhh! eeeeeek!

HOLY MOTHER OF F**K!

it's about time!

note to self: begin babyproofing...

it's good that crawling doesn't happen until 7-8 months of age, b/c we have babyproofing to do. sure, every house has these:


and these:
but what about this found art?

and this box of tacks and other sharp things?

and a bowl of safety pins?


and FIREWORKS?


and this is JUST IN THE LIVING ROOM...

we've got some work to do.