Taking the Scenic Route

I started a blogring.  Not sure if will gain any kind of popularity, but I was sick of looking through metros since they seem to be dominated by age 12-20 who talk about nothing but school and bands.  lol.  Nothing wrong with that, mind you, but sorting through thousands of blogs is not how I want to spend my time.  So, if you are a parent in Kansas, click on the blogring title and join up.  I suspect it will be a small intimate group for a while.  :D 

This is really good news.  I am not pro-abortion, but this bill had some serious flaws in it.  The primary complaint I had with it is the method they are using to try to restrict abortions and the implications of those restrictions.

The main issue I have is their attempt to eliminate the privacy of medical records.  They claimed it was so they could freely investigate all abortion clinic patient’s records to be sure that the patients met all the requirements for an abortion.  The flaw is that it would be done without cause.  If they have cause, the can obtain a subpoena under the current law.  That seems more reasonable to me. 

The privacy of our medical records is already in serious jeopardy due to the actions of insurance companies and the interests of big business.  This would open the door to completely disregarding the privacy of medical records.  This has a large potential for a serious misuse of power and needed to be stopped.  It would become really easy to argue other issues and gain the rights to your medical records if you have an deviation from the ‘norm’.  For example:  vaccinations.  There are already people who argue that not vaccinating your child is medical neglect.  No gray area, no willingness to admit that vaccination are not in every child’s best interests.  Now, if these uneducated opinions became recognized as law it would mean that every person who was not fully vaccinated was automatically under suspicion for medical neglect, therefore we should make their medical records public so those people can be freely investigated.  Those with money would be able to defend themselves against the onslaught, and those without money would just be screwed. 

The Rev. Joe Wright, pastor of Central Christian Church in Wichita, said legislators are mistaken if they think church-goers were only interested in the gay marriage ban, which was approved by voters earlier this month.

“The church is in this for the long haul,” said Wright, who watched the vote from the House gallery.

“I think this vote today will come back to haunt those who voted no,” he said. “I’m sure the churches in Wichita will remember.”

I can not believe I tried to convince dh to try this church.  (it is located very close to us and had services at convenient times – the church itself didn’t impress me because it was one of those bloated McChurch looking things).  He refused, saying that every person he had ever met that goes to that church was somebody he absolutely despised; several unethical, mean-spirited coworkers who shocked him when they claimed to be Christian.  When I started noticing the leader of the church and his horrific comments on the news, I realized that it was really NOT where I wanted to be.  This guy is totally nuts and defines everything I can not stand about the “Christian” Right Wing Neo-cons.  (It was in quotes intentionally…I have a hard time calling some one a Christian when their actions are anything but Christ-like)

This guy is at the height of arrogance if he truly believes that all Christians are for the marriage ban and approve of the bill that was vetoed. 

Cheekin! Cheekin! Cheekin!

Yesterday Zane and I walked down to the playground at the local elementary school.  We played around for a while and I noticed about 4 geese walking around near one of the play structures.  I kept trying to get Zane to notice, but he seemed oblivious.  Then I started counting the geese and suddenly, it was worth trying to figure out what Mama was counting.  He started walking toward the geese declaring “cheekin! cheekin! cheekin!”  punctuated with a “buck buck” while pointing and trotting.  These were the tamest wild geese I have ever seen.  They didn’t fly away.  When he got about 15 feet from them, they started walking.  If he ran, they walked faster.  So here we are…4 large geese casually trotting, followed by a 3 year old running. pointing, and declaring them to be “cheekins”, with mom walking behind trying to explain the difference between Chickens and Geese.  We had to be a sight.  We walked all over the playground in this manner, eventually the geese split up into 2 pairs, but then we just went from one group to the other.  A good half an hour later, they started honking at each other, delighting Zane, and then they took off right in front of us and swooped around in the sky for a bit.  It is really something to watch Geese take off not more than 5 or 10 feet in front of you.

(photo snagged from the web to show you what we were following)

My day got better.  I called around to all the stores that sold stride rite and birkis and found some stride rites on a half price sale.  Yippee!  We even had 3 we could choose from in his size, so that was great.  Zane wasn’t entirely sure and kept bringing us the model of the sneakers he has been wearing, but seemed ok once we got the new shoes on him.  Of the three, two were tie up and one was velcro.  As much as I like the tie-up kind, I think it would be better for Zane to have the velcro at this point so he is able to put them on and take them off without help. 

Getting out of the house also helped break the bad cycle we had going and that was good for all of us.  So, we are doing much better emotionally now too.

Oh….I almost forgot….at the store, while Zach & I were discussing the merits of the shoe choices, Zane looked up at the store name written on the wall and READS IT.  Now, he pronounced “Little” a bit off (but close), but enthusiastically shouted “Feet”.  I about dropped the shoe I was holding.  Very cool!

I hope our day gets better.  So far there is excessive crankyness from the other two people I am living with and it is too cold to go outside and play.  grrrrrr.  I am really wondering if Zane if feeling ok because he isn’t generally this cranky this early in the day.  Zach is just very stressed as the semester wears down and hearing Zane whine all day is making him even crazier than he would normally get.  Arg.  This day has already lasted a week.

Did I mention it was cold?  We actually turned the heater on for a bit this morning and had to scrap my original meal idea (a summer bean salad thing) with something that needed to be baked.  I am thinking about putting some soup on the stove so it will add some moisture & heat into the air.

Other fun thing, while I am gripping anyway, Zane outgrew his shoes.  Last week his sandals fit him fine, he put them on yesterday (in the house) and his toes hung over the end.  That was fast!  So, his tennis shoes won’t fit either.  I measured his feet (stride rite has a nifty online measuring thing to print up) and discovered that he is right up to the 11.5W size.  His Easter shoes, which were *way* to big when I put them on him a month ago, are now going to be just right, almost snug.  Whoa.  So, I am looking for size 12 (size 30 Birki) and trying to find something.  I think he will be wearing saddle shoes for a week though because everything is so expensive and we will need to wait until the next paycheck.  I am thankful we got those!  Maybe I can find a good deal on ebay again.

Interesting thing I heard and want to do some thinking on:

We are created in God’s image, but God is not created in our image.  Meaning – we tend to limit God by thinking of Him as being like us, only better.  God is so much more than that.  We can be so much more than we allow our small minds to be because that is how God created us. 

I hope to expand on this thought more later.  It is too abstract in my brain to really communicate it right now. 

Bubbles from yesterday

Alex’s 8th Birthday Party

We went back to Robert & Dori’s today for Alex’s party.  I snuck a snack-size bag of Doritos in to “find” when the pinata broke this time in an effort to limit the sugar intake.  (He was up until 5 am after last week’s party).  It worked for the most part.  He was a little upset that he couldn’t get into the fray of kids  (they were a lot bigger than him and he was disturbed by the aggressiveness and not real keen on diving in, which was fine with me since he probably would have gotten hurt considering how they were acting).   Every piece of candy he went for was snatched up by another child before he could get it.  I was really glad I brought the bag because I probably would have needed to go up to one of the older kids and ask for a piece of candy if we wouldn’t have had something.  So it worked out well from all angles.

He wasn’t as patient waiting for the cake or watching the present opening as last week, but he still was fairly well behaved.  It seems like there were a lot more kids this time and they were wound up a lot more.  The energy level in the room was fairly insane, so the fact Zane was able to keep it together at all, without a total meltdown, showed an improvement from past behaviors.

Now here was the part of the day that gave me a moment of questioning Zach’s logic:   I have talked to Zach, my folks, and some of my friends for strategies to control the sugar input.  I talked to our friends hosting the party and they helped with things like making sure the candy and cake stayed out of reach/sight so we didn’t have battles.  (she even gave each kid a brown paper bag to put their candy in so none was laying around).  So, what does Zach do?  He gives Zane an ice cream popsicle thing.  *shaking head*  Zane was very happy and it certainly wasn’t worth the battle right then, but we will see how late we are up tonight.  We are doing everything we can to keep him from napping in hopes that it will help the situation.  Robert pointed out the upside to the situation….he could come over tonight since Zane wasn’t going to be going to bed anytime soon and we would be up late.  lol. 

Here we go again

Those are the legs of the guys putting up the pinata.  That is the twine that they set down, connected to the pinata.  Insert one ornery child and, voila!, a 3 year old’s version of a practical joke.  He wrapped around them a few times before we could get the twine away from him.

Turn #1 at the pinata (tap, tap, tap)

Turn #2, this time the bat is upside down, but he still happily counted out his 3 taps.

Zane was really excited to give Alex his present…it appears to be a hit too!

Ice Cream Popcicle

My industrious guy built this while I was taking some photos of their family

For those of you interested, Zach put all the photos from Alex’s party up here, and the photos from Cody’s party last week are here.   (not as many, our batteries ran out).  At the end of Alex’s party are some pictures of their baby, Eilysh, in a wool cover prototype that Dori is working on as she gets ready to start her cloth diaper cover business.

eta:  Well, he got to bed earlier then he did last week after the sugar.  4:40 AM.  I hope we can get him back on track soon. 

Melissa Tulip had her baby!  Congrats and welcome little Max!

Some  Very Good News  today for Zach!  He was offered the teaching position for the UNIX class this summer.  (CS 444 Introduction to UNIX)  The regular lecturer is finishing up her PhD at another location this summer and they were thinking of canceling the class.  Several students first asked the head of the department to have Zach teach it, then begged Zach to call and see if he could teach it.  He called (after some prodding from me…they won’t know he is interested unless he lets them know)  to see if it was a possibility and she was noticeably excited on the phone, but had to talk to somebody before she could say yes.  (but it sounded like it was everything she could do not to promise him the position right there).  Today she got the OK and the department secretary hunted down Zach at the lab he is teaching to tell him about it.  Very exciting!  The class itself is 10 hours, but there is likely to be more hours tacked on if he does his own lab and grading.  Doing it all is likely…it would be a bit strange to have a grad student working under another grad student, especially since Zach is first year and most of the other GTAs and GSAs are further along.   It was already a bit unprecedented for him to get a teacher’s assistant job his first semester, but the profs already knew him since he did his undergrad work there)

I am just a bit proud of him.