reNEWed!

New theatrical headshot:

 New fairy doll:

 

New loss:

New favorite photo of Andrew and Lilah:

New friends:

 

New memories:

 Capitola Beach 11/6/12

New sister sweetness:

New hope in our progress as a nation:

 

 

New term.  

What she said. SERIOUSLY.

I've started a few blog posts in recent weeks that basically amount to rants about what I'm seeing and reading with regard to "women's issues" during this obnoxious (and not to mention obscenely fiscally irresponsible) presidential election.  The whole thing just makes me cringe, but one of the things I'm especially tuned into is anything regarding reproductive rights.

For starters, I bristle at the term "women's issues".  President Obama said it correctly:  "Women's issues are not just women's issues.  They are family issues.  They are economic issues."  Conservatives like to cite those statements as pandering to women voters, but that is BS.  Barack Obama was raised by a single mother.  He married a strong, smart, compassionate, hard working woman.  And he is raising two beautiful daughters.  I believe without a shadow of a doubt that he will continue to champion feminism.  And I am proudly determined to support those efforts.

There is so much to be said here that I am already struggling to focus and attempt to stay on topic.  What actually got me to the keyboard this morning was one specific aspect of the reproductive rights conundrum: rape. The idea that rape should be defined differently in order to mandate (eliminate) the victims' rights after their nightmare is beyond ludicrous to me.  It makes me twitch with frustration and scrambles my brain.  I don't want to believe it.  I want it to be some sort of sick joke.  But it's really, really not. 

A friend of a friend (thank you, Facebook) wrote this and I am sharing it with her permission.  Thank you, Jennifer Defilippo.  I pulled out 4 paragraphs for my blog, but the other 5 are just as good.  I hope you will take five minutes to read it.   

An open letter to old white men like Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin.

by Jennifer Defilippo

I should be used to hearing old white men making grossly inappropriate comments about rape and women’s reproductive rights by now, but I’m not. I can’t help but feel my blood catch fire when I read about “men” like Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin sharing their wildly outlandish viewpoints. And, yes, they’re viewpoints, and we all have a right to share them. We’re Americans after all. That’s one of the beauties of being an American.

BUT if these old white men spent just one day fearing rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment like women do then they would shut their mouths forever on these matters. If they spent one day being catcalled, inappropriately grabbed while walking on the sidewalk on their way to get a cup of coffee, or aggressively approached by a group of men while walking to the supermarket - in broad daylight no less - then they would shut their mouths forever on these matters. If they spent one day even thinking about the act of rape, fearing not only a pregnancy that could result from ALL rape, but also the transmission of HIV and other irreversible STDs, then they would absolutely shut their mouths forever on these matters.
 And that’s what makes my hands shake and my forehead burn with fury when I wake up in the morning and read about an old white male who used his public platform to tell me and other women that if we’re raped and conceive a child, then it was God’s plan for us to have that child. That a woman wasn’t legitimately raped if she conceived that child in the first place, because a woman’s body has “the natural defenses to protect itself.” What’s my defense from these men’s beliefs when science and biology no longer apply? And what do I do if I don’t believe in God?

 I can only hope that with time, even though right now it seems like the fight over women’s rights is going backwards, that the personal decisions that I make with my body will not always be in jeopardy. Or at least won’t feel like they’re always going to be in jeopardy. That all the work of the women who came before me, who fought so hard to make my life easier, who wanted to protect me, wasn’t in vain. That all women who have suffered the horrors of rape or sexual assault, will not have to suffer yet again when it comes to making a difficult decision on what to do should they become pregnant.

Think about it.  Talk about it.  And pass it along.

Thanks.

A Funny Thing Happened During Our First Family Movie Night

Well, I guess that may depend on what you consider "funny"...

I'll cut right to it:  Andrew knocked Sadie's 2 front teeth out!

Yup.  He had just gotten home to find his girls all jammied up and cozy on the couch watching Mulan.  He joined us there with a fresh bowl of popcorn and as he was handing it to Sadie, she leaned forward and *bam*!  The edge of the bowl cracked her square in the teeth.   They were already a little loose; one was probably due to come out in a week or so, but yikes.   I'm sure it hurt and it really didn't look good - they were knocked inward/sideways and were all bloody.
We hurried to get her cleaned up but I made a couple of big mistakes (I'm the first to admit that I'm not great in a crisis - I tend to panic and really don't keep my cool very well).  First, I let her look at herself in the mirror.  Note to self: minor trauma + a visual = major drama.   She kept wanting to look again but would dissolve into tears all over again each time.  Mistake # 2 was that I didn't plug the sink in time, so one of them dropped out and we lost it down the drain. Once we got the bleeding stopped, she was actually very brave and pulled the other one out herself.

I can't say that she was happy about it, though.  The bloody, gaping holes in her mouth was not a sight for which she was prepared.  I am That Mom, so I did take pictures for posterity.

 (Andrew felt terrible, of course)

Here's a scary close up with flash:

So, that's what's new in our world.  

This was my sweet girl's smile as we left for school on Thursday morning:

and here she is today:

 

I have to admit, her lisp is pretty cute, so I'll have to get her sthpeaking on video as well. 

Where did Summer go? June recap.

 With Sadie's first week of Kindergarten under our belts (that post is coming), I really can't hide from the fact that summer has ended.  I did manage to post about our trip to Maine, but I skipped June entirely.

Here are some photos and a few words about what we did for those 30 days.

 

We went downtown to our favorite spots a lot:

The "fish store":

 the "Buddha store":

 the Frozen Yogurt Shop:

 

The library:

 and the train station:

We hung out at home quite a bit as well:

 We went to Pescadero one day when Daddy was working at a bike race:

 

Our friend Caitlin had her birthday party at the beach in Rio Del Mar:

 Our friend Anders had his at a park with a face painter:

Grandma and Grandpa's pool was the #1 destination, of course:

We went to the movies to see BRAVE with our cousins:

We had one last play date in Felton with our friends Sammie and Josie who moved away to Southern California:

We went to the Music in the Park in our cousins' town:

 

 

  June was pretty great, actually!