When did I start thinking like this?

On tonight's episode of The Current Lifestyle, When did I start thinking like this?

This post has taken some thought and time. I really have no idea how to start it. At first I was going to title it, when did I start thinking more like a feminist? However, I'm not sure I completely agree with every single point feminists stand for. So, I guess when did I start thinking like this? Even though it was more broad, it didn't single me out one way or another.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have noticed, as well as my husband, that I have been increasingly argumentative when it comes to any topic on human rights. I may not always be right or win the argument, but the passion behind it is real enough. I then can turn anything into a wrong doing against women.

 For example, after my husband had left for work one morning, I was cleaning up my daughter after her breakfast. While I do this I like to listen to NPR. NPR had reported that two male university students from country A (because I can't remember the country I'll call it that) had traveled to country B and had been sexually assaulted. Country A was now getting involved with country B for mistreating it's two male citizens. (I tried to find this article online so that I could use it as a resource, however, I can't remember the title.) Because this assault had taken place in the middle east, and this had happened right around the time India was taking up a big rape case for the first time in defense of a woman, I was pissed, for lack of a better word. Country A and country B, I'm glad they got involved to help their citizens. No one, male or female deserves to be sexually assaulted. However, knowing the history of those two countries, I was angered by the thought that had those students been female, those countries might have killed them, beat them, or it might have gone unreported out of fear. (Also assuming the females were permitted to go to school in the first place)


So, later on that evening when my husband returned home, and we were lying in bed, he happilly showed me a picture on FB. Now, I can laugh at jokes, but this day I wasn't laughing.

This was the FB post

I immediately became defensive and responded, well, our friend so and so is a vegetarian and he doesn't have a vagina. I think he's pretty manly. Then I kept going with, why does the worst insult to a guy have to be something that is feminine? Why can't you just call him an ass? Everyone has one, male or female. My husband responded with, because "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, unless he's a vegetarian then you can get there through his ass??? Doesn't sound right." Now, I'm not trying to make you as the reader hate my husband, he has a point, no, it's not as funny, but it still bothered me.
I started to tell him about how this morning news story bothered me. That's when he said, "what or where has this all come from?" I angerly responded what the hell do you mean? It's just not right, and even though it's far away, similar things happen like that here in the states too. Women get paid less then men in the work force, female sports aren't broadcast anywhere near to the extent of male sports, much less are the athletes paid like them, look at the difference in medical care, our government has to decide if to "make" companies cover birth control, abortion (enough said), maternity leave in this country vs lets say Canada, female parts are either made to be dirty or slutty in our society, and I'm sick of hearing the phrase, "you hit like a girl...or you do such and such like a girl!" Why do we do that to our females? Then we also on the same token wonder why girls have self esteem issues.

The argument heated up further when my husband concluded that the source of all of this anger was from an ad I had also seen on FB from the company, Always. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

(Click the link above to view) I thought it was a powerful ad and tastefully done.We eventually were able to get our points across and we had to agree to disagree on some issues.

Now some of you would point out that I'm a feminist. The definition of feminist is advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men. Yes, by the definition, I could be labeled as such, however, I'm now a stay at home mom and I'm not out their physically advocating for equal rights. I also like my job at home. I clean and cook and believe it or not, I like it! I depend on my husbands income to survive. When I was working as a teacher and brought home a paycheck, that made my claims stronger, however, we as a family chose for me to stay home with our daughter. Also, I believe there needs to be a healthy balance advocating for equal rights. Most feminists today, are being shamed for what critics are saying, that feminists want special treatment. I don't believe that true feminists want special treatment. 

So, back to my real question, when did I start thinking like this? Was it when I had my daughter? Was it when I turned 30, or did I finally grow up? Maybe a combination of all including thinking for myself. Maybe my husband was right, the Always ad might have sparked a little flame in me. Let's say that is so, then I thank you Always. Because now, I ask the questions. I ask WHY. This country needs to seriously take a look at it's people. We are all people. From the racism issues to the equality for GLBT community, to disability equal rights to gender rights, our country needs to take a step back. We need to fix our county on the inside before going off and changing other countries. Just like a doctor tells you, you can't help others with out helping yourself first. How are you going to take care of someone when you can not take care of yourself? (In no way is this insensitive to those men and women serving this country. I have family in the military too. Without them, I couldn't even bitch about this topic without my some sort of punishment. Thank you for fighting for my first Amendment rights among other freedoms.)

I believe our country can be better than it is today. I want that for my daughter. I know this post is nothing like my previous posts, however, I needed to get that out. Feel free to comment and agree or disagree. I'm not bothered. I can handle it.

Want to discuss another topic that pushes my buttons? Ask me about sexual abuse.
 

 Please leave a comment. Make sure it's tasteful though, because otherwise, I wont read it.




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Running back into the house for forgotten items more than 5X is normal!?!?!?!

Hello there readers, yes it's been awhile since my last post. Thanks for reading and your patience. Tonight's topic on The Current Lifestyle:

Putting our toys away

Running back into the house for forgotten items more than 5X is normal?!?!?!?
Sadly, yes it is.

I honestly thought after giving birth to Chunky P, that pregnancy brain would have some how slithered it's way out of me, just like how I pushed chunk out. I mean, seriously, there are parts of my pregnancy in the early months that I don't remember. I was ready to get my brain back as well as other things and enjoy life. Well, out of the millions of moms I have met over the years or became friends with, they too, FORGOT to mention that I'd never get my fully functioning brain back. For example, today, is Thursday, I have dubbed this day grocery shopping day. I do the same thing every Thursday. After Chunks morning nap, we go to the local produce stand for fruits and veggies, then to the grocery store for everything else. Well, one would think I would check my purse to make sure I had everything. I pull into the produce market. Get chunk out while shes strapped to her heavier than hell car seat carrier. We then make our way through the market selecting what we need for the week. Be mindful, we live in South FL, it's already 88 degrees and humid and the market is outside. I pick a lane to purchase our goodies, and as the girl tells me our total and has now bagged everything into my re-useable save the Earth bag, I don't have any form of payment. None, zero, like where the hell did my wallet go? I don't know what was worse, panic or embarrassment. She assured me that she would save my cart and that I could return to pick it up. When I did finally return with my wallet in hand, she did have my cart saved for me. Where was said wallet? In my Taekwondo bag. I had taught classes the night before and it had fallen out of my purse when I shoved my purse inside my TKD bag.

Things could have been worse. Like the time I drove an hour to work, went to change into my TKD uniform only to discover I left my uniform pants at home. Thankfully, my place of employment sells extra pants for people like me. Or, like the time I seriously counted how many times I shut my car door than reopened it and ran back into the house for Chunks things so that she could stay the night at her Nanny's place. (My mother) 5. YES 5 times. I have discovered throughout all of this forgetting, that you can either "survive" without it or you find it somewhere out on your travels, and hate yourself for having to spend more money on something other than a brain transplant.

So, to all of my mommy friends out there, I'm no longer angry with you for not telling me about this continuous pregnancy brain. I have come to the realization that you all just FORGOT. And, to all of my friends who don't have children yet....................................................Oh, look a piece of candy!

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The hard way. Lesson #422 bringing baby to the beach by yourself

Tonight's topic:
Learning things the hard way. Lesson #422 Bringing baby to the beach by yourself.

Playing in the back yard with the hose

Last Friday, I had planned to meet up with a group of mommies and their babies at one of our local beaches. The meet up time was set for 10:00am and the beach that had been chosen, was one that we all knew the parking lot filled up quickly and was pretty much first come first served. After breakfast that morning, I put chunk-o-love down for her morning nap and packed the car. I was excited to be even going to the beach. I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I knew if we did get there, we'd have fun. It'll be fun. FUN......F....U...N.... the magic word.

 Chunk and I left for the beach at 9:00am. While packing the car, I discovered that my swimsuit bottoms were missing and I couldn't find them to save my life. So I planned a little stop on the way at Target to get a black pair of bottoms. We were in and out of Target in no time. I paid for and changed into the swim bottoms at Target and we made our way to the beach. I should've known things were going to go wrong when my swim trunks went missing before I left the house. I should've known things were going to go wrong when I was stopped at the bridge for 20 minutes to let a sail boat pass. I should've known that things were going to go wrong when, we made it to the beach 20 minutes late and the lot was full. But, I didn't.

I text the mommies of the group to let them know that I was just going to go to another park beach entrance near by and maybe we'd meet up with them later. Chunk and I waited in the lot for 15 minutes just in case someone else was leaving, but luck didn't shine down on us that day. I drove us to the nearest beach entrance. All the while, Chunk is now screaming in the back seat. Nothing consoling her. I parked the car, frazzled made my way over to her side of the car and discovered a poo diaper. Easy enough, I've had practice with this. I changed her, and put her into her swim diaper. I then somehow managed to get her, the diaper bag, the blanket and beach bag out of the car and to the beach. That required, arms full, crossing a busy street and up a 25 meter path to the ocean. When we got there, I dropped the bags, some how managed to get the blanket down on the sand one handed and placed chunk on top of it. I lathered her little legs in sunscreen for the first time since I couldn't also carry the umbrella to the beach. About this time, is when her paci fell into the sand. Now, for those of you that have ever been to the East coast beaches in Florida, you know, this isn't normal sand. It's really crushed up shells dragged out of the water from off shore and placed back on the beach because of erosion. Our beaches haven't had that beautiful white soft sand since I was a kid. Because of this, the stuff we now call sand, sticks to you wet or dry. So, I made a poor attempt at cleaning off her paci with some water from my water bottle and placed it into the beach bag. Next, I grabbed chunk and we made our way towards the water. The waves were unusually rough, so I only put my feet in. I put chunks feet down in the wet sand and when the waves rushed in to meet her little piggly wigglies; all hell broke loose. She instantly screamed like I was trying to drown her while at the same time picking her legs up and refusing to stand. People walking by were laughing at my sad attempt of getting my natural Florida born child into the ocean. I decided to try torture my child one last time and placed her feet down again in the wet sand and water. NO. It was not going to go my way. I walked chunk and myself back to our blanket and decided to just pack up and go home. She wasn't going to last long on the sand playing because it was so hot and sunny. So, I packed everything up with the exception of the blanket that chunk was sitting on. I placed her sitting up in the sand, packed the blanket and looked down. There chunk was, eating fist fulls of sand. Lovely, I picked her up, and the 3 bags of stuff, tried to brush her off and realized she was tired from the one glorious sign she gave me, rubbing her sandy hands over her eyes.
Great! I thought. She's got sand in her mouth and eyes. Cursing under my breath, I walked us back to the car as quickly as possible. When we got there, I started the car, then walked around to chunks side put her into her car seat, and proceeded to make her a bottle. (I stopped breast feeding due to medical issues) I grabbed her bottle already filled with warm water, and the zip lock baggie I placed at least 8oz of formula into. As I'm trying to rip open the zip lock bag, I get distracted by another family in the parking lot. Before I know it, the bag completely bursts open and formula powder explodes everywhere on me, chunk and in my clean car. It looked like someone took powdered sugar and dusted the inside seats. This was the point, I laughed, gave chunk what formula I hadn't lost and shut the door. I walked around to the drivers side of the car and cried. Not for long though. Some guy was watching the entire scene play out in the parking lot from his truck. Since, I'm not an actress or side show act for everyone's viewing pleasure, I backed out of my spot and went home. On the way, Chunk fell asleep instantly after her bottle was finished. To wrap this long story up, we played in the back yard with the hose when she woke up. It was nice to have her and myself finally clean of sand, formula and enjoying the water.

Asleep on the way home

No officer, it's formula dust in my car I swear

So my dear friends, if you take your infant to the beach by yourself, I pray that you have a better time than we did. I'm not sure if I'll ever do it again to be honest.


Live and laugh my friends. Sometimes, it's all you have.

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His way or my way? When you don't see eye to eye.

Chunks eyes are my favorite

Tonight's topics are:

1) His way or my way? When you don't see eye to eye.
2) Cloth diapering and the car. Only cloth families understand


His way or my way? When you don't see eye to eye. So lately, my darling hubby and I have had it out. He's expressed his concern that while raising our chunk of goodness, I tend to do things my way and I'm not open to his way of raising her. "Fair enough," I tell him. "I'm with her at home all week and have figured out ways to deal with multiple situations. My ways or solutions may not be the quickest or the best, but its the only way I know how." He has tried to show me on two different occasions how to handle our little chunk, however, I get easily frustrated with him when he tries to tell me how to do anything with our child. Why? Well, some things I either don't agree with or I'm not fully understanding what he is communicating to me. The same happens when the situation is also reversed. I expressed this frustration to my therapist last week. She told me that it was good for our little to learn that there is not just one way to do things with her. She'll learn that there is mommy's way, daddy's way and her grandparents' way etc. No one way is better than the other and so long as she isn't being harmed and has all of her basic needs met, she will be fine. She also said I should be a little more open to daddy's suggestions and not be so quick to right them off. I might find he does have an easier way with her and some tasks. We could learn from each other. Lastly, she said to try and find the positives in the different ways that my hubby does things. He loves her and wants to share her. So, this week has been a challenge since I left my therapists office. However, it's been a good challenge and a funny one now that I can choose to see the positives instead of the negatives. Below are the different ways we feed our child a bottle. The positive in the picture with daddy is, she has learned how to hold her own bottle. He did teach her that. Also, he can multitask.

Mommy's way of feeding a bottle

Daddy's way of feeding a bottle

Cloth diapering and the car. Only cloth families understand.
If you've read some of my previous bogs or have been on my FB, you know that my chuck of goodness, loves to share her body fluids generously. I like to think of it as her way of giving me little reminders to smile at my day and to not be so serious. I mean hell, I used to be so carefree until I had a child. It's like someone gave me a dose of "grow up" when she entered the world. So imagine this.
It's a beautiful spring day. There is a clear bright blue sky with warm Florida sunshine. It's shinning all of its beautiful light and warmth out onto the state. My little and I are sitting in a parking lot changing her fully loaded cloth diaper in the car before heading into Old Navy. What do I do with a cloth diaper on the go? Well, I have special bags I place the dirty diaper in so that my car and other belongings are protected as well as I can then clean it when I get home. However, I don't want to carry around a cloth diaper that's completely filled with poo. (If you do that, sorry, I'm being honest when I say, I'm judging you as a shit carrier.) The only other option is to leave it in the car. Yes, the car. The car that sits in the hot Florida sun. The hot humid state that everyone hates between the months of September to May because of envy. I did leave that poo in the car. I guess I can be judged as a shit leaver. I tried too, as best as I could to be quick in the store. But, Florida heat and humidity don't care. They laugh at you the second you turn your car off even if you have already planned the quickest way to get in and out of a store. You can only imagine the smell we returned to when we did make it back finally from the store. I can't describe it. It did make for a wonderful ride home though. It's rare when I roll down the windows in the car and let fresh air hit our faces. Chunk thought it was grand. I like to think she just wanted us to feel the wind on our face. In all reality though, we were riding in a poo smelling car. Ask me how long it takes to get the smell out. Well, I have put those Fabreeze car clips to the test and as far as I'm concerned, either the thing works, people don't want to tell me my car stinks or I have some weird friends and they like the smell.

Chunk in a cloth diaper and swing

Live and Laugh my friends. Remember to be open to new ways or possibilities and to laugh when things go to poo.

Wearing blue for Autism Awareness Day

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