book idea: authors, take note and get busy.

I've heard of helicopter parenting, and I try to avoid it.

But frankly, Josephine's the helicopter in this relationship-- not me. She monitors EVERYTHING I do. She narrates it, discusses it, debates it, protests it, tells me what I could be doing more to her liking... She's even endlessly concerned for my welfare-- always asking if I'm okay, even if I just dropped a spoon. Incessant hovering and intervening is the perfect description of my child.

Literally-- right now-- she is by my side and appears to be pointing out typos. I cannot escape.

So here: would someone PLEASE compose a children's picture book informing kids that they need to buzz off and let their parents figure things out for themselves?? At this rate, how will I ever reach my full potential of a self-actualized individual?

the success is debatable...

...but I tried.

latina genius vs. scraggly old mom

This morning, as usual, I got Josephine dressed and then put her in her high chair for breakfast. Normally, that triggers a litany of desired breakfast foods: toast, fruits, juice, O's, cereal bars, anything she can think of that her body will process as straight sugar. Of course, I promptly start her with vegetables, but it's good for the girl to dream (of all the ways she can destroy her metabolic regulation of gylcolysis as an autonomous adult)...

Today, however, she got exactly what she wanted because I was so tickled.

The first and only thing Josephine requested, completely unprompted?

"Black beans."

I'm not kidding.

Must have been the shirt.

It turns out beans must be pretty serious brain food, because I was even more bemused by the conversation that followed.

After scarfing her oddly requested bowl of black beans, I scrambled her an egg with cheese and buttered a piece of toast. I put them all in her bowl, but placed the bowl out of reach saying, "The eggs and cheese are still too hot."

"Eat toast first?" came the quick reply.

Folks, I had not had my coffee yet. She had already stretched me out of my habitual motions with the request for black beans, and now she was forcing me to reconsider something ELSE.

It literally took my brain several seconds to process that we were having a conversation about the toast and eggs and then debate the worthiness of her request. It was a painful lag as my old brain attempted to catch up with the one belonging to my 1 year old problem solver.

Eventually I eeked some computation out of my frazzled synapses, and sure, sure-- eating the toast first was a perfectly fine solution. So I acquiesced again, and she proceeded to intermittently munch on toast and blow all over her eggs to cool them down.

Where did this person come from??

Does a strong enough coffee bean even exist?

josephine's watermelon seeds

Texas, our Texas! All hail the mighty state!

Texas, our Texas! So wonderful so great!

Boldest and grandest, withstanding ev'ry test

O Empire wide and glorious, you stand supremely blest!

(....so why not pass those blessings along to Texans with disabilities....)

Well, Josephine's been in heaven! Sean's parents' visit on Saturday was quickly followed by a stay by my mom, who came down Monday, since she was scheduled to meet with her district's Texas House of Representative's member, Todd Smith, on Tuesday morning. I, with the excuse of being her chauffeur, tagged along. She and her teammates did an excellent job, discussing the effects of the budget cuts to home and community based services for individuals with disabilities. A state cut as high as the proposed 29% would eliminate billions of federal dollars, too, and effectively shut down all programing outside of state schools for individuals like my sister, Janell. State schools are an inaccessible, dismal, and segregated option for the 27,000+ people who would be left up a creek... and all personal feelings aside, while those rage extremely strong.... by national standards, that would be a shameful and disgraceful landing point when our state has been struggling for decades to empower this population towards community integration and independence.

I know budget cuts are rough right now, and subsequent losses are rampant, but really--- my mom's group had excellent proposals for ways to make the programs more financially efficient (which unsurprisingly calls for REDUCING state-run options and moving towards waivers for privatized services). From what I can tell, though, it requires legislators to see beyond the shortfall this biennium and acknowledge the enormous financial benefit that would come from restructuring the system towards long term improvements. Being ridiculously cynical, I don't even expect politicians to consider human dignity, which is PRICELESS... but come on! Just the budget numbers alone are convincing!

Anyway, I was proud of my mom's political debut, so I made her take a picture in front of the capitol building:

In other news, Josephine has fully recovered from that awful cough!

And my CT scan came back totally fine-- yay! This reassured my doctor not to worry about a cysts or inflamed appendix, and led her to all sorts of abdominal shovings that made me want to either cry or hit her. The conclusion, however, is encouraging. It's nothing worrisome; apparently c-sections commonly develop adhesions... strands of scar tissue that bind one's uterus (in this case) to other organs or places in your abdomen. The binding is what causes pain when I move and my gut, in all it's bondage, doesn't. She showed me how to inflict further pain on my abdomen in hopes of weakening those strands of scar tissue and loosening their binds. Fun stuff. We'll see how it goes. I'm just relieved it's nothing serious.

Grandma reading Josephine a book, at which point Josephine proudly showed off her perfect ability to repeat back any word she chooses... "Peacock" came out plain as day.

I, watching, quickly was like, "How about 'MOM?????'" (Because, according to her, I am still "Ba." It's like she's decided I am not worthy of being upgraded to official "Mom" status.

But come on!!! What do I have to do??? I bathe her, clothe her, feed her, play with her... She can say words like peacock, goofball, and full sentences, plain as day... "Clean up this, too." But Mom? Nope.)

Almost all our amaryllis bulbs are in bloom!

Josephine, being proud of more dirt relocation:
Politics, medical issues, and verbal capabilities aside... some things like moving around dirt just stay consistently great.