wigblog

Still pregnant and one day past the due date. Aren’t the second kids supposed to come early?

Yes, I am still pregnant. Not officially due until the 17th, which I suppose is OK since James still hasn’t come to the realization that Noah is a much better name than Max. He is stubborn… I am not.

I forgot to write a follow-up piece about what Maddie finally decided to be for Halloween! James and I took her to the store so she could look at the costumes in person. Out of all the princess costumes, pirate costumes, ladybugs, bees, fairies, cartoon characters, etc., she decided that she wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. She has never seen this movie before and we were surprised she even knew what it was. We tried the costume on her and she was super cute in it, but it was $30 and non-returnable and we were still 3 weeks away from Halloween. Gasp! We left the store without buying the costume, but we did buy Tinkerbell shoes for her Tinkerbell dress she already has. You would be surprised at how hard it is to find Tinkerbell shoes!

Over the following week, I looked around on the internet to see if I could find the costume for less and I also wanted to make sure she didn’t change her mind… again. We took her to Party City one night and had her look at the giant board with all the costumes on it. She could have picked out any costume she wanted. She picked Dorothy… again. We said she could try it on but that she could also pick another costume to try on as well. Nope, she didn’t want to try on anything else. She wanted to be Dorothy. So we tried it on and she loved it. And, I had a coupon! Yippee! And, this Dorothy costume was very sparkly. Super cute and totally her. Complete with two braids in her hair and ruby red sparkly shoes from Target which she now wears everywhere. Great choice Maddie!

This post was also placed on Facebook where it garnered some commentary. This post is a followup to that commentary.

First of all, let me say I’ve very much enjoyed the conversation that has developed from my original post.
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Those opposing California’s Proposition 8 do not seem to have thought this issue through very carefully. The opposition has clearly not examined this proposition at a fundamental level and as a result, the campaign makes some very strange statements that have either not been carefully thought out, or they are intentionally attempting to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes in an activist fashion. And please, everyone, let’s cool the jets a moment and have calm and collected minds while we read through the following points. Let’s debunk some of these arguments:
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Maddie’s desire for a Halloween costume has changed a few times since the last post. When we left off, she wanted to be a character band-aid. Since then, she told me she wants to be a pirate again. Then she decided she wants to be a hotdog complete with ketchup, relish, and a bun. But she told me last night randomly that she wants to be a bee… the kind that stings. I have a feeling this will be a last minute costume purchase with the rate she is going on all these changes.

Well, that day has finally come. Today was Madeline’s first day of preschool!
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James has had way too much influence on Madeline. The other day Maddie wanted me to tie one of her blankets on like a cape. She was pretending to be Darth Vader. Yes, Darth Vader. She came up with that all on her own. She has never seen the movie. Then she took a princess wand and was pretending that it was Darth Vader’s and that it did bad things to people because Darth Vader isn’t nice. As funny as it was, I did have to explain to her that we don’t want to do bad things to other people.

My dad had bought Maddie a princess fishing pole for her birthday in June. It is all pink (her favorite color) and girly. We were all together tonight and talking about taking her fishing for the first time. Maddie randomly says that she wants a Darth Vader fishing pole even though she has been so excited about her princess pole up until tonight. And today her favorite color is black… like Darth Vader. She is so wacky.

And speaking of wacky, when she woke up from her nap today she did not want to go to the bathroom. She started a huge crying (whining) fit about how she didn’t want to go. When we asked her why, her reason was because she didn’t like the floor in the bathroom. I was trying so hard not to laugh because she was clearly upset. The floor? The floor hasn’t changed in her three years of existence! She cracks me up!

Maddie has been talking about Halloween costumes since April. She is a girl after my own heart and can’t wait for fall time to decorate and to help put the tree up for Christmas. The funny part is the frequent changes in what she actually wants to be for Halloween. Here is the list…

First it was Alice (from Alice in Wonderland). I almost looked for a costume on ebay but decided to wait just in case she changed her mind.
Then came Dinah (Alice’s cat). Then she wanted to be the Cheshire Cat.
Then it was a pirate with a hook, but she was very specific that she did not want to wear hat or bandanna. This one came on very randomly one day. She was in the middle of a sentence and switched her thought part way through to tell me she wanted to be a pirate for Halloween. This was back in May. There were no pirates around anywhere. She is so funny… and random.
Then I believe it was a tulip fairy, which she was for her second Halloween at 1.5 years old.
And the latest desire for a costume….. a band-aid. Yes, a band-aid. But she wants to be a band-aid with characters on it.

I am sure there will be a new desire for a costume next week. Stay tuned.

This post is from July 2, 2008. I wrote it back then, but didn’t get around to posting it… so here it is…

Maddie had her 3yr wellness checkup today. She was very excited to go and was telling me all morning that she wanted to get a band aid while she was there. I am sure that could be arranged!
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Just a post to note the pattern. This is nothing new, but perhaps will be new to some reading this.

• A mounting love of show and luxury (i.e. affluence)
• A widening gap between the rich and poor
• An obsession with sex
• Freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality
• An increased desire to live off the state
• A rapid increase in divorce and the undermining of the sanctity of the home
• Ever increasing taxes and extravagant spending
• A decay of religion and fading of faith, leaving the people with no guidance

Any of this sound familiar? Anyone else think there’s any truth to the phrase that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”?

Chester writes:

Can anyone explain to me how the Federal Government of the United States of America is morally obligated to provide health care to everybody?

Alas, I cannot, but perhaps I can offer some insight on the issue at hand for those who might be persuaded to believe this. Hillary (and those who would side with her on the healthcare issue) are seemingly confused on multiple fronts: morality, the function of the government, and the definitions of charity and justice.
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Why is there such an uproar and seeming confusion on the issue of instituting law recognizing marriage as the union between one man and one woman? It seems simple enough… if you think about it. If you plot out the stats:

Percentage of populace that finds the practice of heterosexual union offensive: <1%
Percentage of populace that finds the practice of homosexual union offensive: >1%
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I remembered loving this as a kid. I showed it to Maddie a couple weeks ago and now she asks to watch it every morning over breakfast.

I’m a geek and end up reading a lot of tech media in the fleeting attempt to stay on top of my game. It’s interesting as a lot of these folks would very likely describe themselves as “liberals”, and yet seem incredulous that one would not accept the theory of evolution as incontrovertible fact. Has it occurred to any of these folks that the idea of being a liberal and an evolutionist are mutually exclusive?

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Jess here…
One of my favorite things to do is shop. It doesn’t really matter what it is for. I don’t spend a lot of money though… I am really good at finding the best bargains. But, I love to shop. Maddie has some how picked up on this exciting passion of mine.

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Hi everyone. Jess here. For those who don’t know, I opted not to renew my contract at the company I was working for. So, as of Oct 31st, I am now a full time stay at home mom, again. There are a lot of things I am hoping to do with this new found “free time”. One of those things is writing more blogs. I will admit that the subject matter of 98% of what I write will be Maddie. The other 2% will most likely have something to do with what James calls “worthless crappy stuff”. Things in this category include shopping, scrapbooking, decorating and other FUN things like that! Check back often!

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It’s amazing the power one can wield using a particular string of words. Today’s example:

“Stop now or no more Cinderella.”

I’ve heard people take issue on more than one occasion with the perceived storage deficit of newer flash based iPods (or any other portable, media playback device) and the size of one’s media collection. It’s happened enough times now, that I recently wrote out how it works and how it can work for you. Just wanted to capture that here for those who may be interested and/or those I might need to refer to this blather in the future.

You would be hard pressed to prove to me you could consume (listen to or watch) 4GB of audio/video media in a day’s time. The storage capacity of the media playback device you get should be based on the amount of media you consume between the times you sync it with the computer that houses all your media. Device storage capacity should *NOT* be based on the total size of your media library.

I understand you (and other people) want “choice” and the ability to choose any particular thing you might want to listen to at any given time. I find on a day that I do a lot of music listening, I get through 50-70 songs. Averaging say 4MB per song in MP3/AAC format, that’s 200-280MB. Let’s throw some video in there… we’ll be generous and say 1.5GB for 2 hours worth of video I might want to watch whether it’s a movie, tv shows, vodcasts, or music videos. We’re still under 2GB here. The remaining space can be filled with your “choice” media… the stuff you might want, but not anticipate it ahead of time. You can intelligently anticipate the stuff you want through the use of smart playlists so you’re very likely to have something you’ll want, or at least be happy with, at a moment’s notice.

It works. Trust me. My largest iPod I’ve ever had is 60GB and my media library is probably in the neighborhood of 200GB, so I’ve never been able to fit my whole library on my portable device. (Note also the size of that collection won’t even fit on the largest of laptop hard disks.) While more space perhaps provides additional comfort or breathing room, the necessity is debatable.

Hope someone finds this useful.