Late coming

This picture is a little late coming. A year and half ago, when we lived in our first apartment after college, and the food storage and other stuff was stacked up in my son's bedroom. Every night he would climb up, and pull this picture out of the handle of one of the diaper boxes, filled with stuff from my husband's childhood. A picture of his aunt, uncle, and aunt.

This was my son's favorite picture. Not a day went by without him pulling it out of the box, and looking at it. I always told my husband I should put it on my blog, but I never did, then we moved and it was lost in the storage rooms for a year. Upon moving, my son recently found it again, and I think the love is still there. He put it in his mass piles of junk, and shows us the picture all the time.

Date Night?

My husband can ride mass transit for free because he is a student of the university. We payed the two bucks for me to ride the bus and all four of us (our kids were free) went on the bus to the university library. The baby was so scared she was shaking in the beginning, one man moved away from us, we can only assume he didn't like her fussing. She quickly calmed down and enjoyed the bus ride with her brother. I felt so urban riding mass transit carrying my baby around in a sling. After buying my husband's text books we jumped on the train and went "downtown" for dinner, at a chain restaurant. We went home a different way, and ended up having to wait 30 minutes for the bus back to our neighborhood. By this time it was late and dark. My son assumed we were lost. We tried to explain we weren't lost. He had fun the whole evening, until we had to wait for the bus. Which he still had fun, but he refuses to admit he had fun, and says no, it wasn't fun, we got lost. It was complete experience, we even met a few characters. It was a fun night, even if we had to take our kids with us on a friday night, it was actually probably more fun with them, since we were on the bus and the train. Buses and trains are always more fun with kids to be excited about them.

Can I get one of these..

I want one of these for my patio, for my son to play with in the mornings, when he whines about wanting to play outside all morning. Its prime and everything.

Playing outside

At this point our little neighbor girl started singing, I know you, I walked with you...

While my son told me last night at bedtime, that he is going to marry her when he gets big, and she gets big.

Reading Time

Like I said, I'm sick of just having mommy blog, so I'm reverting to my old habits, that most of my readership probably doesn't even remember. Don't worry there are plenty of mommy posts waiting in my future.
Last night I was reading my current issue of TIME Magazine-- the one with the slab of beef on the cover, and it had an article about the housing bust, and referenced an article from a couple years back, that I remember reading with some of my family around the kitchen table. The current article, is an analysis of when its better to buy or rent, with a couple of human interest stories mixed in. Didn't say any new information from what my husband and I have been discussing for years now. But I will say, I loved the second to last paragraph:

Sure, Uncle Sam twists the tax code to favor buying — and to reinforce the notion that owning a house is synonymous with the American Dream. But is it? "Moving up in the world and attaining material and nonmaterial success — that was always the American Dream," says Phelps. "That didn't necessarily mean you owned your house."

The last couple of months I've been working on figuring out what MY American dream is, not the tax code's is. I don't think I've figured it out, but I've started to realize Brent and I's goals do not include living in the same suburban home for 20 years. Then the last paragraph says,

In other words, maybe the calculus of ownership should include a measure of enjoying ourselves at home — whether it's one we've rented or one we've bought.

Which is basically what my dad kept saying during the real estate boom, a house is not an investment its some where to live. (Sure house are investments for investors, but that is a very select few of us. But true investors understand when to buy and when to sell.)

The cover story about food really made me think. There are two things in politics I hate, pharmaceutical companies, and agri-businesses, so I enjoyed The High Cost of Cheap Food, it made me glad we have started to add things like beans and lentils into our diet. I like meat, a good steak, hamburger or chicken can really hit the spot, not to mention I absolutely love the unkosher pig, bacon and ham, mmm. But I feel no need to feed my family the main course of beef more than 3-4 times a week. It also made me start second guessing my choice being a patron of the evil empire wally world. But truth be known, gerber baby food is gerber baby food, no matter if you buy it at walmart for 10 cents cheaper than at Smiths. The article made me want to garden more, even though we no longer have a yard (maybe next year we'll get a community plot), and made me glad we eat wheat for breakfast. I love unprocessed foods, but I also love process foods-- in moderation they make me sick otherwise. Long story short, I might start spending a little more on some high quality foods. But who knows, the budget is a powerful tool. But I wish there was less farm subsidies for agri-businesses. Sometimes I wish I could fight fights in other ways than the grocery store I shop at, but right now I have two small children to raise. Politics and me actively pursing it will have to wait.

breaking away from mommyhood, maybe...

I wanted to post today, but have no new pictures, and don't feel like opening up, so here is fluff. Plus its been awhile (about a year or more) since I made a post like this.

I love when Coldplay comes on the radio, especially new stuff from Viva La Vida.

I have Coldplay, A rush of Blood to the Head, it a CD one of Brent's old roommates left in his car, and then moved. I didn't even buy it, and it is one of my favorite CDs, it always stays in my car 10 disc CD changer, in case the radio is crappy.

Green Eyes is one of my favorite songs from the album.

Gym Class

This is what my kid looks like when we get home from gym class for 3-4 year olds. He has a blast, but after running around, and paying attention for an hour he is rather spent. I think the physical aspect is just half of the wearing, the only other out of the house social structure he has is church nursery, and they only make you pay attention for like 20 minutes at a time, not a full hour.

He is so tired, and hungry, and thirsty and pathetic when he gets home. But its all he can talk about the day of. I think its sort of expensive, $15 per class, but that is how much it cost to go to a yoga class, so I figure its probably the going rate, between paying for the studio, paying the teacher and covering pricey insurance. Especially because there are only about 5 kids per class, he gets a lot of one and one attention. Yes, I am trying to sell myself on paying that price.

He doesn't look like he had fun, but let me assure you, after the first 10 minutes of warm up, he has so much fun, he smiles a huge grin the whole time.