The Struggle is Real

Taking on this 30 challenge idea real slow like. I'm going to keep eating sugar. I'm not going to run. I won't write a novel.

Inspired by Steph's own 30 day challenge and this great TED Talk link, I'm going to look at transformation as small, small, imperceptible changes.

Special Town Meeting

Voting on Wired West and I got surprised by a quote from "Brother Will" closing out the presentation. 

Super-Spooked?

I wonder if I stopped posting because a stranger commented on this blog? I got a response to my Super Nanny post and maybe it freaked me out.

"Nanny Jo and Big Brother are watching you!"

Anyway, the ideas of audience and authenticity are interesting.

I wonder if I stopped posting because of Facebook? I really found my audience on FB: friends and family. But not really authenticity. So maybe that's why I'm back and Blogger is so appealing? Am I back? Only time will tell.

Dude, we changed Sonja's name...

To "Sonia." I know, pretty dramatic, right? I can't really remember why. I know we were in a McDonald's, we had just found out about Henry coming, and it just seemed like Nathaniel was a little overwhelmed and maybe it was going to be easier just not to have the "J" anymore.

Missing entry from 200?

Found this draft hidden in the blog......

Read "Sylvester's Magic Pebble" with Maddie this morning. I always cry when I read it. But Maddie got hung up on the lion who frightens Sylvester into turning himself into a rock and just thought that everyone in the book was scared that the lion was coming to their house to roar at them instead of grasping the whole missing child angle. At the climax, when the parents are unknowingly picnicking atop the rock that is their son, laying out their sad picnic items, trying to make a life without their child and so obviously failing, Maddie just keeps going on about the lion and, "Why is that one laughing? Why is that one crying? Why is that an umbrella?" I tried reasoning with her that her questions would all be answered if she just listened to the story. I told her that she just had to listen for a minute and she'd know everything. Also, I'm all choked up and crying and just wanting to finish the story and get Sylvester back to being a donkey and with his parents.

I'd close the book and give her a chance to calm down and shush but as soon as I turned to that page to start again, the suspense and emotion would be too much and she couldn't be still. Finally, I told her that I was going to take a walk.

Question: Do people who have trouble with empathy, with adopting different perspectives, ultimately effect more change in the world because their focus on what they want is undiluted by caring about what others want?

Maybe I'll start writing here again? If so, I'd better not skip this very important entry from April 16, 2011. 

Wow. How can four years speed by so fast? We're down two pets: Ava in 2013 and Beeker just a couple months ago. We're living in Rosemary Cottage now, my favorite house in the whole wide world. I have a real, grown-up job and so does Nathaniel. Gould Farm is thriving, I'm on the School Committee, all our parents are well, and Matthew and Steph are back in the Berkshires.

Can pictures and words in a blog slow down time?

Can I capture some of these moments before they slip through my fingers?

Shouldn't I at least try?

Watching Supernanny, Feeling Smug

Holy crap. You need to sleep train your children. Do it when they're tiny and they'll always be well rested and feel safe. Wait and they will suffer and you will suffer. It just seems so clear to me.

Also, keep the clutter to a minimum. No one needs that many toys. If the toys aren't contained in the kids' room, there are too many toys. Be a good example and clean up the house once a day just like they should clean up their room every day.

We are very lucky that we have such healthy, happy girls and that Nathaniel and I agree on parenting them to be a part of the family, not the center of the family.

That being said, where is Super Pet-Taking-Care-Of Show? We are bad, bad pet parents now. Chester is actually at the vet's this weekend, getting sown up from a cat fight with a some wild farm beast. We didn't even see the wound for, like, three days. And we looked! But not well enough, obviously.

Ava peed on the basement floor again yesterday after going a week without a mistake. We didn't throw a stick for her all day. Then she knocked over a beer with her tail while Amanda and I were watching "Becoming Jane" and lapped up quite a bit of Corona while I was fetching a dishcloth. Cooper, meanwhile, was on my bed, eating a diaper. His second diaper of the week. Son of a monkey.

Cooper and Sonja have a darling and loving relationship. She gives him open-mouthed kisses on his nose and he licks her cheeks. She loves both the dogs so much-- she waves at them and they wag their tails back at her. It's all too cute.