Featured elsewhere....

Sometimes I just leave the comments closed because you guys are all so nice (except the occasional lurker who has, and I quote, "Had ENOUGH!" and lays into me) and sometimes maybe I just feel like releasing things and not really hearing anything back? Does that make sense? My dearest friends understand what I'm saying and so many of you understand what I'm saying and honestly, you've all told me over and over you understand. And what do I need? A sky writer telling me you understand? When will I listen? See that's when I feel like I'm cannibalizing my brain, what do I want anyway?

I don't know. All I know is this is what I think a lot about as I go about this job as a mother and it's one of those things that also gnaws on my brain.

So I don't mean to shut down the conversation but I wish I would stop whining and move things along.

Since I don't have the energy to write anything new tonight maybe I'll just link you to some of the things I wrote at Blogging Baby today.

There was this post about a middle school in Berkley, which if you live here you know of, where a father was insistent that a folk song about cotton picking in the south was glorifying slavery. I was torn on the issue but when a school official called it a 'perky' song, I saw pretty clearly the school was missing the point about the history of the song.

As an aside, I learned to say, 'Get your cotton picking hands off of that!' at some point in my childhood, from television I assume because my parents never said it. I really didn't realize until high school that it was referring to the slaves who picked cotton and my goodness, what an insulting thing to say to another person. But see I had no idea...so was this a similar thing? I don't know but the school ended up deferring to the African American father's insistence that it was an insensitive song about slavery.

I also wrote about reading Cookie magazine at the bookstore this afternoon. I can't say this at Flogging Baby but HOLY SHIT what a ludicrous magazine. It's supposed to be an escapist magazine and yes it could be. But I am a recovering shop-a-holic-ish person and that kind of mass marketing of the $200 boots your three-year-old needs and the 'must-have' $1200 purse is what feeds a lot of our consumer debt ridden society. All these 'must haves' and 'needs' and now even parenting isn't safe...we have Cookie!

But the best part is the feature about the first birthday party where everyone dresses up in beautiful $500 outfits, eats foie gras and gets totally shit faced and a baby is held up uncomfortably wondering who these assholes are who have given birth to her.

Finally, the most ire-inspiring thing I wrote today was, surprisingly, about Max and his hopes for a yellow room. Not just any yellow but a soul-burning, retina-frying yellow. I was called a control freak and even a liar! I would rather LIE TO MY SON than let him have an electric yellow in his room! I must be a horrible person! I thought it was just paint.

I did use the helpful suggestions given in the thread to come up with a solution I think Max and I can live with. God willing. Here is the link to the compromise but it won't be up until tomorrow at 7am-ish.

Oh God, and you should check out the Harmonica Thread. I'm amazed at the things parents can justify as something everyone just needs to accept. A little crying at a restaurant, okay. A tantrum? Well, no one's perfect! A few fries thrown on the floor? We'll all live. But a Fucking Harmonica in a restaurant? I thought it was impossible to argue that was okay but no, no I was wrong. So fucking wrong.

That does it, I'm carrying a drum kit in my purse! Life shouldn't be free of minor annoyances and if my kids want to play the drums and paint their bedrooms soul-killiing yellow I refuse to let the needs of others stop them!

Go to hell world!

Suburban Bliss, I love you so much for letting me swear wildly. Whenever I feel like it.