Politics

So I'm about sick of this election crap already. And this is just from stuff I'm getting in the mail and seeing on TV! I don't listen to talk radio much - even though I should so I can be more informed of the issues - because it just (pisses) me off. And I don't like being riled up, so I save the talk radio for days I'm doing housework.
If you put it in parentheses it doesn't count as saying it, just so you know.
Every time I turn on the TV, there's something on about Obama. The way they talk, he can do no wrong. And this week the media is having an orgasm because Obama is in Iraq. Campaining, essentially.
Does anyone else not see the problems here? Okay - 1/Umm.... You're not President yet, so any promises you make to foreign political leaders don't count for jack squat. 2/They can't vote for you, so why are you campaining there anyways? 3/You're being paid to be a senator for your state. How much time have you actually spent doing your job in the last year?
Grr.
Needless to say, I'm not voting for him. Besides the myriad of other reasons, I wouldn't vote for him just based on the fact that he will not salute the flag (put his hand over his heart) during the national anthem. To me that says, "I want to lead this country, but I don't want to respect it." Sure, lets just vote in some socialism and facism to prepare for outright communism.
Research your candidates, folks. Don't vote for them just because he's the "cool guy" and the rest of the lemmings are.

It's the End of the World as We Know It, and I Feel Fine

This last week, Nathan's been experimenting with taking one or two steps at a time. He'd step, then sit down; or step, then lunge to catch himself on the couch or my legs or whatever.

This morning as we were getting ready for church, I was getting a drink in the kitchen, and he was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. He stood up and took about eight steps in a row toward me!

It's like now he's figured it out - he can't be stopped! All afternoon he was toddling around the living room. Enjoy the short clips I got of him. (Sorry, no audio. We're discussing getting a video camera, but for now it's just limited to 30-second clips we can take on our digital photo camera.)

Feats of Monkey-ness

We have a climber, that's for sure.
The last couple weeks, Nathan has started climbing on stuff. First it was the recliner and the couch. Then it was wanting in and out of the tub. But just this weekend, he's been climing anything and everything. Luckily Paul was home, so one of us could stand there to catch him if he tumbled, while the other dashed away for the camera.

And not exactly monkey-ness, but yet another obsession: Pushing my lids all over the house. (And does his tushie not look absolutely adorable??)

He Saved the Day

Yesterday evening our little family took an evening walk. Our hay just got cut, so we can walk out in the pasture. We put Nathan in the red wagon, and he played with a stick as we walked the perimeter of our property.

When we got back up to the house, we went and observed the garden. Then we inspected our baby trees. Then we went out to my roadside garden to admire the "neon coral" (for lack of a better description) gladiolas that's blooming. The grass is really taking over that bed, so I started pulling it from around my baby day lilies so maybe they won't have to fight so hard to establish themselves by the end of summer.

Weeding is one of those things that once you get started, you don't want to stop because the results are so gratifying. So I kept yanking up clumps of grass while Paul and Nathan went on. Eventually they ended up back on the deck. Nathan went straight for the dog's water dish. Of course.

It was a peaceful night, the sun had gone down and it was cool. I could hear Nathan squealing and Paul talking to him.

Then I heard a clatter on the deck. I was curious, but figured it was the dog getting after the stupid cat. Then I heard Paul yell: "Rachel! Get Nathan!"

I sprinted to the house. I had no idea what had happened, but was really worried and freaked out, because Paul hardly ever uses my name (he calls me "Dear" instead) and he never yells. I find Paul ducking and swatting his hat. He said, "Get Nathan in the house! There's hornets - I've been stung five or six times already!"

I swooped down on Nathan and snatched him out of the dog pan and we scurried inside. I sat Nathan down and told Paul to get inside and get away from them! I now understand his logic: he didn't want them to follow him into the house. He finally came in, got the hornet spray and doused their nest. (I'll spare you the picture of their corpses and the *gag* larvae.)

He'd sat down to take pictures of Nathan, not knowing that just next to the post he was using as a back rest, there lurked a nest. We were just grateful that Nathan hadn't been stung, even though he'd only been a few feet away from their nest. Paul was a quick thinker and ran to the other end of the deck and away from Nathan, and the hornets had followed him. He was our hero.

Upon examination, he'd been stung five times: once on his back, once on his right forearm, once on his finger right next to his wedding ring, and twice on his cheekbone. We promptly removed his ring, and I slathered baking soda paste on them, gave him two Tylenol, then waited for him to swell up so I could get some good pictures.

He never did swell to the proportions I expected. In fact, after a couple hours, even the little bit of swelling had gone down. By this morning you couldn't even tell he'd been stung.

So no pictures. Sorry folks.

And I have more exciting things that happened this weekend. But I'll put them all in separate posts so they get the attention they deserve.

Is it really worth it?

Nathan has slept through the night without waking up several nights this week. Or if he does wake up, it is before I go to bed, so it's not like I actually have to wake up.
But when you put him to bed between 8 and 9, by 5 AM, he's had 9 hours of sleep, and it's starting to get light outside. So he's ready to wake up.
So it's a trade off: Would I rather get to sleep all night, or get up at an ungodly hour?
But on the upside, he went down for a nap at 7:30. And he's been asleep for three hours, so I've gotten the garden weeded (well, some of it), the kitchen cleaned, a load of laundry hung, and most of the dining room and bathroom picked up.
Ohp! I hear happy talking..... Time to go.

Summertime Slump

Sorry I haven't been very good about posting. Or about the quality of my postings. It's summertime - there's too many other things to do. I have the garden, the flowers, the house (not that I do a lot on any of those, but still), and then I have a 10-month-old (today's the 14th!) who's crawling and getting into anything he can get his hands on. I may be typing up a post, but then I hear a suspicious *rustle rustle clunk*.

Panic and run to investigate. It's impossible to fully babyproof our house. The only two rooms we can fully close off on the main floor are our bedroom and the back porch.

Then add to that, after twice in one day of griping at Paul because he had spent four hours playing a game on the computer (a regular occurance on his days off), he came back at me with, "How much time to you spend with your blog?" And I realized that whereas I may view what I do on the computer as "worthwhile", it still is a lot of time that I could be spending with my son or making the house pleasant and liveable (read: actually clean).

So I've been trying to cut down on the time I spend on the computer. Both on my blog, and on reading other people's. And I'm seriously considering getting rid of my MySpace account. No one ever comments on mine, I never comment on anyone else's, and I hardly ever send or recieve any messages. I just use it to waste time and snoop on other people's business.

So I'm sorry if my blog has been boring lately. That's my excuse. But I'll console you with a few pictures of Nathan.

Nathan the Sailor Man!

*toot toot*

<- check out the "tattoo"

His latest obsession: the dog's water dish.

He thinks that he should get one too.

Apparently I'm not the only one that gets a birthday weekend. Paul is taking full advantage of his - he said if I get to claim a whole weekend as my birthday, then he does too. Except his started on Thursday, and he informed me it won't be over 'til tomorrow (Monday). Talk about working the system! His "birthday weekend" has thus far included: a completely from scratch cake, bbq meatballs, a chicken fried steak dinner, and chocolate chip cookies topped with a half inch of frosting, plus very many other favors. ("Can you fix me a snack? It's my birthday weekend.")
And he had the nerve to say he thought I should detail his truck, too.