And another win for Obama.  It's such an exciting political election.  I certaintly chose the craziest election in a generation to "enter" my political junkihood!

Two very sincere questions I have for McCain:
1 - if we know exactly where bin Laden is (in Pakistan) and we ask Pakistan to kill him and they say "Nope"... is McCain saying we'll just leave bin Laden alone and hope that some day he leaves the country and some day we will find him to kill him?  This is the only situation Obama is saying that we would go in, uninvited, with military action.  I honestly don't get it as Obama's position seems extremely pro-American and vital to our national security.  Killing the mastermind of 9/11 is truly the top national priority for us, isn't it???
 
2 - what is McCain's solution to the uninsurables?  There are millions of Americans, MCCAIN HIMSELF INCLUDED, who could never get private insurance.  1.85 million Americans lose everything - their homes, their life savings, everything, because of health care.  These aren't idiots who gamble away their savings.  These are innocent people who are struck down with cancer or have rare diseases that require intense medical attention.  What good is a $5,000 tax refund paid *directly to insurance companies* if no insurance company will even COVER you?  It's a sneaky way of McCain to say that he isn't actually giving people a 5K tax deduction... he's only letting you offset your insurance-based expenses, up to 5K.

Fortunately I don't think it matters what he thinks because his chances of winning are extremely low.

This Onion story cracks me up!  It's Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo true.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_60_million_people_youd

Clearly the ad was created before they had the quote to attach to someone...notice the ad on the right.

My friend just sent me this saying she wanted to buy it for me, for Livia.  Another friend got a picture of a Junior Mint box, put it next to her tiny newborn, and emailed me a "hi aunt ewizabif" photo.  Now if they only had this in an ADULT size, I'd wear it EVERY_SINGLE_HALLOWEEN.  Too bad the sizing is too small for Livia, or we have to wait til she's about 7 years old for the next size.

I'm off to California for the rest of the week for work, but wanted to put her on here for my own viewing as well. :)  I put more pics in my flickr account but I think they're backwards, upside down, etc.  I'm literally off to get Mike and go to the airport.  Wish him well with a week alone with the kiddos :)

I need to get the photos off my camera!  I bought Livia an ADORABLE winter dress.  Sooooooooooooooooooooooo cute.  She's definitely a GIRL.  She loves her dolls.

But she's also a monkey. She can now climb on the coffee table, as well as our bed and the kitchen chairs.  She gets on the kitchen chair and sits down like "duh", she belongs there.  The more you throw her around the happier she gets.  She LOVES to be thrown upside down and will fling herself backwards if you don't move fast enough to do it again.

Today she learned how to say "yeah" and said it over and over and over.  Now we'll see if she says it in the right context.  :-)

I know.  Government is corrupt.  Blah blah blah.  But a well-researched, detailed article written by an award winning journalist on this topic makes me extremely sad.

There are moments in my life where I "lose a little more innocence" and this article is now one of about 5 times in my life.  The other times all involve learning about brutality.  This time it is brutality by ignoring people.

http://www.nationinstitute.org/p/schanberg09182008pt1

Got the info!  Sarah Palin, as mayor, promised to reduce her salary.  And she did!

She took a $68,000 job and gave herself a $4,000 pay cut!  And then bought a Suburban on the tax payers dime.  People called it the "Mayor Mobile".  And hired an administrator deputy to do most of her work - net result, major increase in payroll dollars spent.

I'm not sure how on earth a mayor of 5,500 people could even make $68,000?  That's crazy!

Here's my life motto - when dirt comes kicking, put it in perceptive, figure out who is saying it, why they're saying it, and watch if more dirt comes.  If more dirt comes, confirm where THAT is coming from, etc.  Basically, never blindly say because dirt is in the air that it's a windstorm and not some mean person just throwing dirt around.

And any dirt that seems unbelievable - and unexplanable, hold that in your pocket and await for more explanation or context.

A few of those "hold in my pocket" things have been why did Sarah Palin get an emergency response building when nobody locally wanted it and said it was actually  more "dangerous" because there already was one nearby - duplication for emergencies leads to chaos.  Until THIS article, I didn't get the answer... I held it in my back pocket saying why shouldn't we have an emergency response building in Wasilla?  Ah - because the one nearby is SHARED with a rival town that Sarah has hated since her high school basketball days.  Doh!

Another one - why do 80% of Alaskans like her if she's so bad?  A few reasons.  1 - she gives everyone cold hard cash from the oil companies (what's not to like about THAT?)  2 - journalists in Alaska do not have the money or resources to follow things in depth, especially on the campaign trail when she was running for Gov.  It took the national press with lots of money, top ranked journalists, several weeks to be digging through and finding all this dirt.  It's not even "gossipy" dirt, but real documents, signatures, etc.  And 3 - anyone who crosses her is on her blacklist and will be screwed over forever.  So it's literally every few days someone bravely comes forward, risking their entire social future, to call her out.  They are _that_nervous about her being VP. 

Another "in my back pocket" question still unanswered is exactly how and why she cut her salary.  This is not a selfless woman.  Quite the opposite.  I know we'll find the real answer soon thanks to the journalists. Afterall, why would a woman who wants to reduce spending give her office a $50,000 makeover as MAYOR?  Or hire an administrator to DO HER JOB when she's quoted as saying "it's not rocket science" and a huge swath of normal mayorial duties like the school system was not even under her exeuctive leadership.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/17/palin_mayor/

So my point here is with the many, many people McCain could have chosen, including the weasel Joe LIberman (his first choice), why did McCain so blindly go with THIS woman?  A four-time cancer survivor, 72 year old man, puts THIS woman a heartbeat from the most powerful job on the planet.

Just wrong.

will you truly get this.  It makes me laugh really, really hard.  In fact I'm so tired it would make me cry with laughter if I let myself go there.

She really loves dogs, but always keeps her distance.  Today she actually walked up to a neighbors dog an petted the dog!  3 times!  Yay Livia.

She also signed for "please" several times today, is really talking now "baby", "bath", "ball", "daddy" , "cheese" and tries to say many more words.  She's on the cusp with her adorable vocalizations.

She is ALSO a crazy monkey.  She now climbs up the chair I'm sitting on when we have dinner (after she's done) and she high tails it to our bedroom and gets on our tall bed!  Aaaah.  She is also gleeful when she does this.  God save us all!  She's only 17 months old.

William "goes to work" every day, usually after breakfast.  This involves shutting both doors to Livia's room, getting the shades shut, building a tower with her big wooden blocks, getting the Johnny Cash CD to a particular track, and then singing to the "microphone stand" along with Johnny Cash.  It's just one song and then he cleans it all up.  And Livia either screams inside, outside, or is quiet inside.  :-)  It IS her room, afterall.

The first skit... HILARIOUS.  Had Mike and me laughing so hard.  This is some text and the embedded video of the skit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/13/tina-fey-as-sarah-palin-o_n_126249.html

One thing message boards give you is a sense of other peoples inner lives.  Either emotional life or physical life.  And I'm often surprised.  Yesterday someone was asking about shoes for their 16 month old.  Everyone who replied listed out 5-10 different types of shoes their baby has.  And some listed 7-8 shoes and said they still need to find more.  Casual, different colors, dressy, athletic, shoe-boots, and more.

I just gasped!  I am not a shoe person at all so I buy one high quality pair, wear it every day for the season, and the shoe lasts 4-6 years.  I bought my black sandles before I knew Mike - in 2001.  7 years and they're still going strong!  I wear a shoe for so long they don't make it anymore and I always regret not buying two pairs.

 Livia has two pair of shoes - a Robeez from my brother and sister in law that she wears all the time.  Then a cheapie Target version lent from a friend that I haven't opened yet.  I am going to find her shoes that have some more sole on them for the fall/winter, as I did with William at this age.  But that's it!  Two shoes.  And he Robeez for William were as much about keeping his socks on as anything else!

I'm not putting down those women.  Heck, if I had the money AND interest in shoes maybe I would also buy a lot of pairs.  It is just startling when little girls have and wear more shoes or clothes than I do as an adult! :-)

Note the very last few lines of this 30 second bit:

It must have been the year 2000.  I had landed a 'high paying job" at Target Headquarters and bought new glasses.  I have had my eyes checked since and my RX hasn't changed (it's very light and the eye dr actually said I have better than 20/20.... I do not remotely understand eyeballs, but I guess there was one line on the eye chart nobody is supposed to be able to read and I could.  Yay for ONE thing that works on my body!)

I found an awesome pair a few months back, as did Mike. . But our glasses would have been a MORTGAGE PAYMENT, so we said, "thanks, but no thanks" (HAH!)  Actually we whined and wished we hadn't gone to such a cool eye glass shop.  It's been months since, I've been to every eye glass shop, and been completely uninspired.  Then mom and I went to the new Cosco nearish to us and I found the pair!  There were two - a safer one and a slightly cooler/funkier one.  I asked William and he agreed the funkier pair were better.  He didn't even skip a beat in having a strong opinion. 

I just called my mom for a pointer and the secret is to wakeup wih this new pair.  They've been making me feel a little wonky, but in a "I have new glasses" way, not in some drastic way.  I will take a picture soon!

So, new glasses... if I can get a new body (belly) I'll be refreshed for the year!

William is able to poop on his own and now it's a question of finding him to make sure he's wiped down!

It was fun, he had a great time and yet... it was anticlimatic because he's already HAD school in that building his entire life!  Every week we have a class there and while preschool is not the same as those classes, it's very similar and he's already very comfortable.

So yay for preschool but it's a lot less of a momumental shift for us.  And I am with him for 1 hour on Tuesdays of his 2.5 hour class.  He's then alone Thursdays.  But the SUPER cool thing is I got to hang out with 15 other moms and will do so on many of the Tuesdays for that second 1.5 hours of the classtime.  YAY for making new friends, new connections and sharing stories of our kids.  That is the real strength of the ECFE program in Minnesota.  It's real women sitting around, being open and vulnerable and supportive of each other. . AND we all live in the SAME suburb so it's just awesome that we can get together in the summer months, we can share the same experiences living in the same place, etc.

And any last "ugh, why do I need to spend an hour with him in preschool??" Is well offset not just by that parent component to this preschool, but honestly it is great to have an hour guilt-free, William-only time while Livia is in sibling care.

A win-win for all!  I now have zero regrets about going this route over a more traditional put him somewhere for 2.5 hours and then pick him up.  Livia's Thursday class doesn't start for a couple weeks so I will get some LIVIA alone time too!  What a crazy concept.

OK, I am not a fan of Sarah.  But they agreed to their first interview with ABC and I have to say, wow!  I'm impressed!  Apparently she take take 6 months of learning and do it in 10 days while being on the stump nonstop.  Ah.... then the true comes out.  My general perspective is if this situation was that, say, McCain was the grand poopa of a large company and was dying of cancer and wanted to pass his high level position on to, say, a daughter... well, then yes, he'd have to get his daughter up to speed and would have her avoid interviewers, shareholders, the board of directors, until she got up to par.  Because it would be a company, not our country  (well, I guess this works best in a private, not public, company.)

So honestly, yes, people have learning curves.  In fact I'm the one that is all about JUDGEMENT over experience.  I've rocked every job I've had with near zero experience because I had the smarts, the judgement, and the attitude to do well. 

This is my ultimate problem, then, with Palin.  She has horrid judgement!!  She is a walking disaster and there is no reason she would change into some moral, ethical person. 

Anyway, here is the article on the interview.  http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/214508.php  The summary is that it's a "two day series of interviews".  THIS IS NEVER DONE IN POLITICS because it lets the campaign shut down the interview if they aren't happy with the questions.  Oh, and it's ONLY going to cover her job as mayor and govornor.  REALLY????  I don't care about those jobs - I care that she can be CEO of the most powerful, amazing nation on the planet - the United States of America.  I only care about those jobs as they relate to this most powerful job on the planet.  But alas, it ain't gonna happen and we have to continue to pretend she's got the experience to lead the nation.  I'm beginning to think if SHE is ready we have a huge, huge, huge number of Presidents in the making if only they had a few bucks to run!

EVERYONE who is reading my blog and has two children or knows someone with two kids (your parents, for example, if you have a sibling) should follow my new blog.  My goal is to blast this all over and share the "humor, horror, and humility" of having two kids. 

Everyone has wisdom to share.  I have found that having that second kid really rocked me to my knees and I need to know others have survived and need to learn new tricks from parents who are in my situation or who have been in my situation.

www.parentingtwokids.com

Thanks!  Pass it on to friends/family.  I have comments open and hope to get this interactive and fun for all.