All you can eat

We had a coupon for an all-you-can-eat buffet tonight. We have two young kids so we got there around 5pm with all the old timers. Here is what I find at buffets:

1. Very large, poorly dressed people

2. Very large kids drinking A LOT of soda and eating A LOT. This strikes me as especially sad since last night on "the Biggest Loser" they talked about the average person DRINKING 50 POUNDS of sugar a year through soda. That's about 20 pounds of weight gain a year. I am not a big soda drinker so this is an easy area for me to do without.

3. Lots of old people

4. A feeling of franticness to hurry up and get the next plate. I dont know what this is, but it feels like a race of some kind to eat and get your plate cleared and hunt for your next plateful. Maybe this is tied to sticking it to the man and eating more than you paid for somehow.

5. Just OK food but really, really good dessert and thick chocolate milk. I swear there was 10 desserts I wanted to try, but I really wanted to set a good example for my kids more.

Trash talk

Dear Husbands,

The small, decorative trashcans that you find in the bedroom and bathroom are for the following:

a tissue
the tag from new clothes
feminine products (bathroom)
q-tips (bathroom)

they are not for:
the Sunday newspaper
mail
banana peels or apple cores or any food
dirty diapers

Really, these receptacles are more of a symbol, a TEMPORARY place for a small amount of trash. We do not line these things with black industrial-sized bags for a reason. Oh, and if you see the trash can has trash in it, take FIVE MINUTES and empty the can!

Please take note, and act accordingly.

Respectfully,

your wives

Innocence vs. Naive

Today my mother in law asked me if I knew what a 'dildo' was.

Let me back track, it started innocently enough with a birthday wish phone call. One conversation led to another which led to her telling me about her husband's friend who sends him "dirty jokes" through the email. I laughed and said maybe Dad enjoyed them, to which she responded I don't even know if he knows what they mean.

"He sent one about a Dill pickle or pickle... let me think..." she said. "Oh, yeah, a DILDO! Do you even know what that is?"

Of course, there was a pause because I wondered if she was serious, if I should admit that I knew etc.

"Uh, yeah..." I said.

"Well I got the email while Josh and Lisa were here," she said of her daughter and husband. "And LISA knew! I said 'What were you raised on the streets?!'"

So many things did I love about this conversation: the fact that she thought of a dill pickle and then that she thought that her daughter was raised on the streets if she knew, and then that she told me about it.

I always wonder rasing my kids what I want my kids to know and not to know. I don't want them to be so niave that they fall for anything but on the other hand I want them to be innocent. I am not sure where to find that balance. Any thoughts?

Wedding vows: non-Independence Day thoughts

I seem to have lots of friends who are struggling with the promises they made years ago to each other. For one reason or another -- affairs or Bordem or communication-- couples are on the brink of divorce. I have been thinking about the promises we make on that day with the big cake: promises we make where we invite everyone we know basically to witness it and to hold us to it. Not for the "better" part or the "health" part for for the "worse" and "sickness" parts. There is an assumption in these promises that the bad parts will come and when they do you are going to stick with it until death.

My husband has always said he will make the vows once and that is it because that is all he needs. I wonder if married couples should make them annually on their anniversary as a reminder. Not because they run out after a year but because you need to remember that though part you are now in is part of the deal going in.

It will be hard. It will be heart-breaking and it will be worth it.


I, (Bride/Groom), take you (Groom/Bride), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part. I, (name), take you, (name), to be my [opt: lawfully wedded] (husband/wife), my constant friend, my faithful partner and my love from this day forward.

In the presence of God, our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.

Mom gear 101

Things I have found you need as a mom:

1. In the car you must always have diapers, wipes, a couple of toys, pac 'n' play. stroller, bottled water, snacks, a "restaurant bag" and jackets.

2. A "restaurant bag" has bibs and assorted toys that the kids only get to play with while they are waiting on the food. I have a travel fishing game, play-doh and wind-up toys.

3. Flip-flops. Oh how I LOVE flip-flops. I can't live without flip flops. Easy to put on and off to run to the mailbox or dumpster or pool. I don't know if I can live where there is snow because then I would have to actually TIE my shoes on. They are my work shoes. And for kids they are great too, except when they are really small, like my 2-year-old, he will flip them off and lose them in a store. Besides that they can put on their own shoes. Also crocs are nice for this, and with crocs they are less likely to fall while running.

4. A good stroller, like a jog stroller that you can take looong walks in and your kids are comfortable enough to sleep.

5. Balls. Both literally and figuratively. Easy and cheap toy and the guts to endure another day without adult conversation.

6. Play dates. That is so suburban, I know, but you have to meet your friends and have new toys for your kids to be engrossed in for a couple hours. It will get you to nap time and you will get to exchange a few sentences in a couple hours between screams of "Share!" and "Be nice!"

7. Trips to the mall. We hit the soft pretzel store first then while the kids are engrossed, and let me emphasize GROSS because of the sugar all over the place, you can have 10 minutes to look at clothes. Not try them on, but look and buy and hope for the best. Then you hit the Disney store and destroy it and the pet store. If you are luck the mall will have a free enclosed play area where you can sip a latte.

8. When in doubt when your kids are malfunctioning: give them a bath or take them on a walk. Always help reset them.

9. You have to have a yard (without one, you have to go to the park alot). Outside is sooo great for kids to discover bugs and dirt and weeds. Entertainment for what seems like hours. And the fresh air is good for both of you. Remember when your mom would say "Go outside...be back by dinner!" The good ol' days.

10. Be in the moment. Forget the laundry and the mess you will make, and play. Play. Play. Sometimes when the kids aren't playing well, you need to stop and help them play for like 10 minutes and the you can go back to work. Or stop working and enjoy them. Soon enough they won't even be sleeping under the same roof as you. Time flies. You are creating their childhood. Play!

Why I love President Carter
Honesty, honesty, honesty for a change

FROM THE AP: Carter came down hard on the Iraq war.
“We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered,” he said. “But that’s been a radical departure from all previous administration policies.”
Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having “zero peace talks” in Israel. Carter also said the administration “abandoned or directly refuted” every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts by other presidents.
Carter also offered a harsh assessment for the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helped religious charities receive $2.15 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2005 alone.
“The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion,” Carter said. “As a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one.”
Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter biographer, described Carter’s comments as unprecedented.
“This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president,” Brinkley said. “When you call somebody the worst president, that’s volatile. Those are fighting words.”
Carter also lashed out Saturday at British prime minister Tony Blair. Asked how he would judge Blair’s support of Bush, the former president said: “Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Apparently subservient.”“And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world,” Carter told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

and the famous:

"I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me."
JIMMY CARTER, interview in Playboy magazine, 1976

Simplicity

Dr. Karl Barth was one of the most brilliant and complex intellectuals of the twentieth century who also graced the cover of Time magazine. He wrote volume after massive volume on the meaning of life and faith. A reporter once asked Dr. Barth if he could summarize what he had said in all those volumes. Dr. Barth thought for a moment and then said: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. " CS Lewis

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” CS Lewis

Freedom

Knowing couples who are suffering through infidelity, I know I have freedom when my cellphone rings and I don't have to worry if my husband answers. Or when he reads my email.

I had freedom before we were married: I didn't think twice about my period being late because we were waiting to have sex until we got married.

I remember freedom when I reached my goal weight in college and I thought "what will I think about all of the time now that I don't need to think about my weight."

"...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." 2 Cor. 3:17