Of Dial-up speeds...and linking a bit

Oh how the shaped internet hurts me! Having foolishly gone over our limit (a rather generous 25G a month) after only TWO WEEKS !!! I am currently suffering through the shaped dial-up speed connection blues. O woe is me! My blog reading, forum surfing, and general net amusements are so painfully slow, that only yesterday I gave up and read a book instead! It is another week and a half before the "new" month starts! I dread to hear the reaction of Smash when the kids are back on Friday. No WOW for him next week, not at these speeds. Ok, now I am feeling super privileged to be whinging about my internet connection speed. (Still, it's annoying, hmphh).

I was going to post some photos from our garden, but can't bear the wait, so you'll have to wait until April 2nd for those ones! We planted out some new seedlings in the vege patch a couple of weeks ago, and they are doing great.

A few interesting links I've been reading lately (despite my snail pace interwebs):

- Womanist Musings on life in the Game of Life where (shock horror) you can marry someone of the same sex: The Game of Life and the Gay Agenda.

We all need to fear the massive “gay agenda,” even though everywhere we look heterosexuality is affirmed as good and normal. All of this whining and protesting about concern for the children really amounts to nothing more than a desire to preserve and promote undeserved heterosexual privilege.

My son is eight years old and we have been speaking about different kinds of families in terms that he could understand since he was three years old and first started asking questions about reproduction. I take great care to point out that not all families look like ours and he is not in the least bit damaged by the experience. He is well aware of the fact that sometimes two men marry, or that two women marry and he has come to see this as completely normal because his father and I are committed to raising a child that is not only aware of whatever privilege he may have in this life, but one who has a deep and abiding respect for all people.

- The Hoydens have an interesting post on CFS/ME and “faulty illness beliefs”: The incredible hubris of the psychiatro-patriarchal complex

- An astronaut blogs from space - how cool is that! Spacebook, and Sandra Magnus's blog post on night and day in space here. (via Hoydens).

- Arwyn at Raising My Boychick tackles Independence of the attachment parenting kind.

It seems to me, then, that The Man's and my sin in the eyes of "mainstream" culture is not failing to foster independence, but our refusal to force detachment -- what I sometimes call "pathological independence". It is our willingness and commitment to provide a safe base from which the Boychick may explore, and to which he always may return, that earns us ire and shaming clucks of the tongue.

Independence, no matter what popular culture says, cannot be created by forcing the chick out of the nest; that is only detachment, which teaches children they cannot trust those around them, and cuts off their rightful sense of interdependence. Real independence, which is entirely capable of coexistence with interdependence and thus dependence as well, is grown in to, at one's own pace, under one's own power, and comes from knowing that one is free to roam, free to leap, and yes, free to fall -- which children are so much more likely to risk when they know they have a soft space to land.

Read the rest at the link, her argument linking in patriarchy is a good one.

We have lift off!

Lolly is off and running! Well, off and bum-wobbling, at any rate. She is a very stationary baby thus far, and has always been a sitter rather than a tummy-er. She hasn't crawled, and prefers sitting among her things. Well, after many weeks of throwing herself round energetically, and threatening to crawl, she has taken to a bum shuffle that has in the past 2 days become pretty efficient! For the first time in a year, I have a baby who doesn't stay in the one spot when you put her down!

Here she is, off and shufflin'... Look how far she got!



I found a foot over here, Mummy!



She has been shuffling for a while, but not very far. Only a few feet or so at the most. Now she has decided to go further afield, and did quite a few metres last night, adventuring over to follow in her sister's footsteps of pulling out videos.



She had fun putting them back, too.



She is also very keen on pulling herself up on things, and the other night spent some time using the laptop to look at pictures, by pressing the correct button to make them change!



She is saying a bit more now, she still calls lights and all manner of things "star", and says Dadda very often (correctly). She pants for "dog" and says a kind of "duh" sound for this, too. She says "niiiiggghhh" for night night, and waves with either a "nigh" sound, or a combo between "hi" and "bye". She says booba (so cute when she whispers this at night while asleep), often with a gorgeous whispery "booooobaaa" like she is very fond of it! She says Mumma, but not a lot.

All in all, an eventful few days. It will be an interesting new stage for us both to get used to a mobile life!

Of a Oneth Birthday!

Lolly is One! She was one on the 17th, and I have trouble believing it. She is the most beautiful, loving child, so full of joy, curiousity, and smiles. She has bought love and joy to my life, and has changed me forever. To my daughter on her first birthday, all the love and light in the world, may your future be full of love, adventure, independence, grand thoughts, joy, and laughter. I love you.

Lolly on the day of her birth. This is a bit sad for me, a c-section photo, it's the first time I touched her when she was outside of me. Amazing to see her though! Totally in love!



Happy now, back from the horrible oxygen crib and with Mumma.



2 days old.



One year later, Lolly at One.



A little bit of sponge cake makes a big cake-face mess!



Lolly and her red car walker/ride on that she got as a present.



Lolly and her brother and sister.

Tuesday Lolcat fluff

A week of doings!

Here is an update post on some of our doings over the past week or so, with plenty of photos for extra cuteness!

Last Saturday, while DinnerDad was repairing the whippersnipper, the girls had some outside bathtime fun near the garage!


"Big" hand, little foot!



Last Sunday we embarked on our driving adventure/experiment, which went really well up til the 20 minutes of screaming on the way home. *sigh* We went out via the Warrego and round via the dams up to Mount Glorious, with a stop for a bushwalk and hotdogs for lunch, and then a coffee.

Bushwalking with a wheelchair is fun!! Snail peeping at me...


Wheel over a stream.


Stairs!!!


Just before Smash stacked it :)


Lolly in the Ergo.



It was the hour long drive home that did Lolly in. She was tired, but not tired enough, and really got upset for a good quarter hour plus. There was a stop for booba, and for me to swap with Smash in the back, to little effect once we got going again. It was pretty harrowing til she fell asleep. I find that kind of crying in the car so difficult as it's like I abandoned her to her terrible four-wheeled fate. All her other crying is in-arms (and she's not a big cryer anyway), to hear her screaming and sobbing because of the car is heartbreaking to me. Hence the lack of much car travelling over the past 6 months. Before that, I had become pretty adept at timing trips with her naps, and we actually drove a lot that way. Now, naps aren't reliable and there is more objection, which is gradually easing up as she gets older and more interested in everything. Here's to a cruisy car future as she grows to be more entertained by it all! Living out here where even getting to the local shops is 10 minutes driving, and getting to anywhere entertaining is at least 15 minutes, it has been a bit difficult. Lolly is now pretty reliably happy to travel for 15-20 minutes, which is enough to get a fair few places for me. With lots of interesting things (facewashers to suck on, cups of water, teething rusks, lots and lots of interesting toys, my wallet, the nappy bag, etc etc etc) she can get 30 minutes.

We had a busy week, Smash is taking tennis lessons and we all trucked over there Tuesday night, DinnerDad had a major week at work (and just got a super cool promotion!) so there was a lot of Selene and the girls afternoons. Went well though, it's much easier to deal with them both now Lolly is a little older. Phew!

Afternoon snacking on plums!



School is tiring!


More on our gardening works soon!

Prop 8 skit vid

The Hoydens linked to this hilarious skit on Prop 8 - well worth a watch, tres amusing!

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black

Linkfest

Some links from my blogular travels of the past couple of weeks:

- on the "mum" issue: Arwyn at Raising My Boychick.

- for the Doctor Who fans, a nice peice on Ace from Chally guest posting at the Hoydens About Town: Ace.

- on abortion arguments, how to defeat, from Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy.

- Bene on Dollhouse, I've been reading reacitons to the show with interest (as a Joss fan thus far, with some high hopes for Dollhouse that are yet to be fulfilled). See Lauredhel at the Hoydens on this here. And qeerty on the show here. The Hoydens thread has more links, it's an interesting debate, one I might write more on once I've seen more of the show.

- I loikes the Post Logical Parenting Conference cartoons at Mama is... start here.

- I read with interest the feminism blogosphere as digital colonialism that started with the What if peice at Professor, What If? here. Many many links and responses there in the comments.

- ETA - more on the digital colonialism storm, the author's apology here. And in the comments there, a link to this post by Portly Dyke on how to fuck up which is well worth a read.