I’ve read about these things on several blogs as well as in the news.  I’m a little late to the party, as usual these days, but these items have stuck in my head since I originally read them.

First, Fox News used this graphic during a story about Michelle Obama:

Yes, they called her Obama’s Baby Mama – which is a somewhat derogatory slang phrase considering they are married and were married when they had their children. Fox stated that the producer used “poor judgment” in using that phrase. Really? Just poor judgment? The person who created the graphic and the person who approved its use should be fired. Fox is known for its conservative slant but apparently now they’ve just given up any appearance of unbiased journalism.

The next one makes me even angrier. A kindergarten teacher had all of the students in her class say what they didn’t like about another student’s behavior and then vote whether or not he could stay. The students call him “annoying” and “disgusting” and voted him out of the class. A 5 year old had to endure this – can you imagine what this will do to his self esteem? The child is in the process of being evaluated on the autism spectrum and the teacher was fully aware of this – not that a diagnosis should make a difference in this case. The teacher admitted to doing this and said it was because she wanted this 5 year old to know how his behavior effected his peers. Really? You think that is the most effective way? Allowing other 5 year olds to say mean and hurtful things and vote him off the island? The woman shouldn’t be allowed to teach children.

I do remember seeing on Debbie’s blog a link to send a card to the child if you are so inclined.

Happy Father’s Day to the best father I know.  You are the best partner in parenting I could ever have hoped for – thank you for all you do.

You have patience in reserve when mine is exhausted.

You come home from a long day at work understanding that my day with a toddler has been long also.  You spend time playing with Sabrina.  Listening to the 2 of you laugh together is the best part of my day.

When you are home, you volunteer to change 95% of the diapers – especially the nasty ones.  I can’t express how much that is appreciated.

You never just assume that mommy will take care of things – you step up and do what needs to be done.

You never consider it babysitting if I leave you and Sabrina together for the evening.  It is part of being a dad and you love hanging out with your girl.

You worry about raising responsible, independent, smart, capable women.  You worry about helping them make good choices about education, careers, money, and men.  You think beyond getting them through the toddler years and see the big picture.

And the thing I am most amazed by?  That you don’t understand what all the fuss is about – why I thank you for all of these things.  You see them as what every man who is a father should do.  Thanks for being you, my love!  There is no one else I would want to take this crazy journey with.

Sabrina rejects most forms of protein. Eggs is the only protein she will eat without a fight most days. Once in awhile beans or chicken nuggets will pass muster. But usually I have to badger her into eating protein. So mommy tries to get creative. What kid doesn’t love mac & cheese with hotdogs? Mine. I made her some macaroni and mixed some cut up hot dogs in it. She carefully removed each piece of hotdog and pushed it to the side. If I slip meat into her scrambled eggs, she will suck the egg off each piece of meat and discard the meat. Look how proud she is of herself – every scrap of macaroni gone and her little pile of meat left.

Perhaps she needs a visit from MizFit to explain the importance of protein.

Thanks for all of the bloggy land love!  It really did make me feel better.

Okay, done feeling like the shy, awkward, self-conscious 13 yr old I once was. I just needed to process the situation, feel a little sorry for my self, eat a little chocolate and then move on. I don’t have the patience for drama when it isn’t on the big screen. My feelings are still bruised but I’m done dwelling. I don’t want to get into the situation here because sometime real life things need to stay there.  Thanks for the love all of you. I feel like Sally Fields “You like me! You really like me!” I needed the virtual hugs.

Now a little Sabrina cuteness.

Steve snapped the sleeping princess.

Attached to mommy’s leg per usual:

She still likes her exersaucer but prefers to play with it from the outside now.  She gets a little cranky when confined.

My girl is a morning person – she is always smiling during breakfast.

Sorry for the lack of posting – lots going on.  Grandma is here hanging out with Miss Sabrina.  We went to Opry Mills today and Grandma treated Sabrina to some new fall/winter clothes so I think she is set now for the coming season.

I’ve also been digesting a situation that recently came up with some friends.  I’m very hurt by some things that have happened.  I’m 35 years old and ended up crying myself to sleep last night over this situation – that made me feel 13 again.  Do we ever reach an age where we can shrug off finding out that people don’t like us?  Intellectually I can accept that not everyone can like me.  Professionally I accepted years ago that being effective was more important than being liked.  But, in my personal life, I find it hurtful when people I like have been discussing how I am apparently the root of all evil in the world behind my back (that phrase makes me feel 13 too).

So I will return to licking my emotional wounds and watching Sabrina enjoy her Grandma.  Blogging will happen when I stop feeling like my self confidence has been knocked back to my 13th year.  I’ll post some Grandma photos soon.

I was browsing some blogs and saw a list of someone’s idea of the worst movies ever.  As I was reading the list, I realized in seeing just a dozen bad movies in my life I’ve wasted an entire 24 hours.  A whole day.  How many times did one of these make you say “Well there is 2 hours of my life I will never get back?”  Feel free to add your own in the comments.

In no particular order, an entire day sucked from my life by these 12  bad movies:

Brighton Beach Memoirs.  I had a really bad date wrapped up in this movie so maybe that colors my memory of it.  I don’t remember much about it other than hating it.

Glengarry Glen Ross.  My college roommate’s brother raved about this one to us so we rented it one weekend.  I don’t think we even made it to the end.  We then called Paul and yelled at him for such crappy movie advice.  My main memory is everything was dark, smoky, and depressing.

Xanadu is so bad what can I even say?  My freshman year of college my neighbor had a VCR and owned 1 movie.  Wanna guess which one?  We watched it and made fun of it many times that year.  At least it has some nostalgia for me now.  Crap, now I have the song stuck in my head.

Grease 2.  Michelle Pfeiffer has to be mortified to be associated with this.  When making my list, I excluded most sequels but this one sucked so hard it had to be included.  “I wanna cooooooollll rider.  A cool cool cool cool rider…if he’s tough enough and he’s true enough…I want a rider who is cool.”  How sad is it that I remember the lyrics to that song?

Real Men.  My husband loves this movie.  Perhaps I dislike it so much because I’ve had to watch it repeatedly.  The big gun, the good package, aliens, a map, Russians…just so stupid.  I don’t want to speak ill of the dead so we’ll just move on.

Broken Flowers.  Up until now, I don’t think many would argue with my picks but I hear that there are actually people who liked this movie.  Why?  Basically we watched Bill Murray drive around a lot and have uncomfortable interactions with a few other people.  There were about 10 lines of dialog in the whole freaking movie.  I hate movies that I keep watching because I am convinced something will happen eventually and nothing ever does.

Trainspotting.  This is for my dear friend Amy.  Good tool to scare addicts straight.  Bad movie.  Depressing.  Disturbing.  Lots of shooting up and sitting around in filth.  Might need some drugs after watching this one.  Hate this movie (but love you Amy – smooches).

Thin Red Line.  Longest movie ever.  This one felt like it sucked up an entire day by itself.  I swear the entire audience heaved a sigh of relief when it finally ended.  No plot.  Every time you learned anything more than a character’s name, he got blown up with lots of gore.  Lots of famous people in it – all dead in the first 5 minutes of screen time.

Moulin Rouge.  I just thought this was ridiculous and the music sucked.

Lost in Translation.  See Broken Flowers.  Hated this movie with no real plot.  Nothing happened.

Patch Adams.  Just bad.  Not even cute – just bad.

Spanglish.  I’m not sure this one was bad enough to be on the list but we just watched it on video and I was very disappointed.  Not funny.  Not feel good.  Just a lot of people fumbling their way through life and making a mess of things.  Where is the escapism in that?

First, my poor girl has her first diaper rash and it is killing me!  I feel so horrible because she sobs every time I change her diaper.  I know about Butt Paste and am going to pick some up today – any other tips?  She was actually bleeding a little when I wiped her last time.

We are headed to Atlanta tomorrow for Guatoberfest.  Most people are arriving today so I hope we don’t miss out on too much of the fun!  So I will leave you with this meme that made me laugh when I saw it elsewhere.  I will return with many photos of beautiful Guatemalan babies.

Chou and Elle did this one and it made me laugh so I thought I would throw it out on a day I have nothing else to blog about (ummm…most days?)

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Muffin Altima

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Coffee Ripple Sugar

3. YOUR “FLY GIRLl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first 3 letters of last name)
M-Bro

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal),
Yellow Puppy (sounds like someone to fear)

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born),
Ann Lima

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first),
Bro-Mi

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink),
The Orange Long Island Iced Tea (another one to fear LOL)

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers),
Malcolm Delbert

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy),
Jessica McClintock Snickers (that one doesn’t really work)

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ),
Hervey Glynn

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter),
Corn Corapolis (sounds like an empty headed blonde)

12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower).
Spring Tulip

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Cantaloupe Boxer Shortsie

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Bagel Dogwood

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather + “Tour”)

The Cooking Blue Skies Tour

I don’t watch MTV (okay, once in awhile I might see the Real World) and I didn’t watch the VMAs this year.  I don’t like Britney Spears – never have.  But I had to watch Britney’s performance on YouTube because I kept hearing about it.  I have to say, the girl definitely phoned it in.  She seemed quite uninterested in the performance.  If it was because a comedian’s jokes hurt her feelings, I say suck it up and prove her wrong by putting on a killer performance.  But who am I to judge as I sit on my couch?

My issue with all of the criticism?  In what plane of reality are people calling her fat, heifer, huge, disgusting, etc?

The woman just had 2 babies in 2 years.  Perhaps the bikini wasn’t the most flattering wardrobe choice and no she doesn’t look like she did at 19 but she is by no means fat.  No wonder we all have body issues.  There are plenty of true criticisms to make of Britney.  I’ll just throw out a couple: questionable parenting, seemingly not so bright, bad fashion sense…but don’t go calling the girl a cow.

I received word that Sabrina’s foster family was hoping to hear how she was doing and wanting to wish her a happy birthday.  I was so touched that they were reaching out to her/us.  I sent them an email with some photos.  I hope we can stay in contact a bit so that Sabrina can have some tether to her beginnings.

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I did something very painful today.  I went through my shoes.  I forced myself to get rid of those that were out of style, in bad shape (no matter how much I loved them), designed by someone who hates women and make me want to cut my feet off when I wear them, and just plain “I don’t care how on sale they were – what was I thinking?”.  Between the initial soft purge before the move and this purge, I have shed 15 pairs of shoes.  Now I have to find my way to the DSW that is in a neighboring burb…on second thought maybe I’ll wait until the house sells.

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Speaking of the house, several of you have asked in the comments and email.  Yes it is on the market.  Wanna buy it?  I haven’t talked about it because it raises my blood pressure considerably when I think of my beautiful house sitting empty and unloved (okay, actually it is the mortgage payments and lack of bids on the house that stress me out).  It has been on the market for 2 months.  About 8 people have looked at it.  No bids.  When we were in PA this weekend, I was shocked by the number of houses on the market.  It seemed as though every 3rd house was for sale.  That doesn’t bode well for ours selling.  I have no idea how long we can continue paying rent and mortgage on 1 income.

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I’ll leave you with something that made me laugh.  At the hotel this weekend, an Asian couple got on the elevator with us.  We are often asked if Sabrina is from China.  This couple didn’t say a word to us – although they spoke to each other quickly in a language which sounded like Chinese.  But the woman, in a very exaggerated manner, looked carefully at me, then Steve, then Sabrina.  She repeated this about 1/2 a dozen times.  It made me laugh.  I wasn’t sure if she was too polite to ask (but rude enough to stare) or if perhaps they didn’t speak sufficient English to ask.

Our being on a small island did not stop us from getting our hands on the new Harry Potter book. Our friend, Dave, reserved 4 copies of the book at a small book store and went to pick them up for all of us at midnight. Steve has laid claim to the book first and I am not so patiently waiting for him to read it (in reality, I will be patient for a couple of days until I finish my current book and then declare he is taking too long and read it when he isn’t home). So don’t anyone spoil what happens…I haven’t even seen the first page yet.