Things I’ve been enjoying the heck out of lately:

• Season 3 of Big Love
• Making beans in the crockpot
• Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter (I don’t ever read books like that, but Dawn’s First Guest Blog Series Ever introduced me to Katja Rowell M.D. and the Satter book. Life changing, for real. Check it.)
• My kids wrapped my birthday presents in a Twilight movie bag, knowing that I would love to opportunity to deface and destroy it. (We all hate Twilight for its abusive relationship marketed to young girls as romance). Smart and funny kids=best birthday present ever.
• Saying “heck” whenever I can, affecting Bill Henrickson’s look of confusion and/or horror:

I love that Bill would say, “My gosh, just what in the heck do you think you’re doing?” even if he were witnessing a murder.

What are you enjoying right now? Let’s get reacquainted!

Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are the new mom. And Jules is the the breastfeeding. He’s the hiccups along the way and he’s the voice of “this is how it’s going to happen. You’re gonna be cool, and we’re gonna get this done.”

Every time it works, it’s like when Jules gives Pumpkin the $1500 from his wallet. Then Vincent (John Travolta) has to go and undermine that success by running his stupid mouth. Like, say, power-tripping nurses and our own insecurity. When Jules quotes that Bible passage at the end, “those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers” are clearly all of the people in a new mom’s life who think they know better how to care for her baby and who take it as a personal affront that a brand-spanking-new mom would deign to have an opinion and a need to do something for her baby that only she can do for him. They attempt to poison and destroy the breastfeeding relationship because of they are selfish and they are insecure and their egos get in the way of helping mothers and babies. And it’s bull.

This clip is definitely not safe for work or children:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unJn5mBCI4g

Yeah, it’s like that. For about a week. The longest week of your life. A week isn’t that long, and I do miss my babies, but you could not pay me to go back to that week full of chaos, doubt, tears, pain, small successes, huge setbacks, fear, shame, insecurity, mistrust, feelings of rejection, perplexity, and all around effed up shit. You couldn’t pay me to go back. And you couldn’t pay me to not go through it because, eventually, on the other side, you suddenly look down and you’ve latched your baby on without a second thought. Just like that, the turmoil is over and you walk out of the diner with $1500 and a brand-new life. I wish there were a way to get there without going through hell week, but, in general (I know there are exceptions), the people who surround a new mother make hell week inevitable.

Just be cool, bitches. It’ll all be ok.

Ho hum. What else? The house? The house’s roof is leaking right where we thought it might leak, so it’s good that we made the seller give us money to fix it. And also? Also, there are mice in the bread drawer. Consistently in the bread drawer. Bryan killed one with a dustpan. It was caught in the trap, but struggling to get free. He had to do it. I don’t want to know how many more there are, but our cat better get on the job. I’ve been getting good mouse-killing tips over at Facebook, but I wonder if I should just maybe make the drawer into a cage and move the stupid hamster in there too. I can’t win against these rodents.

On the bright side of the house, there’s room! And the basement is a walk-out! And it’s finished! And we can send the kids down there when they’re being too loud! Or we can have them on the main floor with us when we feel like tolerating the loudness!

Other than that, we’ve just been unpacking and working on things (I may have an oven tomorrow!) and yelling at Vonage over releasing our phone number in a timely manner so we could switch carriers. Lena found it particularly entertaining when I yelled at them on the phone. Mommy was very mad and the bad lady on the phone was lying to her and trying to trick her into not switching carriers. The bad lady wants Mommy to keep wasting her money on terrible, terrible phone service and so she had to yell at her. And file a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission. It felt good. But we still won’t have our phone working until April 16th. And I don’t even believe that it will work on that date.

Right this minute, Bryan is trying to get our new tv hooked up and he’s having troubles. My nieces are here visiting for the week and Taylor (the 15 year old) had to tell him to push a button and also to plug something in. Both tips helped, but he’s still having trouble. He’s wearing a head lamp thingamajig and it just occurred to me that the head lamp may be the perfect book light for bedtime reading. I’m going to steal it. And if he says, “Hey, isn’t that my head lamp thingamajig?” I’ll just look straight at him and blind him with the light. It’s ok because I’m always searching for the perfect book light.

I wanted to watch Slumdog Millionaire (I would watch it over and over and over again. Good movie.) with Taylor and our new tv, but Bryan’s still working on it and Taylor fell asleep. Because it’s boring here with no tv and an uncle who walks around with a head lamp on all time.

Maya’s sleeping and Riley (11 years old), Lena, and Liberty are in the basement rec room watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas again. And then they’ll all hold each other and cry, I guess. They know how to party. BTW, Amazon.com just told me that of people who buy The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, 7% buy it with Twilight. FYI. I find that odd.

I don’t need movies that are based on books to be exactly the same as the books, but when we all fall in love with a little girl protagonist who really and truly saves the day in the book all by herself, well, we want her to really and truly save the day and not be saved by a character who wasn’t in the book at all and was hardly in the movie enough to warrant his role in the very end of the movie. The ending of the book was clever with the picnic and the well, and it showed how bright and heroic Coraline was. It was important to me that the ending of the movie show her in the same light. It did not. Yes, Coraline is heroic and spunky and tough in the other 1 hour and 39 minutes of the 1 hour and 40 minute movie, but that ending? It hurt me. It hurt my girls and it hurt all girls. (I would like to point out here that my instinct is to apologize for my feelings because, well, I don’t want to seem oversensitive, but I will resist the urge to apologize because I feel well and truly wronged on behalf of my gender and my instinct to apologize for that feeling is only proof of why we need more movies where the girl saves the day. The whole day, not just most of the day or some of the day, but the whole effing day. Ok?)It would have been better if Wybie had helped her with the things she had to do leading up to the big and final thing that had to be done, but the fact that he swooped in and actually did the big and final thing, well, that’s just not right. Some will point out that the character of Mr. Bobinsky says something like, “Coraline, the mice tell me that you’re our savior!” which is nice, but that does not make it ok. In the book, that line fit well, but in the movie you think, Um, actually, didn’t Wybie save the day? In light of Wybie’s role in ridding the world of the thing, Mr. Bobinsky’s comment sounds a little bit hollow.

Coraline’s ingenuity at the end of the book took my breath away. It was a great idea, carried out by her and her alone and all of us girls in this house were delighted to have found a character like her. The ending of the movie left us with mixed feelings. It was a truly beautiful and amazing movie, technically speaking, and we’re glad Coraline was heroic, but it really seemed unnecessary to end it that way. Lena and Liberty do not feel as strongly about this as I do, of course, and I really hesitated about even saying anything about it in front of them. I knew they enjoyed the movie, and I didn’t want to ruin that for them, but I just couldn’t resist asking them what they thought of the ending. I pointed out the sexism, and I’m not sorry. Why should they be inundated with the idea that a boy will save the day without being taught to question that idea? I’m off to read the book again so the true Coraline can live on in my head.

As a side note, Lena, Liberty, and Maya were excited to hear the movie Coraline say she was from Pontiac, Michigan. That was fun and they all gasped and turned to whisper, “Did you hear that?” Funny.

I never ever have the urge to pay full price to go to the movies. I always wait until they’re at the dollar theater. Actually, we only see kids movies at the dollar theater. Bryan and I like to watch movies over the course of a couple of nights in the comfort of our own bed, falling asleep and saying, “I was just resting my eyes; I heard everything.” We’re sexy like that.  However, I will spend all of my pennies and sacrifice my physical comfort in order to see Coraline next weekend. Not Friday night (I’m not a billionaire!), but definitely a matinee on Saturday or Sunday.

Kids Know Stuff has had a few hits from people searching things like, “Coraline too scary for kids” or “Coraline and kids” because of Lena’s review of Coraline in graphic novel form. I can say that it most definitely would have been too scary for Lena and Liberty even just a couple of years ago at 7, but it’s not too scary for Maya at 5. Maya came out of the womb fearless and in charge. Lena and Liberty were immediately enamored and afraid of her. Maya cemented their fear by spitting up on Lena the first time she held her. She has ruled over them ever since.

Lena and Liberty used to be afraid of  Snow White, scary music, kids shows with suspense, implied violence, puppets, dogs, cats, hamsters, shoes that light up, jack-in-the-boxes, fish tanks, the toy aisle at Meijer, the washing machine, the dryer, play dough, yogurt, and stuffed animals. Oh, and Koosh balls. But now they love violence. And they want to kill puppets. That doll in the video? Liberty giggled when her mouth got torn up. Maya immediately tried to do it to one of her dolls. I covered my eyes and I will probably have a bad dream about it. Anyway, we’ll go see Coraline and Maya will come with us because the only thing she fears is the day that Lena and Liberty suddenly realize that she’s not the boss of them.

Anyway, now I’m going to the grocery store without my kids because I spend less money that way. Also, if they don’t come with me, I don’t have to undo all of the damage that the magazines at the checkout line do. This article (ok, one more link) at Racialicious talks about one kind of issue that needs to be undone, but I also have to work really hard to undo the images caused by headlines like, “Stolen in the Night! Why Your Child isn’t Safe at Home,” or “What You Need to Know about the Dangers of Breathing Air!” or “What Would Your Child Do if You Died Right Now? It Happens EVERY DAY! You, Yes You Reading This…You Could be ORPHANED!” My kids don’t like that crap. And I’m not good at assuaging fear since I’m a Fearful Fannie, too. It’s likely that we could very well end up huddled on the floor, crying and holding each other after a trip to the checkout lane. If they’re not with me, I don’t read the headlines and I can go on living in my little bliss bubble. Ta-ta!

Lena and Liberty also had a little flash of, “Hey, why don’t you mother us better?” yesterday. Thursday was homeschool gym day and I look at homeschool gym as a class, not a spectator event, so I don’t go into the loud, loud, poorly lit gym to watch. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t just because I like to talk to my friends out in the halls. It’s also because it’s a class. I don’t watch them do their beading class. Or pottery. Or art. I was informed yesterday at dinner that this is unjust and will not be tolerated any longer. Fine. Fine! I said it was fine. I will watch homeschool gym (sporadically) from now on, I promise.

No matter, I’m still riding high on the wave of pride induced by the fact that after gym yesterday, Lena and Liberty were looking through a box of freebies that another homeschool mom brought in for all of us to go through. There were some books and a bunch of VHS tapes, but Lena and Liberty both grabbed for the Monty Python and the Holy Grail tape. In my family, we enjoy this kind of thing, so seeing them fight over that tape was akin to the pride I feel when I’m told they look like me. They watched that movie once a long time ago and they remembered the black night saying “It’s just a flesh wound,” after losing his arms, and the fact that everybody’s running around pretending to ride horses. I’m pretty sure a little tear fell from eye when I overheard their reminiscing. Watching it this time, though, was a whole new thing for them because they couldn’t read the first time they watched it. The opening credits had them rolling with laughter. “A moose once bit my sister,” hahahahahaha! Again, I say *sigh*