Motherhood

Please do not lose any weight. Not one ounce. Not one milligram. You look perfect just the way you are right now.

Seriously, you make ME want to lose 40 pounds, cover myself in leather and tattoos and totally go butch for a night of good lesbo love for you.

Did I say I am a het?

Yet gurl, you got it going on after those twins. It's why I can't believe the rumors that you've been falling on your anorectic tendencies because you feel fat and ugly.

You know I don't have to tell you EVERY SINGLE WOMAN goes through that after giving birth. Don't knock yourself down woman. You look perfect. Eat more a couple of hamburgers a week and splurge on that pizzas you like.

'Cause, child, you make a het woman want to go totally bi for you. Am thinking if I want to hit that with you ten thousand ways to Monday, I'd have to find it in my heart to entertain Brad. Anyhow, you look lovely and perfect and healthy.

So girl, stay just the way you are.

Love,
liza

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have breasts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.

It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

I re-broadcast here Mother's Day for Peace's beautiful homage to the anti-war promise of that is Mother Day's, on this my 10th anniversary as a mother.

I first posted this at Hollywoodistas.com, but it's such a culturekitchen topic to discuss that I just had to cross-post it.

I hate it when I get beaten to a story. For days now I have been researching the possible cause of Britney's meltdown ... and effing TMZ.com beat me to it by a day. URGH!

TMZ has learned Britney Spears' troubles may have little to do with substance abuse. Sources say doctors at her rehab facility think the underlying reason for her trouble may be post-partum depression.

Sources tell TMZ that Britney's doctors have two operating theories -- either that she suffers from post-partum depression or bipolar disorder. The doctors strongly believe post-partum is the problem.

I am not a doctor, so I cannot give a technical assesment of the pop tarts' situation, but as one of the many women who've been felled at one point or another by post-partum depression, I can tell you that what Britney's going through is way more extreme than your run-of-the-mill PPD.

Hers may be a case of post-partum psychosis.

There is actually quite a lot written about post-partum depression, easily available with the click of a google search. What seems still to be a subject of taboo is the idea of post-partum pyschosis, thanks in part to the Andrea Yates multiple infanticide case.

Thing 1 spent all of last week at home, sick with the flu which got aggravated by his asthma. We spent most of last week as we did for years as homeschoolers : working on different things, watching videos, reading, doing arts & crafts projects, and getting into each others nerves.

I loved every minute of it.

I love being a mom. This is an admission that does not come easy to me. When I was in my 20s I fantasized of becoming a mother after 40. I thought that only after becoming successful as a writer and scholar, only after finding myself and who I really was supposed to be, that I would be ready to be a mother.

Then the condom broke. Twice.

I suspected I was pregnant with Thing 1 on a New Year's Eve because all the champagne I drank tasted funky and I had a hankering for olives. The funky champagne taste was new to me but not the hankering for olives. That had first happened 10 years prior when I first got pregnant.

I lived as fast and furious as any nerd with wild tendencies could. Yeah, I did my work at college but I also partied hard. This was the 1980s after all and sex, drugs and more sex were everywhere --notwithstanding the dawning of the AIDS era.

We've gone to town with the news of Mary Cheney's pregnancy. We are so full of cheer we went ahead and created a whole cornucopia of baby shower gifts for the happy mom, her out-of-law wife and their baby to be.

A teddy bear will bring many hours of gender neutral role joy. Playing with the truth is better than not playing at all.

Have the baby wear his or her mommies love but also their dissent with this most political of onesies. It's never too early to learn how to slap one on republicans and gay marriage haters.

There's more stuff at our Mary Cheney Baby store, but it's just a start. Would you like to add to the fun? Then go to town with your photoshop!

What are the rules for playing?

Photo by Mark Beazley

Were I stone, I could remain impassive as I watch the forces of oppression gather on the hilltops. Instead, I am flesh, and goosebumps rise against the chill. They are coming for me and mine, and I will not let them take us. But where, oh where, do we go?.

Last evening, I drove about 50 miles to attend my eldest daughter’s soccer game. The air was butterscotch, thick with slanted sunlight and seed spores released from trees preparing for their winter hibernation. The hillsides were tinted red; most of the trees are still green, but the undertone of the green is scarlet, or yellow, or orange, and when the light hits them, the hillside transorms. In two to three weeks, this area will look as if it is on fire, and the colours of fall will ignite me. And yet, I will be sad, for the bitter winter bides its time.

When it is cold, I can bundle my daughters up against it, layering them with love and extra clothes as they slog through the snow and ice. But how can I protect them against what lies before us?