I think this is my favourite ultrasound picture ever.


And not just because with the first kid, I had to trust the tech's word that I was looking at a picture of a human baby.

The fetal gang sign cracks me up. 12 weeks, rightside, uterus, yo!

Don't you think that what a person names their wireless connection says so much about them?


I definitely want to hear the backstory.

Somehow this picture and this song have captured the way I'm feeling about this summer.

"What’s clear is that the widespread existence of lactose intolerance, says Dr. Baker, is “a pretty good sign that we’ve evolved to drink human milk when we’re babies but have no need for the milk of any animals. And no matter what you call a chronic dairy problem — milk allergy, milk intolerance, lactose intolerance — the action is the same: avoid all foods derived from milk for at least five days and see what happens.”" ~  Mark Bittman, "Got Milk? You Don't Need It", NY Times (via The Hairpin)


Oooh, it seems that Mark Bittman got all controversial and pissed some milk-junkies off.

Why is it that I think some of the most hardcore cow milk-crazies* are the same people who lose their minds commenting on stories about extended breastfeeding. You know, comments like: "That's just disgusting. The mother is obvious sick. Get that child off the tit and get them a bottle of skim."

I think it's something about they way they use personal attacks and insults to express their gut-level disgust that anyone would challenge their precious paradigm. Or maybe that they all just seem like assholes who need to chill out and mind their own business.


*Note: I think it's ok to drink milk. Hell, drink whatever's or whose-ever's milk you want, just don't get freaked out when someone tells you that, as an ADULT HUMAN, cow milk might not be the best thing for you to chug constantly.

"More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary." ~ Tim Kreider, "The Busy Trap", NYTimes


Love this. Except, of course, the part where it applies to me. But still: clever.



PS - just go and read everything this guy has ever written:

"Natural selection has made us hypervigilant, obsessively replaying our mistakes and imagining worst-case scenarios. And the fact that we’ve eliminated almost all of the immediate threats from our environment, like leopards and Hittites, has only made us even more jittery, because we’re now constantly anticipating disasters that are never going to happen: the prowler/rapist/serial killer lurking in the closet, a pandemic of Ebola/Bird Flu/Hantavirus, the imminent fascist/socialist/zombie takeover. The disasters that do befall us are mostly slow, incremental ones that seem abstract and faraway until they suddenly blindside us, like heart disease and foreclosure. So we go about our days safer and more comfortable than human beings have been in five million years, constantly hunched and growling with a low level of fight-or-flight chemicals in our bloodstreams." ~Tim Kreider, "Cycle of Fear"

“I really think it’s crazy that we hit our kids. Here’s the crazy part about it; kids are the only people in the world that you’re allowed to hit. Do you realize that? They’re the most vulnerable and the most destroyed by being hit but it’s totally OK to hit them. And they’re the only ones! if you hit a dog they will put you in jail for that sh*t. You can’t hit a person unless you can prove that they were trying to kill you. But a little tiny person with a head this big who trusts you implicitly: ‘F**K ‘EM, WHO GIVES A SH*T! LET’S ALL HIT THEM!’ People want you to hit your kid. If your kid is making noise: ‘HIT HIM! HIT ‘EM!’” ~ Louis C.K. via uproxx (via Bunch)

I was spanked as a kid. With a wooden spoon.


Not often but it was definitely a key punishment option and threat.

Considering my mother was beaten severely, frequently and randomly with a belt by her father as a child, I'm never sure whether I should be impressed she had the self-control that she did with her children or shocked that she would have considered hitting us at all.

Before I became a parent, I didn't think spanking a kid was that big a deal really. I'd seen plenty of little misbehaving dipshits on whom some weak notion of a "time out" didn't really seem to make an impression. But then I'd also watched enough Supernanny to come to understand that effectiveness of discipline is more about the parental attitude (and consistency) than the actual mechanism.

Then, when I had my daughter, not only did I realize that I could never even imagine hitting her (it literally makes me feel sick to think about doing it), but I also realized that I couldn't possibly teach her properly not to hurt others while purposely hurting her in the name of discipline.

Especially the key part about not hurting those more vulnerable than you.