My comment on a post, because I'm a slacker

Here Mom and Chrissie, my comment on this post:

OMG, I'm laughing so hard I think I hurt myself - at both the post and the comments. I actually do the family bed (and did the sling), not to mention organics and the chemical free thing (yeah, ok, I'm totally crunchy - it surprises me as much as anyone), but I do keep a little bitty tv with an Angelina Ballerina disk in it in the bedroom, and on mornings when I'm really tired, I have been known to bring in a bag of honey nut o's (organic, of course) and hand it to the kids dry (not even in a bowl, mind you) along with a cup of juice to share and call it breakfast while I go back to bed. The youngest started fending for herself on the cereal/cracker shelf before she was 2. So move over, baby, I like it hot!

Okay, I know it isn't much, but at least it's something.... Here, here's a picture to go along with it.

The Man Is Holding Us Down

I’m not buying from Exxon anymore. Listen to the quote - print just doesn't do it justice. "Like, we don't care if we're polluting your air, water, and food, Dude. You WILL buy from us for at least the next 30 years and this is what we're selling." Cue the creepy music. The arrogance, man, good grief! I just pray the guy is wrong – like really, really wrong.

Sound familiar?

Hey - don't we already have a compassionate conservative president who believes government isn't the answer? I mean, unless it suits him, like, you know, if we need to torture someone or listen in on their phone conversations.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/24/941292.aspx

Hillary: Hard Drinkin' Gun Totin' Mama

Okay, this is just what I needed to move me into the Hillary camp - her sincerity and humility really comes across here:

Because a president who sips whiskey with a beer chaser is so much cooler than a president I'd like to have a beer with - and we all know how important that qualification has been to our current leader. I mean, what's next? Quail hunting with Cheney? Fishing? Is that the reason for that sly dog smile under those mirror jobs? Maybe she'll pal up with the NRA and start talking about the importance of gun owners' rights. Oh wait, she did that already. Man, what does it take to get a little attention around here....

Our Children's Stewards

Hello to all. This is an email I sent to my family and friends and a post I made on Barak Obama's website. I just joined his campaign – which is really beside the point, but this post (below) generally sums up what I think is the most important issue we are facing today. Something that I’ve sort of been aware of on a sub-conscious level has really broken through the surface. I happened upon a story about perchlorate (in rocket fuel) and PBDEs, among quite a number of other toxins, in our babies’ blood and breast milk, our food supply, our water supply, our soil, and fish. And I lost it. I’ve been crying for nearly a week now, because I suddenly and fully realized that I cannot protect my children from this. I have fed them organic food, dressed them in organic cotton when I could, thrown out all of the toxic chemicals in our house including cleaning supplies, perfumes, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, etc. And still, I am feeding them poisons – from my very body, and from every other source available to us. Frankly, knowledge of the magnitude of this problem and its ramifications is overwhelming and I forgive myself for not being able to pull my head out of the sand to face it for so long. This is not a subject for granola people, treehuggers, liberals, democrats, and environmentalists. This isn’t a case of “wouldn’t it be nice if …” – the perfect world syndrome. This is real. This is a disaster. It affects us all. We are stewards for those who come after us. We must do something. Among other things, I personally am attempting to file suit against the government for failing in its duty to protect us. Please feel free to forward this to anyone you’d like, to copy it, print it, post it on a billboard or anything else you’d like to do with it. Please, please, look this stuff up, read it. It will make your blood run cold. It is incomprehensible. Ignoring it will not make it go away.

Love,

Shannon

I can provide a great deal of legitimate scientific research to verify this if you wish. It is easily available.

We have a number of government agencies assigned the responsibility for protecting our health and safety: the EPA, CPS, FDA, etc. And yet, in mothers' breast milk, babies' bloodstreams and tissues, fish, our fruits and vegetables, our water, our soil, our air are toxic chemicals: brominated flame retardants in our babies' bodies, PCBs, dioxins, perchlorate from rocket fuel in our crops and our babies, organochlorines, cancer causing chemicals from perfumes, shampoos, soaps, and personal care products, lead, arsenic, and mercury, of course – all of these as a result of our own actions through pollution, manufacturing, pesticides, etc.

We know this. We also know that these chemicals cause cancer, say, or brain damage, or reproductive issues. We know that many of these toxins accumulate in tissues and are not naturally flushed from the body. These we know of - there are many more we don't know of yet or are just beginning to find out about. Many, if not all, of these toxins have been banned in the rest of the “civilized” world (for lack of a better term – meaning those who can afford to protect themselves). And lo, the levels of these chemicals in their children’s tissues and breast milk went down.

It is one thing to say that parents have to know the risks to their children and are responsible for protecting them – but what happens when businesses and our government’s negligence have made our job impossible? Our children must eat, they must drink, they must breathe. And what about their children? The levels and numbers of these toxins are increasing. I’m not talking about minute traces of one pollutant in a few babies in isolated locations here and there – not that that would be alright either! – I’m talking about many known toxins at measurable levels in samples taken across the country and around the world before other countries began banning them – not just from children but also from food sources, water, soil, breast milk.

Why are we standing for it? Why do we tolerate it? Business/industry must be responsible. It is all fine and well to set a fair price on a product and to make a profit by setting a price so you can – but a company’s profits are not more important than our children’s future health. It is irresponsible, negligent, and even insane, to say the least, to just “wait and see” – the current EPA motto – what these chemicals will do to our children, our precious, precious babies.

NO ONE has the right to comfort or profit that is gained as the result of harm to another. It is our government’s responsibility to protect us and our responsibility to insist upon it and to do our part as well.

Enough, already with the vomit! But, a bonus photofest

Catchy title, eh? Welcome to my life of the last few weeks. Oh, and diarrhea, too. Let's not forget that. Thank the heavens for diapers is all I can say, and plastic lego lids. Now usually I would not stoop to stories of vomit for the blog. But this I cannot resist. I'm afraid, tender heart that she is, that Maryn is permanently scarred. Therapy may be in order. This girl is totally her mother’s daughter. (In fact, Scott said to me just the other night, “I used to think you were so neurotic because of your childhood. Now I see that it’s just genetic.”) See the pictures above? These are Maryn's new comfort items: best friend bucket (to quote Cousin Ryan with a twist). She carries them everywhere in case she should unexpectedly yak. Also, she is afraid to eat and drink. Last night I had to take the smaller one out of bed before she inadvertently asphyxiated herself with it as she had her face in it, picture a hyperventilater (or a paint huffer) with a paper bag. A couple of nights ago she had a line in her cheek from sleeping IN the big yellow lego box lid. We have had some very interesting discussions about digestion and bodily systems however thanks to Conner’s midnight upchuck of a number of whole apricots, as well as the places we are and are not allowed to bring best friend bucket. The other two are just for fun: the hillbilly ballerinas and babies in a basket, part deux.

I'm Baaaaack

I got back from beautiful, beautiful Maine on Thursday. My audience sent me hatemail on Friday for not having posted something already. Here it is Chrissie. Live from Salisbury Beach, CT - or it was live once anyway....

Salisbury State Park – June 27, 2007

Looking out the small window at my neighbor camper, three feet over, I can feel the heat emanating from the ground, from the air, from the tin can I’m sitting in. My neighbor, a woman about my own age, thinner than me, to me she looks older – of course, that’s probably just vanity, ego, and my old friend self-protective denial talking. When it’s too hard to bear, there’s always the ostrich maneuver – I poke my head in the sand. Anyway, she’s moving slow, my neighbor, weakly lifting her heavy hair from her melting forehead. She hauls herself up, unsticking from her chair, to pour more steaming water in the plastic pool for her stationary kids, too hot even to squabble. The pool has seen better days, as have a number of other things around here. Our neighbor’s place looks like some kind of screwy construction site, with long planks of old and new pressure treated lumber stacked next to the pool. There are many other such incomprehensible piles located in close proximity to rusty unroadworthy trailers from the 70s that look like they could use them. The reason for these monuments to Lowes and home improvement is revealed at twilight with a smell like burning electrical wires and a feeling of homeless huddled in boxes under bridges. Though it is easily 90 degrees, our neighbors huddle companionably around the fires, close to the ground so they can breathe below the smoke line. It looks like the New York skyline around here at dusk.

When we arrived, there was a line to get in, trailers and buses stacked to the next intersection, drivers comparing theories in the grass next to their sporty pin-striped Outbacks, Keystones, Big Horns, Cougars, Coyotes, and Jaycos – resembling much more their parking lot origins than anything created by Nature- She’s rolling in her grave of plastic, I’m sure. Some had been waiting for two hours to get in. The entrance was lovely, long marsh and squat pines, wild roses everywhere and butterflies. Our shock when we saw our site is indescribable. We could not figure out the draw, to say the least. Our neighbor explained it, along with the big metal rings sunk in concrete on either side of our home away from home. It’s tradition. He’d been coming here for thirty years with his family and friends. Looking around, extended family surrounded us. Double sets of grandparents slowly walked limp children around in carriages, chatting like the old friends they were. Us? We just fought mostly, and hid in the air conditioning, waiting like lobsters for our time there to end.

Stay tuned for the next installment of EAST COAST RAMBLINGS....

(Sorry, it's late. That's the best I could come up with.)