The Secret Manipulator...ooops...Millionaire

There's a new show on Fox Wednesday nights called The Secret Millionaire. The premise is that multi-millionaires go "undercover" as poor people, live in a ghetto for a week on welfare wages, lying to everyone about who they really are, and then when the week is over, the put their Minolos back on, tell the poor people the truth and hand out big fat checks to the ones they deem deserving. The millionaires give out at least $100,000 of their own money on every episode, but the amount and distribution is how they see fit. I like the idea that people are giving their own money (not the network's) to the people that deserve it, and that these "Real Housewives" type women are seeing how poor people live. Daniel liked the show last week, so I decided to give it a whirl last night, even though I am morally opposed to shows that purposely manipulate my heartstrings to the max.
I stopped watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition, because it felt like it had become a competion of how pitiful and selfless a family they could find, and that was just too much for me--
"I'm Ty Pennington. Today's family is really deserving...both parents are veterans, one was killed in Iraq, the other lost both legs and one eye, they have 54 adopted children, 12 of which are blind, 16 of which are deaf, and 3 of which are both deaf and blind with stutters. But despite their obstacles, they manage to find 45 hours a week to devote to the charity they created to help kids with deformities learn to play the harpsichord. Their current house is 100 square feet, the children sleep in piles, and the walls are filled with deadly black mold, but that doesn't stop them from singing songs as they walk 15 miles to school each day..."
While I agree that many of these families seem to be very deserving, what's wrong with helping out the average family with a parent out of work who is trying to pay the mortgage on a small dilapidated home? Why does it have to be gold-medal suffering? Plus, I got annoyed at the fact that all of these families who could not pay their bills or fix up the dangerous aspects of their busted-down homes ran their own charities.
Do not misunderstand me, I am pro-charity, pro-volunteering, and pro-giving back--but let's get real here. As a parent, you have a responsibility to take care of your own children and keep them safe, and if you are leaving them alone in a shack filled with black mold (like every single house on the show seemed filled with) because you are running a midnight basketball program for inner city children full-time, you are not being a responsible parent! You should be taking the 40 hours a week getting a second job to pay for the mold removal, and then when your own family is safe and asbestos-free, then you can devote your free time (not all of your family time) to helping others outside your home. I am 100% behind teaching children that they are not the center of the universe, but I am 100% against teaching your children that every single person in the world is more important to you than they are. You are a parent, your child's well-being is the #1 responsibility you have. In the end, it won't matter much if you were gone single-handedly building churches or gone fishing with your buddies, all your children will see is that you were never there. I'm not trying to be bitter, I'm just explaining why manipulative shows lose my interest, and the trepidation with which I entered the viewing of "The Secret Millionaire."
My concerns did not turn out to be unfounded. The show, while commendable in it's purpose, is beyond lame in it's presentation. Firstly, the millionaires are no big "secret." They have these people take off their insanely large diamonds and put them in "poor people clothes," all of which are brand spanking new. I wear more run down clothes than that, and I'm not living in Watts, LA (where last night's couple went). The people they befriend try to act surprised when they find out that the couple they've known for a whopping 4-7 days is actually rich, but while the gratitude is real, the surprise is blatantly fake. And who can blame them? Some dude shows up in your neighborhood with disturbingly white teeth, brand new "ghetto" clothes that have creases in them, his overly-hilighted wife looks like she is terrified around every corner, and they claim to have moved in from the next ghetto over? Come on, these people are really really poor, not really really stupid.
Not to mention, the wife's nervousness is completely unfounded because they are being followed around by a film crew! You want to be safe in the country's worst neighborhoods, have a cameraman filming your every move. No one is going to mug someone on camera, even if they only claim to be filming a documentary about your lousy living conditions, not spouting your wealth. No gangster wants their face of film for the cops to use as evidence. The cameras are also why every person they meet tells their entire life story and talks about (surprise!) the charity they run. Last night, the millionaires were shocked that a neighbor stopped by to welcome them to the area, and they said no one in their area would do that. It's possible that she stopped by out of pure niceness, but I'd bet if they had moved into their mansion home with a film crew following their every move, someone would have stopped by, if only out of gross curiosity. People are nosy where ever you go.
Finally, I was irritated to find out that this guy was a self-made millionaire who grew up in East LA. How horrified can he really be if he was living in this type of neighborhood for most of his life? His wife, who looked like she was going to puke when she walked in their apartment, turns out to have a story of her own. Ten years previous, she was pregnant with her first child when her first husband was stabbed in the head right in front of her while trying to stop a shoot-out at the mall. If your husband was killed in a gang shoot-out in the mall, I'm going to wager you weren't in a mall on Rodeo drive...how quickly did these people forget what kind of world they came from? So, while it in no way diminishes the suffering of the people they met, knowing how put-on and manipulative the shock and disdain probably was kind of killed the show for me.
I enjoyed watching the poor people react to the generous gifts of these not-so-secret millionaires, and that's why people like the show, I guess. Ironically, this couple handed out 3 $50,000 dollar checks, but the guy last week gave out 4 $100,000 checks so Daniel yelled "that's cheapo!!!" at the TV. Interesting monster Fox created here, that someone handing out 150,000 could be considered "cheapo," and perhaps that's what bothers me most about the show. Do we live in a world where charity work has to be done on TV? Has giving to those less fortunate really become such a competition that the givers are not only in competition to be most generous, but the recievers have to be competing for "most deserving?" If you aren't on TV touting your woes, you don't deserve help you may desperately need? If you don't come running when a camera is around, are you left out in the cold? Can't we find a way to celebrate giving in secret, instead of giving in prime-time? Why can't we appreciate those that truly (not superficially) pay attention to the real needs around them and give according to what they see, not what parades itself in front of them? Can we someday reward the family that works day and night to keep their own kids off the street and off drugs, as well as the family that devotes themselves to strangers because their own child is already lost to violence?
So, Fox, I appreciate your efforts to turn reality TV into feel-good TV with a lesson. Truly I do. Maybe, however, it has come time to quit watching others attempt to make the world a better place while pushing their own agenda, and work quietly together with a single agenda--true charity, the pure love of Christ.

You know your daughter's been hanging out with Daddy when...

She belches and then claps for herself.
She most certainly did not learn that from me.
Daniel has been trying to teach Samantha to clap, so anytime she does anything remotely remarkable, he claps and yells "Yeaaaa, Sam!"
Apparently, "anything remotely remarkable" includes bodily functions. As a woman, I was blissfully unaware of that caveat. Nothing warms a mother's heart quite like seeing her 7-month old cheer for her own burp.
Sam will be 8 months in less than a week and now we get to add to her quickly growing list of accomplishments--right next to having four teeth and cruising--"Classy lady."
Maybe we should have had a boy, because convincing Daniel that a little girl who can belch like a trucker and feel pride for it is the exact opposite of "totally awesome," has proved to be wasted effort.
Oh well, if I can't beat 'em, I should just go along with it I guess...
Do you think they make those T-shirts with bikini's printed on them in a onesie? Or, how about a hat that holds two bottles? Because hey, if you're going to do tacky, go all the way!
I'm going to go look at little ruffly dresses now, and try to think of ways to keep my little sweetie, well, sweet.

This is Everybody's Fault but Mine!!!

We have an epidemic in the world today, and it is more widespread than any disease has ever been (including obesity, which is saying something in this McWorld). It's a syndrome of simultaneous blame and blame avoidance and it is spiraling out of control. Most people simply do not hold themselves accountable for their own actions anymore--and to make matters worse, it appears that the judicial system is condoning this craziness more than ever.
It turns out that the family of the Wal-mart greeter who was trampled to death on Black Friday is suing. Whatever, I didn't exactly expect a public death like that to go "unavenged" by some greedy lawyer well acquainted with the formula of immense grief plus public scandal equals huge payday. However, they are suing Wal-mart. Look, I'm a fan of fighting injustice as much as the next guy and I know Wal-mart seems like an easy target (no clever retailer pun intended), but I fail to see how this is okay. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that the only people who should be getting sued (and arrested) in this situation are the people that, I don't know, actually stepped on another human being and killed him. The family is citing the fact that Wal-mart's low prices on Black Friday cited "crowd craze" which caused the death.
So, what they are telling me is that if a company puts together a brilliant ad campaign, all my actions, no matter how inexcuseable, are magically excused? Are we so moronic as a human race that if a company tells me they will give me a good price on Guitar Hero, it is considered the legal equivalent of condoning my use of deadly force to acquire said deal? Do we even want to live in a world where no one ever has to think before they act because someone, somewhere in the great beyond might have inadvertently implied acceptance of any bad actions we take? I don't. I enjoy having free will and using it freely, with my very own brain and heart behind my words and deeds. I even enjoy consequences of my choices because the consequences are really what help me learn. When you make a choice, you choose the consequences, whether good or bad. That learning through experience is what shapes the next choice, and the one after that, and the one after that. It seems to me society wants to nullify the good consequences for good choices, and create good consequences for bad choices! I can just picture the skuzbags that stepped on that man getting home from the sale and saying "Hey honey, the bad news is that I possibly killed a guy today--the good news is--check out my awesome Wii!!!! The sucker that stepped around the guy on the ground didn't get there in time, wuss!!" I do not want to live in a world where playing dirty pays off big, and an innocent bystander with a deep wallet takes the bullet for another's bad choices. I may be a salmon swimming upstream on that one, but it's a battle I'm willing to fight all my life, for my child and yours. I want the world to be a more fair place, even if I'm the only one fighting the tide. I may be a lone voice shouting it in this world of "not my fault but thine", but I will say it anyway.

To all those with the "crowd crazies":
The value of a human life is in no way equivalent to a discount on any product in the known world, and to even imply that any amount of advertising could justify the removal of all humanity and thought from someone is deeply disturbing. If you can get so worked up by a sale that you are willing to hurt someone else, you are completely unbalanced and you should have the sense to stay as far away from stores as possible. Shop online if you have to. It's called utilizing your free will on something small to avoid making a gigantic mistake--try it sometime. I don't shop Black Friday anymore because I know it's going to be a complete frenzy, not worth the aggravation, and not a single Wal-mart employee showed up at my house, put a gun to my head, and dragged me down there to force me into the fray! Wal-mart didn't give anybody a problem, they had one already and every choice they made it worse.


I understand grief and the intense desire this family has to blame someone for a loved one's death. I've been there, and I remember feeling like there had to be something more tangible than the idea of "cosmic justice." If I was in pain, there had to be a bad guy to cause it, right? In this case, the families are lucky in one small way--there is clearly someone to blame and people who should pay a price for their actions. The fact that the people who actually committed the crime can not be determined (and it is a crime to kill another human being and continue running to the Cuisinarts), is one of the inherent problems in justice administration and in no way shifts the blame to the next closest entity. The inability to find the actual defendent does not thereby change the defendent. I understand the need for closure, but unfortuately, no one is entitled to closure. No one is even entitled to justice in this life, what you are entitled to is that our country will do their darndest to provide justice. If the search comes up empty, that, while tragic, is also nobody's fault but the people who won't come forward to own up to their actions. Unless Wal-mart put up a sign saying only those who step on an employee will recieve the sale prices, I fail to see how they are at fault here. There are those that say they should have protected their employees better. To them I say, hindsight is always 20/20, and how in the world were they to know that humanity was going to hit their new all-time low for avarice this year? The deals this year were lousy and projections for sales were lower than usual. How was Wal-mart supposed to know that sales would be down, but murderous violence would be up? There wasn't even a must-have item this year! No extra muscle around the Tickle Me Elmos or Cabbage Patch Dolls. Why do we always expect large corporations to anticipate the lows of human vices, yet remain consistently shocked and appalled by them ourselves?

What needs to happen here is that the lawsuit needs to be thrown out as frivolous. Our justice system simply can not become the world's most expensive grief counselor, to the detriment of all suits with merit. That isn't to say my heart doesn't go out to them, but every tragedy that befalls the human condition is not entitled to a monetary payout. Sadness can't be equated to dollars just because the reason behind the sadness is inherently unfair. If the police can find the people responsible for this, then go ahead and attempt some compensation. If you can't find the people responsible, learn how to accept that and move on before some really stupid people and their horrific lack of common decency claim your entire lives as well. The thirst for revenge causes many to drink poison daily. Do not let yourselves fall victim to it, and do not let any opportunistic lawyers reopen your wounds for the sake of their own pocketbooks. Losing an entire family to this tragedy would be injustice populated exponentially.

I can finally sleep, poor vampires can not.

Thanks to everyone that posted words of encouragement during the bloodbath that was getting Sam to sleep through the night. You deserve an update.
I don't want to jinx anything, but so far, so good on the sleeping. Sam went to waking up only once and crying for five minutes or less, and the last two nights, she hasn't woken up at all. I'd do a happy dance if it wasn't cosmically guaranteed to set us back two months. We're playing it cool, but on the inside, I'm enjoying this sleeping thing so much better than not sleeping. Sam enjoys the kisses and clapping she gets every morning. Daniel was able to return from the guest room on Monday night, which was nice, but he picked up the unfortunate habit of hogging the bed even worse than before, so that has resulted in him getting kicked in the shins every night so far. That's his problem though, he needs to respect my space or face my wrath.
All in all, a success. You guys were right, not seeing us was the key. It was unavoidable sometimes, since Sam now gets both arms over the side of the crib and gets stuck so that even if she tries to fall over or collapses her legs, she ends up hanging by her armpits and screaming in panic. When I'm being good mommy, I pity her and tear up along with her--when I'm being annoying mommy I laugh at her as I lay her back down. She looks so funny with her arms draped over the side and half-sleeping, half-yelling.
In other news, I went to see Twilight today, and have discovered the secret key to enjoying the film.
Ridiculously low expectations.
I really thought I would hate it and it would be completely horrible--going in with that attitude, how could it disappoint me without hauling in Gary Bussey? It was much better than I expected. Had I thought the movie would be wicked awesome (like a sister of mine who will remain nameless), I would no doubt be a bitter, pouty, disenchanted person (who still is nameless) today. I mean, bitter, pouty, and disenchanted about this, the other stuff I'm all those things about don't count. My unusually chipper attitude toward the movie is proof that the utter disappointment that was my excitement over Breaking Dawn was not in vain, because I learned from it. You can't regret something that teaches you a lifelong lesson to expect the mininum from authors of chick-lit, it's something that must be learned the hard way. Yeah, the movie wasn't fantastic, and the book is way better, but the movie could have been so much worse. It could have been a movie of Breaking Dawn.

May I just say also, that I am so glad I was sitting next to Rachel (who had also prepped herself for dire failure in the journey of page to screen), instead of a teenage twi-hard in an "Edward is my boyfriend" T-shirt, because every time something insanely cheesy happened and I started to giggle she was giggling to herself too. Plus I could whisper things like "why does Edward get covered in Vaseline in the sunlight?" and get a response like "I just thought he was greasy!" instead of "Shut up and die, in that order, you Edward-hating old hag! You're just bitter because he didn't write you a lullaby!" It is so calming to be able to let out a small snort of laughter to get through the velveeta moments without fear of being beat down by small purses filled with Bonne Bell lipsmackers. All in all, an enjoyable afternoon and an enjoyable movie, if you don't go in expecting Citizen Kane. I'd even see it again. I'm thinking of making Daniel go with me, just to teach him how a real man glitters.

Do They Know it's Christmas?

As part of my Christmas obsession, I am now listening fully to the Christmas stations on the local radio and XM. Three weeks into it, and I already have a proposal for any major recording artist from Europe in the 80's (because you know they all read this). If I promise to commit to do my part to "feed the world" will you talk to the radio stations about toning down the airplay of that song? Please?
It's a good message really, but how many artists signing on that record have since served hard time, should have served hard time, or fallen off the face of the earth entirely? It's depressing, and not just for the downer subject matter. Maybe some of them should have spent more money on feeding the world, and less up their noses (if you catch my drift) so they wouldn't need to keep playing the song 20 years later. I think Bono is the only contributor to that song that seemed to really embrace the meaning and run with it. Because Bono rocks, and even though I'm a republican, I'm down with Bono and his efforts to feed the world. You go, Bono.

At the very least, we should wait until a little closer to Christmas to play it. It drives me nuts to hear a song saying "Do they know it's Christmas?" when the answer is "Geez, not yet, crazy Anglos, it's not even December." I'm just waiting for an angry Ethiopian to respond by yelling "Do you know it's not?" Seriously, I'll give a dollar to the first Ethiopian to yell that in my earshot.
Which brings up my stumper of the week...
Thanksgiving is an American holiday, which is no secret, but I hadn't really thought about it much. Since Thanksgiving is the official kick-off of Santa and Christmas, when do other countries consider it "the beginning" of Christmas season? How "do they know it's Christmas?" If you know, leave me a comment, because I'm dying to know what the rest of the world does...

All these little peeves are not really what bothers me about this song. Like I said, I can appreciate the message, and who doesn't need a good dousing of guilt dumped on their Christmas cheer, every hour on the hour? All my angst with this song comes down to one line, really, and it must be sung in a mournful tone and with enough impassioned pity to make one sound like one is constipated (I'm looking at you, George Michael).

"And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime"

No way, really, tell me you're joshing me? No snow at Christmas? Why even have it? The way the song is written, it sounds like they're saying, not only do these poor people not have food, they don't even have snow.
Call me unenlightened, but I really don't see the problem with that. The no-food thing I get, but no-snow? Snow what!
Do you know where else there won't be snow this Christmastime? My house for one. Or Bethlehem, or Nazareth, or Galilee, or any of the other places that figure into the story of Christ and his birth. It's summer in Australia, New Zeland, and the rest of the Southern Hemisphere in December, for crying out loud! For a huge portion of the globe (yes, even the Christian portion of the globe), Christmas celebrations have nothing to do with sleigh rides and snowball fights.
Some of us like it that way. If there were snow in Africa this Christmas, I imagine several of the African people would be thinking what I was thinking my first "white Christmas" visiting my parents, which was "Holy Schiekies! I think I'm gonna die! I'm literally freezing to DEATH!" Luckily, I was wrong on that last point.
The image of a winter wonderland is one that fits the celebrations those living in snowy climates have created for the holiday to accommodate their local weather. It's become the norm for most of the country, and it is great, but in reality it's not an image of a "real" Christmas that others are missing out on and should be pitied for. It's just an image of their Christmas. I have my own images of Christmas. An Arizona Christmas consists of "Yeah, Santa brought me a bike, I'm going around the block!" as opposed to say, a Wisconsin Christmas that consists of "Yeah, Santa brought me a bike! In three months, I'm so going around the block!" We can have luminarias, we do put Christmas lights on cacti, and we never miss out on Grandma's Christmas cookies because the plows haven't come through. We don't get snowed in with a crazy relative. Some Arizonans go on hikes together for Christmas. Not me, but athletic people. Daniel and I have been known to eat Christmas turkey on his Mom's back porch, watching the gorgeous Arizona sunset while the kids swing in the yard and work off their sugar highs actually using their new scooters, bikes, and footballs. "Traditional" Christmas, no, but we love it. While a Currier and Ives Christmas is nice to visit sometimes, we don't miss the snow. You can't miss what you never had and don't need.
So, while there are many reasons to feel compassion for the less fortunate in Africa this Christmas, their lack of snow and cold-weather holiday tradition isn't one of them. I'm sure they have some wicked-cool holiday traditions of their own, too. I'd love to learn about what they are. The fact that a song that claims its entire reason for existence is to promote awareness of "the world outside your window," yet can't recognize that differences in culture aren't for pitying is too much irony for me. Feed the world, yes. Pity them for their lack of snowmen, no.
So I would really appreciate it if I didn't have to hear it every hour, unless they can do a 20-years-later directors cut with a little less condescension.

Universal means "one size fits all"

All right, all right, McCain lost. I can deal with that, it's not like I was in love with the guy, I'm just way more okay with a moderate republican than I am with a borderline socialist, so I'm a little perturbed. I'm not partisan enough that I can't appreciate the magnitude of electing the first African-American President and be grateful our country has come this far. I may wish it had come far enough to elect an African-American with something more substantial than oozing charisma to recommend him for the most important job in the world, but politics has always been a student council election on steroids, so I'm not surprised at the outcome. As my Grandpa used to say "If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry."
Yeah, I don't really get it either, but it seemed to fit--it has the word wishes in it.
In fact, I could have moved on with my life without saying much about the election at all if I hadn't found an obnoxious letter to the new President in my Parenting magazine for November. When I first read it, the election hadn't happened yet, so I wasn't too worried, but now that we have someone in office who might actual pitch the nauseatingly short-sighted, bleeding-heart but impossible-to-fund agenda in there, I've got to say something.
The letter claimed to be a parents' wishlist for the new president. It was mostly the usual "world peace...save the children" stuff that any self-respecting Miss America hopeful can recite in three languages, but one point really jumped out at me. It said to hurry up and get a Universal Health care plan in place. It would save all the uninsured children! Hurry up, Mr. President, save the children! Don't you care about the children!?
Excuse me, but I'm a parent, and the last thing I want is Universal Health care. I agree that something needs to be done to make health care more affordable for families, and that someone does need to help uninsured children. I'm not sure how to handle the logistics of it to keep people from riding the dole, but I do know it isn't the kids' fault if the parents don't have insurance, for whatever reason. I know the kids are the ones suffering, just like the kids are the ones suffering when parents choose to sit at home catching up on soaps and collecting welfare rather than working, or bring home a new "daddy" every three months, or when parents do any of the bonehead things they sometimes do. I do care about the children. It's because I care that I am opposed to Universal Health care.
I know to most people who don't know a lot about it, and the many "spread the wealthers" out there, it sounds like this: "Universal Health care means health care for everyone, hallelujah! We are all saved, and my skin will clear up like magic, and my puppy will come home, and my Dad will finally give me the approval I crave." It, like our new President-elect, will fix all our problems. Here's the trick. You're missing two vital words. The same. Universal Health care really means the same health care for everyone. Still sound good to you? Yeah, it probably does, equality and all of that. Equality isn't what I mean, however, and I will illustrate it for you from experience.
My mother emigrated from Canada when she was 19 years old, and half of her family still lives there. First things first, quit your giggling, it is possible to "emigrate" from Canada, and that's the proper word, it just sounds dumb because they're right next door. Second, you didn't know this about me because being half-Canadian isn't something I like to brag about, but now you've all solved the mystery of how someone who lived in the Valley of the Sun since she was a year old can have a skin tone middling between corpse and fish belly. Let's all drop it and move on.
My grandparents still live in Canada, where they have been plagued by health problems for the past decade or so. Because of this, I could probably write a thesis on why Universal Health care is the pits, but I will just stick to one example to prove my point.
About 10 years ago, my grandmother fell and broke her humerus. For those of you not addicted to medical dramas, that's the bone between the elbow and shoulder. It's a big bone and there aren't any other bones around to steady it. Nannie got to ride in an ambulance down to the happy Canadian hospital to get it fixed. The doctors decided to stick her arm in a sling. Now, I may not have followed through on that whole medical school thing, but I know a couple of things here: 1) When a 60-something-year-old woman breaks her arm just falling down (as opposed to riding the half-pipe on her skateboard like a 16-year-old two beds over), it's possible, nay, likely, that her bone density isn't exactly what it used to be, 2) this hypothesis can be proved by the place in her medical records where it states explicitly that she has osteoporosis (in other words, her bones are brittle and prone to breakage). I also know that sticking said osteroporotic arm in a sling probably isn't going to do jack squat to heal on its own. But that's what the Canadian doctors did. They gave an elderly woman with bone disease the same exact treatment they would give to the 16-year-old daredevil. The same treatment they'd probably give a wiggly 4-year-old whose bones would regrow and crooked on top of it without a cast. Then they set a follow-up appointment for a month later.
Thirty days go by and Nannie goes back in to the doctor only to get an X-ray and be told that her arm is exactly as broken as the day she fell. Fancy that! "Exactly as broken"...so you're saying the weak bone with regeneration issues that wasn't even steadied well in the first place didn't step up to the plate, kick that nasty density problem, and fix itself?! How rude?! I'll bet the 16-year-old was in better shape, because his bones know when to be a team player. Nannie had to go in and have a huge surgery with I don't know how many pins put in her arm.
Yes, she would have needed the surgery anyway, but she certainly didn't need to be in pain every time she bumped her poorly-set arm for a month prior.
So, why did they treat her the same way as a patient with an entirely different medical history? Universal health care, baby, the same health care for everybody. Translation: Doctors have no reason whatsoever to make individual patients happy or healthy. They don't get paid on performance, only quantity. They get paid lousy rates by the government no matter how wonderful they are at their job, which means they have no incentive to be wonderful. They are overbooked, which is why it takes them a month to get around to seeing the poor elderly woman with the busted limb again, or it takes them two weeks after the results come back to call and tell you that you have cancer (but that's another story for another day). Don't tell me it's free or "you get what you pay for" either, because after over 40+ years of paying downright exorbitant taxes, they certainly aren't getting it for free, nor are they getting what they paid for.
So, with all due respect to the pageant queens at Parenting, I'm a parent too, and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that we don't end up with Universal Health Care. Find another way. Find a better way. Because I want Sam's doctors, and my doctors, and Daniel's doctors, and your doctors, to give a flying fig about what they're doing, and to treat the patient as differently as they need to be treated in order to be cured. I want their paygrade to hinge on doing their job properly, and I want them know that I will sue them if they slap my brittle-boned grandparent in a sling and leave her there for a month. Because I want my family to get good medical care, not just any medical care.
"One size fits all" has no place in the Hippocratic oath.
And that's one thing that I'm sure you probably feel the same about too.

Love is a Battlefield

So, we've decided to let Sam cry it out in the middle of the night, in the hopes that I might get a full night's sleep ever again in this lifetime. How can she go down for naps and bed no problem but come completely unglued in the middle of the night?! I just don't get it. I also didn't realize that "crying it out" referred to me. This kid is so stubborn, poor Daddy has been relegated to the guest room for the duration of the war. The parent who doesn't get up between 4:30 and 5am (read: Me) gets to listen to the screaming and go lay her back down every 10-15 minutes. Sam puts in between 45 minutes and an hour and a half of screaming each time she wakes up. So, I don't have my husband with me to share the frustration, I get to listen to heartwrenching sobs for hours on end in the middle of the night, and because she isn't getting good rest at night, I get a crabby little princess for a child the entire day following.
Why did I start doing this? Oh yeah, so I won't still be getting up in the night when she's 12. Remind me of that when I'm committed to the loony bin, which doesn't sound so bad if they let you sleep for 8 hours solid.
Even so, I'm pretty sure I'm losing the battle. She's going to get me to cave any time now, and she totally knows it. I'm afraid I'm going to start crying right along with her. Last night, Sam learned how to pull herself to standing in her crib, and that's even worse, because she stands there screaming, and can't figure out how to lay back down without me going in there and laying her down, which reminds her that she wants me to pick her up, which renews her screaming gusto....
Vicious, vicious, cycle.
In addition, I've learned that "I'm doing this because I love you" sounds even lamer spoken by me now than it did coming at me as a kid. It may be true, but still sounds dumb, especially over Sam's whimpers.
I've got to stay strong! I just have to!
They say whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so I guess I'll get a good night's sleep eventually either way, right?
Right?