oh, and:

It wasn't so much that I objected to people deciding that their talents were too important to spend on raising kids, it was that they were angry at me for wasting my time on such things.

Gotcha, and boy howdy do I agree with you!

Awwwww...cutiehead Mal!

Then I found out I hadn't invented anything.

Bwah! Poor you!

Oops, I missed that, before. Laura, health to your mother-in-law, and an easy, successful job to her surgeons. {{{hugs}}}

Oh Raq, I just love that Mallory! Thanks for the pictures.

It wasn't so much that I objected to people deciding that their talents were too important to spend on raising kids, it was that they were angry at me for wasting my time on such things.

I find these people at least as annoying as those who tell me I'm wasting my time and skills not spawning. Folks who wouldn't be caught dead telling others how to spend their money or what church they should go to seem to find it fine and dandy to tell others what to do with their reproductive organs. <sarcasm>'Cause that's not personal or intrusive at all. </sarcasm> [yeah, like that tag closes]

Yay smart folks producing wee smart folks! And yay other smart folks with non-childed time and energy being on hand to help them out!

One thing I loved in Hrdy's book on motherhood was the bit on alloparents. Basically, she said that a very useful part of much primate parenting was that those with some genetic interest in the off-spring--the non-parenting-aunts and post-parenting-grandmothers, mostly--would increase the off-spring's survival potential because they had the time and energy to lend the mom a hand--either through caring for the off-spring or through helping the mom get more nutrition for herself (which, in a lactating mom means better nutrition for the off-spring).

A lot happening all of a sudden. Much -ma and/or sympathies to those who need them.

For the record, there are rich people in the third world who don't need to budget, just like over here.

Money issues are a normal people issue.

DW, Do you have a better resolution pic of the object you said might be a computer or a TV?

I'm thinking it is not. It's a household appliance of some sort, but the image is just too pixellated for me to see enough.

Even if the brown mold feeds off the heat, won't the fire have a drying quality that will kill it? What is brown mold? Do I want to know?

Hee. This is a D&D monster. I'm just treating Steph's mould with whimsy.

Lily=very cute. Lily+Plei=dazzling

Annabel has such beautiful hair and a very knowing half smile.

Mal is so cute -- and such a boy!

Strength to GC and Sparky and their families.

Health~ma for Aimee's friend and Laura's MIL.

Hee. This is a D&D monster.

So, its destiny is controlled by a twenty-something-sided die?