Poor Hil! I hope you got back to sleep.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and considered getting up. I thought, "Oh, I'll try to get another half hour in" and woke up 20 minutes ago. A little sleeping in for vw.

Hey, Hil - go you with the WeightWatchers thing, btw! Are you going to meetings or doing it online?

hey fay! i'm doing it online, not meetings. (maybe it's just bad memories of the ww meetings from when i was a kid and teenager, but i'm more comfortable with online.) and i just weighed myself and i've lost 3 pounds since monday, but that's all just weight i gained quickly over the holidays, so i figured at least the first 5 pounds or so would come off pretty quickly, too.

I had a strange dream last night, no doubt brought on by the parenting discussion yesterday. I dreamt a kid was hitting me with a big stick. I asked the mother if I could take it away from him, and she said, "No, we don't believe in taking anything away from our child." Then the alarm went off. Weird.

Oy sj. I think I've met that parent. Frightening!!!

I know I had odd dreams last night, but I can't even remember general details. I just recall being happy when my alarm woke me up.

ita, I figured out what I was trying to say, yesterday (I had some family issues, and couldn't really concentrate on the conversation).

When I read Hec's original comment (which has since been changed, but which I quoted back, early on) and the distinction he was trying to make, what struck me was his idea that although selfishness* is a great reason to choose not to be a parent, starting out selfish* does not necessarily mean a person is going to end up being a bad parent. That's what I read as the point of his original statement, and what I'd been thinking, when I read the posts you put up, prior to his. I wasn't trying to say a baby will make a person a good parent or a good person.

The "*" is to denote I would have described desires/preferences/habits with a different term than 'selfish' if I'd been the one to start the conversation.

I had a strange dream last night, no doubt brought on by the parenting discussion yesterday. I dreamt a kid was hitting me with a big stick. I asked the mother if I could take it away from him, and she said, "No, we don't believe in taking anything away from our child." Then the alarm went off. Weird.

Freud would have a field day, huh, sj? And sadly, like Suzi, I've met that parent.

Freud would have a field day, huh, sj? And sadly, like Suzi, I've met that parent.

I've met that parent too and read about it in my school books, so it's all connected.

IOmemeN, I just cancelled my dentist appointment for this morning. I have been panicky (not about the dentist) and my asthmas is acting up, so I just couldn't deal with it today.

I had one of those pancake breakfast sandwiches this morning with sausage, egg and cheese--not from McDonalds, but from the convenience store--and, lord, was that vile. The pancake had maple syrup flavor in it, and that does *not* go with the taste of cheese and sausage. Blah.

H just made egg-cheese-n-ham on rye sammiches for brunch. There's a reason I keep him around.

Snow! We have snow. It was pelting down an hour ago, and has slowed to a misty drift of tiny flakelets now, but the ground is white and there're artistic drifts in the forks of branches.

I had a very cohernt dream last night. The plot was some sort of Noir mystery/ghost story. I was some kind of an antique dealer. ( a8th century antiques) and there was somesort of giant medusa-like ghost head. I finally got this bad guy to take the box ( 7' long , 1 foot wide) because he was going to 'control' the ghost with the box ( but we all knew how that was going to turn out) . and then I even had a 'hill o beans' speech with my partner, something along the lines of 'You know the antique world , there are no hnest dealers left. It is a business fraught with danger and no room for relations ships or family'. And then I saw scenes from the next book/movie/episode. It seem to invovle the mob - and I heard erika say "Let's go , bunkie" .

I am known for haveing cohernt and vivid dreams - but I 've never had scenes for the next episode.

What I was trying to argue against, Cindy, was the idea that we (people? Buffistas? Bitches? I'm not picky about which categorisation is being used) would rise to the occasion--I had thought rising to the occasion meant being a good parent (or at least not being a bad one), but he clarified it as taking on more responsibility, which, well, I have little argument with, since I don't think most people will abandon their kids at the fire station. But taking on more responsibility doesn't imply good parenting.

I think I was a big user of the word selfish, but I used it to explain why I wanted kids and why I didn't want kids. I stand by both assertions.