Stay at home with your kids? Lazy, why don't you get a job? Work outside the home? Selfish, how can you let someone else raise your kids? Don't have kids at all? Slut, why aren't you married yet? Have too many kids? Stupid bitch, don't you know about birth control?

Ann Romney doesn't know how many horses she owns - THIS is a relevant point to make when she's trying to paint herself as someone who speaks for working class Americans. Not her choices as a mother.

Just needed to be said again. Perfect.

wrod! Nobody can possibly win.(well, unless, like Mitt, "governor" is your family business and you rewrite the rules a lot.)

And, um, he still doesn't say the Hebrew word for "mom", or "Ima" (again with the long "a" - hmm, I wonder what's up with this pattern)

I think that's one of the sounds that babies usually make first -- whatever language they hear, the way the muscles develop means the first few sounds will be mamama and bababa and dadada and a few others -- and I've seen some theories that that's why the words that little kids use for mother and father in most languages are some combination of those sounds.

And, um, he still doesn't say the Hebrew word for "mom", or "Ima" (again with the long "a" - hmm, I wonder what's up with this pattern).

Franny said "dada" months before she said "mama," but DH was convinced it wasn't a preference for him so much as an assumption that I was supposed to appear without being called. Who knows?

DH was convinced it wasn't a preference for him

My sister told me about a friend's toddler who referred to both his parents as "dada" (actually, the Hebrew equivalent, but it doesn't matter for the rest of the story). The parents tried to teach him to say "mama", and finally they succeeded, he learned to pronounce the sound. He even used the new word - he called his father "mama".

He continued calling his mother "dada" for months afterwards.

PiToddler totally congratulates himself on almost every achievement, by clapping his hands and smiling broadly.

Love that!

Went out and saw the marathon winner run by, then had brunch and an additional cocktail. Yay daytime drinking! An angry-looking marathon finisher came in and stood next to me and drank two beers in rapid succession, and was like whatever when I congratulated him. Whatever, dude!

Happy Birthday, ND!

Scrappy, I heard from ita yesterday, she's laying low for awhile.

Valid reaction to ... anything. I am glad you've heard from her though. We worry.

Do you all ever have days where you find yourself woohooing the small mundane accomplishments, because you're pretty sure that's all you're going to get.

I think feeding the cats and myself and medicating most of us is as good as it gets today. Oh and I emptied the dishwasher. Maybe a nap will reset my brain. Or burning the PNW down with fire. I don't know how to fix climate change and thus all of my sinus issues but that would help with the allergies.

Clearly the next thing I need to accomplish is filing an extension for my taxes. Tomorrow.

I'm curious what people think about the increasingly hostile cyber espionage environment between the U.S. and China.

It's been known for a while that China was aggressively making organized attacks at hacking both State and commercial interests. There seems to be some sense among the Chinese higher ups that there's no downside to being aggressive about stealing designs and plans. We can't exactly declare war when we owe them so much debt and depend on them so much for manufacturing.

Besides we've already been over extended militarily and there's no public taste for that kind of action.

There seems to be a driving sense of historical grievance on the Chinese side too, having been subjected to imperial control by the West for so long.

Also, they feel like America's in decline. That we've grown fat and entitled and are running up debt to maintain a lifestyle that we haven't earned.

Also, they feel like America's in decline. That we've grown fat and entitled and are running up debt to maintain a lifestyle that we haven't earned.

I do not diagree with that opinion.

Such a Monday.

I do not diagree with that opinion.

I don't either. Just looking at it from the POV of real politik, it makes sense that China, and Russia too for that matter, would try to hack and steal as much as they could. There is no police force to stop them - just diplomatic complaints. And since they're doing things like figuring out our energy infrastructure that's valuable militarily as well.

I also expect that U.S. can't squawk too much about it publicly because I doubt the cyber war on our side is solely defensive. There's a reason the NSA is well funded.