Last time I checked, the way to get a law changed or have your voice heard in this country, you needed to have a lot of people agree with you.  Like, you need a lot of signatures on a petition or everyone you know should send a letter…

So why is this guy getting any air time?  Why is he getting ANY say? Because he’s a lawyer?

Forgive me if I offend any atheists with this post.

But seriously, how many millions of people are there in this country, and one man throws a tizzy fit because he doesn’t like seeing the words in "God we Trust" on our currency and could potentially get those words removed costing this country how many dollars to redo all of our currency?  How many more people with actual beliefs that like seeing those words on our currency and feel that they are part of what this country was founded on are going to be offended and file another lawsuit to get them back on there?  Sheesh.

This guy needs to stop getting so much press.

I just don’t get why as an atheist he thinks he should get any say.  Atheism is not a set of convictions or a set of beliefs.  It is a lack of them.  So why should he, with his lack of beliefs, get to say he’s offended.  He doesn’t believe anything!  And don’t give me that baloney about how it makes not a separation of church and state. Malarkey. I have never had anyone tell me how I am supposed to believe or where I needed to go to church, so I am doing just fine. 

I can kind of understand the whole pledge of allegiance thing, he filed suit against, because yes, by having everyone stand up and say it, it is sort of teaching a certain set of beliefs, but this is ridiculous.  Who even looks at their money before they spend it anyway?

It just really scares me that one man has the potential for this kind of power.  If he wins this (I hope he doesn’t even from an economic standpoint) what’s next?  "Umm, I am sort of offended by this law here that says I can’t speed.  I sort of like speeding and it offends me that you don’t so down with speed limits!"  I know that’s kind of extreme, but…

I just think this guy needs to be treated like a kid having a tantrum.  Put him in his room until he can cool off and play by the rules.  The world doesn’t revolve around you, little one.  And in this house we have the words "in God we trust" and most everybody else likes it that way.

I’m secretly hoping that God strikes him down. 

The trip pics and stuff are coming, I promise!  But until then– a quaint story about how some grown-ups surprisingly still act.

So I was with my kids at music class today and as usual they were not particularly well behaved.  I actually felt they did better than they have in past classes, but there was the typical running around at inappropriate times and all of that.  They tend to feed off of each other, so even though Engineer and Spider are normally well behaved, if they see Sugar being a goob, they follow suit. I’ve  apologized profusely to the teacher several times and she always says the same thing, "Your kids are good.  They don’t scream or cry– that’s the kind of thing I don’t like.  Your kids are fine."

So today, rather than trying to constantly chide them and reign them in and leave class all mad, I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and I stepped in only when I felt they were acting age inappropriate.

Now, hold that thought.

In this class is a little boy and his nanny.  The nanny is infamous among my fellow music class goers for being loud, bossy and generally obnoxious.  She talks really loud, answers her cell phone in class and tries to overcorrect her little "charge" when she thinks he’s not doing the activities right.  She’s really not that bad, honestly, but she does strike me as someone who is a little attention starved.  As I made that realization today in class, I actually started to feel a little bad for her.

That is until she made her snarky comment to me.

Return to the previous thought that my children were not models of behaviour this day.  

And so she says to me, without eye contact, without ever a proper introduction, "What class are you going to be in in the fall?"

And me, sensing what was coming, feeling that pit in my stomache and not wanting to have a conversation with her told her that I didn’t know.  Eh.  Her reply?  

"Because I don’t want to be in the same class as you."

Hi, my name is Stephanie.  I am a real person and I have feelings too.  Didn’t your mama teach you if you can’t say nothing nice, don’t say nothing at all?

If someone had said something like that to me back in my postpartum depression days where I was already feeling low and sinking, and frustrated with my children, I would have been downward spiraling.  As it is, I got that shaky feeling that I get when someone makes an attack on my individual person and then I shrugged it off.  I was a little appalled at her lack of tact, but I don’t even know her, and I don’t really care.  I am actually sort of relieved because it means I won’t have to be in her class either!

It just is weird to me that grown ups still act that way.  It doesn’t bother me that she wants to be in a different class than me and my children.  I can’t really say that I blame her as I am not sure I’d want to be in my class either if I was someone else.  But really isn’t that something she should have just brought up with the teacher?  (Which she did, by the way, very loudly while I was still in the room.)  Did she think she was doing me a service by subtlely telling me that she thought I needed to up the parenting skills?  That it would help me in some way by making sure I knew that my kids were obnoxious in class?  Or do you think she just likes being snarky?

Well, whatever.  Today is a new day.  I am so over it.  But it sure is a good thing I am a grown up at least.  Because my inner teenager came up with some choice follow up conversation. 

This is making me laugh much harder than it should:

Well, we are finally home from a lovely family-reunion vacation in Pennsylvania.  We played with the cousins, went to theme parks, visited great grandma, had a birthday, ate cake nearly everyday and met real live Amish.  When we aren’t so jetlagged and the 2 weeks of mail is cleared from the kitchen table,I’ll post more about it.  Probably sometime next spring…

I have had nothing but problems with them.

Mostly billing issues.  I thought I had them resolved and then I signed up for auto pay.  And then I got an email saying my payment was denied by my bank. No possible way, right?  So I try to login to my online account.  And then I can’t get in there.  And I am refusing to call them.

I have tried emailing the issue to them, and a long time later I get an email that gives some vague and useless answer.  Clearly they didn’t even look at my account.  I just don’t want to call them.  I hate sitting through the ridiculous automated "pre-screener" questions.  I am so cheesed off by the time I get through to a real person that I have no patience left for the non-english speaking or hates their job individual on the other line.  They are almost ALWAYS less than helpful.

Why can’t they call me if there is an issue with my account? I am on the phone constantly trying to serve my customers and build my business and yada yada and I still have a life.  They have got a whole team of call center people and no one is making any calls (except maybe to try and harass their current customers into more features.)

 I just refuse to call.  They continue to disappoint over and over. 

Okay.  Rant over.  Have a good day all. 

So, I have lately fallen in love with a few classic Sesame Street songs.  "I don’t want to live on the moon," by Jeff Moss and "Imagination" by Joe Raposo, along with "Frogs in the Glen" by Tony Geiss.  I was thinking today that I would love to tell these men thank you for these wonderful and beautiful songs.  And when I turned to my internet today, I discovered that two of these men, Jeff Moss and Joe Raposo, have passed on.

I was sad.

And I really hope that someone told them how lovely their music is before they left.  I guess no one could have thanked them for how deeply their songs would touch me, but they have.  And maybe in Heaven they have access to the internet– and maybe they will come across this and know what their works have meant to me.  But I hope they knew what an impact they have had on so many others.

If you are like me and have more than one or two children, I have a recommendation for you: find yourself a friend with only ONE child.  Preferably a child around the same age as yours and that plays well with him or her. (Vice versa as well, parents of one, find yourself a friend with more than one).

I tell you what, it is the best thing ever.

Why?  You might ask, is this the greatest match made in Heaven?  Well, I will tell you.  The reasoning is simple.  Parents of multiple children, like myself are always ready to have some peace and quiet and pawn off a few children.  Parents of one child, like my friend Juniper, tire quickly of being their child’s only playmate and are ready to have a few more children over.  Can you do the math?

I can send one, two or three of my children over to Juniper’s house and get some work done because no one is here to destroy my efforts.  When my kids are at her house, Juniper can get some work done because her daughter isn’t constantly nagging her to play ponies with her.

It is the most perfect, most beautiful thing ever that I sometimes feel a little guilty about.  

(And yes I watch her little princess too, so she can have mom time.)

Conclusion: Get yourself a mom of one friend today!