I'm sick. In less than two days I will be on an airplane back to Texas with two toddlers and a cat. The plane lands at 1am. o.m.g. goodnight.

Bad parent of the year visits my house.

I ran to Barnes and Noble tonight after my kids went to sleep to grab some last minute Christmas presents (I'm always forgetting someone!). I came home and saw two flashlights bouncing down the sidewalk. I parked my car and as I got out I heard "Hello?"

I started walking towards a little girl and her mother. I said "hi" back and asked if they were ok. They said yes, but.... then the little girl (probably around 7) burst into this stream of a story that was almost incomprehensible. I got the gist of the story and learned that their cat, who had been hit by a car this week, had escaped the house and was now missing.

As any good investigator does, I started asking questions.

1. What color is it? Brown, black and white

2. Is it big or small? small

3. What else? It has a cone on it's head and stitches down it's shoulder and back from the car accident.

4. How long has it been missing? 30 minutes

Ok. I said, I'm so so sorry about your cat. I hope you can find it, I'll go get my flashlight and help in my yard. The girl said, thank you, I just want to find my cat.

The mom says, well it's your own fault for leaving the door open. (record scratch), huh?

The girl burst into tears and said, I know I know I'm sorry mommy but he'll be ok. Mom says, well if he's not I'm really going to be mad because we spent a lot of money fixing him up for you. We could have just put him down.

The daughter through tears said, I know, I'm sorry...(sniffle sniffle). Mom looks right at me and says, if she hadn't have left the damn door open the cat would be inside where it's supposed to be, now I gotta be out here in the cold (it's 80 degrees!) looking for this damn cat of hers.

I tried to defuse the situation and told the little girl, well all you can do is your best and if you keep looking, maybe you'll find him, put out some food and water tonight and also a little box with a blanket for him to sleep in, in case he comes home while you're in your bed. She sniffled, looked upwards and said, ok....and I'll put his favorite toy in there too.

Mom, pushed her daughter along and said, ok, we gotta go, sorry for disturbing you.

Another touching testament demonstrating the insanity of the people living in this city.

Dirt Balls

What happens when two black holes run into each other. Infinite gravity plus infinite gravity equals infinite gravity. But that does not follow the theory of the conservation of mass. Mass plus Mass has to equal Double Mass.

This question burned through my mind for days. I scouted for answers, I found none, I went onto chat boards and emailed Astrophysicists. I never got a clear answer.

This is who I am. If I don't know something, I become compulsive until I find the answer. It's also what makes me rock at Trivial Pursuit...I know lots of trivial facts about trivial things.

Did you know that 96% of the time (they tested this!) a mother will know her own baby their cry...even if she's never even heard it before! Just born, play baby switcheroo and mom knows. Weird.

Sometimes mud dobbers will incase caterpillars in mud, stuck to your house, so they can come back later and eat it. It's like a little insect pantry. The poor caterpillar is alive the whole time, just waiting to be eaten, it could be days in that coffin.

Snails mate sexually. They get together and stick their little snail penises into female snails, mind boggling. I figured there would be ex vivo eggs involved or something.

Colic is actually caused by the brain being awake and asleep at the same time. Interesting but not helpful when you plead with your newborn to stop screaming like their being murdered.

Ants lack the neurons for pain. Burn them with a magnifying glass all you want.

Anyway. My compulsion makes me weird. Hopefully my kids will love me for it. Today I found clumps of dirts, more like little balls of dirt. I spent over 3 hours researching what they were and where they came from. I spoke to 6 different people who were PhD's in Entomology and Horticulture and Botany. One professor told me to consult my local college because he didn't have time to answer my emails anymore. No one can tell me what they are and it's keeping me up tonight.

One prof. told me he thought they were killer wasp burrow holes. I went out with a flash light and dug one up, no wasp down there.

Anyone know what these are? My kids sure wish you do. They were sent outside without mom to play with while I poured through pictures and internet sites most of the afternoon. Excellent way to spend my time seeing as how the movers/packers are coming in 5 days.

I believe.

A book I was reading suggested an exercise. It suggested that you write down the top 5 people who have influenced your life. After you have done that, if you take a look at the list you will realize one thing. These are all people who have believed in you. Not people that give you things, or people that just exist in your life, they have truly believed in YOU.

After thinking a bit, most likely (and sadly) parents may not end up on this list. If your parents do, consider yourself lucky (and don't just put them on there out of guilt). Often time parents do not believe in their children. They view them as weak and dumb. Even when they try to be the best positive influence, a child can sense whether mom really believes in them.

What would be your reaction if your child asked to walk to school by themselves, or take the bus somewhere. Nowadays it would be an automatic, "No way!, you can't handle that".

But where does it begin? Are you willing to go out of your comfort zone and let your child do something that you think they can't? Most of the time, they in fact can, but we box our kids into glass and don't want them to get hurt or even worse...fail.

I'd like to toot my own horn and say, I've been pretty good about this. Even before I read the book. I let my kids fail ALL the time. I let them climb things that I think they'll fall off of, I let them work puzzles I don't think they can solve, I let my daughter put a cookie sheet into the oven today while the oven was on and hot. And who do I owe this parenting style to? My own parents.

At the age of 10 my parents let my brother and I ride our bikes 5 miles from our family business to our home. Across 3 bridges and down 1 highway. We thought we could disassemble a television and put it back together. We tried and we failed...so we had to save up more money to replace the TV in my brothers bedroom. I was cooking our family dinner starting in 3rd grade and my brother did all the laundry. I saw a blog the other day where a lady didn't let her 6th grade daughter bake brownies for her school party because she thought she would mess it up or burn herself.

I hope I can be as loose as my parents were with us. It kept me grounded and out of trouble. I didn't smoke cigarettes in high school when all my friends were because my parents let my brother and I take a drag off of theirs once. Turned me away forever (they stopped smoking 20 years ago btw). I didn't drink either because my parents would let us have a little glass of wine here and there during special events. Even let me try rum and coke. Seemed pretty lame when my friends would pull out a hidden bottle of mad dog after school.

So, to conclude this long rambling post. Believe in your friends. Believe in your co-workers. Believe in your kids. Let people (and little people) do things out of your comfort zone. If we all stopped criticizing and thinking that every person we interact with is a dumbass, maybe life will get a little better.

Miami...culture...

Why is it that when they go to the grocery store, Miami latino families bring THE WHOLE FAMILY. Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, 4 kids, cousins, aunt or two all marching down the aisles blocking the way for me and all the cute older jewish couples.

One of the things I will not miss about here.

I look forward to (unavailable in Miami)

Diet Dr. Pepper

Shiner Beer

Ozarka Water

Mrs. Beards Bread

Blue Bell Ice Cream that is not just cookies and cream or vanilla

BBQ that is not pork

Spices without MSG

Hugs (not the side kisses BLECK)

Going faster than 30 mph

Donuts (no donut stores here)

Chick-fil-a

Sonic

Dairy Queen

Thanks Bush.

Two guys come to my door tonight with their realtor. They are interested in renting this house when we move out in like two weeks. (HOLY CRAP!)

I show them around the house, they ask why we're moving and I say, oh we're moving back to Texas, we were only here in Miami for a year.

They ask, did you like it? I said, well parts of it are just beautiful, but I just couldn't adapt well to the culture.

Now, by culture I mean the Latin culture. See it's not racist if you say "culture". Miami is a place of being late to things, hot tempers, in your face rudeness, children running about like mad people, and have and have-nots (which are based on your latin country of origin). It's bizarre, and it's like A&M...From the outside looking in you can't understand it, from the inside looking out you can't explain it.

ANYWAY. Right after I say that, they look at my bookshelf. Because I'm anal, my books are organized by theme. We happened to be standing right in front of my religion shelf. It is packed full of books on Christianity, Islam and other religious natured books (mostly so I can be a Christian that doesn't like Christianity as it is exists in present day).

The tall guy says, I bet you're ready to get back to Texas...that's George Bush country isn't it. Huh? Glance at the religion shelf, glance at the two gay men, recall my culture comment...CRAP...I felt like Sarah Jessica Parker in "The Family Stone"...NO! I love the gays!!

I kept thinking about what to say, whatever came out of my mouth was going to sound stupid no matter how fast or hard I thought. I should say something about how I'm a landlord too, and the people renting my house in Houston are a gay couple...um...I have lots of gay friends...I gave money to HRC...um...my husbands family has members that are gay....ummmm.....but unfortunately all that came out was, "I didn't vote." .

They just said, oh...and kept walking around my house. I didn't mean the OTHER Miami culture (ie Birdcage). gawdarnit.

They left and gave me a polite smile and I over did it with my smile back to them, but I just wanted to bury my head in some Miami sand. I LOVE THE GAYS!

On Booby.

Abby mentioned in the last entry that she didn't understand breast feeding snobbery. Well, I do. Allow me to elaborate.

Before you read below, I'm not talking about breast feeding women. I'm talking about breast feeding bitches. HUGE difference. Breast feeding women are women who breast feed their children. Breast feeding bitches are women who breast feed their children and also make you feel like shit for not breast feeding yours.

Needs:

The main reason people bitch, whine and cry about things is because their needs are not being met. Work is SO hard (I'm not getting the recognition I need), my husband is an ass (I'm not getting the love I need), breast feeding is my sacrifice (I'm not getting the appreciation I need).

The "problem" with breast feeding is there is no pat on the back. Your baby doesn't look at you and say, mom, thanks man. Your husband doesn't gloat to his friends what an awesome mom you are because you are breast feeding your child.

The point is, the only recognition you get is from other women who support breast feeding. They fill the need that you are in fact self-sacrificing yourself and doing a good job. So, if you are a breast feeding snob, when others come along who do not breast feed, it's a knee jerk reaction to automatically justify your choice. You need them to look at you and recognize your accomplishment. No one else is patting them on the back, so you better damn well do so.

Guilt:

In addition to fulfilling justification, there is a secret pleasure that comes along with breast feeding. The act of a child suckling on your breast makes you feel good. The intense bond that you are essentially giving life and using an object that for most of your life viewed as a sexual part, is instead given to your child. Some women can't admit or handle the fact that they get pleasure out of breast feeding (I'm not talking about sexual pleasure, although I've talked to many women who have actually climaxed while breast feeding).

This can also create a knee jerk reaction to over shadow hidden embarrassment. I'm not breast feeding because I enjoy it, I'm breast feeding because it's good for my baby. As a new mom, many women think taking any delight in the baby process should never overshadow you new role as a sacrificing mom. If you're going to be a martyr, you can't act like you like your job.

Insecurities:

These women really can't justify why they are breast feeding. They know that the nutrition is supposed to be better, yet so many formula fed babies turn out just as normal as other kids. Breast feeding is a choice that is supposed to make your baby better and your motherhood better, but, yet it's turning out the same as bottle babies.

So, because they are not fully confident in their decision, it makes them feel better to make those who did not breast feed feel like crap about their choice. Sadly, these insecurities are never fully repaired and will often lead to more and more justifications as to why they took a hard road.

Random Editorial:

A common phrase tossed around is that breast fed babies can not sleep through the night, so the mother's exhaustion is justified because they are giving breast milk. Formula fed babies are taking the easy way out because they want sleep. Both statements are false.

Breast fed babies can in fact sleep through the night just as quickly as formula fed babies. There is no difference in rate of digestion, there is no difference in calories. Analysis has shown that they, in fact, digest at the same exact rate. A few people claim there are, yet can provide no evidence of this. That is because it is just heresy thrown around by those who want to justify.

To formula feed a baby is not taking the easy way out either. It is a pain in the ass to wake up, make a bottle, heat it up, test it, feed, burp, and throw the bottle in the sink (or floor!). With breast feeding you can roll over, stick them on and even fall asleep while they eat.

Here's where the "sleep through the night" comes into play. A breast feeding mom is quicker to offer the breast to get their baby back to sleep while a formula fed mom will try just about anything else (pacifier, rocking, diaper change, shhhing, patting, rain dance) to keep from walking to the kitchen with a screaming child. So formula fed babies get used to not eating at night quicker than breast fed babies.

Definitely found that true with ours. We'd feed at midnight, and if they'd wake up at 2am crying, there was no way I was going to get back upstairs after my 1 hour of sleep and make another bottle. I'd give myself 10 minutes of other methods. After that I'd try a bottle in case of a growth spurt. But, I never had to go get another bottle, pacifiers and butt pats.

Now let me say this again (I've said it before on here). I am pro-breast feeding. I think it's wonderful. I wish I could have done it but I couldn't. I have no guilt, shame or regret. I just get extremely angry when I see breast feeding bitches put other mom's down. Motherhood is freaking hard. There is enough guilt to last a lifetime (I can't believe I pinched their stomach in the car seat buckle!), the last thing another mom needs is someone telling her she isn't doing her job right.

Seriously????????

Can't keep eyes open.

Don't have the strength to write much tonight. In addition to lining up tons of contractors and foundation repair companies, we (my husband) expressed our displeasure in our realtors to our realtors. They took it personal. We had to revamp a lot of things, get everyone on the same page, and keep them from crying.

Mama wants this whole deal to be over soon. There is a reason why they say home buying is stressful. Because it is.

Take note for the future. If you want anything cosmetic done to a house you want to buy, discuss it in your offer, don't wait until you have a contract.

In another note...

A girl I know is pregnant with twins. She sent me a message on Facebook wanting to know how I breast fed my twins and if I had any tips. I told her I only did it for 3 weeks and she should not put too much pressure on herself if she decides not to do it because it is overwhelmingly difficult. She wrote me back saying...oh, so sad to hear that, but no matter how tough it is on her, she has made the choice to do what is best for her babies, not fail and not take the easy way out.

F you.

I can't believe it happened to me.

Me of all people. I'm hard nosed and not easily swayed. I've never done a single illegal drug in my life because I never let anyone talk me into trying. I've never committed a felony even when it was tempting. I spent 9 hours at a car dealership sitting in a room until they finally came down to my price.

But then, something happened this past week. My husband and I were in Dallas trying to find our new home. We had the perfect one picked out but were informed upon our arrival that it already had a contract on it. We found a second choice, and found out the next day someone else put a contract on that one. In a buyers market, it seemed that all the decent properties were getting snatched up from under us.

We found a third choice. It's in a better location and really is a better house for us. We spent hours at the real estate office arguing our offer. Actually, it was just me arguing our offer. My husband may be a business man but he has the unfortunate defect of trusting people. I don't trust certain professions. Car salesman and realtors are at the top of the list along with doctors, lawyers and health science professors.

The realtors kept pushing a high offer. I said no. This house had been on the market 60 days, no other offers and it appeared that these people needed a fast close because they had another house and a ski trip in their holiday plans. Low balling is obviously the route to go here.

I started out 30k below asking price. The realtors eye rolled but did it. Late that night, we finally left the office, my husband having faith in me.

The next morning at 9am, we got a call from the realtors. Apparently someone else, that morning, put another offer in on this house. A house that has had zero other offers and has been sitting there like a lump for two months. I found all of this fishy.

I asked the realtors if they could talk to the selling broker and get an idea of the other offer that was put into the house. They called back and said that it was a secret and no information was going to be shared with us. I got pissed and said we would meet them at 2pm. They agreed.

At 2pm we met and the realtors said, here's the story. The selling agent is not telling us what the other offer is, but she is meeting with the homeowners at 3pm, and she is advising them to take the highest offer. BUT she wouldn't tell us if we were the highest or not.

I told our agents, ok, no biggie, we'll wait for the call and if we find out we weren't the highest, we'll up our offer. They said NO, we need to make another offer NOW, or you won't get this house. I said, there is no way in hell I'm going to blindly increase my offer, this isn't ebay! They looked at me shaking their heads and my husband lost faith in me.

He said, what do we do. They said, bid 16k more. I said no, he said yes. We argued. Our realtors said, guys it's 5 minutes until 3pm, we have to call now!

My heart raced, we already lost two houses and the next one on our list sucked and would definitely be a house "we settled for". Intense glares, stares and words for the next 4 minutes.

And then it happened. I let the 3 other people at the table convince me I was the dumbass. We called bid 16k more. 2 minutes later, we got a phone call saying we won the contract. Everyone celebrated but me. I think we got swindled.

Real Estate is a tough market, real estate agents are dying, it's not just a little drought it's Saharan out there. Here is what I think happened. Our agents called the listing agent. The listing agent either made up or had a friend put in another bogus offer. Our agents convinced us to raise our price all while knowing we were winning the contract anyway. The price was driven up along with potential commissions.

I think our agents saw a young couple with an active check book and we got hosed. I know in the end the house still has to appraise but their behavior after the contract has got me thinking they need a paycheck. The inspection report came back with foundation issues and recommended a structural engineer to come out. Our realtors seem to not think this was a big deal and a quick fix. The AC/Heater inspector thinks things need replacing, they mentioned that the extended home warranty should fix that problem easy and we don't need to worry about it. Wrong and wrong. I want repairs or credits period. I'm not going to let these ladies dupe me again.