Evil

Well, the verdict is in. According to the priest, I am evil. He told me so. Then he said God would "deal with me" and then repeated "Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you." He also said Obama is evil and Pelosi is evil and anyone in their party is evil. Followed up by he has freedom of speech and it his duty to tell me and everyone else what is right and what is wrong.

So the verdict is in from the infallible priest. I am evil.

Today is a bad day.

Priest NOT Politician

WARNING: This is about politics and religion. If either is sensitive, don't read. If I had an option to make this private I probably would, but I don't and I need to vent, so here goes.

So, I left mass early today. Partly it was because Handsome was talking the whole time and no matter what I did he kept making noise. But the other part was because of how angry the priest made me.

Typically the speech that the priest makes has to do with the three preceding readings. The reading today had to do with the greatest commandment given by Christ is to love. I was all excited because I love those sections. But what did the priest warp it to mean? Vote Republican. GRRR. I go to church to learn the word of the Bible. I REALLY don't think there is anything in the Bible that says Republicans are for God and Democrats are against God. Basically what the priest was saying was that everyone must vote on one topic alone. The only thing we should vote for is the candidate who is pro-life. He went so far as to use names of who is evil in politics and who is not. About how it is impossible for someone to be pro life personally and pro choice politically. How it's the same thing as slavery is not ok for me, but it's ok for you, and I'm not going to murder but it's ok if you murder. How we are endorsing murder.

I just wanted to stand up and yell at him. Has he ever seen a girl who went through an illegal abortion? Does he think those girls who are confused and fearing what to do with a child should just die? Does he think the mother who may lose her life and her surviving children lose their mother should just die?

I hate abortion. I wish everyone would have their babies. The problem is no amount of preaching will stop it. Children get scared. Teenagers fear the social repercussions and wonder how they will have money to pay for the child and they freak out and do dangerous things. Illegal abortions often end up killing the woman or girl who is pregnant. If they don't kill her they make her unable to have any children in the future. My reason to vote pro-choice is to save the life of the mother. In my mind voting prolife means voting on principles that are nice in an ideal world, but in the sinful world that is our reality it means killing not only the baby that you are trying to save but the mother of the baby as well. Two killed instead of one.

More than that though, I don't agree with voting on a single issue. People are a mesh of different issues and if you only focus on a single issue then you could be ignoring an equally tragic sin of that candidate or many greater. What if Hitler was prolife and his opponent was prochoice? Would you still vote for Hitler?

If you want to vote prolife, I'm fine with that. I understand the desire to save a life. What I have a problem with is vilifying the other side. What I REALLY have a problem with is a priest trying to talk politics from the pulpit.

I'm strongly considering Presbyterian or Methodist church. I asked DH about it though, and he wouldn't even think about going. He is Catholic and won't change. But did he go to mass with me this morning? No, because he was up too late studying last night. He said there will never be a preacher or a priest that you agree with 100%. I agree with him, but this morning just made me so angry.

I don't think a reading of how you are supposed to love above all leads to preaching about how evil Pelosi is.

Blogerversary

Well, I missed it by about five days, but apparently I've been blogging for a little over a year now. It doesn't seem like it's been that long. It's definitely nice to have a place to ramble on and get thoughts out.

Thank you to everyone who's been with me for the last year!

God Arranges Marriage

DH was telling me a story last night. It is a local belief which I had never heard.

Apparently before we are all born we are all together in heaven. Then, as the story goes, there is a ceremony where everyone cooks beans. Yes, beans. The girls all have calabashes (bowls) but the boys don't. (I take this to mean we are more resourceful, but I guess we each take our own interpretations of stories like this.) Anyhow, after the beans are cooked and they are nice and hot, everyone has to find a place to put their beans. The girls conveniently put their beans in their calabashes. The boys however only have their hands to hold their beans. Remember we just finished cooking the beans, so they're hot and they are currently burning the hands of the boys. The boys run around trying to find a girl to allow them to put their beans in their calabash so that they can share and eat together from the one calabash. Whatever girl allows them to put their beans in their calabash will be their wife. This is how God arranges marriages. They say any man who ends up not getting married didn't find a girl in time and dropped their hot beans on the ground.

DH must have run pretty far to find my calabash. Teehee.

Mama and Dada

I think Handsome says words for Mama and Dada too. It's kinda funny how he has picked them up too. I of course talk about his dad so I say Daddy and Dada when I talk about DH. DH talks about me, but he's talking in Dagaare to Handsome so he says Nma for Mama. So Handsome is saying Dada in English (instead of Dagaare Baba) and Mama in Dagaare as Nma.

I got a picture book for him to learn the names of animals. As one would expect it has the pictures of each animal with the name below. The page that you open to is the title page and just has six representative pictures of what to expect in the book. Those six pictures do not have the names written below. Handsome's favorite page? The page without the names. This is fine because as the mom I should know the names right? Right. I was calling the reindeer an elk until I finally decided I needed to know the actual name and had to look it up. And then there was the cockatoo. I didn't know the name. I had to look it up. Now it's Handsome's favorite because of how it sounds. I also had to look up the leopard because I still think it looks like a cheetah and I wanted to be sure. Reindeer. Cockatoo. Leopard. Ladybug. Dog. Chameleon. Got it.

First words that I've so far classified as words:
Samson (Sasa),
banana (nana),
Daddy (Dada),
Mommy (Nma).

First Words

Ok, I don't know if I'm getting ahead of myself here or not, but I think we have the signs of first words. When he sees a banana he will say "Nana!" He used to follow this up with a bunch of nonsense, but now he's more consistently saying "Nana!"

And the other word is the dog's name, Samson. Any time we go to see the dog he will excitedly say, "Sasa?!" He loves that dog. I actually recorded him saying Samson today - I hid the camera so that he din't know I was recording. I tried to recor him saying Banana, but by then he knew the camera was there so he wouldn't repeat it again.

I think he also says Dada, but that is not nearly as consistent yet.

As I've said before he will repeat a lot, but then he doesn't continue with any follow up. We're just now getting some sort of follow up to the Nana and Sasa.

Yay for progress!

Tired

I'm so tired my eyes hurt. I shouldn't be this tired. I've mostly been getting full nights of sleep. The past couple nights Handsome has woken up and cried a couple times, but I didn't get out of bed any of those times. He cried enough to keep me awake and listening, but they weren't desperate calls, so I let him cry himself back to sleep.

I miss my DH. He's been so busy with his school that I've hardly seen him. He's home; he's just downstairs in the basement in his "Do Not Disturb" mode. We desperately need a date night.

A friend of mine just bought a gorgeous house and I'm jealous. It's huge and gorgeous and in a good neighborhood. The economy can bite me - and sadly it has.

So tired.

I need my Christmas vacation now please.

The art of eating a sandwich

So Handsome has had a sandwich before, but not all by himself. Yes, he's old enough he should have had one himself a long time ago, but here's the thing: we don't really have a dining room. We have a table that is on it's last leg that sits on the carpet. If I let Handsome feed himself more often my carpet would be beyond disgusting. The other option is to let him eat in the kitchen, but then either DH or I would have to stand there with him because there is not room for more than one chair. Sad, I know.

So anyway, I let him feed himself the sandwich last night. He was so excited! He tried to use both hands and the sandwich kinda folded like a taco and completely dipped underneath his mouth. But the ever persistent Handsome kept trying and ate the whole sandwich! All by himself! Anytime a crumb fell on the carpet he was sure to point to it to let me know I needed to pick it up. Oh so helpful.

My little boy is growing up.

Must. Lose. Weight.

So I saw some pictures of myself this weekend. I seriously need to lose weight. It's just so hard to find time in the day. I need to motivate myself.

My clothes are all tight, but the next size up is still too big. I guess I should be glad I haven't gone up a size, but my shape has most definitely changed. I've never been skinny, but I have always had a flat stomach. Now my stomach is not flat.. not at all.

20 pounds. I need to lose 20 pounds. The same 20 pounds I needed to lose right after Handsome was born.

Peed on my Foot

Yes, it's true. Handsome peed on my foot. I changed his diaper right before his bath and was brushing his teeth while the water in the tub warmed up. I suppose the water flowing sound worked it's magic and Handsome peed. Right on my foot. I screamed mostly because I didn't know what was happening and then Handsome started crying. Then I started laughing so he did too.

Luckily it was in the bathroom right before his bath so it was easy to clean.

Sleeping patterns

So yesterday, DH didn't wake up Handsome until 1:30pm!!! He was trying to let Handsome sleep until he woke up on his own because if you don't he's grumpy all day, but 1:30pm? And then DH cooked dinner (yay!) but didn't finish until after 9pm, so Handsome was up with us waiting for food. And then he was so full we wanted him to poop before we put him to bed because when we don't he'll wake up with it, which is not good. So we waited, and waited.... He never did and I gave up around 11pm. 11!! He's never been up that late. Poor little guy was so tired.

I put him in his new comfy pajamas, and he finally got to sleep. I wonder what time he'll be up today.

Molars

Handsome is getting his molars. All his teeth seem to be coming in at once. He just got his canines on the bottom, and now two molars on the top (one on each side) have cut through. You can see all the slots between that are red and kinda raised. They are coming soon. He's been sleeping ALL the time, so now I know why.

Book Meme

Thanks to J.C. for tagging me!

The rules: Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal/blog along with these instructions. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST. Tag five other people to do the same.

Lord of the Flies - William Golding
"Here the littluns who had run after him caught up with him. They talked, cried out unintelligibly, lugged him toward the trees. Then, amid the roar of bees in the afternoon sunlight, Simon found fo them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands. When he had satisfied them he paused and looked round. The littluns watched him insrutably over double handfuls of ripe fruit."

I'm reading this book in attempt to read all the classics that I didn't read back in highschool. It's good so far.

I didn't tag anyone because I'm kinda assuming everyone I know who blogs has already been tagged. If you haven't played along yet, I tag you!!