It’s a girl!

There are some defining moments in a parents life…the first time eating solid food, the first steps, the first word and the first full-length movie.

Well, today, Gabey almost made it through his first movie. His Dad couldn’t believe his interest as he watched Cars with intensity. Laughing when it was funny, gasping when it was tense and parroting their words through out the movie. Now, to be honest, he didn’t make it through the entire movie, but it wasn’t because he lost interest. As it is now about 45 minutes past his bedtime, he lost the battle with sleep about 10 minutes ago. It was about 5 minutes before the movie ended.

Now, what I thought was truly adorable is that he fell asleep clutching one of his cars. He doesn’t have a Lightening McQueen car, but it is probably the car he has that closest resembles Lightening.

It was a fun time to be a parent.

In other news, the new baby and I are doing well. I’m getting very big and finding my clothing options to be extremely limited at this point, but I feel great. We did have an ultrasound at the last doctor’s appointment. They weren’t able to confirm the gender because the umbilical cord was between the legs. Sound familiar? The doc said if he were to guess, he’d say “girl”…but NOT to buy anything because he didn’t get a good look.

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Last Tuesday night my brother-in-law brought over three garbage bags full of toys that my nephew decided he had outgrown. Gabe picked through them enough to find a motorcycle that kept him happy for hours. I think he went to bed with it that night.

Wednesday morning, I dumped all three bags out on the kitchen floor to see what was in there that Gabe could have now and what was worth keeping for later. It looked a little something like this:

(Just a note to PETA and or the humane society, Tigger was never in a garbage bag.)

 If I’ve learned anything from watching cable home improvement networks, when organizing a room or project, you sort items into “zones.”  So I began separating the toys into specific zones while Gabe supervised:

In order to properly organize all the toys, the zones were laid out as follows:

Toys Gabe can have now:

Toys Gabe can have later

The “army men” zone:

I realized this zone was much too politically incorrect.  So I tossed in an Indian a Native American to represent minorities and the Yellow Power Ranger to represent women. 

As is tradition in my family, these brave men and woman will give their lives on some future independence day.  Making the ultimate sacrifice on a battlefield littered with various types of fireworks.  But their lives will not have been in vain.  Somehow, throwing firecrackers at them and tying them to bottle rockets teaches children the importance of the July 4th holiday and what it truly means to be an American. 

The Power Rangers zone minus one Yellow Power Ranger (see above):

The Jackie Chan zone (which was one of the more lonely zones):

During the process, Gabriel created his own zones.  He didn’t give too much thought them, as they were inconveniently located on my computer desk and on the dining room table.  Which was no where near the rest of the zoning project.  But his enthusiasm and attention to detail was appreciated nonetheless. 

The “cars Gabriel wants to play with right now” zone:

The Motorcycle zone:

Now, I don’t usually like to make political statements on this website (usually, I make them in person), but the undeniable brutality of action-figure-war will not be ignored.  Those of you with weak stomachs will want to skip this part…

I just read this article and I’m furious. I’ve mentioned several times on my blog, my views on child molestation and the consequences. If it were up to me, child molesters would NEVER walk the streets again once convicted. It isn’t that I have no mercy for child molesters. I do and I think their best chance of being “cured” is God. It has often been said that the best place to find God is in “lock-up”. So, we are actually doing them a favor…but the real issue is that we cannot take a risk with the innocense of our children. We cannot risk that these offenders won’t commit these acts again. For even the most resiliant of children, these unthinkable acts will change them in ways that may never be mended. I don’t want my children at risk, do you?

So, how is this even justifiable? A judge is going to let a convicted child molester free because the trial went to court 10 days later than the six-month speedy-trial deadline. Never mind the fact that he’s all ready been convicted of one count of sexual assault and has only served 2 of his 7.5 year sentence. Which is all ready a lean sentence when a friend entrusts her 11-year old child to do some chores for you to earn money for art supplies and you decide that those chores should be sex acts.

I was watching a children’s show called “Johnny and the Sprites”. It is a show that I enjoy more than my son actually does because John Tartaglia is goofy and he makes me happy. This particular episode was about rules. The sprites were arguing constantly and Johnny soon realized that they had no rules nor did they know what rules were. So, he taught them about rules then off they went and soon it was complete chaos because they had so many rules. In the end he had to teach them that rules were good but only if they made sense for everyone and there weren’t too many of them.

Does it make sense to have a rule that puts children in danger?