Huffington Post review of the speech

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
"The American Promise"
Democratic National Convention
August 28, 2008
Denver, Colorado

As prepared for delivery

----

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation;

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.
.
Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest - a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours -- Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia - I love you so much, and I'm so proud of all of you.

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story - of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

It is that promise that has always set this country apart - that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

That's why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors -- found the courage to keep it alive.

We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land - enough! This moment - this election - is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough."

Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and respect. And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on health care and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.

We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was President - when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.

We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honors the dignity of work.

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great - a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.

Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.

What is that promise?

It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now. So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President.
.
Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last thirty years, and John McCain has been there for twenty-six of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

America, now is not the time for small plans.

Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American - if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect Social Security for future generations.

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime - by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy.

And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F. Kennedy called our "intellectual and moral strength." Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents; that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility - that's the essence of America's promise.

And just as we keep our keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we're wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That's not the judgment we need. That won't keep America safe. We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice - but it is not the change we need.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans -- Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose - our sense of higher purpose. And that's what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America's promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

And you know what - it's worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming. Because I've seen it. Because I've lived it. I've seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more families from welfare to work. I've seen it in Washington, when we worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.

And I've seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never thought they'd pick up a Democratic ballot, but did. I've seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours - a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.

Well, Julian is about the same, but Adrian is WAY easier, and when Adrian is not working my every last shredded nerve, then Julian is fairly easy to handle.

The big difference? Communication. Adrian can suddenly COMMUNICATE. Not like he's speaking in full sentences or anything, but he really gets his point across. I want it, I don't want it, I prefer the other one, I'm thirsty, I'm hungry, I have to go potty, I'm tired, I dropped my toy on the floor and need you to help me get it, I want to show you something, look at this, come here, that is Daddy's shoe, that is Mommy's bag, I like that ball, etc.

Adrian uses a combination of sign language and speaking and gestures, and it's pretty awesome. Before, he would scream to indicate no, or scream with frustration we weren't understanding him. Also, his own comprehension was not nearly as good. Now he really understands what we say to him, and is generally cooperative.

He has quite the large vocabulary at this point. When he's sitting on his potty we read books (which he asks for by saying "eh?" and making the sign for "book"), and his favorites are word and picture and ABC books. I will ask him, "Where is the LION?" or "Where is the HELICOPTER?" and he almost always points to the right image. There are hundreds of pictures in the books we have, so he knows a ton of words by now. Very impressive for an 18 month old.

He doesn't *say* too many actual words verbally, not identifiable ones anyways. There's Mommy, Daddy, and Doggie. Let's see what others I can think of off the top of my head:
Eat, Drink (dink!), Yes , No, I Want That, Baby, Door

Door is the newest one. He points to a door and says it. Kind of random that he would pick that word, but there it is. There could be many other words that he's saying, but because he natters on a lot and it's all kind of jumbled up, it's hard to catch them sometimes. But his gestures and intonations are all spot on.

He likes to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle" to himself with the following lyrics:
"Mommy, Daddy, Doggie, Mom...Daddy, Doggie, Mommy, Mom"
Incredibly cute. He's very musical, that baby boy.

Adrian still has no name for himself, and no name for Julian. He was very excited looking at a family portrait of the four of us today, and I pointed to each person and asked him who they were. Mommy, Daddy, no problem. Pointed to him...silence. I know he can say "Baby", so I suggested that, but he didn't repeat it. Silence when I pointed to Julian as well. "Julian" is hard to say, so I suggested "Juju", but he wasn't repeating that either. We'll see what he comes up with.

Less screaming and more conversing makes for a much more relaxed parenting experience, and a happier household overall. Adrian has his 2-year molars coming in , and they are hurting him, but overall he's still very happy and smiley and quite witty too. He has suddenly become ticklish, and loves to be tickled under his arms and in the crook of his neck. He cracks himself up by farting.

Julian is moving along to his next developmental phase quickly too. Today we were listening to Cachao in the car on the way to IKEA for lunch. Cachao was a Cuban guy known as the inventor of the mambo, and the music is mostly old-school Afro-Cuban jams that get your booty shaking.

As soon as I put the CD on, Julian said, "Oh, I LIKE this CD." Then he thought for a moment and asked me, "Is this music African?" I was surprised and said, "Well, actually it IS African. It's Cuban, and Cuban music is a lot like African music, even though they sing in Spanish." I wasn't really sure how to describe it simply enough, but I think he understood.

I asked him how he knew the music was African and he said he wasn't sure, he just knew. He usually says at least one thing a day that surprises me...uses a complicated word in correct context, or discusses a subject in a very sophisticated, aware way. He' s still very small for his age, which makes it all a bit more surprising when he talks like such a big boy. And then he'll completely melt down over some tiny thing and all of a sudden it's like he's a 2 year-old again. Such an age of extreme behavior.

There has been a burst in helpfulness too. All of a sudden he can dress himself and put on his shoes and socks, and pick up toys and books and put them away. He doesn't LOVE picking things up and putting them away (yeah, me neither), but he's helpful if I stay on top of him and guide him gently to what needs to be done next. He likes to help me make applesauce, and can do every part of the apple peeling/coring process with my peeling/coring machine, except actually putting the apples on the prongs, because the prongs are sharp, and because the apple has to be perfectly aligned on them. But otherwise? He does it all, and I just throw the resulting apple slinkies in the kettle, season them with lemon juice and cinnamon sticks, stir, and wait. We're a Badass Applesauce-making Team.

At other times there is just zero focus, of course. It's surprising what he can do when he is motivated, and how little he can do when he is just not in the mood.

Dan took Adrian and Bugs for a walk last week and Julian stayed home to help me with some gardening. He was supposed to pick cherry tomatoes, but he lost interest after about two minutes. Granted, he had been at summer camp most of the day and was a little tired, but he likes to pick fruit, so I was surprised when he said he was done so quickly.

I asked him if he wanted to pick beans instead and he said "OK". But no sooner had I walked back over to the place where I was planting chard than he was done with that task too. "Mommy, I'm DONE. My feet are tired of standing up and picking these beans." Instead he wanted to help me dig holes for the chard, but then when I set him on that task he wanted to punch holes in the drip irrigation system. Whatever he thought he wanted do to, it only lasted a minute before he wanted to move on to something else.

I teased him that he wasn't a very good farm boy, since a real farm boy would be working from morning to night picking beans and tomatoes and milking cows and feeding chickens and lots of other things besides.

He said, "I AM a farm boy. I AM." I asked him how he could be a farm boy when he didn't want to work for even five minutes on our little farm, and we still had to pick tomatoes and beans for our dinner. If we didn't do our little tiny bit of farm work tonight, then what would we eat?

He looked at me and said, "Mommy, don't you need to go to Trader Joe's anyway? While you are there you can get something for dinner. Then I can be a real farm boy tomorrow when I am not so tired."

Well hmmmm, can't argue with that. Wouldn't fly on a real farm, but luckily our tomatoes and beans weren't like unmilked cows or unfed chickens...they could wait until tomorrow. The chard couldn't really wait one more day to be planted, so I finished that up quickly while Julian played (he DID have energy to play with the hose) and then we went inside.

Speaking of our little farm...

This year I didn't really till up the soil and amend it with compost like I did in past years. I just dug little pits, threw in some compost, and then mixed it up before planting something in each of the little pits.

Well, apparently that totally sucks as a farming technique. In years past my plants have grown tall and lush, and been very productive. This year? Nothing. Everything grew at a snail's pace, and then it all slowly turned yellow and started to die. EVERYTHING. Tomatoes, squash, cucumbers...the only things doing OK were peppers and basil. Not so great, but they were at least surviving.

We have been having a very mild summer (I've had on sweatshirts during the day in August), so that is one factor. I went to the nursery and a very angry chick with a lot of attitude told me that I was watering too much. I should water less.

I figured she was way off, and I was right. I upped the water to twice as much, and dosed everything with a big fat shot of Miracle Grow. No, it's not organic, but I had already given a big dose of organic fertilizer and it was doing zip. Next time I'll mix it into the soil when I am tilling, and do this thing right. But I had to give the Miracle Grow just to keep things alive.

The Miracle Grow was like Veggie Steroids. Within a day my garden was looking revitalized. A week later I had new green growth on all the plants, the few hard, unripe fruits I had were ripening, and in general everything looked about a thousand times better. Dang. Miracle Grow is the bomb.

Lessons learned this week:
1) Kids can change unbelievably fast. It truly seems to be darkest right before the dawn. Also helps to not be a raving maniac.

2) If you hit rock bottom and vent about the darkness on your blog, that seems to speed up the dawning process immensely.

3) When gardening, take the time to do things right. Prepare the soil by tilling it and adding plenty of organic matter and compost to feed the plants later on. Make sure you are giving enough water for each plant. Monitor the situation carefully and be prepared to work hard to fix things if they don't seem to be going right. Don't listen to that bitch at the info counter at Yamagami's Nursery. And finally...if all else fails and you seem to have fucked things up in spite of your best efforts, don't be afraid to use some Miracle Grow to save the day. Try harder next year.

4) Most of the above works for kids as well.

5) Keeping your cool is worth the effort. Everyone wins.

The kids have been going bonkers and being horrible, and I have had this never-ending PMS going on (two periods in a month, face a pimply mess) and I have been getting too little sleep, and I just have NOT been able to keep it together. Every time I go away from the kids I formulate extensive and detailed plans for improving my behavior, but then at the first shrill scream upon their return my nerves just shatter and I start yelling again and generally losing it.

The thing is, I totally know better. I have read many good parenting books, I know all kinds of good parenting techniques, what to do at times of less-than-stellar kid behavior, and how to preserve your relationship instead of sabotaging i.t.. but as soon as my buttons get pushed, which has been pretty much constantly, I JUST CAN'T DO THE RIGHT THING. Instead I yell, scream, swat, spank, throw kids in their room and basically feel miserably like I am going to have a heart attack at any second. OUT OF CONTROL.

All the books I have read on gentle parenting and positive discipline techniques were still sticking with me, but I have been so angry and so on edge 24/7 that I just can't get back to any kind of calm center to be able to put them into practice. I get to the point where I just don't give a fuck anymore about being a good parent, just EVERYONE LEAVE ME ALONE AND SHUT THE HELL UP. Mothering seems like a nightmare scenario that I will never escape from.

Of course, the worse I behave, the more the kids wig out and react right back. I recognized this and still couldn't stop.

Dan has been awesome when I am at my worst. He stays calm and sets a good example, talking patiently with Julian at his most whiny and annoying, distracting Adrian at his wildest and most destructive.
Then I improve a little bit and Dan falls apart. We have been alternating back and forth, each holding it together when the other loses it completely, and then switching roles.

The kids have been incredibly difficult. I don't know what's up, some kind of developmental burst or disequilibrium phase, or whatever you want to call it, but both of them have been nearly unbearable for at least a month, maybe two. No excuse for bad parenting, but they definitely pushed things to the brink. They weren't torturing small animals or anything weird like that, they were just being annoying small children. Whiny, loud, melting down constantly, demanding, beyond high-need, destructive, that kind of thing.

Mind you, I haven't been beating them senseless or locking them in cages or anything (though I did fantasize about it from time to time), but I did an awful lot of yelling, and used mean verbally abusive language, and even smacked them several times. I am embarrassed at my bad behavior and lack of control. I have bad memories of my own parents going totally nuts on me and screaming and yelling and spanking and saying nasty things, and am 100% positive that I don't want to repeat that with my own kids. I want to break that angry chain right here and now.

I very clearly remember being yelled at my my parents, and being treated poorly and unfairly. I remember being spanked by hands and then beaten with worse things when that didn't hurt anymore. I remember being scared by angry red faces with bulging eyeballs screaming right in my face. At no point did any of that help me. It just made me want t rebel against them. It made me hate them. It made me stop trusting them. It gave me an ulcer at age 9, for crying out loud. It made me want to get the hell away from them as soon as I possibly could. They were good parents in lots of other ways, but damn, they were (and still are) angry people.

Dan and I laid down a NO YELLING house rule, and that has helped us keep our cool, but we still break the rule from time to time. Still, it's better when you can at least agree that something is not OK and work towards stopping it. We told the kids that we were yelling too much and not being patient with them and talking things out, and that we were very sorry. If anyone breaks the house NO YELLING rule, then anyone else can call them on it.

I had one very bad episode where I screamed and smacked and completely lost it, and after that I was so DONE with being an angry parent, because honestly, it kills me too. It's not like I feel some great satisfaction and release when I am a Bad Mom and yell and scream and go nuts. Instead I feel like I'm going to keel over from a heart attack and brain aneurysm all at once.

Anyway, I knew I needed help, but wasn't sure where to start. A parenting crisis hotline? A therapist? I couldn't even think straight, I was in such bad shape and so stressed out, and also it's not so easy at all to admit that you absolutely SUCK as a parent.

What was my problem anyway? Maybe I should have never had kids. I said for a long time that I would never have kids. Maybe I was right, and I'm just not at all cut out for this mothering thing. I'm not patient. I like peace and quiet and lots of time to myself with a good book. I have never been a babysitter or a kindergarten teacher or a nanny or anything like that. Shit, maybe I've just made a horrible mistake.

But no...that's not it. I HAVE been a good and generous and loving mom. I DO know what to do, and I HAVE enjoyed my children, and no matter who I was before, I have stretched and grown and changed into who I have needed to be in my current role. I don't really want to just sit around with a good book 24/7 for the rest of my life, as much as I love to do that. I just don't want to be so fucking ANGRY all the time. I want to be serene again.

ANGRY. That's my problem. I'm too angry. It's not that I'm a bad mom, or not cut out for this, or that my kids are horrible...maybe momentarily in the current phase they're going through, but not overall. I just need some anger management, because it's the ANGER that is my problem.

I'm not saying that no one should ever be angry. Anger is very useful for motivating people to take action on important issues. When someone is threatening you, or taking advantage of you, opening a can of whup-ass is often useful like nothing else can be. But to be expressing anger in a toxic way, so often, with people you love, especially children...that's fucked up.

I had a moment of clarity and remembered the title of a book that was recommended on my positive parenting email list over and over again. "When Anger Hurts Your Kids". I ordered it with Express Shipping and immediately felt better, like I had figured out the problem. INABILITY TO CONTROL MY ANGER. Step back out of the infuriating moment and take in the bigger picture. Be the grown up, not the two year old.

Book Description All parents get angry sometimes, but research clearly suggests that the amount of anger expressed in the family will have a negative impact on a child's performance in nearly every important area of life. When Anger Hurts Your Kids brings together the practical lessons of a two-year study of 285 parents. You'll learn how to tell if your family has anger problems, how to combat the 18 mistaken beliefs that fuel anger, and how to practice the art of problem-solving communication-skills that will let you feel more effective as a parent and let your kids grow up free of anger's damaging effects.

That just about nails it on the head. Anger is the #1 Beast that I must do battle with.

The book is good so far. The research is frightening (most parents are angry, and kids of angry parents tend to be depressed, less empathetic to the pain of others, do worse academically, commit more crimes, abuse drugs and alcohol, are more violent and abusive to their children and spouses, and so on). I'm not really to the solutions part (I haven't been able to read an entire book in over 18 months, remember?), but so far I am sold on the messaging.

One part that I liked was this...that it is a thousand times better to say "You are making me very angry right now by doing X when I asked you not to. It's time to go to your room until you can stop doing that" than to say, for example "Goddamn it, you stupid brat! I told you to stop doing that! Can;t you do ANYTHING right? Go to your room!" So right off the bat, the expectation is not that you be a saint or be *without* anger, just that you begin to express it appropriately and without verbal abuse attached.

Things have eased up on the home front. Adrian is being a little less destructive and the decibel volume has gone down slightly. He can also suddenly nod for "Yes" and shake his head for "No", and that, my friends, makes life with him so much easier, it's amazing. He has been great at signing and other communication, but his way of saying NO to something until just this week was to scream and cry and act like the end of the world had just arrived. So let's hear it for the boy.....WOOHOO!

Julian is still being super-whiny, but when he's not whiny, he's just fine. Yesterday he helped me with housework for almost an hour straight, folding laundry and putting it away, which was very sweet and much appreciated.

Even Adrian got into the housework act and had a little sponge and spray bottle to "help" me clean the bathroom. Yes, that "help" is in italics, because he made a pretty big mess, but he was cute anyways.

Also, BOTH KIDS SLEPT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT LAST NIGHT. This is rarer than Haley's Comet. I am still in shock. I think they were both so tired from being sick, and now that they feel better they just sacked out. Adrian did wake up briefly for just a minute, but he didn't even scream and cry for milk like he usually does. He just snuggled in closer, put his arms around me, gave a big sigh of happiness and went back to sleep. Whoa.

I think my Super PMS might be easing up as well. My face sort of cleared up a little, and I stopped bleeding. That's *something*, at least.

And I'm back to taking a deep breath and working on my calm, patient response to Kid Insanity when it arises. When I can be calm, they can usually be calm too, and we don't escalate things into the Bad Place.

Julian was flipping out the other afternoon and started pushing my buttons. I stayed calm (though it was a struggle), poured him a cool drink, a snack, put it on a tray, started up a story CD on his CD player, and told him he had had a long day and needed some quiet time to relax in his room. I didn't THROW him in his room, I helped him relax. I gave him a tool to fix himself when he felt out of control. Yes!

He fought me at first, but then he agreed that he felt tired and crabby. And then the other day after he got home from a long day at summer camp, he actually told me, "Mama, I had a long day at summer camp. I need some quiet time in my room. Can you make a snack for me and give me a cold drink please?"

High five to J! High five to me! When he felt better and more calmed down, he came out. He could rely on me to help him when he felt bad, instead of me just making him feel worse.

I think I'm on a roll. FAR from perfect, but hopefully getting back to a good place. I want to enjoy my kids again and not see them as a burden to endure until they leave. I don't want to be angry anymore. I know I will be from time to time, but I don't want to lash out and get nasty anymore. I want to be playful and calm and helpful and have my kids know that they can depend on me to show them what to do with difficult emotions, instead of getting medieval on their asses.

Because how can I tell them that yelling and hitting are wrong and then do it myself? How can I teach them effective methods of dealing with their own anger and sadness and frustration in life, when I am modeling exactly the opposite? I can't. I just can't. It doesn't make sense.

Hard work ahead. Parenting is no job for sissies.

Adrian was getting better from his flu, and then all of a sudden he took a big turn for the worse, with goopy green eyes and nose. That was right about the time that he stopped sleeping. Two nights in a row of sleeplessness, where he only slept for half an hour at a time, and then not at all after 3:00am. A 15 minute nap on both days. Crying all the time.

Julian was waking up every few hours screaming and crying and coughing, usually just when I had managed to get Adrian back to sleep.

This is the very definition of misery, when your kids stop sleeping, cry endlessly, and you don't feel so hot yourself.

On the second night of Adrian's not sleeping, he was crying "MOMMMEEEE!!!!" and I asked him "Baby, what's wrong, can you tell me?" This time he pointed to his ear and made the sign for "hurt". Aha! An ear infection!

Next morning I had the kids in to the pediatrician first thing. Unfortunately by the time I got them out of there, got the prescription picked up, and ran all the other errands I had to do, I was feeling pretty damn sick myself and it was too late to see anyone.

It was late Friday afternoon (of course...I ONLY get sick on Fridays after the doctor's office closes). Super sore throat and one completely blocked nostril, accompanied by a burning fire in my left sinus. Since my last sinus infection was so bad I thought I was going to die, I was a little panicky about the prospect of developing a sinus infection late on a Friday afternoon, and so far it hasn't been fun.

Yesterday I got out my Neti Pot and gave my sinuses a good cleansing. I normally do it just once on either side, but my left sinus was still blocked after I poured a whole pot through it, so I just kept going.

Green goo kept coming out, little by little, and then after the third pot I blew my nose hard into the sink and this....this....THING shot out of my left nostril. It was at least an inch long, and about half an inch wide, and the very first thing I thought when I saw it was that I had just had a miscarriage out my nose. It was a total meat purse. I am absolutely kicking myself for not taking a picture of it, because it was so utterly weird and unbelievable, but I was a little too freaked out at the time to think clearly.

I grabbed it and started dissecting it with my fingers. It had this meaty sort of tough core, and flecks of blood in it. I'm pretty sure it was just layers of dried up mucus that had piled up to form a stalagtite of sorts in my sinus, but Jesus Christ, it was odd. Odd and HUGE and more than a little bit creepy.

I could instantly breathe clearly on that side after it came out. No shit, huh? I can't believe that was inside my head. No wonder I felt crappy. The other side was still kind of blocked, so I kept washing and washing it out with a few more Neti pots full of saline, but nothing else came out except a little more green goo.

I still felt sick last night, but my throat was not as sore today, and I *think* my sinuses might be improving. I don't feel worse, and that's a good thing.

So what I'm wondering is...if you have a giant freaky Snot Clot up in your sinuses like that, and you take antibiotics, that might kill the bacteria, but what happens to that creepy creature? Does it just break up and come out on its own? It just seems odd that a doctor wouldn't try to wash things out somehow and get the blockage out of your sinuses in the first place, if the blockage is what's causing the infection. Or is that what ENTs do?

Maybe I never did get the Snot Clot cleared out after prior infections, and that's why, after NEVER having had a sinus infection in my life despite hayfever, colds, flu and even about of double pneumonia, I have suddenly started getting them in the past two years after every little cold and flu, even mild ones. In that case, I'm freaking THRILLED to have gotten that monster out of my sinuses. I'm thrilled anyway, but even more so if it has possibly been the root of all the sinus evil I have had over the past two years. From the looks of it, this thing had been up there a long time. It practically had hair and teeth.

We'll see how things go...my fingers are crossed for improved health and LOTS more sleep for everyone.

Her caption: "i've realized that, really, the only time i'm not clenching my teeth is when i'm yelling. because even if one of the kids is actually being good, that means another one is not...
p.s. if you tilt your head, the drawing on the right is also what i look like when i'm sleeping."

I have been utterly amiss in updating this blog for the past month. Not because nothing is happening...au contraire, mes chers amis, au-fucking-contraire.

I don't even know where to begin, except to say that I have been struggling mightily with motherhood, and work, but mostly with motherhood.

The total, complete and utter loss of Me Time and Personal Space is hard to deal with. I have not read a book since Adrian was born, 18 months ago. This is a new world record for me, the Bookworm.

The constant noise is hard to deal with. Screaming and whining are hard to deal with.

Having my body parts constantly yanked, bonked, pulled, pinched, slapped, tapped and suckled on is a challenge.

Lack of sleep is a big one. Especially when you are awakened by someone headbutting you and screaming in your ear...."MOOOOMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEE!"

Fighting and arguing and one kid pushing/hitting/pinching another...not fun.

Never being in any public space without being on Red Fucking Alert that a big screamfest might be coming along any moment.

Broken, tattered, chewed, smashed, drawn on with crayon....all possibilities for my cherished personal items.

Yesterday Adrian broke the rear windshield wiper off my car. Just reached up, grabbed it, and yanked it off. Today he smashed a huge mug of sweet tea all over the bathroom, and then, an hour later, smashed a freshly prepared plate of lunch for Julian all over the kitchen floor. He was on my back and reached out and grabbed it with his FOOT, people.

It used to be that people thought I was 5-6 years younger than my actual age. Now? I don't know, but I feel about 90. I look in the mirror and see a haggard, stressed out person looking back at me. Where did all those wrinkles and lines come from?

It's not just stress and lack of sleep, and yelling. It's falling asleep while laying down with the baby, without washing your face or brushing your teeth. It's about being too tired to moisturize. It's about being forgetting to put on sunscreen before leaving the house for the day. It's about not having time to drive up to San Francisco to see my dermatologist, and hoping that I don't have a malignant melanoma festering away on my back in the meantime.

Obviously, it's not just me who feels this way. Tina's in the thick of it too. She's got THREE kids, for god's sake.

And how about THIS woman, who just gave birth to her EIGHTEENTH child?

Here she is with 13 of her 18 kids. They look happy enough. But that poor woman is only FORTY-FOUR YEARS OLD. She looks at least sixty-five.

It will get better, I know. The kids will grow up and get older and won't be so high-need, and I'll have time to read books and put on moisturizer and sleep more than 4 hours at a stretch. The pinching and screaming will stop. The whining will die down.

And don't get me wrong, it's not all bad. My kids are super-cute and *generally* well-behaved, it's just that they are small children, and small children? I'm starting to think that I don't like them all that much, you know?

Julian's starting to come out of it at 4.5yo. Most of the time we get along just fine, although he is maddening us at the moment by refusing to eat anything, and weeping/wailing/whining semi-continuously.

Adrian is 18 months, and he is a cross between a hurricane, the Tasmanian Devil, and a jet plane taking off next to your head. Good thing he's adorable when he's not breaking my plates, or my eardrums.

At this particular moment in time, each day is a long, hard slog of sheer endurance to the bedtime finish line, punctuated by moments of cuteness, comedy, and pure love.

Only four more years until they're both in school. Yes!

Check out the video, it's very cute, and interesting too:

This brings back memories of my own biker chick past, and the ridiculous amounts of cargo that I would routinely load on my motorcycle. Being San Francisco and all, it would have been impossible to tote cargo of any sort up and down all those hills on a bicycle. I could barely get myself up and down them, and I was a very young woman in good physical shape. A motorcycle was much better. Less sweaty, and infinitely cooler and more badass.

I'm not toting anything here in the photo below, just looking good riding around with my friend Margie at age 19 or so. Note that this was way back before the helmet law was enacted here in California, though I did wear mine 95% of the time anyway. This photo is also great because you can check out my rack...the one on the back of my motorcycle, that is.

In this next photo from around 1991, I am up in the hills to the west of Silicon Valley, on Skyline...Hwy 35. Headed off on a camping trip with my then-boyfriend Andy, I think this camping trip was to Big Basin.

On this trip I was riding on back, so as packed as this bike appears to be with one person, it actually had two people on it while we were underway. It's not so much gear, relatively speaking, because this was just a weekend trip. On a later month-long trip across and around the American West (over to Utah, up to Montana, back through Washington and Oregon) we had a TON of stuff packed onto every available surface of that bike. We had tank bags, we had cargo nets and bungee cords. Here you can see the tent packed onto the fender, but on the big trip we had like 5 times as much stuff strapped onto it. Craziness. But it was a FABULOUS trip.

This next photo was taken in 2001. My friend Julie Call and I were working at eCompany in San Francisco at the height of the Dot-com Era. She had just gotten a bike, so I took her on her first bike camping trip to Harbin Hot Springs up in Middle town, north of Napa. It was fun...we took this photo on the way back, after stopping for lunch in Napa Valley. I had a Honda Nighthawk 650 then....that was a sweet ride. Very smooth, silky and comfortable to ride, quiet and powerful.

Julie has THREE KIDS now, all under age 4. Fuck. I get cold sweats just thinking about it, as I am on the brink of insanity with my two.

Right now I am seriously interested in the Rhoades Car, specifically the four-seater model with a shade canopy and locking cargo trunk. Minus the rotating sign on top. Yes, THAT'S where you have seen these before. But they are still cool.

Here are a few of the other Rhoades models in action.

I could totally see myself commuting back and forth to preschool and the gym in this beauty. Not quite as badass as being a biker chick, but hey...a suburban work-at-home mom with two kids has to work her cargo bike whatever way she can. And Dan has his own seat!

$5000 with all the options I want though. Not going to happen anytime soon, unless my Portable Baby empire takes off big-time. Sigh. But I can dream.

Height is 32.5 inches
Weight is 27lbs. 14 ozs.
Head circumference is 51cm

Why do they mix inches and centimeters? Weird.

Anyway, that is around 75th percentile for height and weight, and 95th percentile for head circumference.

Our boy's not as huge as he used to be (he was at 95th percentile in all categories at last measurement), but he's still pretty big.

About this movie...
http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/more.php

UPDATE: I am NOT REALLY VOTING REPUBLICAN! I almost gave my mom a heart attack with this subject line before she actually watched the video. Rest assured, I never have, am not going to now, and likely will NEVER vote Republican. Just watch the video, people.

Today food travels an average of 1500 miles from farm to table. The process of machine-planting, fertilizing, processing, packaging, and transporting food uses a great deal of energy and contributes to the cause of global warming. I try to purchase locally through farmer's markets, and through organic food delivery services like Spud that offer local food sources, but even when I can reduce the average distance traveled per grocery item to 350 miles (like I did on my last Spud order), well, that's still 350 miles. Not exactly a short drive.

If I eat from my garden, that's 0 miles traveled. Plus hey, the veggies and fruit from my garden are much fresher. I know what went onto them, I know who has handled them, and I know what kind of soil they grew in. Especially comforting these days when salad tomatoes are contaminated with salmonella.

Not to mention, food and food packaging waste are primary components of landfills. Growing your own food involves no shopping bags, no plastic wrap, no packaging...and any food waste leftover can go straight into your compost pile. Because you DO have a compost, pile, right? Another super-easy project that pays off handsomely and makes a huge difference in your waste footprint. Brown gold, baby!

Here's what we're growing in our garden this year:
Figs
Strawberries
Melons
Zucchini
Round Summer Squash
Buddha's Hand (a non-edible citrus, used for scenting the house)
Globe Artichokes
Meyer Lemon
3 types of Tomatoes
Basil
4 types of Peppers
Corn
Red and Green Shiso (a type of japanese green)
Chard
Violetta Artichokes
Mixed Salad Greens
Pole Beans
Lemon Balm
Beets
Pumpkins
Santa Maria Plums
Apples

It was kind of a chore tilling the soil in my garden this year, but not THAT bad...just a few hours and then it was over. My veggie garden used to be a side lawn, but I had the lawn taken out and lots of soil and compost tilled in a few years back. Cost me about $450, and I had a drip watering system installed at the same time.

So now in the springtime I just push my shovel in at each spot next to a spout in my irrigation system, turn over the soil there, hack at it with my shovel a few times to mix up the soil, dump a little new compost in the hole, and stick the plant in.

Once I'm all done, I cover the area with mulch, water well, and that's it. I go in about once a week to do a little light weeding, I put tomato cages over the tomatoes, and supports around the beans. Other than that, I don't do much except harvest.

Julian helps me with plum picking, and we make plum butter (like jam, but thicker and not as sweet) and put that up in jars to eat the rest of the year on toast and in yogurt. Ideally I would like to grow enough to preserve other fruits and veggies for year-round eating, but with Adrian being so little, my time is kind of limited. He's too little to help, and wants to be inside the garden fence with me. Maybe next year I'll really kick things up, grow more and start canning my own tomatoes, making pickles, etc. The kids LOVE the garden. Picking a strawberry and popping it in their mouths totally sweet and warm from the sun is heaven for both of them.

I do have to brag that the applesauce from our mini apples is the sweetest and most flavorful you will ever taste. The regular jarred stuff has nothing in common, it's all watered down and yucky.

Here are some interesting links to Food Not Lawns, Edible Estates, and an effort in San Francisco to revive the Victory Garden.
http://www.revivevictorygarden.org/resources.html

Dan sent me this NYT article today. I'll try to post some of our garden photos in the next few days...

Banking on Gardening
By MARIAN BURROS
June 11, 2008

CASSANDRA FEELEY prefers organic ingredients, especially for her baby, but she finds it hard to manage on her husband’s salary as an Army sergeant. So this year she did something she has wanted to do for a long time: she planted vegetables in her yard to save money.

“One organic cucumber is $3 and I can produce it for pennies,” she said.

For her first garden, Ms. Feeley has gone whole hog, hand-tilling a quarter acre in the backyard of her house near the Fort Campbell Army base in Kentucky. She has put in 15 tomato plants, five rows of corn, potatoes, cucumbers, squash, okra, peas, watermelon, green beans. An old barn on the property has been converted to a chicken coop, its residents arriving next month; the goats will be arriving next year.

“I spent $100 on it and I know I will save at least $75 a month on food,” she said.

She is one of the growing number of Americans who, driven by higher grocery costs and a stumbling economy, have taken up vegetable gardening for the first time. Others have increased the size of their existing gardens.

Seed companies and garden shops say that not since the rampant inflation of the 1970s has there been such an uptick in interest in growing food at home. Space in community gardens across the country has been sold out for several months. In Austin, Tex., some of the gardens have a three-year waiting list.

George C. Ball Jr., owner of the W. Atlee Burpee Company, said sales of vegetable and herb seeds and plants are up by 40 percent over last year, double the annual growth for the last five years. “You don’t see this kind of thing but once in a career,” he said. Mr. Ball offers half a dozen reasons for the phenomenon, some of which have been building for the last few years, like taste, health and food safety, plus concern, especially among young people, about global warming.

But, Mr. Ball said, “The big one is the price spike.” The striking rise in the cost of staples like bread and milk has been accompanied by increases in the price of fruits and vegetables.

“Food prices have spiked because of fuel prices and they redounded to the benefit of the garden,” Mr. Ball said. “People are driving less, taking fewer vacations, so there is more time to garden.”

Each spring for the last five years, the Garden Writers Association has had TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, a polling firm, conduct a national consumer telephone survey asking gardeners what makes up the greatest share of their garden budgets. “The historic priorities are lawns, annuals, perennials, then vegetables, followed by trees and shrubs,” said Robert LaGasse, executive director of the association. This year, vegetables went from fourth place to second, which Mr. LaGasse called “an enormous attitude shift.”

People like Rita Gartin of Ames, Iowa, are part of that shift. Last year she kept a small garden. This year it has tripled in size into a five-by-seven-foot plot because, Ms. Gartin said, “The cost of everything is going up and I was looking to lose a few pounds, too; so it’s a win-win situation all around.”

Ms. Gartin, who fits gardening into her 12-hour workday as an interior designer and property manager, is not intimidated by the 20 kinds of vegetables she has planted: she was raised on a farm with a giant garden. A fence has been erected to keep the deer and people out, and it’s where the pole beans and snap peas are already climbing.

She is ready to take a stab at canning, but reserves the right to freeze everything instead, she said.

“I probably spent maybe $50 for everything and that’s less than a week’s cost of groceries or the price of a gym,” she said.

Seed companies and garden centers say they didn’t see the rush coming. There wasn’t any buildup last year, said Barbara Melera, the co-owner of the D. Landreth Seed Company in New Freedom, Pa., who takes the pulse of gardeners at the 13 garden shows she attends around the country each year.

“We pack for all the shows and bring 16 different beans, 10 packets for each kind,” Ms. Melera said. In earlier years, by the time the shows end in March, she said, “we are lucky if we have sold two of the 10 packets.”

“This year,” she said, “we sold out the first show and literally sold hundreds. We never sell any corn; this year we sold out of corn by the end of the season. We saw the same thing in the mail order business.”

She said the greatest demand was for what she calls “survival vegetables”: peas, beans, corn, beets, carrots, broccoli, kale, spinach and the lettuces. “It was so different from what it has been in prior years,” she added.

Randy Martell, one of the owners of the Garden Factory in Rochester, says it isn’t just vegetables. “The potted fruit trees were sold out by the first week of May,” he said. “Blueberries, raspberries and grapes are sold out. I think those sales have doubled. Overall sales are up about 30 percent.”

Dottie Wright, greenhouse manager at one of the Dammann’s Lawn, Garden and Landscaping Centers in Indianapolis, said she talks to people every day who are starting their first vegetable garden. “If they don’t have a yard they try containers for tomatoes and herbs. We can’t keep the herbs in this year.”

Thrilled as gardening experts are about this phenomenon, they know that many first timers don’t have any idea how much sweat equity is involved.

“Many people I sold seeds to have never gardened before,” Ms. Melera said, “and we have to find a way to educate them so the experience is successful. They have got to be taught.”

Mr. Ball of Burpee knows some of the new gardeners won’t stick with gardening beyond the first year. “Some people can’t get with the idea of digging a hole; getting buggy, sticky and hot,” he said. “Gardening is an active hobby; it’s a commitment.”

Doreen G. Howard, a former garden editor for Woman’s Day and now a writer for The American Gardener, is one of the committed. She has had a vegetable garden for most of the last 25 years. This year she has quadrupled the size of her vegetable plot in Roscoe, Ill., because of the economy and because she thinks the quality of store-bought produce has deteriorated. Once vegetables were just 5 percent of her garden; now they are 20 percent.

“Food prices have gotten to the point where we are seeing the difference,” she said. “It’s pushing our budget and we are a two-income family. It was never a concern before.” Ms. Howard said her grocery bill for two went from $100 a week to $140 a week this year.

She has chosen many vegetables that freeze well, investing in a secondhand freezer to store the bounty. She plans to dry the herbs that grow on the back porch next to boxes of mesclun, and to make pickles from the cucumbers and raisins from the grapes — her newest addition. And she is looking forward to a cellar full of Peruvian blue potatoes.

Some of Ms. Howard’s increased harvest will also go to food pantries through an organization called Plant a Row for the Hungry, which encourages gardeners to plant extra vegetables to share with the poor.

“I’m hoping to take $20 a week off my grocery bill,” she said. This is in the low range, according to Mr. Ball, who says a $100 investment will produce $1,000 to $1,700 worth of vegetables.

Ms. Gartin, now in her second year, says gardening is worth the effort.

“I got soft calluses from hoeing and digging,” she said, adding cheerfully, “but my fingernails are still pretty — long and not chipped. I probably spent 30 hours putting the garden in, and when I’d come into the house I’d be covered in sweat. But now it’s pretty easy because of all the rain we’ve had.”

And the vegetables, she said, are “awesome.” “It’s a totally different flavor from what you buy in the store. It’s exciting to go out and pick the fruits of your labor.”

BRENTWOOD, N.Y. - A woman who awoke to her baby's cries was shocked to peer into the crib and find a foot-long snake wrapped around her 7-month-old daughter's leg.

Cari Abatemarco said she was visiting family in the Long Island town of Brentwood last week when she made the startling discovery.

"Once I lifted her up and the snake fell off of her, she stopped crying. But then I was the one crying all night," Abatemarco told Newsday. She was in town from Troy, in upstate New York.

A relative removed the hissing snake from the crib with a back scratcher, and placed it in a bucket until animal control officers arrived. The child was unharmed.

The reptile, identified as a non-venomous California king snake, didn't belong to Abatemarco's family members. Officials say they don't know where the snake came from.

The animal is being cared for at a Long Island animal shelter.

------------------------------------------------------
REASON #2
------------------------------------------------------
3-month-old Phoenix girl killed by ants during nap
Susan Carroll and Judi Villa
published in the Arizona Republic
May 20, 2003 12:00 AM

A 3-month-old girl was killed by ants while she was napping in a crib at a baby-sitter's home Monday afternoon, Phoenix police said.

The caregiver, who has not been identified, put the infant down for a nap about 1:30 p.m., police Detective Tony Morales said.

When she went to check on the little girl a half-hour later, she was covered in ants and was in "severe respiratory distress," he said.

Autumn White had "hundreds of ant bites" on her legs and her throat was swollen, Assistant Phoenix Fire Chief Bob Khan said. She was not breathing when firefighters arrived at the home near 83rd Avenue and Mohave Street.

"A child that age probably just couldn't take the venom," Morales said.

Khan said the baby may have had an allergic reaction, with the poison from the ants causing her respiratory problems.

At least 40 deaths occur annually in the United States from reactions to insect stings. A severe allergic reaction, anaphylaxis, occurs in 0.5 to 5 percent of the country's population, ccording to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Children and senior citizens are more vulnerable.

"Their resistance is less," Khan said. "They don't have the ability to recover like adults do."

Autumn was flown to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center. After the little girl died, firefighters again were dispatched to the home, where the baby-sitter was so distraught that she was taken to an emergency room for treatment.

The black ants in the baby-sitter's home were about one-eighth of an inch long and apparently crawled into the home between the carpeting and the wall, police said.

Neighbors in the new, upscale tract home development in southwest Phoenix said they started noticing more ants when daily temperatures started rising.

----------------------------------------------
REASON #3
----------------------------------------------
Our neighbor went over to a friend's house to visit, leaving her husband in charge of the kids. The older boy went to bed, but the younger one (around 18 months at the time) refused to go to sleep.

He was playing with an empty soda can and started screaming and freaking out. The father was sick of him not sleeping and sick of listening to him scream, so he put him in his room alone. The child kept screaming and would not calm down.

Finally the father went in to check on the child and found his crib full of blood. Apparently the child had cut himself on the empty can (stuck his finger in the hole, presumably) and had a fairly deep cut that was bleeding profusely.

This was passed on to me by the friend whose house the mother was visiting. The father panicked and called for the mother to come home immediately. The child had lost quite a bit of blood by that time.

I'm not sure why the father didn't notice the child's bleeding finger when he put him in his crib. Maybe it was dark?

----------------------------------------------
REASON #4
----------------------------------------------
My own baby (16mo at the time) was sleeping in his bed at around 9:30pm. I was visiting with a houseguest in the backyard, out on the porch, and heard my baby wake up and start screaming.

Having company, I was tempted to let him cry for a minute to see if he would go back to sleep, but I got up and went to him. Ninety-five percent of the time when he cries at night he either has to pee, has *just* peed in his diaper, is hot/cold, or is sick.

He had tried to crawl off the end of the bed for some reason, and had gotten wedged between the bed and a rocking chair. He wasn't hurt, but he was very scared.

Normally he stays in bed until I come to him. Occasionally he will climb over the side and get out of bed if he wakes up, then he comes to find me. He must have gotten confused in the dark and thought the end of the bed was the side. Anyway, I'm REALLY glad I went to him quickly!

Put away your books, kids, it's time for a pop quiz. When you picture the kind of car a high school boy might call a "real pussy wagon," what do you see?

A. A vintage Mustang convertible
B. A giant, hulking SUV
C. A tricked-out van with tinted windows and shag carpeting
D. A sensible, hybrid sedan that gets upward of 40 miles per gallon

Well, regardless of what your little brother thinks, ladies love that hot, hot gas mileage. A new study conducted by General Motors has found that 88 percent of women would rather meet a guy with a fuel-efficient vehicle than a dude with a sports car.

Besides being great news for Larry David, the report confirms something women have known all along -- namely, that men care a whole hell of a lot more about expensive, gas-guzzling cars that accelerate from zero to 60 in half a nanosecond than their potential mates ever could. (Reminds you a little bit of the whole "Does size matter debate," doesn't it?) I know I'm not the only girl out there who sees a guy in a Hummer and wonders what he's compensating for. Conventional wisdom holds that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his mother, so why should Mother Earth be any exception?
--------------------------------------------------------------
I'd love to see a study on the average penis size of a male hulking SUV driver. I'd bet $50 it's smaller than average.

In the comments for the article linked above, several guys wrote in that no woman in her right mind would choose a guy driving a Prius over a guy driving a Ferrari.

Well first of all, I have NEVER seen a man driving an expensive sports car (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lotus, and the like) who wasn't at LEAST 65 years old. I check out the drivers of those cars every single time I see one, just to try to prove my theory wrong, but so far, not once. They are solely driven by old guys sporting a spare tire, as far as I can tell.

Same with any guy driving a Corvette. They seem to all be old men who always wanted a Corvette, but couldn't afford it until they were ancient enough to look ridiculous driving one.

So given the choice between a slightly geeky young Prius driver and a fattish old guy squashed into a tiny sports car that he spent WAY too much money on, I'll take the geeky guy with good MPG, thanks very much. Any day.

I like Aston Martins and old classic Jaguars, but rarely see anyone driving one.

Full disclosure...my husband drives a Honda Civic Hybrid. Sorry ladies, he's taken.

May 24th, 2008 | BERLIN -- Authorities in southern Germany have taken custody of a 7-month-old boy after his parents posted an ad on eBay offering to sell him for one euro, or about $1.60.

Police spokesman Peter Hieber says the baby was placed in the care of youth services in the southwestern Allgaeu region.

Hieber said on Saturday that the mother told police the Internet ad was only a joke. Authorities have begun an investigation into possible child trafficking against the parents.

No offers were made for the child in the two hours and 30 minutes the ad was posted. The Internet auction site deleted the posting later.

Several people who saw the ad alerted police.

----------------------------------------
Ugh, I feel so sorry for those parents. Who doesn't feel like selling a 7-month old from time to time? I make that joke about selling my kids on eBay at least once a week. I haven't actually gone as far as to create a posting for them, but come on...child trafficking, for gods sake. Give me a break.

I would go for at least 20 Euros, but offer free shipping.

Kidding, OK? Kidding!

, originally uploaded by hanabearrr.

From left to right:
* My aunt Heidi (mother of the bride, youngest sister of my father)
* My second cousin Hana, daughter of ...
* My first cousin Anni, daughter of my father's oldest sister)
* Me, with a parasitic twin. Oops no...that's just a sleeping Adrian strapped to my back.

In back:
* My charming husband Dan
* My charming uncle Dave (married to my aunt Polly, middle sister of my father)

It was a lovely wedding, we very much enjoyed it. Got to ride a narrow-gauge train to the ceremony!

I have the feeling that if this were to happen here though, someone would be taking her to court.

----------------------------------------------------------

From Hugh Riminton
CNN International

JIANGYOU, China (CNN) -- A Chinese policewoman is being hailed as a hero after taking it upon herself to breast-feed several infants who were separated from their mothers or orphaned by China's devastating earthquake.

Police officer Jiang Xiaojuan, 29, was feeding nine babies at one point.

Officer Jiang Xiaojuan, 29, the mother of a 6-month-old boy, responded to the call of duty and the instincts of motherhood when the magnitude 7.9 quake struck on May 12.

"I am breast-feeding, so I can feed babies. I didn't think of it much," she said. "It is a mother's reaction, and a basic duty as a police officer to help."

The death toll in the earthquake jumped Thursday to more than 51,000, and more than 29,000 are missing, according to government figures. Thousands of children have been orphaned; many others have mothers who simply can't feed them.

At one point, Jiang was feeding nine babies.

"Some of the moms were injured, their fathers were dead ... five of them were orphans. They've gone away to an orphanage now," she said. Watch the officer care for babies »

She still feeds two babies, including Zhao Lyuyang, son of a woman who survived the quake but whose breast milk stopped flowing because of the traumatic conditions.

"We walked out of the mountains for a long time. I hadn't eaten in days when I got here and my milk was not enough," said that mother, Zhao Zong Jun. "She saved my baby. I thank her so much, I can't express how I feel."

Liu Rong, another mother whose breast milk stopped in the trauma, was awed by Jiang's kindness.

"I am so touched because she has her own baby, but she fed the disaster babies first," Liu said. "If she hadn't fed my son, he wouldn't have had enough to eat."

Jiang has became a celebrity, followed by local media and proclaimed on a newspaper front page as "China's Mother No. 1."

She's embarrassed by the fuss.

"I think what I did was normal," she said. "In a quake zone, many people do things for others. This was a small thing, not worth mentioning." See the quake zone »

There has been a huge outpouring of support from families who want to adopt babies orphaned by the quake. But that process takes time and there are mouths to feed.

Jiang misses her own son, who's being cared for through the emergency by in-laws in another town, but she is aware of the new connections she's made.

"I feel about these kids I fed just like my own. I have a special feeling for them. They are babies in a disaster."