Plagiarism...

This is from http://www.scarymommy.com/when-assholes-criticize-public-breastfeeding . I've been in a pregnancy/lactating "coma" since August of 2011, so I'm not witty enough to come up with these replies on my own. I can't wait until April Mary starts lactating because I'm sure that she will be great at throwing these comebacks out there to stun those "assholes." 

I couldn't copy and paste it, but it was too funny not to share, so I took screen shots. All my breastfeeding sisters, friends, and cousins should memorize these :)

Better late than never...

About 2 days after Audrey was born, a friend (Alison) was bringing dinner over for our family. She got stuck in the snow piled up at the end of our driveway. 

Now you have to understand that this winter was brutal. It snowed almost every day for months, which means that we had to shovel our driveway every day for months. The snow piles were taller than me. In the back yard, you could literally step off the snow pile and onto our roof. In the front yard, you could use the snow piles as small sledding hills. We shovelled a lot of snow this winter. 

Then, to make matters worse, the plows would come by every day to two to clear the roads and push all the snow from the corner of the road to our driveway into the entrance of our driveway, making a nice solid packed ridge of snow at the end and meaning that we also had to shovel a good 10 feet of road if we ever wanted to leave our house. 

On this particular day I was out of commission with a new baby, so Eric and Jenna had shovelled our driveway once, including the strip of road, but couldn't get the few inches of ice buildup off the base. Then, it snowed again, putting about two inches of snow on top of the two inches of ice. A few hours later, the plow came by to replace that solid ridge of snow at the end of our drive. 

When Allison came by with some delicious Dominican food for our dinner, she (predictably) got stuck in the sludge pile and couldn't get into our driveway. As my mom was pushing her car back into the road, a green plow truck turned onto our street. He asked if they needed help and then proceeded to plow our whole driveway for us, including the mountain range on the road. 

I was very grateful for this kind-hearted stranger. Over the next few days, I recognized the green plow truck driving by and realized it lived just down the street. I decided that I should say thank you to him for his kindness. I baked some banana bread a few weeks later with every intention of bringing  it over there, but then I chickened out because I thought I'd look like a crazy lady, so we ate the banana bread ourselves. 

About two months ago, Katie posted a recipe for banana blueberry bread, so I made some of that. I made two batches (one with blueberries and one with nuts) and baked two mini-loaves and two regular loaves. Then, I wrapped, labeled, and put the mini-loaves into a basket with a "thank-you" card, ready to deliver to the guy that drives the green truck. Then, I waited for him to come home. This green truck has been parked on the road a few houses down almost every night since January, but it didn't show up once for the next three days! On the third day, I was in charge of bringing dinner to Allison because she finally had her beautiful baby girl. So, I switched out the card and brought the mini-loaves there for their breakfast the next day. 

After that, I became a creepy stalker. I looked out the window multiple times a day to check if that green truck was home. Finally, it was parked in front of the house one day. I took the opportunity to count exactly how many houses down it was and lock it into my memory. This way, even if the truck wasn't in front of the house, I would still know where to bring it. Then, I got to work. I didn't feel like chopping nuts, so instead I made chocolate chip in one batch. When the bread was ready at 10:30pm, I asked Eric if I was allowed to bring it there right then or if that would be too creepy. He said that I should wait until morning. 

The next morning... the truck was gone. After church, I glanced up from our lunch and noticed a green flash drive by our house. I quickly got John out of his high chair, put our shoes on, grabbed the bread basket, and headed out for a walk. No truck in front of the house. We went anyway because I knew which house it was now. When we got there, I saw the truck parked in the garage and the driver cleaning something. John walked up and said hi and we FINALLY delivered a proper thank you to the guy that plowed our driveway five months ago. 

Here's photographic evidence of all the banana bread we've eaten due to this venture: 

Yup...the bread is sitting on the couch right by the window in the last picture because I was sitting there watching out the window for him to come home. That's right. 

Language

Yesterday at dinner John said "Sea-salt pease" when he was asking for the salt. I was amazed. How did he know it was sea-salt and not just regular salt? I didn't teach him that. Maybe he read it!

Today, I figured out where he got that. All day, he would preface each word with the initial sound and a long e. For example: 

Chair=che-chair

Sam=see-sam

Bus=be-bus (I started beat boxing once or twice when he said this one) 

potty=pee-potty

juice=gee-juice

You get the picture. As my English, Language Arts, Communications, and TESOL degrees all testify, I love language and especially studying how one aquires a language (first or second). For this reason, I have been having a blast observing as John aquires the English language. He's already noticing the onset of words! Maybe I should try to teach him his letters already; this new stage seems to lend itself perfectly to such a task. That's easier said than done though. 

Every time we go down to Indiana and he spends time with his cousin Anna, he comes back with some new aspect of language. I love it. His little brain is like a sponge right now, soaking up all of this information. I am just amazed at how much he can process. 

I've also been taking advantage of this stage by trying to incorporate a bit of espanol into our daily communication. He only uses a few phrases without prompting (te amo, agua); however, lately he's been responding (in English) to the questions that I ask him in Spanish. When I asked him "Que haces?" he replied with "Drive" (he was driving his car around). When I asked "donde esta el coche?" he said "hiding" (it was parked under the couch). I'm not sure if he understands what I'm asking or if he's just good at reading context cues and inflections. Either way, I'm going to try to keep it up. 

My other little language learner is Audrey. She's not learning words, syntax, semantics, or whole languages yet, but she is definitely finding her voice and exploring sounds. Her raspy laughs and high-pitch squeals are oh-so joyful. Her other new thing is completely unrelated to language. She is trying to move all the time. While laying on her belly, she can turn in circles, push herself backward, wiggle and kick, get up on her knees to rock, and do mini-pushups. Right now she is staring at me giggling and alternating between mini-pushups and sticking her bum up in the air and kicking her feet out while her whole body jolts back and forth. Not much actual forward motion, but she is getting there! Eric says she is moments away from crawling.

Here is a quick video of Audrey right now (she started to get frustrated as soon as I started filming her):

http://youtu.be/klRuJxXxwso

And here is a nice long 10-minute view of my kids talking to themselves from earlier this evening:

http://youtu.be/hDdIUJpbYWM