...with my mind on my babies and my babies on my mind.

"You're so laid back." 

"You're so relaxed."

I keep getting comments like these in relation to my mothering, and I just can't seem to take them as a compliment. 

Do they mean:

"Your holey-crotched yoga pants evoke a confident ease." or

"The way you put your greasy mop back in the same ponytail every day shows a true laissez-faire approach to hair care" or more likely,

"Watching you let those babies cry as you pee/shove a meal down your gullet/scratch your ass shows you've developed a truly casual parenting style."

I'm sure that's overthinking it a bit, but I just wonder what people mean exactly.  I don't notice that other moms are super hyper (Well, not all moms anyway).  I'm generally a laid back person in a lot of respects.  And I've discovered that babies cry.  Sometimes they're crying for a reason, but sometimes they're just crying because they don't know what else to do with their bountiful spare time. 

Also, I really subscribe to the theory that if I stay calm, the babies will too.  We keep a fairly quiet house.  The tv is low when it's on.  We don't yell much (ever) and I think (hope) that this will result in chill kids who don't need to shriek to be heard.  But now that I've been getting this comment so much, I wonder if I'm TOO relaxed.  Should I be rushing to them at every squawk?  Or wiping up every drop of drool?  I've recently renamed Sarah "Drooliette Lewis", so I would be extremely hard-pressed to keep up with that constant flow.  I guess I will just take it as a compliment, but I know that every time someone says it, I will wonder a little bit what about me seems so chill.

So, spill it.  Have you ever thought a mom was laid back?  So much so that you told her?  And were you being nice?  Come on - I can take it!

Ubiqui-bounce

Ok, so what is the goddamn deal with bouncy houses taking over the universe? 

Seriously?  I get that they're fun.  But they're not always necessary are they?  It seems like every roadside attraction now has to have one.  Our local farmer's market has one, and what's worse...every pumpkin patch in our area has TWO!  I can only imagine the poor parents trying to get their kids out of the bouncy house, "Come on Johnny, you can't go in the other one until you pick out your pumpkin."  I mean, hello - isn't the fun of going to the pumpkin patch PICKING OUT YOUR PUMPKIN?  It's just insane to me.  I guess they'll be at the Christmas Tree joints, too.  I find it so odd.

I don't mean to be all old-fashioned, but I just wonder if my kids are going to grow up thinking that bouncy houses are everywhere.  It seems like a sign of the times, and not a good one.

You know what else is odd?  The idea that Sarah freaking Palin might be elected into the Vice Presidency.  It's more than odd, really.  It's fucking terrifying.  Not to mention her war mongering pal.  What is wrong with this country?  How has she made it this far?  Who thought that she'd appeal to to Americans?  Why are they a little bit right?  All that babbling last night probably appealed to a lot of people and that's just scary.  I can't even write much more about it, or I'll go nutty.   But I will say that there ought to be an Amendment stating that VP candidates should be able to name at least one major newspaper.