365 Days of Ephraim!

I absolutely cannot believe that Ephraim turns one tomorrow! Where, oh where has the time gone? Everyone always tells you when you are a new parent to enjoy the time becuase it goes by so quickly, as if you could blink and suddenly your kid is graduating from high school. The reality is that those first few months and weeks with a newborn are so dissficult that you do wish you could fast forward through it somehow. Just get through it and get to the good stuff. My mom kept telling me during those hard days to just wait, as soon as he hit four months it would get really fun. She was right, but we she didn’t tell me is that time suddenly shifts from a slow crawl to light speed. I woke up today the mother of a one year old.

So I am going to spend today and tomorrow (indulge me) reflecting on the past year with my little miracle. In the early, early days I tried to keep a daily journal. It slowly turned into weeks and then months and the last entry is around 4 months. How I wish now that I had kept up with it. I wish I could go back and relive every moment and make sure to savor it. All of it. Even the tough stuff. The fact that these are days I will never get back with him is hard on a mother’s heart. I had that realization when he began to make the slow transition from tiny, helpless newborn to more active and independent dynamo. No longer would he let me just sit and snuggle him. Instead he became quite the squirmer and needed to be constantly in motion. When I finally threw in the towel and gave up on breastfeeding at nine months I expected to feel immense relief. Instead I miss it and try to remember what it was like to hold his tiny body skin to skin with my own and nourish him in a way that only I could provide. Those quiet moments alone, just me and him … i wish time could stand still sometimes.

These are the things and many others that I want to hold onto because one day my tiny son, my first born, will grow into a quite independent man and he will leave us and forge a family and a life of his own. The commitment that I am making now it to drink in everyday of his life and enjoy this time. Enjoy the ups and downs, the teething and fussiness, the being awoken by the sound of his cry in the middle of the night, the smell of his freshly bathed baby skin, the sound of his baby babble that will too soon give way to his first words and sentences.

I am reminded of the childrens book “Love You Forever”

It begins …

A mother held her new baby and

very slowly rocked him back and forth,

back and forth, back and forth.

And while she held him she sang ..

“I’ll love you forever

I’ll like you for always

As long as I’m living

              my baby you’ll be”

I know just how she feels.

My little valentine!

Bailout Perspective: Combined Costs

The current total bailout money spent as of November 24, 2008 is $$.6 Trillion. That is more than the combined amount spent on the following:

The New Deal
The Louisiana Purchase
The Marshall Plan
The Korean War
The Vietnam War
The Iraq War
Every NASA project in US history
The Savings and Loan Crisis

The combined total of all of these events is a grand total of $4 trillion

I want to strongly urge you to contact your senators and U.S. Representatives and let them know how you feel about passing the additional bailout/economic stimulus package being proposed by the White House.

This is not a Republican v. Democrat issue. This is about the people in our country taking a stand against pork barreling and out of control spending. Blame for that falls on both sides of the aisle.

We have already seen and are continuing to see everyday the irresponsible ways in which bailout money has been spent by the entities that have received it. The last bailout was passed so quickly that no checks and balances were put into place to insure that the funds were being used in the manner for which they were intended … to rescue our failing economy.

The newly proposed stimulus package includes a lot of pork (a swim park in Florida) and many of the measures will not be put into place until 2012. That is not doing anything to help our current situation.

Please consider this spending package wisely and get as much unbiased information as you can. Then ACT! Remember, this is OUR money and the future debt of our children and grandchildren.